Minh cells that remained apart from the other nationalist groups. The Chinese also supported a Vietnamese "reunification conference" held at Liuchow, China, from 25 to 28 March 1944. With the acquiescence of the Chinese, the Viet Minh attempted to set up a "Provisional Republican Government of Viet-Nam." If the so-called provisional government group did not accomplish much at this time, the favorable impression held by the Chinese of Ho as being cooperative and intelligent was solidified.**

In addition to Chinese support, the Viet Minh on several occasions during World War II sought to enlist American diplomatic assistance for their cause. Although their attempts were generally unsuccessful and American officials tended to minimize the importance of the Viet Minh, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) did provide some American weapons and supplies. The degree of effectiveness of the Viet Minh campaign against the Japanese is not known. However, one observer has noted that, if the intelligence reports supplied by the Viet Minh were not very exact, "they had the merit of being numerous, and this always makes an impression.

43

A curious sidelight to the assistance rendered Ho by the OSS became known more than twenty-five years after the end of World War II. In July 1945, an OSS team found Ho in a small village approximately seventyfive miles northwest of Hanoi where he apparently was dying from several tropical diseases. One observer described the future ruler of North Vietnam as "a pile of bones covered with yellow dry skin," who was "shaking like a leaf and obviously running a high fever." But, two weeks later an OSS medical corpsman arrived to care for Ho, and the quinine and sulfa drugs that he administered reputedly saved his life."

As later summarized by Giap, the mission of the Viet Minh during World War II continued to be the "preparation of an uprising" to achieve, as its first step, "national liberation." In support of this goal the Viet Minh

42

Chen, Vietnam and China, pp. 68-74; Fall, Two Viet-Nams, p. 100; Buttinger, Smaller Dragon, pp. 441-42.

43

'Quoted in Ibid., p. 442; Fall, Two Viet-Nams, p. 100, states that OSS missions in North Vietnam and China employed Vietnamese aides, some of whom later proved to be "good Vietnamese Communists." Additionally, the presence of senior U.S. officers at Viet Minh functions and the flying of the U.S. flag over the American residence helped convince the people that the Viet Minh had "official relations" with the United States. For Viet Minh contacts with American officials during World War II, see Ronald Spector, "What the Local Annamites are Thinking': American Views of Vietnamese in China, 1942-1945," Southeast Asia, III (Spring 1974), pp. 741-51.

"Quoted in R. Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 331–32.

guerrillas used terrorism and assassination to eliminate leaders of other non-Communist Vietnamese groups. The guerrillas also undertook major propaganda efforts within Southeast Asia and throughout the world. In 1944, Giap formed a platoon-size propaganda unit in his guerrilla army. This act was the start of a program that during the war sought to portray Ho as a nationalist and to establish his reputation as the strongest of all the revolutionary leaders.*5

United States Naval Operations in Southeast Asia

From the beginning of World War II one of the better hunting grounds for United States submarines was found off the strategically located shore of Indochina in the South China Sea, the location of important Japanese sea lines of communication with Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma. This was the area through which petroleum and other critical cargos flowed to Japan. Sampans, junks, and steamers also sailed along the coast, carrying rice from the Mekong Delta to Tonkin to feed the people there, and coal south from Tonkin for the power plants of Saigon.

Hardly a week after the Pearl Harbor attack, submarine Swordfish (SS-193) sent a Japanese cargo ship to the bottom of the Gulf of Tonkin. By the fall of 1943, the rate of ship sinkings recorded by U.S. submarines in the South China Sea had begun to increase. The sinkings achieved in three and one-half years of war were impressive. In all, American submarines sank approximately 250,000 tons of Japanese shipping, representing more than fifty-five ships and craft along the Indochinese coast.*

46

In view of the long-deferred American decision to use mines off North Vietnam in the 1960s, the mining operations of the Second World War are of particular interest. Between 15 October and 2 November 1942,

45

Giap, Banner of People's War, pp. xii, 8, 27; Fall, Two Viet-Nams, p. 101.

1 Samuel E. Morison, New Guinea and the Marianas: March 1944-August 1944, Vol. VIII of History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1953), p. 21; Morison, Rising Sun in the Pacific, pp. 191, 304; Theodore Roscoe, United States Submarine Operations in World War II (Annapolis, Md.: United States Naval Institute, 1949), pp. 34, 269–72; statistics on submarine successes off the Indochina coast (defined as the area bounded by 08-00 to 20-30N, to 102-00 to 110-30E) are based on U.S., Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee, Japanese Naval and Merchant Shipping Losses During World War II By All Causes (Washington: GPO, 1947); Samuel E. Morison, The Liberation of the Philippines, 1944-1945, Vol. XIII of History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1959), p. 281.

submarines Thresher (SS-200), Gar (SS-206), Grenadier (SS-210), Tautog (SS-199), and Tambor (SS-198) planted mines in the frequently used route to Tonkin which passed through Hainan Strait and off Haiphong. Other mines were dropped at points along the routes to Saigon and Bangkok -in the shallow waters near Cape Padaran (Dinh) where the shipping lane hugged the coast and in the approaches to Bangkok. These actions resulted in the sinking of six ships and the damaging of six more. Aerial minelaying by Allied aircraft, begun in Southeast Asia in 1943, included the planting of minefields in Cam Ranh Bay and Phan Rang Bay, and off Saigon and Haiphong.

47

Ellis A. Johnson and David A. Katcher, Mines against Japan (Washington: Naval Ordnance Laboratory, GPO, 1973), pp. 90-96.

The campaign against enemy shipping was aided by covert operations within Indochina under the direction of an American naval officer, Rear Admiral Milton E. Miles. Miles, who as a commander had been ordered to China in 1942 to obtain intelligence and make preparations for possible future landings along the Chinese coast, headed the United States Naval Group China, later known as the "Rice Paddy Navy." Along with his other activities, Miles, in a joint effort with the Chinese, created a guerrilla organization and established a network of "coastwatchers." He also set up a similar structure in Indochina under Commander Robert Meynier of the French Navy.

48

An additional contribution to the Allied war effort resulted from the assignment of a naval mine detail to Naval Group China. The unit readied Navy mines for use by Major General Claire L. Chennault's 14th Air Force and participated in operational missions. Miles and his officers also helped with the planning of these missions.

In October 1943, when coastwatchers reported a convoy of nine or ten ships proceeding to Haiphong, a decision was made to mine that port's channel. Three naval officers participated in the air-mining operation. One enemy freighter struck a mine which had just been laid and the ship blew up in the center of the channel. Later, a second ship was sunk and for the remainder of the war no vessels larger than junks docked at Haiphong.*

49

In May 1944 Miles organized the "14th Naval Unit" at the headquarters of the 14th Air Force. Responsibilities assigned to its head, Commander Charles J. Odend'hal, Jr., included photo-reconnaissance and interpretation, mining, radio intelligence, air combat intelligence, and some guidance from ground to air against specific targets. By exchanging information with the fleet and with the Air Force, Naval Group China and Odend'hal's unit greatly aided coordinated attacks against Japanese ships from sea and air.50

By this time the main naval struggle had reached its decisive phase. The weakening of Japanese carrier forces in the battles of Coral Sea and Midway in the spring of 1942 had signified the turning point of the war in the Pacific. Gradually, through a series of naval actions in the Solomons Campaign and through the amphibious seizure of island bases

48

See Milton E. Miles, A Different Kind of War: The Little-Known Story of the Combined Guerrilla Forces Created in China by the U.S. Navy and the Chinese During World War II (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1967), pp. 186-93.

49 Ibid., pp. 309-11, 417; Johnson and Katcher, Mines Against Japan, p. 97.

in the mid-Pacific and the South and Southwest Pacific, the United States offensive gained momentum. In the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, U.S. forces caused heavy losses of Japanese carrier aircraft and firstline pilots. After the naval actions that occurred during the Leyte campaign, only remnants of a Japanese fleet remained, and these soon would be destroyed by submarine, air, and surface actions. Submarines and mines also exacted an increasingly heavy toll of Japanese merchant shipping. American sea power had become dominant throughout the Pacific.

Miles's organization, including the coastwatchers, made a major contribution to a raid by the carrier task group of Vice Admiral John S. McCain's Task Force 38, for which planning had begun several months earlier. When Admiral William F. Halsey called for information concerning targets along the Indochina coast, Miles alerted port officials, lighthouse keepers, customs officials, and other agents. In a short time Miles's officers in Chungking were receiving photographs and other information on shipping in Haiphong, Cam Ranh, Saigon, and other Indochinese ports. General Chennault's pilots provided additional photographic intelligence. As Admiral Halsey later reported, he had so much information that he was able to "cover the waterfront."

" 51

On 9 January 1945 Rear Admiral Gerald F. Bogan's task group (TG 38.2), comprising 4 carriers, 2 battleships, 6 cruisers, and 20 destroyers headed for Indochina. In a typically terse and colorful message, the Third Fleet commander encouraged his forces: "You know what to do—give them hell God Bless you all. Halsey." Three days later, thirty minutes before sunrise, air strikes were launched against Japanese shipping along the Indochinese coast. In the course of this devastating raid, U.S. naval aircraft sank 44 ships totaling 132,700 tons. Included in the total were 15 combatant ships and 12 oil tankers. The Japanese also had 15 aircraft shot down, 20 float planes sunk, and an estimated 77 land-based planes destroyed on the ground. This raid must stand, as Halsey termed it, as "one of the heaviest blows to Japanese shipping of any day of the war.

51

1152

Task Force 38's strikes practically eliminated sea traffic along the Indo

Ibid., p. 424; see also Claire L. Chennault, Way of a Fighter: The Memoirs of Claire Lee Chennault (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1949), p. 257; transcript of interview with Ray Kotrla (former Officer in Charge, SACO Office, Kunming, China), 21 Apr. and 1 May 1972 by NHD.

53

Quoted in Morison, Liberation of the Philippines, pp. 165, 169; see also Mordal, Navy in Indochina, pp. 75-80; TG 38.2 Action Report, ser 0047 of 26 Jan. 1945.