Showing posts with label Thailand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thailand. Show all posts

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Monday, December 17, 1923. Closing in on Mexico City.


The revolution in Mexico looked as if it was about to topple the government.

Subhi Bey Barakat was elected President of the Syrian Federation, a French mandate. He'd be its only president as the state would be succeeded by the State of Syria, also a French mandate, which he'd also be the chief executive of.


Thailand adopted the metric system.

An agreement was reached on the formation of the Imperial Air Transport Company, which soon became Imperial Airways.

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Monday, October 18, 1943. Jewish Romans transported to Auschwitz.

Germany transported Roman Jews to Auschwitz.   Rome had one of the oldest Jewish populations in Europe.

Japan transferred four provinces of British Malaya to its ally Thailand.

Perry Mason was broadcast on the CBS Radio Network for the first time.  It would run until December 20, 1955.

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Sunday, October 14, 1973. The Popular Uprising (เหตุการณ์ 14 ตุลา)

The Popular Uprising (เหตุการณ์ 14 ตุลา), which had been going on against the Thai military government since October 9, reached a watershed moment with Thai soldiers killed 77 protestors and wounded 857.

Protests would briefly carry on, but this resulted in the resignation of the military government and the establishment of a civilian one, but military influence remained and the new government was not democratic.

Sunday, August 20, 2023

Friday, August 20, 1943. Hard fighting near Kharkiv.

The Kingdom of Thailand and the Empire of Japan entered into a peace treaty providing that four Malayan provinces would become part of Thailand.

Thailand is one of the unique Axis powers of the war in that the Allies simply chose to ignore its declaration of war upon them.  It had actually been invaded by Japan in December 1941, before becoming a Japanese ally, so at least there was some reason to disregard its status, but only some.

The Red Army captured Libedin, west of Kharkiv.  However, as Sarah Sundin notes:

Today in World War II History—August 20, 1943: 80 Years Ago—August 20, 1943: In a battle near Kharkiv, Ukraine, Germans defeat Soviets and destroy 184 tanks.

 CBC war correspondent Matthew Halton preparing to broadcast from Sicily, August 20, 1943

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Friday, December 29, 1972. Life Magazine's final issue.

Life magazine's final cover issue date (it came out the week before.) ran.  The cover was "The Year in Pictures, 1972".

My father subscribed to Life, and also at one time to Look. Look really declined in its final years, Life not so much.  I can recall discussion on the last issue.

Edward Lorenz proposed The Butterfly Effect in his paper  "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" 

A takeover of Israel's embassy in Thailand, by Palestinian terrorists, ended after intervention by Egypt's ambassador and Thai officials. Before everyone left, they all had dinner together, including the terrorists.

Most of the last cycle of conscripts to the U.S. Army reported for induction.

The tragic crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 killed 101 of 176 on board as it went down in the Everglades.

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Sunday, January 25, 1942. Australia initiates conscription.


As Sarah Saradin's blog, notes, the following things happened on this day in 1942:
January 25, 1942: Japanese set up puppet government in Thailand, which declares war on US and UK. Japanese land at Lae, New Guinea. Australia orders full mobilization; all white male British subjects 18-45 years are eligible for conscription.

It's worth noting that conscription was not popular in Australia.  The Australians were justifiably freighted that the Japanese would land on Australia and outright conquer it, a thought that seems fantastical today, but which is less extreme than one might imagine.  Japan's population grossly outnumbered Australia's and Australia, for the most part, is only populated on its coasts.  Japan was, at the time, expanding its conquests massively, and on this day were making landings in New Guinea and Borneo.  As noted, their puppet government in Thailand declared war on the US and UK.

Nonetheless, Australians, who have always had a strong contrarian streak, didn't like the idea of conscription and at first Australian conscripts only served in Australia itself, matching a pattern that was true for Canada, at first.  Late war Canadians conscripts could be sent overseas, and Australian ones ended up fighting in the Pacific. The quality of Australian conscript combat troops was notably poorer than their volunteer troops, with morale really being the reason why.

The United Kingdom, New Zealand and South Africa reciprocated Thailand's declaration of war.  Thailand's ambassador to the US refuses to deliver the declaration and defects, going on to form a Free Thai government in exile.

Japanese submarines shelled Marine Corps positions at Midway unsuccessfully, and submerged due to counterfire.

Uruguay severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy and Japan.

The Red Army surrounded the Germans at Kholm.   The Germans overran British lines, including armor, at Msus.

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Sunday, December 21, 1941. The Long Short Days.

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.  It'd be another long day for the United States and the British Commonwealth, however.



The Japanese landed troops at Lingayen Gulf and Lamon Bay in the Philippines.

Wake Island was heavily bombed.

The Kingdom of Thailand entered into a formal alliance with the Empire of Japan.

Off of Portugal the Battle of Convey HG-76 raged as German U-boats and Allied ships sought to amke progress and destroy each other.  Meanwhile, a British Swordfish torpedo bomber sank the German U-451 off of Morocco, from which only one crew member survived.

The Red Army and the German Army begin a week of close quarter fighting in Kaluga.

German and Romanian units commenced murdering Jews in the Bogdanovka concentration camp.  In two weeks they would kill 30,000 individuals.

Winston Churchill sent birthday wishes, late, to Stalin, whose actual birthday was December 18. The note states:
I send you sincere good wishes for your birthday and hope that future anniversaries will enable you to bring to Russia victory, peace and safety after so much storm.
As noted in Today In Wyoming's History: December 21:

1941  $5,077 collected in Sheridan Wyoming war relief drive. Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

The Chicago Bears beat the New York Giants in the NFL Championship.

Peetie Wheatstraw, whose real name was William Bunch, died when a car he was a passenger in was hit by a train. At the height of his popularity, the bluesman was 39 years old.

The Man Born To Be King, a BBC dramatization of the life of Jesus, premiered on the British Broadcasting Corporation Home Service.

The Home Service started airing in 1922, and was later replaced as Radio 4.

Thursday, December 9, 2021

Tuesday, December 9, 1941. The Expanding Japanese Offensive.


President Roosevelt delivered a "fireside chat" to the nation on the arrival of war with Japan.  You can listend to it above, or read it below:

My fellow Americans:

The sudden criminal attacks perpetrated by the Japanese in the Pacific provide the climax of a decade of international immorality.

Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race. Their challenge has now been flung at the United States of America. The Japanese have treacherously violated the long-standing peace between us. Many American soldiers and sailors have been killed by enemy action. American ships have been sunk; American airplanes have been destroyed.

The Congress and the people of the United States have accepted that challenge.

Together with other free peoples, we are now fighting to maintain our right to live among our world neighbors in freedom and in common decency, without fear of assault.

I have prepared the full record of our past relations with Japan, and it will be submitted to the Congress. It begins with the visit of Commodore Perry to Japan 88 years ago. It ends with the visit of two Japanese emissaries to the Secretary of State last Sunday, an hour after Japanese forces had loosed their bombs and machine guns against our flag, our forces, and our citizens.

I can say with utmost confidence that no Americans, today or a thousand years hence, need feel anything but pride in our patience and in our efforts through all the years toward achieving a peace in the Pacific which would be fair and honorable to every Nation, large or small. And no honest person, today or a thousand years hence, will be able to suppress a sense of indignation and horror at the treachery committed by the military dictators of Japan, under the very shadow of the flag of peace borne by their special envoys in our midst.

The course that Japan has followed for the past ten years in Asia has paralleled the course of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and in Africa. Today, it has become far more than a parallel. It is actual collaboration so well calculated that all the continents of the world, and all the oceans, are now considered by the Axis strategists as one gigantic battlefield.

In 1931, ten years ago, Japan invaded Manchukuo—without warning.

In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia—without warning.

In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria —without warning.

In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia- without warning.

Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland- without warning.

In 1940, Hitler invaded Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg- without warning.

In 1940, Italy attacked France and later Greece—without warning.

And this year, in 1941, the Axis powers attacked Yugoslavia and Greece and they dominated the Balkans—without warning. In 1941, also, Hitler invaded Russia—without warning.

And now Japan has attacked Malaya and Thailand—and the United States—without warning.

It is all of one pattern.

We are now in this war. We are all in it- all the way. Every single man, woman, and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories—the changing fortunes of war.

So far, the news has been all bad. We have suffered a serious set-back in Hawaii. Our forces in the Philippines, which include the brave people of that Commonwealth, are taking punishment, but are defending themselves vigorously. The reports from Guam and Wake and Midway islands are still confused, but we must be prepared for the announcement that all these three outposts have been seized.

The casualty lists of these first few days will undoubtedly be large. I deeply feel the anxiety of all of the families of the men in our armed forces and the relatives of people in cities which have been bombed. I can only give them my solemn promise that they will get news just as quickly as possible.

This Government will put its trust in the stamina of the American people, and will give the facts to the public just as soon as two conditions have been fulfilled: first, that the information has been definitely and officially confirmed; and, second, that the release of the information at the time it is received will not prove valuable to the enemy directly or indirectly.

Most earnestly I urge my countrymen to reject all rumors. These ugly little hints of complete disaster fly thick and fast in wartime. They have to be examined and appraised.

As an example, I can tell you frankly that until further surveys are made, I have not sufficient information to state the exact damage which has been done to our naval vessels at Pearl Harbor. Admittedly the damage is serious. But no one can say how serious, until we know how much of this damage can be repaired and how quickly the necessary repairs can be made.

I cite as another example a statement made on Sunday night that a Japanese carrier had been located and sunk off the Canal Zone. And when you hear statements that are attributed to what they call "an authoritative source," you can be reasonably sure from now on that under these war circumstances the "authoritative source" is not any person in authority.

Many rumors and reports which we now hear originate with enemy sources. For instance, today the Japanese are claiming that as a result of their one action against Hawaii they have gained naval supremacy in the Pacific. This is an old trick of propaganda which has been used innumerable times by the Nazis. The purposes of such fantastic claims are, of course, to spread fear and confusion among us, and to goad us into revealing military information which our enemies are desperately anxious to obtain.

Our Government will not be caught in this obvious trap—and neither will the people of the United States.

It must be remembered by each and every one of us that our free and rapid communication these days must be greatly restricted in wartime. It is not possible to receive full, speedy, accurate reports from distant areas of combat. This is particularly true where naval operations are concerned. For in these days of the marvels of radio it is often impossible for the commanders of various units to report their activities by radio at all, for the very simple reason that this information would become available to the enemy, and would disclose their position and their plan of defense or attack.

Of necessity there will be delays in officially confirming or denying reports of operations but we will not hide facts from the country if we know the facts and if the enemy will not be aided by their disclosure.

To all newspapers and radio stations—all those who reach the eyes and ears of the American people—I say this: You have a most grave responsibility to the Nation now and for the duration of this war.

If you feel that your Government is not disclosing enough of the truth, you have every right to say so. But—in the absence of all the facts, as revealed by official sources—you have no right in the ethics of patriotism to deal out unconfirmed reports in such a way as to make people believe that they are gospel truth.

Every citizen, in every walk of life,. shares this same responsibility. The lives of our soldiers and sailors- the whole future of this Nation—depend upon the manner in which each and every one of us fulfills his obligation to our country.

Now a word about the recent past—and the future. A year and a half has elapsed since the fall of France, when the whole world first realized the mechanized might which the Axis Nations had been building for so many years. America has used that year and a half to great advantage. Knowing that the attack might reach us in all too short a time, we immediately began greatly to increase our industrial strength and our capacity to meet the demands of modern warfare.

Precious months were gained by sending vast quantities of our war material to the Nations of the world still able to resist Axis aggression. Our policy rested on the fundamental truth that the defense of any country resisting Hitler or Japan was in the long run the defense of our own country. That policy has been justified. It has given us time, invaluable time, to build our American assembly lines of production.

Assembly lines are now in operation. Others are being rushed to completion. A steady stream of tanks and planes, of guns and ships, and shells and equipment—that is what these eighteen months have given us.

But it is all only a beginning of what still has to be done. We must be set to face a long war against crafty and powerful bandits. The attack at Pearl Harbor can be repeated at any one of many points, points in both oceans and along both our coast lines and against all the rest of the hemisphere.

It will not only be a long war, it will be a hard war. That is the basis on which we now lay all our plans. That is the yardstick by which we measure what we shall need and demand; money, materials, doubled and quadrupled production—ever-increasing. The production must be not only for our own Army and Navy and Air Forces. It must reinforce the other armies and navies and air forces fighting the Nazis and the war lords of Japan throughout the Americas and throughout the world.

I have been working today on the subject of production. Your Government has decided on two broad policies.

The first is to speed up all existing production by working on a seven-day-week basis in every war industry, including the production of essential raw materials.

The second policy, now being put into form, is to rush additions to the capacity of production by building more new plants, by adding to old plants, and by using the many smaller plants for war needs.

Over the hard road of the past months, we have at times met obstacles and difficulties, divisions and disputes, indifference and callousness. That is now all past—and, I am sure, forgotten.

The fact is that the country now has an organization in Washington built around men and women who are recognized experts in their own fields. I think the country knows that the people who are actually responsible in each and every one of these many fields are pulling together with a teamwork that has never before been excelled.

On the road ahead there lies hard work—grueling workday and night, every hour and every minute.

I was about to add that ahead there lies sacrifice for all of us.

But it is not correct to use that word. The United States does not consider it a sacrifice to do all one can, to give one's best to our Nation, when the Nation is fighting for its existence and its future life.

It is not a sacrifice for any man, old or young, to be in the Army or the Navy of the United States. Rather is it a privilege.

It is not a sacrifice for the industrialist or the wage earner, the farmer or the shopkeeper, the trainman or the doctor, to pay more taxes, to buy more bonds, to forego extra profits, to work longer or harder at the task for which he is best fitted. Rather is it a privilege.

It is not a sacrifice to do without many things to which we are accustomed if the national defense calls for doing without.

A review this morning leads me to the conclusion that at present we shall not have to curtail the normal use of articles of food. There is enough food today for all of us and enough left over to send to those who are fighting on the same side with us.

But there will be a clear and definite shortage of metals of many kinds for civilian use, for the very good reason that in our increased program we shall need for war purposes more than half of that portion of the principal metals which during the past year have gone into articles for civilian use. Yes, we shall have to give up many things entirely.

And I am sure that the people in every part of the Nation are prepared in their individual living to win this war. I am sure that they will cheerfully help to pay a large part of its financial cost while it goes on. I am sure they will cheerfully give up those material things that they are asked to give up.

And I am sure that they will retain all those great spiritual things without which we cannot win through.

I repeat that the United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete. Not only must the shame of Japanese treachery be wiped out, but the sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.

In my message to the Congress yesterday I said that we "will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us." In order to achieve that certainty, we must begin the great task that is before us by abandoning once and for all the illusion that we can ever again isolate ourselves from the rest of humanity.

In these past few years- and, most violently, in the past three days- we have learned a terrible lesson.

It is our obligation to our dead—it is our sacred obligation' to their children and to our children-that we must never forget what we have learned.

And what we all have learned is this:

There is no such thing as security for any Nation—or any individual- in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism.

There is no such thing as impregnable defense against powerful aggressors who sneak up in the dark and strike without warning.

We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack—that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map any more.

We may acknowledge that our enemies have performed a brilliant feat of deception, perfectly timed and executed with great skill. It was a thoroughly dishonorable deed, but we must face the fact that modern warfare as conducted in the Nazi manner is a dirty business. We don't like it- we didn't want to get in it -but we are in it and we're going to fight it with everything we've got.

I do not think any American has any doubt of our ability to administer proper punishment to the perpetrators of these crimes.

Your Government knows that for weeks Germany has been telling Japan that if Japan did not attack the United States, Japan would not share in dividing the spoils with Germany when peace came. She was promised by Germany that if she came in she would receive the complete and perpetual control of the whole of the Pacific area—and that means not only the Far East, but also all of the islands in the Pacific, and also a stranglehold on the west coast of North, Central, and South America.

We know also that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operations in accordance with a joint plan. That plan considers all peoples and Nations which are not helping the Axis powers as common enemies of each and every one of the Axis powers.

That is their simple and obvious grand strategy. And that is why the American people must realize that it can be matched only with similar grand strategy. We must realize for example that Japanese successes against the United States in the Pacific are helpful to German operations in Libya; that any German success against the Caucasus is inevitably an assistance to Japan in her operations against the Dutch East Indies; that a German attack against Algiers or Morocco opens the way to a German attack against South America, and the Canal.

On the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that guerrilla warfare against the Germans in, let us say, Serbia or Norway helps us; that a successful Russian offensive against the Germans helps us; and that British successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

Remember always that Germany and Italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the United States at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with Britain or Russia. And Germany puts all the other Republics of the Americas into the same category of enemies. The people of our sister Republics of this hemisphere can 'be honored by that fact.

The true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. When we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers —we are builders.

We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for vengeance, but for a world in which this Nation, and all that this Nation represents, will be safe for our children. We expect to eliminate the danger from Japan, but it would serve us ill if we accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was dominated by Hitler and Mussolini.

We are going to win the war and we are going to win the peace that follows.

And in the difficult hours of this day—through dark days that may be yet to come- we will know that the vast majority of the members of the human race are on our side. Many of them are fighting with us. All of them are praying for us. For in representing our cause, we represent theirs as well- our hope and their hope for liberty under God.

Prime Minister Curtin of Australia also addressed his nation, terming the events his nation's "darkest hour".  Unlike the US, Australia had already been a declared belligerent in the war against Germany.  The arrival of the war with Japan put Australia in an extreme position of disadvantage as it had substantial troops numbers serving in the Middle East already.

Some person apparently undeterred by the news or not inspired by patriotism in the wake of the Japanese attacks robbed a payroll train at Yanderra, New South Wales, Australia.

It was a day of additional set backs and attacks, and expansion of the war, as detailed in Today In Wyoming's History: December 9

1941 China declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy. 

Hitler ordered US ships torpedoed. 

The 19th Bombardment Group attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon. 

USS Swordfish (SS-193) makes initial U.S. submarine attack on Japanese ship. 

Canadian government orders blackouts and closes Japanese-Canadian newspapers and schools. 

China declares war on Japan, after nine years of "incidents". They were, of course, already at war.

Cuba, Guatemala, the Philippine Commonwealth, and the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea also declare war on Japan. Korea, of course, is already occupied by Japan. 

Japanese troops from Kwajalein occupy Tarawa in the Gilberts. 

Japanese bomb Nichols Field on Luzon. Japanese capture Khota Baru airfield on Malaya. 

Siam agrees to a cease fire with Japan, signaling an early defeat there. 

Japanese ground forces attack across the frontier of the New Territories into Hong Kong; capture the key position of Shing Mun Redoubt; 

D Company of The Winnipeg Grenadiers dispatched to the mainland to strengthen this sector.

Expanding on that, the Japanese occupied Bangkok, Thailand.  British Indian troops crossed the Thai frontier to destroy railroad lines but met resistance from Thai police units and then the Japanese.

The Prince of Wales and Repulse were turned back by the Japanese discovering their whereabouts off of Malaya.  An effort of Japanese torpedo bombers station in Saigon to find and attack the failed, however.

The German Navy lost sank two merchant ships in the Battle of the Atlantic.  In the Mediterranean, the appearance of aircraft from Malta turned back an Axis convoy with supplies for the Axis mission in North Africa.

The Germans lost ground in Russia as the  Red Army recaptured Yelets and Venev, south of Moscow, and Tikhvin, near Leningrad.

British commandos raided Florø, Norway, in an inconclusive raid.  It's become common to think of these raids as universally successful, but that's far from true.  Indeed, British Commando raids were often unsuccessful and, at least in this period, a little messed up. This one featured some accidental deaths due to a hand grenade detonating while they were being fused.

A photographer took a photo of the damaged Catholic Church in Tobruk.  Services were still being held there.



At least as of 2017, this church was still serving a Catholic population in the town.

The U.S. experienced its first East Coast air raid drills.  Businesses and schools were cleared out in a practice drill.

Newspapers across the country reported that San Francisco had been raided ineffectively, which local commanders of the U.S. Army confirmed.

Early in the war this sort of false alarm was common on the jittery Pacific Coast.  It has been the subject of a somewhat amusing move, 1941.

Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians was one of the thousands of men who joined the service this week.  He joined the Navy.


Additional information on this day in World War Two.

Day 831 December 9, 1941


Saturday, December 4, 2021

Thursday December 4, 1941. Rainbow 5.

The U.S. military plans for war with Germany, Rainbow 5, were leaked and appeared in two major newspapers. The spectacular leak, the source of which has never been determined, showed an intent to build a 10,000,000 man Army and deploy 5,000,000 men to Europe to defeat the Germans by 1943.  The resulting furor was enormous.

Naval trainees, 1941.

The Germans ridiculed the plans as impossible, but the German General Staff took it seriously and argued for a hiatus of offensive operations in the East in order to attempt to take the United Kingdom out of the war before Britain could be used as a staging area for American troops. Hitler rejected the idea.  Rainbow 5 did in fact become the basic plan adopted by the United States during the war.


Japanese tasks forces set out for destinations in Malaya and Thailand.  Japanese aircraft scouted Wake Island undetected.

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Thursday August 7, 1941. Bombers and Japanese intentions.

The Soviet Navy bombed Berlin.

Yes, the Navy.

The reason was that the Ilyushin DB-3 used by both the Soviet Air Forces and the Soviet Navy was capable of being both a torpedo bomber and a tactical bomber, although its small 1000 lbs bomb load made it a poor strategic bomber.  The Soviet Air Forces also the aircraft, but the aircraft used in this raid were launched from a Soviet Navy base off of Estonia.

DB-3 in captured Finnish use.

The Germans at first thought that the RAF had conducted the raid, given as the RAF, which was the only combatant then in the war with heavy strategic bombers, had been raiding Berlin for a year. The small payload of the DB-3 meant that the raid was unlikely to be anything other than a propaganda victory, which was all that it was.

In other news of the air, Bruno Mussolini, the son of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, was killed test flying an Italian attempt at a heavy bomber, that being the Piaggio P.108.

P.108 in flight.

Australia declared that it would not allow Japanese expansion in the Pacific to go unchecked, should it occur.

On the same day, Imperial Japan, which had recently mediated a dispute between Thailand and the French in Indochina, declared that it had no aggressive intentions in regard to Thailand.

In the US, people went about their regular chores, including outdoor ones.

Sunday, January 31, 2021

January 31, 1941. Truce in Indochina, fighting in Libya, Movies, and Boxing

Japan, fearing the result of ongoing fighting between a client state, Thailand, and a near captive colonial entity, French Indochina, arranges for a negotiated truce between the two powers.

The Abbott and Costello movie Buck Privates was released.  I'm not really keen on Abbott and Costello, but if you like their vaudeville style of comedy, this film is one that remains fairly well regarded.  It received universal circulation at Army post theaters at the time, and oddly the Japanese picked it up for propaganda purposes to show the incompetence of the U.S. military.

The movie was a musical and also featured the Andrews Sisters.

The commencement of allied offensive action against Kufra in Italian Libya commenced.

Joe Louis KO'ed Red Burman to retain his heavyweight boxing title.

More on the days' events in the Second World War:

Day 520 February 1, 1941

Italian prisoners bombed by Germans

Today in World War II History—January 31, 1941

Sunday, January 24, 2021

January 24, 1941. For Greater Knowledge

 

Stamped on back, January 24, 1941.  For a lot of people today, the concept of going to the library is now pretty lost, valuable resource though they remain.

On this day in 1941, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox sent to Secretary of War Stimson a letter warning of a possible Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Thai bombers struck Angkor in what is now Cambodia.

Italian armor at Mechili.

British forces advanced 80 miles east from Tobruk to Mechili and then were surprised by the Italian Army engaging in a counterattack. While initially successful due to British confusion, ultimately the Italian forces were defeated.

More about that event can be found here:

Today in World War II History—January 24, 1941

Day 512 January 24, 1941

Sunday, January 17, 2021

January 17, 1941. The fog.

 

A foggy night in Bedford Massachusetts.  January 17, 1941.

The oddity of the "wars within wars" nature of World War Two, which is often forgotten, was illustrated by the Battle of Co (Koh, Koi) Chang, which occurred off the Gulf of Thailand.  French Navy vessels defeated Thai naval vessels decisively after a Thai incursion.

The Thai navy had recently been updated with Japanese and Italian vessels, but it was not up to the task and the battle was a disaster.  It prompted Japan to act as an intermediary in the war between Thailand and France out of fear that it would lead to reversals in Thai gains.

The conflict is interesting in that Thailand was seeking to adjuster a regional dispute through the use of arms supplied by two Axis powers with which it was, at that time, more than nominally aligned.  The French, on the other hand, were now weakly aligned with Japan by force, given the defeat of France by the Germans and the impairment of contact with France as a result.  It's military, however, still remained stronger than the Thai's.

It wasn't stronger than Japan's and Japan and France had already fought a short undeclared war in Indochina leading to Japanese occupation of the north, although an agreement to allow Japanese forces to co-occupy Indochina had already been reached.  France legitimately feared that Japan would take over it's entire Indochinese colony, which in June 1941 it in fact did, as its treaty rights now allowed it to do.  French troops and administration, however, remained all the way until March 1945 when the Japanese staged a coup to overthrow the French administration out of fears it would act against Japan.

Japanese troops advancing towards Lạng Sơn in their September 1941 campaign against the French.  The city is on Vietnam's border with China.

Japan in turn invaded Thailand on December 8, 1941, as part of its new war against the United States and British Empire.  Fighting only lasted five hours with Thailand surrendering and agreeing to formally become an Axis power.

On the same day, the British Blue Star linger SS Almeda Star was sunk by a U-boot with the loss of all 325 souls on board. The Zealandic was sunk the same day with the loss of all 73 on board.

More on the events of the day in World War Two can be read about here:

Thursday, April 30, 2020

April 30, 1970. The Incursion into Cambodia

Well remembered, but not well remembered accurately, on this day in 1970 President Richard Nixon announced that Republic of Vietnam and the United States were sending forces into Cambodia.

South Vietnamese M113 Armored Personnel Carries in Cambodia in 1970.

Recalled now most as the "U.S. entering the Parrot's Beak" region of Cambodia, in fact events had been building in this direction for weeks, months and years.

Cambodia was part of French Indochina, along with Vietnam and Laos, coming into French control due to a long struggle between Thailand and Vietnam for control of the country, which left it in Vietnamese hands at the time that Vietnam was colonized by the French.  Like Loas, it became an independent kingdom with the collapse of the French regime, achieving that status in 1953 prior to the French departure from Vietnam.  The establishment of the independent kingdom demonstrated  to a degree how the French envisioned post colonial Indochina, with it being made up of French aligned independent states with a government of a highly traditional model.  Indeed, the installed regent, Prince Sihanouk, was a French choice and installed much like the last Vietnamese emperor was in neighboring South Vietnam.  In Sihanouk, however, the French had chosen a much stronger personality who soon demonstrated that he could not be controlled.

Indeed King Sihanouk resigned his position in 1955 to become a politician in the newly independent kingdom, which made his father the king.  However, upon his father's 1960 death, he resumed the position of monarch, but limited his title to Prince. 

Right from the onset Cambodia, like the other regions of Indochina, contained left wing radicals who had come up during the colonial period, something that isn't really surprising in light of the fact that France also had left wing radicals itself.  And as with South Vietnam, the established government was not sympathetic to democratic elements.  Differing from Vietnam, however, Cambodia's monarchy survived its early independence and went on to form the government, whereas a similar effort in the Republic of Vietnam had left to a rapid downfall of the monarch.  Sihanouk had no small role in navigating this course.

Things were always accordingly troubled in the country but the ongoing wars in its Indochinese neighbors made things particularly difficult for Cambodia.  Prince Sihanouk attempted to place the country in the nonaligned camp, which was understandable under the circumstances but frankly naive given the enormous nature of the local conflict and the overarching global one.  

U.S. Air Force UH-1 helicopters over Cambodia.

On the other hand, the Prince correctly believed that the Communists would ultimately prevail in the Vietnamese War and believed that he had to be capable of dealing with that reality if Cambodia was to remain an independent state.  Perhaps realistically assessing the strength of his own armed forces as too weak to oppose the North Vietnamese, his government allowed the NVA to establish sanctuaries within the country starting in the mid 1960s, although as early as 1967 he commented to an American reporter that he would not oppose American air strikes in the country as long as they did not hard Cambodians, which of course was an impossible limitation.

In contrast right wing elements in the country increasingly wanted to take it in the opposite direction and found the Vietnamese presence humiliating.  Cambodia had its own culture and ethnicity and had long suffered from Vietnamese incursions into the country.  Indeed, large number of ethnic Cambodians lived in the Mekong are of Vietnam which itself was a sore point to the Cambodians that would continue right on into the Communist Pol Pot era.
  
In 1967 things changed for the worst when a spontaneous Communist rebellion took place in a region of the country which was followed by a more planned one in 1968.  In the same year Sihanouk openly revoked his prior comments about allowing US air strikes in the country, which given the increasing deterioration of his government's situation was probably a logical position for him to take.  By that time, however, the war in Vietnam was now highly developed.

With Richard Nixon's election in 1968 the US began to increasingly look towards action in Cambodia aimed at North Vietnamese enclaves there, something comparable to other frontier battles of other eras in which the US sought to address safe harbors across a border.  Following the Tet Offensive and Nixon's election, moreover, the US began to look for ways to withdraw from Vietnam which ironically meant occasional increases in the level of violence in the war.  In January 1969 Prince Sihanouk indicated to the US that Cambodia would not oppose ARVN and US forces that entered Cambodia in "hot pursuit" of retreating NVA forces provided that no Cambodians were harmed.  The US went one step further however and started targeting B-52 air strikes on NVA enclaves in the country, something the US later claimed that Sihanouk agreed to but which he most likely did not.  The events demonstrated the impossibility of the Cambodian position, however, as an allowance of one thing is practically an allowance of another, in war, and at the same time it was becoming increasingly impossible for the US to abstain from action in Cambodia.

In March, 1970 Sihanouk was deposed in a military coup which was supported by most of the educated urban population.  The kingdom was brought to an end and the Khmer Republic established.  A massacre of Vietnamese residents of Cambodia ensued in which thousands lost their lives and which was condemned by both North and South Vietnam.  By that time there were 40, 000 North Vietnamese troops in the country.  The new republican regime demanded that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong withdraw but instead they commenced attacks on the Cambodian state.  Prince Sihanouk, moreover, would not give up and encouraged his supporters to restore him to power. All of this fueled the native communist insurgency and the situation degraded into a civil war.  During the same period the NVA attacks became a full scale invasion and the NVA began to overrun and defeat Cambodian army positions.  Not really well known into the 1990s, the North Vietnamese in the period sound to completely overrun the country, which likely was regarded by them as a strategic necessity.  They scored significant successes in the early months of 1970 in attempting this but, remarkably, the Khmer government did not completely collapse and in fact its armed opposition to the NVA and the Khmer Rouge continued throughout the period, although they were losing ground.

The South Vietnamese and American incursion of 1970 was designed to defeat the North Vietnamese in their safe harbor.  South Vietnamese preparatory actions commenced on April 14.  Perhaps ironically President Nixon announced the withdrawal of 150,000 U.S. troops from South Vietnam on April 20.  Nonetheless plans for the action continued, and indeed they may be seen as related to some degree.  On April 30 the South Vietnamese invasion began in earnest and President Nixon announced to the nation that U.S. troops would be entering Cambodia on a temporary basis, which they commenced to do the following day, May 1.

U.S. M48s in Cambodia.

The North Vietnamese were surprised by the invasion and proved to be incapable of resisting it. They nonetheless proved adept at avoiding having their forces destroyed.  American leadership regarded the invasion as a success and US and ARVN forces would withdraw from the eastern portions of the country they occupied in July.  The expansion of the war at the very time that the Administration was committed to withdrawing, while not actually strategically inconsistent, appeared to be and it increased opposition to the war in the United States.  The Cambodian government, in contrast, welcomed the incursion and hoped that US forces would remain in the country, an act which they believed would have helped them combat the native Khmer Rouge insurgency and which they also hoped would lead to the permanent expulsion of the North Vietnamese Army from the country.  Indeed, a remaining American presence was practically a necessity for the Khmer Republic's survival.

Newspaper reading American soldier in Cambodia.

To some degree the action is a tribute to the late Vietnam War American Army and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.  The ARVN were much more fully formed and combat ready by this point in the war than they had been earlier, although they'd also become completely dependant upon American air support, which was enormous in the invasion.  The American Army, in contrast, was severely strained and suffering gigantic moral and discipline problems by this point, so the fact that they were able to effectively rally for a major offensive action is impressive.  It's also impressive, however, that the North Vietnamese were able to react to the invasion and avoid complete destruction.

There are those who want to attribute the ultimate collapse of the Khmer Republic, followed by the horror of Communist Pol Pot's regime, to this series of 1970s events, but the claim is frankly strained.  As noted, the Cambodian government of the time was becoming increasingly right wing and hostile to Communism inside the country and it was actively seeking to destroy it, albeit unsuccessfully.  A more realistic assessment would be that the results in neighboring South Vietnam were always set to dictate what happened in the smaller Indochinese neighbor.  The same political forces that had existed in South Vietnam since 1954 were present in Cambodia since 1953 except, ironically, right wing elements that wished to actively oppose Communism were significantly stronger in Cambodia.

Cambodian civilians dividing captured North Vietnamese Army rice.

At any rate, the Cambodian tragedy, in some ways, has always been strongly linked to being a small country between two larger neighbors.  Vietnam's civil war had spilled into it and now it was raging within its borders.  It's fate would now follow a strongly parallel, but more tragic and bloody course.

Monday, October 9, 2017

Was the Domino Theory Right?



One of the interesting things about the podcast that followed the Burns and Novik Vietnam War documentary is that Burns is interviewed and openly questions whether his pre documentary belief that The Domino Theory was ridiculous was in error.

That surprised me a bit as the documentary doesn't address the theory much other than to note that it was a basis for our going into Vietnam.

I've written on the Domino Theory here before, more specifically in my 2013 post on Looking at the Vietnam War differently. Not a war, but as a campaign in the Cold War.  In that post I urged that the Vietnam War should be looked at as a campaign in the Cold War in order to be viewed historically accurately.  That post came, of course, nearly four years ago and I doubt that very many people search back for post that old here very often (I suppose some might surf into it and I know that occurs with some of our older posts), but in the interesting of not repeating too much what I already have said, I'll quote at length from that post (although, please note, I'm not quoting the whole post):
As noted, I'm not quoting from the entire 2013 post here.   So perhaps I should flesh that out.  I did so a bit in that post when I noted:
Let's still flesh that out just a bit.

The idea was, and it was based on prior experience, that once one nation fell to the Communist that put pressure on its neighbors, particularly if the fallen nation was in a strategic area and particularly if there was already Communist activity in the region.

This idea, following Vietnam, was widely discredited.  But was it as absurd as many would now have us believe?  Many historical examples of the success of militant movements would suggest otherwise.  When the USSR was founded, for example, Communist revolutions did in fact spared to nearby states.  Hungary, for example, had one immediately after Russia and while it didn't succeed, it nearly did.  Germany's red revolution in the 1918-1919 time frame nearly did as well. 

Fascism provides a good example also.  It wasn't as if Germany was the only state that went to the far right in the 1930s.  It was preceded by Italy and joined by Spain and Romania.  Arguably it was somewhat joined by France.  When fascism was on the rise, it wasn't on the rise in one state.  Even the United Kingdom and Ireland had fascists movements in the 1930s.

And before we get too far on the topic of the Vietnam War, let's consider Asia as a whole.

Southeast Asia.  It's big. . . but more connected when you take a little higher view.

One of the things that missed in discussions on the Vietnam War, and it was missed in the Burns and Novik documentary, is that it was Australia that was demanding Western powers get into the Indochinese War after France fell there, not the United States at first.  Australia was begging the US to get in and threatened the Kennedy Administration with going it alone if the US wouldn't go.  In retrospect, maybe we should have allowed for that.  Australia had thinner resources but it also had more experience in fighting guerrilla was in the jungle than we did.

Australian soldiers of the Royal Australian Rifles in Vietnam.

They weren't the only nation concerned about what they were seeing, of course, but looking at the map, and recalling World War Two, you can see why the Australians were particularly concerned.

 Royal Australian Rifles in Vietnam. We didn't ask them to come. ..  they asked us.

Stepping back a second, and before considering the validity of the theory itself, you can at least see why there was legitimate concern about it.  China had emerged from a long civil war in 1948 with the Red Chinese the surprise victors.  Everyone would have presumed, to include Stalin, that the Nationalist Chinese would come out on top.  They didn't, and of course, its now clear that one of the many straws that broke that camels back (and there were many) was pretty effective efforts by Soviet agents to hinder and delay US resupply to the Nationalist Chinese.  That deprived them of effective resupply in some instances, but that doesn't explain what occurred in and of itself by a long shot.  Not that we're doing a history of the Chinese Civil War here.  Of interest, the Nationalist Chinese provided some air support to the South Vietnamese early during the Vietnam War and contributed some special troops, some of whom were killed in combat, to the South Vietnamese effort during the war.

 South Korean soldiers in Vietnam.  The ROK had a major military commitment to South Vietnam and late in the war appeared set to retain up to 50,000 troops in the country even after the United States was set to withdraw. American encouragement that they leave, during the "Vietnamization" program period, secured their departure.  "Soldiers of the ROK 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam. Photo by Phillip Kemp.  Photo taken by Phillip Kemp from cockpit after sling-loading water drums to outpost..jpg"  Posted pursuant to Wikepeidia license.  South Korea was second only to the United States in terms of the number of troops it sent to support the Republic of Vietnam.

Anyhow, China fell.  North Korean was left Communist following World War Two as part of an arraignment with the United States on post war occupation.  In 1950 that turned into a North Korean invasion of South Korea that was only halted at great costs to the United States and its allies, and only after the Truman Administration changed its mind about what was going on globally and regionally.  We'll pick up on that in a moment.

 Soviet troops marching into North Korea at the end of World War Two. They'd stay briefly, as would US troops in the South, and set up a state modeled on the USSR while they were there.  That nation would try to reunite the peninsula by armed force in 1950. 

And it wasn't just there.

The Philippines had presented the US with a domestic Communist guerrilla movement to contend with as the US was returning to them during World War Two.  Of the various anti Japanese guerrilla movements that sprung up during the war was the Hukbalahap, more commonly called the Huks.  Relationships with them were tense following the war as the Philippines moved towards independence and they broke out in full scale rebellion in 1949, the year after China fell.  The Philippine government managed to put them down with US military assistance and, significantly, through the co-opting of their movement by some rather brilliant men in the early CIA.  Even at that however, various Communist guerrilla movements continue on in the Philippines to the present day.

During the Vietnam War the Philippines would supply 10,000 non combat troops to aid South Korea.

Of course, as we've already noted, the British also contended with Communist guerrillas in Southeast Asia in the Malayan Emergency, which they successfully managed to counter in a combined policing and military operation that went on from. . .  yes, 1948, and lasted until 1960.

Malayan police patrol in 1950.

And then there was Burma.

Burma was a region which was, at first, largely happy to see the Japanese take over from the British during World War Two, but soon grew discontent with the Japanese. Some armed groups that supported the Japanese at first actually switched sides during the war.  This did not mean that they looked forward to the return of the British.  They country, now Myanmar, became independent in that fateful year of 1948 and did not join the English Commonwealth.  In 1962 a military coup brought the military into power and it chose to rule the country in a manner inspired by the Soviet Union to a significant degree.  The country even changed its name to the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma.

Between Burma and Cambodia/Laos is Thailand. Thailand did not participate in World War Two and was not a colony of any nation during that period or any other.  It's the only nation in Southeast Asia that has never been colonized (it even sent an envoy to the Pope as early as 1688.) A monarchy, it had acquired Japanese military aid prior to World War Two, it was in a difficult spot during the war and more or less participated on both sides of the war, while technically, due to a declaration of war, was at war with the United States and the United Kingdom, after having fought briefly against Japan.  It's treaty with Japan provided that Japan would assist Thailand to reacquire territories lost to colonial powers on all sides of it, include to the French in what became Laos and Cambodia.

Following World War Two Thailand faced an encamped Nationalist Chinese army in its far north (for decades) and a domestic Communist insurgency that broke out in the 1960s.  Thailand would provide air bases to the United States during the Vietnam War and would ultimately contribute combat troops just as the United States started to withdraw. Thailand's commitment to the war would amount to 12,000 men just as the United States was pulling out, with their troops including contributions of elite units.

 Artillerymen from New Zealand's army in Vietnam.  New Zealand was still more English than the English the time, but unlike the UK or any European power (excluding France) they also sent troops to Vietnam. . . no doubt looking at their position on the globe.

That takes us to the Vietnam War.  Communist forces were not just active in South Vietnam or even North and South Vietnam. They were active in Laos, where they succeed after the fall of South Vietnam, and in Cambodia, where they also did. They were also active throughout Southeast and Central Asia.  Indeed, the Communist Party is still a political force in India.  So, no wonder:
Maybe the theory was, therefore, correct.  At least it seemed rational to believe it was, as we noted:
Indeed, I was less clear on the challenges faced in my earlier post than I have been in this one (which I researched on this topic a bit more).  During the early 1960s, when the Kennedy Administration was faced with trying to decide how much, and how, to support South Vietnam, it faced a situation in which nearly every country in the region had been challenged by a Communist insurgency and some had been successful while others had only been recently defeated by hard effort.

I went on from there in my original post to ponder what that meant, and I'll leave the reader to review that in the context of my Cold War analysis that I offered there, but I'll note that it started off with this:
This went on, and looked at the war in the context of a Cold War campaign.  You can judge for yourself whether I was right or wrong, or partially right or wrong on that, but I'm going to divert from quoting that post here to go on to the main point here.  That is, was the Domino Theory correct?

Well, the evidence would suggest. . . it was correct.

The proponents of the theory argued that if Vietnam fell (or continued to fall, as North Vietnam had fallen to Communism) then Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma and India would all follows suit.

So how can you say that it was correct, critics (now) say, Thailand didn't fall the Communists?

That's right, Thailand didn't.  But you have noticed that Laos and Cambodia did, correct?

And they fell after South Vietnam, which is more than a little coincidental.  Both nations had been part of French Indochina and both had Communist movements in the 1940s, but neither fell to Communism until after Saigon fell in 1975.

Now, to be fair, Laos was falling in slow motion since the mid 1960s. . . or even the 1950s.  But something kept it from teetering completely over the edge.  That something was the war in South Vietnam.  North Vietnam was willing to dominate parts of the country and to force it into an uneasy neutrality but it apparently feared tipping it over the edge as that might have caused the United States to intervene full scale in Laos, rather than low scale as it was doing.

Pathet (Communist) Laotian troops, 1972.

That came to an end when the South collapsed in 1975. At that point, the North basically invaded Laos and forced it into Communism, where it remains. 

So, I suppose, a person could argue that it didn't fall, it was pushed.  The significant thing there, however, is that it wasn't pushed any earlier than that.

Cambodia wasn't pushed, it fought it out late in the Vietnam War and then fell to the Khmer Rouge as it received increased support, for awhile, from the North Vietnamese.  Cambodia had favored the Communist effort, slightly, during most of the Vietnam War but when its monarchy fell in a coup the Army chose to actively enter the Vietnam War, albeit on its own soil.  This turned into a fierce civil war and when the war went badly for the South Vietnamese in the end it went just as badly for Cambodia.  Like South Vietnam and Laos, it fell in 1975.

By that time, of course, Burma had already gone to its own odd brand of near Communism. Thailand was surrounded.

But nobody else fell. So surely that means that the Domino Theory was wrong, correct?

Well, that''s hard to tell, in the end.  What we do know is that nearly every Southeast nation fought a war against a communist insurgency.  Some were successfully fought, some were not.  A person might argue that the long war in Indochina gave other nations that had already fought a war against Communist insurgents the chance to consolidate politically so that their wars would not renew.  Arguably the war in Thailand failed as it came too late, after the Thai government had been given an extra decade to plan against it and to have cut its teeth on the war in Vietnam.

Of course, you can argue it the other way around.  After the North Vietnamese won against the South and then intervened with finality in Laos, they ended up invading Communist Cambodia and fighting a guerrilla war against the Khmer Rouge.  China invaded North Vietnam and was thrown back.  The rift between Chinese Communism and Soviet Communism proved to be pretty bitter and the respective allies of those nations would fight amongst themselves.  North Vietnam proved to be highly Soviet at first, but it was never a Soviet puppet and ultimately, would be forced to later abandon much of its hardcore economic Communist that it espoused.  Cambodia would reemerge from Vietnamese rule as a free state and a royal one at that, no longer Communist. So things didn't work out they way they were hoped for or feared for anyone.

None of which answers the question. Was the Domino Theory correct?  It's impossible to say, but even now, the evidence suggests it might have been.