Pictures of Indochina during WW2

Why do you think the japanese would have treated the Vietnamese people different then they treated the Korean?

 

Because, in March of 1945 the Japanese overthrew the French and put in place an independent Vietnamese government led by Emperor Bao Dai and Prime Minister Tran Trong Kim. Vietnam was declared an independent nation by Japan, and the Japanese let our new government have free rule over our own people, as long as the Imperial Army was still able to station troops and move supplies though our lands.
Something you might not understand (being a westerner) is exactly how the Japanese "racial" policies worked during the war. The Koreans and Taiwanese were viewed as only one step above the Chinese, because Japan had owned their lands for so long and viewed them to be nothing but small minded peasants. There was little time for people in Korea or Formosa to show to the Japanese just how intelligent and free willed they were, and so Japan based its ill treatment of these countries on how they had seen those people during Imperial rule.
With Vietnam, the situation was different. Vietnamese nationalists had strong ties with Japan during the Phan Boi Chau era, with many going off to study in places like Tokyo and Osaka as part of the "Go-East" movement. The Japanese were therefore able to view our educated population in a different way than they had with the Koreans or Taiwanese, and so formed different ideas about the Vietnamese people, which basically regarded us with a certain degree of respect based on our continued struggle against Europeans and the fact that one of our own monarchs (Cuong De) had been living in Japan and was married to a Japanese woman at one point.
I'm not saying I justify any of this. It is never right to view one race as superior to another. I'm just saying that's the way it was. The Japanese regarded the Vietnamese as being of higher "intelligence" and "morals" than the Koreans, Taiwanese, or Chinese because of how we conducted affairs with them.

 

Don't get me wrong, my post was not against the Vietnamese people and I respect the legitimate right for the Vietnamese to opt for their independence. What I comdemn is the Japanese occupation and their cruelty versus the French, including civilians (regardless their political views). This has nothing to do with supporting Vichy who I condemn also.

What I would like to stress is that prior to September 1945 the French rule was legitimate, (at least from an international political point of view). It was a matter between the French and the Vietnamese. Any other country had nothing to do in Indochina and the Japanese were nothing but Ruthless invaders. I understand some Vietnamese sided with the Japanese and do not blame them , I have just a hard time hearing the japanese are considered as "liberators".

Also the French who replaced the Vichy administration after 1945 were Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division, they had been fighting Vichy for over 5 years and were in North Africa, Italy , France and Germany . So you'll agree there is distinction to be made there too.

 

Of course, I understand the points you are making, and I am not trying to say I am some kind of Axis fanatic
I'm just trying to bring to light the fact that, after the Japanese "occupation", Vietnamese nationalists received a great deal of wartime help from the Japanese Army and Kempeitai between 1941-45, especially in the form of armaments and police protection. Even though Vichy was formally in charge of everything, the Japanese military conducted massive underground efforts to support nationalists among the Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, and monarchist supporters. This is indisputable.
However, at the same time the Japanese government exploited huge quantities of rice and other materials from Indochina, resulting in huge poverty and starvation in the countryside.

One point I would like to make is that not everyone who supported the Japanese was an honorable freedom fighter. The Binh Xuyen, for instance, was a Vietnamese criminal cartel that offered up men to the Japanese military and used its gangsters to combat French rule, while also bringing massive grief to the population of cities such as Saigon with their opium trafficking and extortion rings. At the same time, most members of the Japanese supported guerilla fighters among the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai were legitimate patriots, who thgouht that by helping Japan they could somehow gain the support needed to start a popular uprising and free their homeland.
It's a grey area, really. The majority of Vietnamese just wanted their freedom, and so chose sides depending on who they thought stood the best chance of fulfilling this wish. I used the term "liberation" to describe the photos I posted because, initially that IS what it was. Japan came in, swept away the French, and spent several weeks making promises to Vietnam of freedom. At the time it DID seem that Indochina had at last gained its independence, but of course that all changed as soon as the Vichy came back in.

Also, I am sorry to have to dispute this, but the regime in Vietnam really wasn't just run by the French. Japanese military presence in the area was quite big. The Japanese used Indochina as a jumping off point for their invasions of South Pacific islands, as well as resupplying troops fighting in Malaysia and Burma. They also had numerous hospitals and barracks set up to rest and re-equip soldiers returning from other parts of Southeast Asia. In additon, the Kempeitai were there to help enforce occupation alongside the Vichy. It really did go both ways. The French did most of the police work, but the Japanese controlled the military aspects and dabbled in Vietnamese politics by aiding pro-Japanese nationalists.

Vietnam was in no way a free nation during the war. I was only using the word "liberate" to describe how it seemed when the Japanese convoys first rolled across the border.
I hope you understand now

 

Thanks for the post, VN, and also for yours, Skipper, both certainly very enlightening! Reps and salutes strewn liberally about. I think, maybe, the problem that Ho Chi Mihn ran into after the war in asking for assistance against France was that France was an ally of the US, and despite what they were doing in Vietnam, they still had a lot more political clout/power than Vietnam did. Which is a cryin shame, really. A good "what if" scenario would be to see how different the world and recent history would be had the major allies listened to the smaller countries and actually paid attention, opened their eyes, and not just ignored what was going on, such as in Poland, Vietnam, and a lot of the other Soviet-occupied territories.

 

Certainly, it would have spared a great deal of bloodshed if the U.S had helped Vietnam to get rid of the French. It's a bit scary to think just how many thousands of lives could have been spared if France had yielded its power over Indochina when the war ended, or if America had intervened on its behalf.
I generally don't like to pin blame on anyone, but in this case I really do hold France responsible for the millions of my countrymen who died all throughout the 20th century. Without the presence of their corrupt colonial regime, the First and Second Indochina wars would never have been necessary, and certainly criminals such as Ngo Dinh Diem would never have been allowed to rise to power at any point in history.

 

Sadly, the needs of here and now will almost always trump the better angels of our nature. FDR wanted to see the end of the european colonial system and constantly worked under the table to make its end a reality. But, the need to defeat the axis powers quickly and as cheaply as possible would consistantly force him to bow to the political realities with reguard to Britain and France. The old adage from Stalin of 'how many divisions does the Pope have?' would come into play. Britain and Free France had quantifiaable military assets of use to the US, while Vietnam had only a resistance that was divided in its support.

 

More photos. The first shows a royal procession marking the establishment of the short lived Empire of Vietnam (11 March - 23 August, 1945) which was a Japanese puppet state formed just before the end of the war. The second is a color photo of Japanese troops during the invasion of 1940.

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At the risk of straying too far off WWII, this is complicated, isn't it? Bother Wilson and FDR were interested in seeing an end to colonialism but other matters of the day seemed to supervene for both. Once WWII had come to an end, France and its economy were in shambles and yes, the Western Allies which certainly included the US, backed France re-establishing its control over Indochina, ostensibly to allow France to re-build. This was then fueled further by the Western Allies engagement in what they saw as a life and death struggle against the world-wide spread of Communism. Lost in all of this was the struggle of a people trying to gain their independence.

At the risk of being really unpopular here, have you seen The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003) - IMDb ? It wasn't until the 1990s that McNamara finally understood that the war he was fighting in Vietnam was not the same war the then North Vietnamese were fighting. While the West was embroiled in the Cold War, eager to stop or stamp out any encroachment of global Communism, unification and true independence was apparently still the vision of Hanoi. All mired in tales of corruption, power struggles and all of the other worst of human traits for most of the parties involved.

 

Of course, it is obvious that Vietnam was not just some nation filled with left wing fanatics determined to be anti-western. Throughout our history all we've ever wanted to do was be free people, and this was attempted through a number of ways including communism.
Ho Chi Minh himself always said that he was a nationalist first, communist second. When he originally became involved in politics he had little interest in establishing a Marxist system in Vietnam. He said that the only reason he really turned to communism and established a government under that ideology was because it was the only thing left to him. The U.S had rejected his pleas for assistance, the Vietnamese monarchy supported Japan and thus was automatically an enemy of the Viet Minh, and the only people left to offer him aide were China and the Soviet Union, both communist states.
I think it's possible that had Ho Chi Minh been able to establish stronger ties with the U.S and receive their help in fighting the French, he may not have become the devoted Marxist he is known as by westerners, but instead tried to form a sort of coalition encompassing both western and eastern ideals.

EDIT:

By the way, I just wanted to throw in these two pictures in case anyone had any doubts as to the cruelty of the French during the colonial era. I know that "Skipper" in particular was trying to make points about the Japanese being more brutal than the French in Vietnam. Personally, I beg to differ.
The first of these pictures is of Viet rebels being held in the stocks after a failed attack on a French garrison in 1908. Notice the fact that there is a woman and an elderly man being forced to endure this punishment.
The second picture shows the severed heads of Vietnamese nationalists which were put on public display by the French. Sounds exactly like what the Japanese did in China...
Neither of these photos are from WW2, but it does not matter. I'm simply including them to make the point that, whatever my country might have gone through at the hands of the Japanese, it would have been no worse than what France did to us.
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Thanks V-N - Some very surprising information from an insider.

I seem to remember (but can't lay my hand on the info) that the initial reaction of the French Governor of Indochina to the Japanese requests for free entry was to comply. However the Vichy Government in Paris did not approve and he was swiftly replaced.

A very short battle ensued between Japanese forces and Vichy French in which 800 French were killed. Paris realised that it was powerless to oppose the Japanese and concluded a co-operation agreement with the Japanese.

I had thought from there on that Japan and the French had co-operated closely until 1944 when the Liberation of France put the French on the Allied side.

Not so apparently but I can't see what the Japanese advantage was in arming and training anti-french movements in the 1941 to 1944 period.

 

The Japanese and French DID have a joint administration between 1941-45. France ran the domestic affairs, Japan handled military and about half the political aspects. The user who posted that France were the only ones in control of Vietnam during the war is highly misinformed: The truth is that both Japan and France were constantly competing for influence over the locals during the duration of the war.
The reason the Japanese put so much effort in to supporting Vietnamese nationalists was because, once they had won the war they planned to help the Vietnamese overthrow the Vichy to make way for total Japanese domination in the region. They wanted to have pro-Japanese allies in Indochina so that after they got rid of the French they could install a puppet government that would function as a wing of the Japanese Empire.
Unfortunately for the IJA, they ended up loosing the war and those nationalists that they had trained and supported went on to fight for their own independence during later wars with France and America.

 

I think Skipper was trying to point out by virtue of treaty and custom the US and to a lesser extent Great Britain has compelled to view Indochina as part of the French Empire, reguardless of the feelings of the native people or even the political desires of the FDR administration.

 

But the fact is, despite being under Vichy control from a foreign perspective, the internal situation was far different. Again, Indochina was where many of the major Japanese offenses of the war were launched from, such as the invasion of Malaysia and certain parts of the South Pacific. I would argue that the Japanese military presence in Vietnam rivaled that of the Vichy French, even though it was the latter who had more domestic control.
And again, the Kempeitai were all over Vietnam trying to set up groups of allies for the establishment of a puppet state. If the Vichy had been in total control, this certainly wouldn't have been allowed. The Japanese had a far stronger grip over Vietnam than the French, and the Vichy knew it. That's why after the Japanese administration in Vietnam was changed in 1943 to try and curb support for local nationalists, the French executed a major crackdown on partisan groups that was one of the most brutal and costly events of WW2 for the Vietnamese independence fighters.

 

I think this is a natural reaction to the subsequent events.

However, I believe that your new masters may have been different but your cause also suppressed and probably even more violently than by the French.

In Burma, there was a similar situation where initially Aung Sen's Nationalist Burmese Army fought for the Japanese but such was the Japanese brutality that they changed sides before the end.

Whilst the British realised that the time of Empire in South East Asia was finished - Independence for India in 1947, Burma 1948 and Malaya once the Communist insurgency was defeated (and Americans in Philippines), the French did not take the hint.

The real tragedy for Vietnam was that after the British General Gracey restored order (controversally used Japanese in addition to his Indian and British troops) and handed over to LeClerc, that the French thought they could go back to the old ways and restore their Empire.

 

Indeed. That was certainly a major difficulty we had to overcome in the post-war period.

However, I think that the Japanese may (although not for certain) have given us a bit more freedom had they been allowed to stay. We had a monarch named Cuong De who had been living overseas in Japan for several years, and had established very strong ties with the Japanese government. A large majority of the Vietnamese nationalist leaders during the Phan Boi Chau era (1920s-30s) were also educated in Japan, with some developing friendships among people who would later rise to prominence in the Imperial Japanese military.
I agree that the likelihood of Japan ever granting Vietnam total independence is virtually null. However, because of our past history with them I think they might have restrained themselves from executing the same kind of violent policies enacted in other parts of Southeast Asia, had they won the war.
Certainly when the Japanese eliminated all French presence in Vietnam and declared the nation free in March of 1945, the Imperial army did everything they could to help keep the newly elected Prime Minister Tran Trong Kim in power and safe from the possibility of an Allied attack. Had this government been established two or three years earlier, we might have seen a very different series of events in the aftermath of the war, with Vietnam possibly being considered an Axis power and made to pay reparations to the Allies (a frightening thought.)

I guess it's just one of those "what if" scenarios we will never be able to determine for certain.

 

Don't think so.

Thailand (again after a short 2day fraca) became a Japanese ally. There were no reprisals from the Allies to my knowledge.

 

This is because the Thai ambassador to the U.S never delivered the declaration of war against the Allies, and so after WW2 ended the Americans intervened to stop Britain and China forcing Thailand to pay the same reparations as a formal Axis belligerent.

EDIT: More pictures of Vietnam during WW2.

1. Vo Nguyen Giap and Ho Chi Minh.
2. Viet Minh guerillas, who received support from the Allies to fight both the Japanese and Vichy French.
3. Type 11 light machineguns, left behind by the Japanese army after the war for use by Vietnamese nationalists.
4. Japanese officers in Indochina surrender to a member of the British Navy.
5. Imperial Japanese Army troops in Vietnam after the surrender of Japan.
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VNP,

First welcome to the forum. I am enjoying your posts very much (as I do many other posters and in particular Skippers in this thread). I am a Canadian and as such must confess my ignorance with Veitnamese history, but thanks to you I am correcting that.

Reading your posts I suspect that this isn't the first time you haven't written about this subject. I was wondering about you a bit, are you an educator and have you written more on the subject elsewhere? If you have I would like to read it.

Thanks,

KTK

 

Vietnam might have had a brief period of near freedom under Japanese rule, but the Korean example is more likely to encompass her fate in a Japanese Pacific War 'victory'.