| Bombardment of Southeast Asia | |||||||
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| Part of Pacific Theatre of World War II | |||||||
 A Royal Air Force motor transport driver surveys damage caused by Allied bombing at Singapore docks, September 1945. | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
From 1944 to 1945, during the final stage of World War II, the Allies undertook the strategic bombing of South-East Asia . The main targets of Allied air raids were Thailand and Japanese-occupied Indochina.
By 1944, the German Navy no longer presented a major threat and the Royal Navy was able to transfer major units to the Far East. This would fulfil a British wish to become involved in the Pacific War. First, however, experience was required of large-scale naval air operations and of United States procedures. To this end and to degrade Japanese capabilities, attacks were made on Indonesian oil installations, some in concert with the American carrier, USS Saratoga.[ citation needed ]
Because colonial French Indochina remained loyal to the Vichy government and made numerous concessions to Japan, including allow Japanese troops, ships and airplanes to be stationed in Cochinchina, the Allies targeted industrial and military facilities in neutral Indochina beginning in 1942. In this the Allies were aided by a young French naval officer, Robert Meynier, [1] who, beginning in May 1943, organised a network of informants in the bureaucracy of French Indochina. Before the collapse of the network in mid-1944 it managed to provide information on bombing targets, Japanese troops whereabouts and fortifications. [2] In August 1942, the United States Fourteenth Air Force based in southern China undertook the first air raids in Indochina. In September 1943, the United States picked up the pace of the bombing, hitting the harbour of Haiphong repeatedly. By the end of 1944 the Japanese were entirely avoiding Haiphong. In late 1943 the Americans began raiding the phosphate mines at Lao Cai and Cao Bang. [2] In all of this the air force had the help of "GBT", a multi-ethnic (and possibly Freemason) network of spies and informants working outside control of either Vichy or the Free French. [3] In September 1944 the Americans dropped leaflets in French and Vietnamese showing pictures of the liberation of Paris, and quoting various jovial war correspondents from Europe. [4]
Coal mined in the Hon Gai region around Haiphong, was shipped south along the coast, either by train or by junk, to be converted into charcoal gas, which was necessary to replace dwindling gasoline and petroleum supplies. The Allies targeted these shipments, putting a stop to them by the end of 1944. Besides charcoal gas, the Japanese in Indochina relied on ethanol, usually produced from rice, and on butanol as fuel for motor vehicles and aircraft, respectively. Two butanol distilleries at Cholon became the targets of airstrikes in February 1944, [5] and the ethanol distilleries of Nam Dinh and Thanh Hoa were hit several times into March. [2] By the summer, the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was reporting increased alcohol production in the north, in Tonkin, even as the famine was spreading. [5] In April–May, American bombers hit the spinning and weaving mills of Haiphong and Nam Dinh, although the villagers continued cloth production on hand looms in nearby villages. [6] In May the US Army Air Forces began sending B-24 Liberators on night runs over Saigon, hitting mainly port facilities and railyards, but also some residential neighbourhoods. On 16 May an attack killed 213 civilians and injured another 843. Detailed target maps of Saigon were produced based on information obtained in April–June 1944. [2] On 7 February 1945, a B-29 Superfortress, flying from Calcutta through cloud cover, and dropping bombs by radar, mistakenly hit a hospital and a French barracks in Saigon. Thirty Europeans and 150 Vietnamese were killed, hundreds more injured, and not one Japanese harmed. [2]
The British intelligence mission Force 136 air-dropped several Free French operatives into Indochina in early 1945. They provided detailed information on targets to British headquarters in India and China, who transmitted them to the Americans. The French operatives were reluctant to provide information on French or Vietnamese targets, and their most important contribution was relating ship movements along the coast. American carrier aircraft sank twenty-four vessels and damaged another thirteen in January 1945. [2] An OSS report of 19 March 1945 contains eight pages of shipping information from one anonymous French official who had contacts from Saigon in the south to Qui Nhon in the north. [2] Another Frenchman, a civilian ship pilot working for the Japanese on the Saigon river, sent shipping information to the Americans until March, and even continued with Japanese until the war's end without being discovered. [7]
As the famine spread, on 8 March 1945, General Eugène Mordant of the Corps Léger d'Intervention radioed the Free French government in Paris asking them to pressure the United States to halt bombing operations against the ports north of Vinh, in a vain effort to forestall further food shortages. [8] The Fourteenth Air Force could not render tactical air cover to the French and Indochinese defending Lang Son from a hostile Japanese takeover on 9–10 March. [9] After the citadel capitulated on 12 March, bombers of the Fourteenth did strike it, inadvertently killing several hundred native Vietnamese riflemen who were being interned there by the Japanese. [10] Between 12 and 28 March, the Americans flew thirty-four bombing, strafing and reconnaissance missions over Vietnam, although the commanding general, Claire Chennault, refused to air-drop weapons in light of the confusing situation on the ground. He did, however, drop medicines. [11]
The American bombing campaign gained intensity after the surrender of Germany and victory in Europe. On 4 July 1945 in Nam Dinh province American airplanes hit the steam launch Nam Hai, killing two and hospitalising twenty-seven (with two dying en route); five others were missing. A few days later Haiphong was struck, sinking a dredge and a floating dock. The Japanese moved their ships up the Mekong river from Saigon and Cap St Jacques (now Vung Tau). [2] The United States also dropped leaflets in French, Vietnamese and Japanese, and some were bilingual. They warned people to stay away from railroads, bridges and ferries, and cautioned them against helping the Japanese to repair bomb damage: "Our airplanes will come again, and if you are near the target you will probably be killed by association." [12] After the victory over Japan, on 19 August the denizens of Hanoi broke into the streets and removed the black coverings of the street lamps. [13]
Although Thailand declared war on both the United States and the United Kingdom, the former chose to treat the declaration as made under duress on account of the Japanese invasion and hence null. The British accepted the declaration and considered Thailand an enemy. According to a report of December 1945, the Allies dropped 18,583 bombs on Thailand, resulting in the death of 8,711 people and the destruction of 9,616 buildings, 617 trucks, 73 locomotives and 173 other vehicles. A further 1,194 buildings were damaged. [14] The prime target of the campaign was Bangkok, the Thai capital. Rural areas were almost entirely unaffected. [15]
In October 1944 the British reported that they were receiving "high grade intelligence" from Thailand concerning bombing targets and the results of their bombing raids. [16] The United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had a mission in Thailand supporting the Free Thai movement. Frequent messages were sent by OSS officers on the ground to South East Asia Command (SEAC) imploring more discriminate target selection in Thailand, but the OSS had little influence on the air force. [17]
A strafing run of 5 March 1945 on the Bangkok Noi railway station in Thonburi resulted in 78 civilian fatalities and damage to the house of the Thai politician Pridi Banomyong, an important American ally. [18] On 22 March a train carrying Thai soldiers was hit outside of Paknampo, although Free Thai allies had urged that the railway line not be targeted because the troops being transferred might be useful in the north in the event of a Thai–Japanese break. [18] Another "indiscriminate bombing and strafing" of a railroad killed 400 civilians and 50 Thai soldiers on 2 April. [17] On 7 April, American airplanes attacked Don Muang airfield, destroying several craft of the Thai Air Force, including two that had just landed with the commander of the Phayap Army, the Thai force then occupying part of Burma. [17] During this raid, three Americans—Captain Abrahams, Lieutenant Mackenzie and Lieutenant Wimer—had to bail out of their aircraft and were captured by the Thais. [17]
On 14 April 1945, the American and British B-24 Liberators raided Bangkok from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., knocking out the Samsen power plant and damaging the city's only other one. Bangkok was left mostly without power or running water, and 200 civilians were killed. [19] On 18 April, the Allies raided Bangkok again, striking the wharves of the Borneo Company, two of which burned for at least two more days. [20] On 10 July eight B-24s of the Royal Air Force killed 90 and injured 400 in a raid on Bangkok. [21] On 13 July Pridi Banomyong requested a halt to Allied bombing, urging leaflet drops instead. On 14 July, the Bangkok terminus railway station was bombed. [14] On 29 July the Royal Air Force bombed the Bangkok Noi railway station, although they missed the station itself and one bomb landed on the campus of Thammasat University. [22] Thammasat—which had held foreign internees until its evacuation after the 5 March bombing [23] —was not the only university affected: Chulalongkorn University had to suspend classes by January 1945 on account of the bombing. [24] A SEAC report of 27 July concluded that an interruption to the bombing campaign prompted by Free Thai complaints only encouraged the Japanese, who knew about Allied contact with Thai elements, to pressure the Thais in request a halt to the bombing. [22]
French Indochina, officially known as the Indochinese Union and after 1947 as the Indochinese Federation, was a grouping of French colonial territories in Southeast Asia until its demise in 1954. It comprised Cambodia, Laos, the Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan, and the Vietnamese regions of Tonkin in the north, Annam in the centre, and Cochinchina in the south. The capital for most of its history (1902–1945) was Hanoi; Saigon was the capital from 1887 to 1902 and again from 1945 to 1954.
Hồ Chí Minh, commonly known as Uncle Ho, President Ho and by other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician. He served as Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 to 1955, and as President from 1945 until his death in 1969. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, he was the Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam.
The First Indochina War began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh, and their respective allies. Việt Minh was led by Võ Nguyên Giáp and Hồ Chí Minh. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in Northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia.
The Free Thai Movement was a Thai underground resistance movement against Imperial Japan during World War II. Seri Thai were an important source of military intelligence for the Allies in the region.
The August Revolution, also known as the August General Uprising, was a revolution launched by the Việt Minh against the Empire of Vietnam and the Empire of Japan in the latter half of August 1945. The Việt Minh, led by the Indochinese Communist Party, was created in 1941 and designed to appeal to a wider population than the communists could command.
The Vietnamese famine of 1945 was a famine that occurred in northern Vietnam in French Indochina during World War II from October 1944 to late 1945, which at the time was under Japanese occupation from 1940 with Vichy France as an ally of Nazi Germany in Western Europe. Between 400,000 and 2 million people are estimated to have starved to death during this time.
Dawee Chullasapya or Chullasap was a Royal Thai Air Force officer, and a member of the Seri Thai.
The Franco-Thai War was fought between Thailand and Vichy France over certain areas of French Indochina.
The military history of Thailand encompasses a thousand years of armed struggle, from wars of independence from the powerful Khmer Empire, through to struggles with her regional rivals of Burma and Vietnam and periods of tense standoff and conflict with the colonial empires of Britain and France. Thailand's military history, dominated by her centrality in the south-eastern Asian region, the significance of her far flung and often hostile terrain, and the changing nature of military technology, has had a decisive impact on the evolution of both Thailand and her neighbours as modern nation states. In the post-war era, Thailand's military relationship with the United States has seen her play an important role in both the Cold War and the recent War on Terror, whilst her military's involvement in domestic politics has brought frequent international attention.
The Japanese invasion of French Indochina was a short undeclared military confrontation between Japan and Vichy France in northern French Indochina. Fighting lasted from 22 to 26 September 1940; the same time as the Battle of South Guangxi in the Sino-Japanese War, which was the main objective as to why Japan occupied Vietnam during this time.
The Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina, known as Meigō Sakusen, was a Japanese operation that took place on 9 March 1945, towards the end of World War II. With Japanese forces losing the war and the threat of an Allied invasion of Indochina imminent, the Japanese were concerned about an uprising against them by French colonial forces.
Trần Trọng Kim, courtesy name Lệ Thần, was a Vietnamese scholar and politician who served as the Prime Minister of the short-lived Empire of Vietnam, a state established with the support of Imperial Japan in 1945 after Japan had seized direct control of Vietnam from Vichy France toward the end of World War II. He was an uncle of Bùi Diễm.
Thailand officially adopted a neutral position during World War II until the five hour-long Japanese invasion of Thailand on 8 December 1941, which led to an armistice and military alliance treaty between Thailand and the Japanese Empire in mid-December 1941. At the start of the Pacific War, the Japanese Empire pressured the Thai government to allow the passage of Japanese troops to invade British-held Malaya and Burma. After the invasion, Thailand capitulated. The Thai government under Plaek Phibunsongkhram considered it profitable to co-operate with the Japanese war efforts, since Thailand saw Japan – who promised to help Thailand regain some of the Indochinese territories which had been lost to France – as an ally against Western imperialism. Following added pressure from the start of the Allied bombings of Bangkok due to the Japanese occupation, Axis-aligned Thailand declared war on the United Kingdom and the United States and annexed territories in neighbouring countries, expanding to the north, south, and east, gaining a border with China near Kengtung.
Jean Sainteny or Jean Roger was a French politician who was sent to Vietnam after the end of the Second World War in order to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces and to attempt to re-annex Vietnam into French Indochina.
The 1945-46 War in Vietnam, codenamed Operation Masterdom by the British, and also known as the Southern Resistance War by the Vietnamese, was a post–World War II armed conflict involving a largely British-Indian and French task force and Japanese troops from the Southern Expeditionary Army Group, versus the Vietnamese communist movement, the Viet Minh, for control of the southern half of the country, after the unconditional Japanese surrender.
The railway system in Vietnam is owned and operated by the state-owned Vietnam Railways. The principal route, the single track North-South Railway running between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, accounts for 1,726 kilometres (1,072 mi) of the network's total length of 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi). The national railway network uses mainly metre gauge, although there are several standard gauge and mixed gauge lines in the north of the country.
The city of Bangkok, Thailand was bombed by the Allies on numerous occasions during World War II. It was also the target for the first combat mission by Boeing B-29 Superfortresses in June 1944.
In mid-1940, Nazi Germany rapidly defeated the French Third Republic, and the colonial administration of French Indochina passed to the French State. Many concessions were granted to the Nazi-allied Empire of Japan, such as the use of ports, airfields, and railroads. Japanese troops first entered parts of Indochina the following September, and by July 1941 Japan had extended its control over the whole of French Indochina. The United States, concerned by Japanese expansion, started putting embargoes on exports of steel and oil to Japan from July 1940. The desire to escape these embargoes and to become self-sufficient in resources ultimately contributed to Japan's decision to attack on December 7, 1941, the British Empire and simultaneously the USA. This led to the USA declaring war against Japan on December 8, 1941. The US then joined the side of the British Empire, at war with Germany since 1939, and its existing allies in the fight against the Axis powers.
1940—1946 in French Indochina focuses on events that happened in French Indochina during and after World War II and which influenced the eventual decision for military intervention by the United States in the Vietnam War. French Indochina in the 1940s was divided into four protectorates and one colony (Cochinchina). The latter three territorial divisions made up Vietnam. In 1940, the French controlled 23 million Vietnamese with 12,000 French soldiers, about 40,000 Vietnamese soldiers, and the Sûreté, a powerful police force. At that time, the U.S. had little interest in Vietnam or French Indochina as a whole. Fewer than 100 Americans, mostly missionaries, lived in Vietnam and U.S. government representation consisted of one consul resident in Saigon.
