صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[graphic][merged small]

Japanese tanker aground off Indochina during the Third Fleet's strike, 1945.

chinese coast. Thereafter, some junks managed to make infrequent runs between Haiphong and Saigon. But, so hazardous had the sea route become that the Japanese and the French finally resorted to truck traffic, a slow and inadequate alternative."

The Japanese Coup in Indochina

After the amphibious landings at Leyte and on Luzon and Mindoro, and the carrier task force strikes along the Vietnamese coast, the Japanese decided to execute a contingency plan previously issued by their Imperial General Headquarters regarding the seizure of full control in Indochina. The plan called for "sudden and determined coordinated army and naval attacks on key positions. Particular attention will be given toward the securing of important communication lines, airfields and various installations

[blocks in formation]

as well as the disposition of French Indo-China vessels." On 8 February 1945 Japanese commanders in Southeast Asia received orders to "dispose of French influence in French Indo-China and China after 5 March.'

54

On 9 March, at 2130, the Japanese forces in Indochina launched a lightning coup. Many French troops were disarmed or killed. Responding to radioed pleas from the approximately 13,000 French and Indochinese troops surviving the initial onslaught, and who were seeking to escape into China, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, commander of the Allied Southeast Asia Command, dispatched Royal Air Force transport planes from India to Indochina to parachute in submachine guns, grenades, and mortars. Because of previous orders from President Roosevelt to refuse aid to French forces in Indochina, the United States air commander in the China Theater, Major General Chennault, could not drop supplies. He did, however, increase the number of air strikes on Japanese forces in Indochina. Only on 18 March did Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the President, authorize the American headquarters in China to give direct military aid to the French "provided it involved no interference with our operations against Japan." By this time, however, the Japanese largely had completed their operations and most of the survivors of the French forces, numbering less than 6,000 officers and men, had struggled into southern China.

55

When the last vestiges of French control were eliminated in the spring of 1945, a barrier to organizational and preparatory efforts by the Indochinese Communist Party was removed. As French military forces departed, arms, ammunition, and military equipment were left behind unattended. The hopes of many Indochinese for decolonization had increased and the people were ripe for exploitation.

The Bao Dai Interlude

On 10 March 1945, during the coup against the French, the Japanese

Directive 326 of 28 Jan. 1944 in "Imperial General Headquarters Navy Directives," Vol. II, p. 5; Army Department Order 1266 of 8 Feb. 1945 in "Imperial General Headquarters Army Orders," Vol. III, p. 101.

Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports! (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1958), p. 340; Chennault, Way of a Fighter, p. 342; William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time (New York: Whittlesey House, 1950), pp. 338–39; Charles de Gaulle, The Complete War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959), p. 858; Fall, Two Viet-Nams, pp. 58–59.

granted the Vietnamese independence, appointing Bao Dai as the new state's nominal head. The ancient city of Hue regained its status as the capital city. Throughout Vietnam, conditions soon degenerated into chaos. Emperor Bao Dai, who was given no real power by the Japanese, failed in his attempts to form a cabinet. Ngo Dinh Diem, his first choice for prime minister, never received the invitation to accept the office, reportedly because the Japanese intercepted the communication. That post eventually was filled by Tran Trong Kim, a famous scholar.56

For all underground nationalist groups, the Japanese overthrow of the French in the spring of 1945 was the signal to intensify preparations to gain independence. And, for the Viet Minh, the administrative paralysis and the breakdown of law and order created ideal conditions for a takeover of the country. Despite his pleas, Kim could obtain no help from the Viet Minh. In June 1945, the distracted prime minister described his plight as follows:

I know that the people are suffering, that the Japanese are going to leave, and I myself, like Emperor Bao Dai, am suffering at the sight of the people starving. But there is nothing we can do. I have been told that there is a party called the Viet Minh. But where is this party? Let it come and I will give it power. The Emperor also asks that. If you know any leaders of the Viet Minh, let them come and I will give them my place.57

But Ho Chi Minh, who had been a patient revolutionary for years, remained silent in the early summer of 1945. Ho and his comrades would wait until the Japanese surrendered before moving onto stage center to take the offensive.

The End of World War II

By the summer of 1945, Iwo Jima and Okinawa were secured, the Japanese naval and merchant fleets were virtually eliminated, the Third Fleet and the Air Force were stepping up the tempo of strikes against the Japanese home islands, and American forces were being assembled for the final amphibious assault on Japan. With Japanese seapower virtually

67

Hammer, Vietnam: Yesterday and Today, p. 133; Fall, Two Viet-Nams, pp. 60–61.

Quoted in Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, pp. 49-50; Hammer, Vietnam: Yesterday and Today, pp. 133-34.

eliminated, the maritime war in the Pacific was nearing a close.

The end came much sooner than most expected, as the final blows were launched from one of the captured islands, Tinian. On 6 August, a uranium bomb-armed by Captain William S. Parsons, Jr., head of the Los Alamos Ordnance Division, during the flight of an Air Force B-29 (commanded by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, USA)-essentially destroyed Hiroshima by the release of blast, heat, and nuclear radiation from an explosive force equivalent to 14,000 tons of TNT. Three days later, a plutonium bomb-armed by the bomb commander and weaponeer, Commander Frederick L. Ashworth-inflicted devastating damage on Nagasaki with a blast equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT. On 15 August Japanese Emperor Hirohito ordered his armed forces to cease fire immediately.

The Allied victory over Japan marked the beginning of a new period, a period when a major influence on the course of events would be the unchallenged strength of the United States upon the sea.

The United States Navy

And Postwar Conflict

The United States emerged from World War II as the greatest sea power the world had ever seen. As long as its naval supremacy was maintained America would have secure oceanic lines of communication with other countries. The direct and indirect influence of seapower on the international scene could be applied by maintaining naval presence in troubled areas, projecting power overseas, and providing support and assistance to allies in local crises. America could enjoy the benefits of seapower in the advancement of its interests abroad and in the rehabilitation of war-torn nations. The United States Navy could act as a stabilizing factor in a troubled world and serve as a complement to diplomatic efforts in the pursuit of national objectives.

Nevertheless, as World War II came to a close there were signs that the continuing importance of the United States Navy was being questioned. Some feared that the Navy might be reduced to a point of insufficiency to support American interests, and that steps might be taken which would. adversely effect the readiness and effectiveness of the Fleet. While facing the problems of transition from war to peace, the nation became increasingly concerned over an expanding struggle for power in the post-war world. Indochina was but one of the areas on the worldwide scene in which Communists were attempting to exploit instabilities and weaknesses left in the wake of the most far-reaching war in history. Crises in widely scattered regions took on the dimension of a global peacetime struggle. The result was unexpected demands for naval deployments to the Far East and the Mediterranean.

In view of the declining number of effective units in the Fleet, full use had to be made of the flexibility and mobility of naval forces and reallocation of limited resources to meet the varying demands. A process of change in the composition of naval operating forces, their employment,

« السابقةمتابعة »