Allied Intelligence in Indo-China 1943-45

Allied Intelligence and Indochina, 1943-1945Author(s): Ronald SpectorReviewed work(s):Source: Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Feb., 1982), pp. 23-50Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3639819 .

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Allied Intelligence and

Indochina, 1943-1945 Ronald Spector

The author is a historian in the Southeast Asia Branch of the U.S. Army Center of Military History.

D OUBTLESS INSPIRED by the events and debates of the 1960s, a number of historians have recently turned their attention to an examination of American policy toward Indochina during World War II. As a result the main outlines, if not all details, of that policy are now familiar.' Most historians have agreed that President Franklin Roose- velt's hostility to French colonialism and his determination to establish a trusteeship for Indochina following the defeat of Japan was consid- erably modified, if not abandoned, in the final weeks before Roose- velt's death. By V-J day the United States had virtually acquiesced in the return of Indochina to France.

Yet while this analysis probably represents an accurate description of American policy as viewed from Washington or London, it takes no account of the actions of Americans on the scene in Southeast Asia during World War II. Without a close look at American actions, as opposed to policies, toward Indochina it is impossible to come to grips with the bitter controversies which have surrounded this aspect of World War II.

These controversies chiefly concern allegations by French writers, and writers sympathetic to them, that the United States consistently refused to aid in organizing and equipping a French underground re-

'George C. Herring, "The Truman Administration and the Restoration of French Sov- ereignty in Indochina," Diplomatic History, I (1977), 97-117; Christopher Thorne, "Indo- china and Anglo-American Relations, 1942-45," Pacific Historical Review, XLV (1976), 73- 96; Walter LaFeber, "Roosevelt, Churchill, and Indochina: 1942-45," American Historical Review, LXXX (1975), 1277-1295; Gary R. Hess, "Franklin Roosevelt and Indochina," Journal of American History, LIX (1972), 353-368

23

Pacific Historical Review ? 1981, by the Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association



24 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW

sistance to the Japanese in Vietnam during 1944-1945 and that, during this same period, the United States was primarily responsible for helping Ho Chi Minh's anti-French Viet Minh guerrillas along their road to power.2 The controversy took on a new variation during the 1960s when dissatisfaction with American policy in Vietnam was at its height. At that time some writers came to believe that the United States might have missed a splendid opportunity by not being helpful enough to Ho Chi Minh, who might have become an "Asian Tito."3

An examination of American wartime activities directed toward or effecting Indochina during the war years enables us to see these problems from a different and more realistic perspective. Throughout most of the war the actions and policies of Americans in the Far East, particularly the leaders of the army, army air force, and navy, plus the ubiquitous Office of Strategic Services, were in fact "out of phase" with official American policies in Washington. When Roosevelt's anti- French inclinations were at their height, he had ordered that the United States "do nothing ... in regard to resistance groups or in any other way in relation to Indochina."4 But Americans were already involved with intelligence operations in Vietnam, and most involved some degree of cooperation with the French. Later, during the final months of the war, as Washington's opposition to the restoration of French sovereignty gradually lessened, Americans in the field became increasingly involved with the nationalist opponents of the French, the Viet Minh.

At the time that the President penned his "do nothing" memo, a good deal had nevertheless already been done, for there were requirements in Southeast Asia for which the French could provide considerable assistance. These included providing information for Allied bombers on likely Japanese targets, air defenses, weather, and troop movements in Indochina. Information on troop movements was of spe-

2Pierre Maurice Dessinge, "Les Intrigues Internationales en Indochine," Le Monde, April 14, 1947; "The Indo-China Story," New Statesman and Nation, XLVII (April 17, 1954), 4- 5; Bernard Fall, The Two Vietnams: A Political and Military Analysis (New York, 1964), 54- 59, and Fall, "U.S. Policies in Indochina 1940-1960," in Last Reflections on a War (New York, 1967), 125-136; Jean Sainteny, Histoire d'une Paix Manqube (Paris, 1967), 25-33, 63- 107.

3J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (New York, 1966), 114; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Bitter Heritage (New York, 1967), and Robert Shaplen, The Lost Revo- lution (New York, 1966), chap. II.

4Memorandum from Roosevelt to the Secretary of State, Oct. 16, 1944, in U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1944. Vol. III: The British Commonwealth and Europe (Washington, D.C., 1965), 777.



Allied Intelligence and Indochina 25

cial significance because the shifting of Japanese forces in or out of Indochina could affect the military situation in southern China.5 The French also might help in rescuing pilots shot down over Indochina.

Policymakers also believed that both the French in Indochina and the Vietnamese-if not the Laotians and Cambodians-were restive under their Japanese masters and that their services might be enlisted for various types of espionage and "fifth column" activities. Although American commanders in China and India made no deliberate effort to contravene or circumvent American policy toward Indochina, the policy was sufficiently vague and ambiguous to allow for a wide vari- ety of interpretations. Yet local commanders were seldom kept abreast of its latest twists and modifications. The need for tactical intelligence was sometimes urgent; the instructions from Washington were few and uncertain. For those reasons, after 1943 American commanders in the Far East frequently violated the spirit, if not the letter, of Roose- velt's dictum.

Among the first to take an active interest in Indochina-specifically Vietnam-was Navy Commodore Milton E. ("Mary") Miles. As commander of Navy Group China and Far East Director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the organization responsible under the Joint Chiefs of Staff for unconventional warfare, Miles presided over a kaleidoscopic organization with responsibility for liaison, training, espionage, guerrilla warfare, and support of naval operations.6 He also served as deputy director of a joint Chinese-American espionage group known as the Sino-American Cooperative Organization, led by a Chinese master-spy, General Tai Li. One of the principal missions given Miles by the Navy Department was to prepare for an Allied landing on the coast of China, a possibility that still seemed likely in 1942 and 1943. Since that might also involve operations in Vietnam, Miles attempted to extend his intelligence network to that country.

The man he chose to head the operation was a French naval officer, Commander Robert Meynier, a supporter of General Henri Giraud. Like Giraud, Meynier was a war hero and was anti-German, anti- British, and strongly pro-American. More important, he was married to a woman with important connections among the Vietnamese man-

5John T. McAlister, Vietnam, The Origins of Revolution (New York, 1970), 136. 6For a discussion of the activities of Navy Group China, see Milton E. Miles, A Different

Kind of War (New York, 1966), and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, "Naval Group China: A Study of Guerrilla Warfare during World War II," (Masters thesis, Georgetown University, 1968).




darin class; his wife's uncle, Hoang Trong Phu, was a member of the privy council and a former governor of Tonkin. The other members of Meynier's espionage group had extensive contacts among French officers and officials in Vietnam.

Almost from the start the Meynier group found its operations hampered and circumscribed by the French Military Mission in Chun- king, which was Gaullist in its loyalties. Ironically, the Vichyite French in Indochina were also suspicious of the Meynier group because the group was associated with the Gaullists in Chungking. By mid-1944 Meynier's position had become untenable, and he returned to Europe.

Despite those handicaps, Meynier had enjoyed some success in his efforts. Before his departure in 1944, he succeeded in establishing a network of agents inside Indochina. Many of them operated from inside French government agencies and even inside the French intelligence office, the Deuxieme Bureau. They sent back a steady stream of information on field fortifications, troop movements, bombing targets, and local political developments.7

To complement Meynier's active ties among the French in Indo- china, Commodore Miles prepared still another plan to utilize the mountain tribesmen of Vietnam for guerrilla warfare and espionage against the Japanese. The mountain peoples, who included the Tai, the Meo, the Muong, and the Nungs were ethnically and culturally distinct from the lowland Vietnamese as well as from each other. Miles's plan to enlist the support of the tribesmen, labeled the "Spe- cial Military Plan for Indochina," had been suggested by Lieutenant George Devereux, United States Navy Reserve, a psychological warfare expert attached to Miles's staff. As a civilian Devereux had done anthropological research among the Meo and was familiar with their dialects and social customs.8

Devereux's plan called for a group of twenty specially trained agents to be parachuted into the central highlands of Vietnam near the town of Kontum. The group would establish friendly relationships with the mountain tribesmen and play on their long-standing hatred of the French, the Japanese, and the lowland Vietnamese to organize

7Miles, "Report on the activities of SACO directed toward Indochina," 1-22 and passim, in Milton E. Miles Papers, Office of Naval History, Washington, D.C.

8Miles, "Memorandum for General William J. Donovan," May 7, 1943, Miles Papers.




guerrilla bands. Arms, ammunition, and medicines would be supplied by air.

Devereux hoped to begin operations within four or five months after entering Indochina. The guerrilla bands would supply intelligence, "tie up enemy forces, offer a rallying ground for French pa- triots and native opponents of the Japanese," and pose a threat to the enemy rear during the projected Allied invasion of Burma. Devereux confidently predicted that "a minimum of 20,000" tribal guerrillas could eventually be recruited and trained.9 The plan was approved by the Office of Strategic Services and by Miles's superiors in the Navy Department and enthusiastically endorsed by the commander of the China-based Fourteenth Air Force, Major General Clair L. Chen- nault, who promised to launch diversionary air raids to cover the drop.'0

By the end of May 1943, Miles and Devereux had succeeded in assembling a group of eighteen army, navy, and marine corps personnel, most of whom spoke French and some of whom had civilian back- grounds in anthropology or psychology. For political reasons, two French officers, also former anthropologists, were attached to the mission. In June the group assembled at Fort Benning, Georgia, for special parachute training. But political arguments with the French in Chungking, squabbles between the Office of Strategic Services and Navy Group China, and a constant "kidnapping" of Devereux's personnel for more urgent assignments delayed and eventually forced cancellation of the project."

Aside from Miles's efforts, the most reliable and widely used source of American intelligence in regard to Indochina was an organization known as "the GBT Group," so-called from the first letter of the last names of the leaders of the group: Laurence Gordon, a Canadian cit- izen who had worked in Vietnam as an employee of the Cal-Texaco Oil Company; Harry Bernard, a British tobacco merchant; and Frank Tan, a Chinese-American businessman. Formed at first to look after Allied business property in Vietnam, the GBT group soon expanded

9George Devereux, "A Program for Guerrilla Warfare in French Indochina," April 1943, in Miles Papers.

'oGen. Clair Chennault, memorandum for Miles, Aug. 3, 1943, Miles Papers. "Author's interview with Professor Weston La Barre, a former member of Devereux group,

Jan. 9, 1973, Durham, N.C. La Barre expressed the opinion that the operation "might very well have succeeded" had it been put into effect.




into espionage. From an outpost at Lungchow near the Chinese-Viet- namese border, the GBT group directed a network of couriers and clandestine radio transmitters throughout Vietnam, which provided "consistently outstanding intelligence on transportation, industry, shipping and airfields." As time passed the GBT group built up strong contacts within the colonial government agencies and armed forces in Vietnam and encouraged the formation of an anti-Japanese underground among the French colonials.'2

Originally sponsored by the director of intelligence of the Chinese Military Operations Board, Admiral Yang Hsuan Chen, with funds and equipment supplied by the British, the GBT group, as the value of its work came to be appreciated, received increasing support from the Fourteenth Air Force. By late 1944, the Fourteenth Air Force was supplying most of its operating funds as well as more modern and more powerful transmitters for its radio net in Vietnam.'3

Although the Fourteenth Air Force's support of the GBT group was primarily for the purpose of obtaining military intelligence, the relationship nevertheless brought the United States into collaboration with a colonial power. Strong anti-colonialists such as Major General Patrick J. Hurley, who was appointed ambassador to China in De- cember 1944, were suspicious of all British and French clandestine activities in Southeast Asia, viewing them as part of an effort to reestablish their prewar empires. "I indicated to Hurley that I had given you permission to issue some equipment to certain forces in In- dochina as requested by Colonel Gordon," wrote General Albert C. Wedemeyer, Commander of United States Forces in the China The- ater and Chief of Staff to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, in late 1944. "He was not pleased by the action, although I mentioned the intelligence contribution which you desire very much and which caused me to approve the request.... However, General Hurley had had increasing evidence that the British, French, and Dutch are work- ing ... for the attainment of imperialistic policies and he felt we

12Charles Fenn, Ho Chi Minh (London, 1973), 75-76; Gen. Albert Wedemeyer's Data Book, section 20, in U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.; "Organiza- tional Report of 5329th Air Ground Forces Resources Technical Staff, August-September 1944," pp. 13-15, in Fourteenth Air Force Records, Albert F. Simpson Historical Center, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

'31bid.




should do nothing to assist them in their endeavors which run counter to U.S. policy."'4

Hurley's position faithfully reflected President Roosevelt's own views as expressed again in December 1944, when the British government protested that "it would be difficult to deny French participation in the liberation of Indochina." Roosevelt responded by instructing Secretary of State Edward Stettinius that "I still do not want to get mixed up in any Indochina decision. It is a matter for post-war.... I do not want to get mixed up in any military effort toward the liberation of Indochina."'5 Air force and other American units in China nevertheless continued to cooperate to a limited extent with the French inside Indochina in order to obtain intelligence and to aid in the rescue of downed pilots.'6 When Wedemeyer assumed command of the China Theater in October 1944, he found relations between the Free French in Kunming and the Fourteenth Air Force to be "very cooperative and friendly." He believed that "an arrangement had been made" between the two without the cognizance of his predecessor, Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell.'7

Despite the concern occasionally voiced by Ambassador Hurley and others, American clandestine contacts and activities in regard to Indo- china before the spring of 1945 were actually of small significance. They had little or no effect on the internal situation in Indochina or on the policy of the Allied governments. Their importance lay in the fact that through them American commanders in the China Theater became dependent upon intelligence from Indochina. In the same way that an urgent desire for intelligence had prompted some commanders to cooperate with the British and the French colonials, so they would later deal with forces hostile to French colonialism once the Japanese forcibly repressed the French colonial regime in Vietnam.

With the liberation of France in 1944 and American victories in the

'4Wedemeyer to Chennault, Dec. 27, 1944, Wedemeyer files, Record Group 332, National Archives (hereafter cited as RG, NA).

IsRoosevelt to Stettinius, Jan. 1, 1945, in U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945. Vol. VI: The British Commonwealth and Far East (Washington, D.C., 1945), 293.

16In late January 1945, a group described as "the Free French under-ground" provided the Navy and the Fourteenth Air Force with "pinpoint targets in the Saigon area." See records of G-2, Fourteenth Air Force Indochina file, RG 332, NA.

'7Author's interview with Wedemeyer, Feb. 2, 1972, Washington, D.C.




Pacific, the French in Indochina underwent a dramatic change of attitude toward the Japanese occupation. Old feuds between Vichyites and Gaullists were put aside, and attempts were made to establish contact with the new French government of General Charles de Gaulle in Paris.'8 In the army and the colonial administration preparations were made to organize an underground resistance movement similar to the Maquis in metropolitan France.

From Admiral Louis Mountbatten's Southeast Asia Command Headquarters in Ceylon, specially trained French officers and agents were parachuted into Indochina along with arms, communications equipment, and demolition gear. Resistance leaders were brought out for discussions, and a wireless network of eleven stations was established throughout the country.'9 French leaders told the OSS that following an uprising they hoped to hold parts of northern Vietnam for three or four months with help from Allied airpower.20

These French plans and preparations were a poorly kept secret. Japanese intelligence was well aware of the local preparations for resistance and moved energetically to counter them.21 Mountbatten and his political advisor, Esler Denning, cautioned the De Gaulle government to go slow on encouraging any premature action in Indochina, but to no avail.22 As early as September 1944, a State Department expert on Southeast Asia advised President Roosevelt in a draft memorandum: "It is thought the Japanese may shortly disarm the French and take over the country."23 Around the same time, the Office of War Information's air liaison representative in Chungking, William Powell, reported that "all of us out here anticipate quite an upheaval in Indochina."24

's"Conditions in French Indochina," Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis (OSS, R and A) Unit Kunming, Rpt. 0016, Oct. 15, 1944, copy in G-2 files, RG 319, NA.

19Unsigned memoranda, "Force 136, Future Plans," Nov. 16, 1944, and "Force 136, Future Plans for French Indochina," Dec. 28, 1944, both in W0203/4331, Public Record Office, London; U.S. Military Attach6, Paris, to Military Intelligence Div., Rpt. R3-45, subject: "In- dochina Question," April 11, 1945, G-2 Intelligence Document (ID) files, RG 319, NA.

200SS Rpt. YH/KM-1, subject: "Conditions in Northern Tonkin," Nov. 15, 1944, G-2 ID files, RG 319, NA.

21Lt. Col. Sakai Tateki, "French Indo-China Operations Record," Japanese monograph no. 25, p. 22, in U.S. Army Center of Military History.

22Political advisor, Southeast Asia Command (SEAC), to Foreign Office, Jan. 24, 1946, W0203/5561A, Public Record Office.

23Chief Southwest Pacific Division, "Draft Memo for the President," Sept. 8, 1944, RG 59, NA.

24William Powell to Clarence Gauss, Sept. 6, 1944, enclosures to Gauss to Secretary of State, Sept. 9, 1944, file 851G.00/0944, RG 59, NA.




As the possibility of a Japanese takeover increased, French officials in Kunming "made strenuous efforts to determine the possible lines of action the United States might take."25 On February 2, 1945, the French military attache in Chungking approached Wedemeyer in a state of anxiety over the possibility of such a Japanese move. Should it occur, the attache believed that the French forces would retreat to the mountains, there to carry on guerrilla warfare against Japanese. The attache asked whether, under those circumstances, the United States would be prepared to provide assistance.

Wedemeyer was non-committal, merely indicating that the matter was one for decision at a higher level. Aware that the question of American cooperation with the French in Indochina was delicate and that the President held strong views on the subject, Wedemeyer cabled Washington for guidance; but the state and war departments responded that they could "only reiterate the President's policy" of non- involvement in Indochina matters.26

The President's position had nevertheless already begun to undergo some change. At a conference of Allied and Russian chiefs of state at Yalta in February 1945, he told the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff that he was "in favor of anything that is against the Japanese in Indochina provided that we do not align ourselves with the French.'27 Accord- ingly, the acting chief of staff of the China Theater, Brigadier General Melvin E. Gross, instructed subordinate commanders on February 20 that "appropriate and feasible help," such as furnishing medical supplies, might be rendered to Free French guerrillas who made their way to the Chinese border. The matter of the guerrillas entering China, however, "should be settled directly between the Chinese and the French."28 On March 7, China Theater headquarters further cautioned commanders that "any help or aid given to the French by us shall be in such a way that it cannot possibly be construed as further- ing the political aims of the French.... The governing factor is that the action be in furtherance of our military objectives and not a matter

25"History of U.S. Forces in the China Theater," unpublished manuscript, vol. I, chap. 5, p. 24, Center of Military History.

26Memorandum by Gen. Gross, Feb. 20, 1945, FIC book II, Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA. 27U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign Relations, 1945. Vol. VI: British Commonwealth and Far

East, 297. 28"History of U.S. Forces in the China Theater," vol. I, chap. 5, p. 30.




of convenience to the French or to any other nation."29 Two days later the Japanese struck.

At eight o'clock on the evening of March 9, the Japanese ambassador to French Indochina presented Governor-General Admiral Jean Decoux with an ultimatum demanding that direct control of the government, police, and armed forces of the colony be turned over to the Japanese. Two hours later Japanese forces moved against French forts and garrisons all over Indochina. Most were quickly disarmed, but a few offered fierce, although brief, resistance, and a sizable body of troops stationed in the north fell back into the mountainous jungle areas of western Tonkin and Laos, the start of a fighting retreat across the Chinese border.30

The first news of the Japanese coup received by Americans in the China Theater was a radio message from the French garrison at Langson in northeastern Vietnam, transmitted about midnight on the ninth of March. The message reported a heavy Japanese attack on the garrison and speculated that an overall attack on all French units in Indochina was probably underway. The defenders requested Ameri- can air strikes on designated targets in their area.

The commander of the Fourteenth Air Force, General Clair Chen- nault, requested permission to provide the air assistance which the French had asked for and "to co-operate directly with the French authorities in Kunming" to conduct attacks in Indochina generally. A few hours later the theater headquarters, apparently on the authority of Major General Robert McClure, acting commander in the absence of General Wedemeyer who was in Washington to confer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replied: "Go ahead. Co-operate completely with the French. You can use Poseh airfield. Give them hell." The message added that the authorization "pertains entirely to the present emer- gency."3'

At the same time that McClure was giving approval, Wedemeyer in Washington was receiving contradictory instructions from Roosevelt. Wanting "to discontinue colonization (colonialism) in the Southeast Asia area," the President told Wedemeyer in a private conference that he was "determined that there would be no military assistance to the

29Chennault to Gross, March 7, 1945, Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA. 30Sakai, "French Indochina Operations Record," 24-29. 31Gross to Chennault, DFB 34041, March 10, 1945, Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA.




French in Indochina."32 When Wedemeyer learned later of McClure's authorization permitting Chennault to aid the French, he doubted that he would have granted such sweeping authority in similar circumstances.33 Yet the authority had already been given, and it set in motion a chain of events which resulted in the active involvement of American forces in Indochina until the Japanese surrender.

While American planes were preparing to aid the French, Chen- nault persuaded the Chinese head of state, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, to allow French troops fleeing the Japanese to take refuge in China. Chinese authorities further agreed that "if stiff resistance is put up by the French against the Japanese, military assistance may be rendered.'"34

Authority to operate in support of the French at first applied only to the Fourteenth Air Force, but on March 11, an event occurred which officials of the OSS, who had wanted for some time to operate in Indo- china, saw as an opening for them. A group of about a thousand Viet- namese colonial troops with twenty French officers, slowly fighting their way toward the Chinese border, appealed for American air support. The commander of the force was a colonel who had been operating an underground radio station, which had provided valuable information to the Fourteenth Air Force. OSS officials saw "an excel- lent opportunity to organize this group into an effective guerrilla force and thereby maintain a fruitful source of information." When the OSS proposed to drop arms, equipment, and guerrilla training teams in Vietnam, McClure and Chennault resolved to seek "a clear-cut statement" form Washington in hope of increasing support to the French.35

At about the same time their request arrived in Washington, the French ambassador, Henri Bonnet, called upon the Secretary of State and requested "all possible support" in Indochina. Apparently unaware that the Fourteenth Air Force was already flying tactical air support missions for the French, Bonnet asked for "immediate tactical and material assistance in every field: direct support of operations and

32Author's interview with Wedemeyer. 331bid. 34Minutes of meeting of National Military Council, March 10, 1945, enclosure to Gen.

Hsu Yung to Gross, March 16, 1945, Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA. 35Chennault to Gen. George Marshall for Gen. John Hull, March 13, 1945, FIC book II,

Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA.




the parachuting of arms, medical supplies, quinine and food."36 The following evening in Paris, De Gaulle expressed concern to the Amer- ican ambassador, Jefferson Caffery, about reports that the Americans and British had failed to come to the aid of the French in Vietnam.7

Bonnet's and De Gaulle's remarks and Chennault's request were before Secretary of State Stettinius on March 16, when in a memorandum for the president, he discussed the question of American aid for Indochina. On the assumption that the French were attempting to make the United States "appear responsible for the weakness of their resistance to the Japanese," Stettinius suggested that "we combat this trend by making public our desire to render such assistance as may be warranted by the circumstances ... ."38

Although the president sanctioned no public statement, he gave his consent to continued support for the French. On the evening of March 18, the U.S. Army's deputy chief of staff, Major General Thomas C. Handy, telephoned Wedemeyer's home just outside Washington to report that the president's personal chief of staff, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, had told him: "it was alright to help the Frogs, providing such help does not interfere with our operations."39

In Wedemeyer's absence, his chief of staff, Brigadier General Paul Carraway took Handy's call. After trying unsuccessfully through much of the night to get in touch with Wedemeyer, who was visiting friends in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, Carraway drafted and sent an urgent, priority message to Chennault: "The U.S. Government's present attitude is to aid the French providing such assistance does not interfere with operations now planned.... Operations against the Japanese to aid the French may be under-taken by the Fourteenth Air Force. "40

Although the United States was at that point definitely committed to aiding the French in Indochina, the French government continued to express dissatisfaction about the kind and extent of American support. On March 24, De Gaulle told Ambassador Caffery that no sup-

36U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign Relations, 1945. Vol. VI: British Commonwealth and the Far East, 290-299.

37Jefferson Caffery to Secretary of State, March 13, 1945, in ibid., 300. 38Edward Stettinius, memorandum for the President, March 16, 1945, in U.S.-Vietnam

Relations (Washington D.C., 1971), VII, 66. 39Memorandum from Brig. Gen. Paul Carraway to Wedemeyer, March 19, 1945,

Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA. 4'Ibid., March 20, 1945.




plies had been dropped to the French. He could only assume, he said, that the American government, "as a matter of policy, does not want to help the French."41

De Gaulle's complaint was partially justified, for few supplies had been provided the French, only small amounts of blankets and medicines. The problem was an extreme scarcity of all types of supplies in the China Theater, which had to obtain almost all supplies by means of hazardous flights over the "hump" of the Himalaya Mountains. Yet the Fourteenth Air Force had been helping the French, having flown between March 12 and 28 a total of thirty-four missions over Indo- china, involving ninety-eight sorties, of which forty-three were bombing missions, twenty-four offensive reconnaissance, and thirty-one regular reconnaissance. Twenty-eight of the sorties were in response to direct requests by the French. There might have been more, Chen- nault reported, except for "bad weather, non-availability of surplus equipment, and the fluidity of the situation."42

Chenault's effort compared favorably with that of Mountbatten who was also attempting to fly missions in support of the French from bases in eastern India. But hampered by bad weather and the larger distances involved, only about one-third of the SEAC sorties were suc- cessful. Chenault complained that Mountbatten failed to coordinate his operations with the China Theater and sometimes dropped supplies in areas from which the French had already withdrawn.43 De Gaulle's government offered to man and maintain two squadrons of Liberator bombers, but the British Air Ministry pointed out that no aircraft were available and that even French air units in the European Theater were still short of crews.44

Concerned over French complaints nevertheless, the head of the State Department's European Division, H. Freeman Mathews, suggested informally to the War Department that "even a token drop of supplies would assist in refuting the allegations and accusations" that the United States had no wish to help the French. The War Depart-

41Caffery to Secretary of State, March 24, 1945, in U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign Relations, 1945. Vol. VI: British Commonwealth and Far East, 302.

42Chennault to War Dept., April 14, 1945, Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA. 43Supreme Allied Commander, Southeast Asia (SACSEA) to Air Ministry, March 21,

1945, W0203/2965, Joint Staff Mission (JSM) to Air Member for Supply and Organization (AMSO), April 4, 1940, F2005G, F0371, both in Public Record Office.

441bid.; Air Ministry to SACSEA, April 5, 1945, Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA.




ment, in response, instructed Wedemeyer, who had returned to China, to honor French requests for supplies "providing they represent only a negligible diversion from Theater's planned operations and entail no additional commitments."

Wedemeyer, who was hard put to supply his own forces, was still in no position to supply much material, particularly such scarce items as gasoline, which the French specifically requested. Although a limited amount of supplies were dropped to the French during April, Wedemeyer was still obliged to turn down most requests except for medicines.45 Unaware of the War Department's instructions to Wedemeyer, the French were quick to attribute the failure to provide supplies to a deliberate policy of the American government.

The view that the United States deliberately limited and delayed its help to the French during the Japanese takeover thus was incorrect.46 Yet the belief that the United States, for reasons of political calcula- tion, deliberately withheld support while Frenchmen died at the hands of the Japanese in the spring of 1945 came to be accepted by most Frenchmen and some Americans. The memory of America's sup- posedly tardy and callous response to the Japanese coup endured to poison later Franco-American efforts at cooperation in Indochina. However serious that disagreement, it was destined to be only the first of a series of events during 1945 which served to complicate and em- bitter Franco-American relations concerning Indochina.

Another even more disturbing disagreement soon arose over Ameri- can relations with the Viet Minh. In a cave near the village of Pac Bo in a remote part of northeastern Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh had convened the eighth meeting of the Central Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party in May 1941. The meeting produced a decision to found a new anti-colonial coalition, the Vietnamese Independence League (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi) or Viet Minh, designed to appeal to all opponents of the French and Japanese.47 The

45Hull to Wedemeyer, April 7, 1945, and Wedemeyer to Gen. Gabriel Sabattier, April 21, 1945, Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA.

46A typically distorted version is in Bernard Fall, The Two Vietnams. Fall states that the American posture toward Indochina ".. . meant an automatic death sentence for any French attempt at organized resistance in case of Japanese attack"; see 55-57.

47Editor, author, and translator unknown. Days With Ho Chi Minh (Hanoi, 1965), 191- 193; Alexander Woodside, Community and Revolution in Vietnam (Boston, 1976), 218-219; McAlister, Vietnam, 112-113; William J. Duiker, The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam (Ithaca, 1976), 274-275.




Viet Minh began an ambitious program of propaganda and recruit- ment among peasants in the nearby provinces and among the Tho, the mountain tribesmen who were least hostile to the Vietnamese.

Remnants of rebel bands which had fought the French in uprisings in 1940 were incorporated into the Viet Minh and formed the basis for the first guerrilla units. During 1943 and 1944, those units occasionally skirmished with elements of the French colonial militia, while developing their strength through a network of training and supply bases in the mountainous regions near the Chinese border.48

Ho also sought assistance from China, and he attempted to organize groups of Vietnamese exiles living in southern China into supporters of the Viet Minh. Chinese warlords who controlled Kwangsi and Yun- nan provinces had their own plans for Vietnam, however. On a visit to China in August 1942, Ho was arrested and spent over a year in a Chinese prison. Meanwhile the Chinese organized their own Viet- namese independence movement among the remnants of the old anti- French nationalist groups. Known as the Dong Minh Hoi, the Chi- nese-backed organization lacked able leadership or any real following, and it faced stiff opposition from the Viet Minh.49

In September 1943, a Chinese warlord general controlling the region adjacent to the Vietnamese border, Chang Fa Kwei, decided to try a different approach. He arranged for Ho to be released from prison and made head of the Dong Minh Hoi, with a subsidy of 100,000 Chinese dollars per month. Although Ho ostensibly made the Viet Minh a part of the Dong Minh Hoi, they in fact soon controlled it. Utilizing the Chinese subsidy and gaining the cooperation of Tho mountain tribesmen, the Viet Minh established an impressive underground network throughout northern Tonkin.

When the Japanese takeover in March 1945 eliminated most pre- viously established sources of information inside Vietnam, Americans in southern China began to take a serious interest in the Viet Minh. The whole intelligence network, which had been carefully built upon sources within the French administration and the military, was at that point inoperable. As the director of the OSS detachment in China, Colonel Paul E. Helliwell, noted at the end of March: "The GBT Group is knocked out, the French system has been destroyed, and

48McAlister, Vietnam, 110-112, 140-143. 491bid., 134-140; King C. Chen, Vietnam and China (Princeton, 1969), 56-71.




General Tai Li's setup has been knocked out lock, stock, and bar- rel."50 The Viet Minh appeared to be the one organization in Viet- nam still able to supply information and help in the rescue of Allied pilots.

In March 1945 officers of the U.S. Air Ground Aid Service con- tacted Ho Chi Minh in Kunming and agreed to supply him with communications equipment, medical supplies, and small arms in return for intelligence and assistance in rescuing Allied pilots.s5 During the next few months the Air Ground Aid Service supplied Ho's forces with rations, small arms, and medicines by air-drop, while a radio operator was stationed with the Viet Minh to transmit intelligence to the China Theater.

That cooperation with the Viet Minh was, in fact, the only remain- ing means of obtaining intelligence, as demonstrated by the experience of the Office of Strategic Services.

The OSS organization in China, known as the Special Intelligence Branch, or Detachment 202, had been at work for some time on a project to penetrate Indochina. The projected goals were first to obtain intelligence on the transportation system and on the Japanese order of battle and second to obtain political information on "internal movements in regard to Chinese, French, and British policies." The OSS expected to receive cooperation from French officials and colonial troops along the China-Indochina border and from "numerous revo- lutionary groups which have been used successfully in the past." These groups were expected to provide the OSS with both practical aid and a means of "obtaining a clear picture of French Indochina Politics."52

Although Detachment 202 on March 1, 1945, forwarded a plan for penetrating Indochina to OSS headquarters in Washington, two days later the G-5 section of the China Theater staff instructed the detachment to hold the plan in abeyance pending a final decision on extend-

soPaul Helliwell to Strategic Services Officer, China Theater, March 29, 1945, Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA.

S'Fenn, Ho Chi Minh, 74-83. Fenn recalls (p. 78) that "We asked GHQ Chungking [China Theater] for clearance, in view of Ho's reputed communist background. The instructions came back to 'get that net regardless.' " See also, Lloyd Shearer, "When Ho Chi Minh was an Intelligence Agent for the U.S.," Parade, March 18, 1973, p. 8.

52Col. Willis H. Bird (Dept. Chief OSS) to Gross, April 9, 1945, FIC book II, Wedemeyer files, China Theater Records, RG 332, NA.




ing operations into Indochina. Six days later came the Japanese coup. The Japanese takeover and the resultant reduction in the flow of intelligence, together with the increased demand for measures to aid the French, led to a revival of interest in the possibility of OSS operations in Indochina. On March 18, Wedemeyer's chief of staff Carraway, then in Washington, met with OSS officials including the director, General William J. Donovan, to discuss the project. While plans were proceeding in Washington, General Melvin Gross, acting chief of staff in China, had decided to proceed with clandestine operations forth- with, and on March 20, he issued two new directives to the OSS. The first directive provided for establishing an intelligence network in In- dochina as proposed by Detachment 202 in February. The second directive authorized the OSS to render military aid "in the form of supplies and/or U.S. controlled military personnel to any and all groups opposing the Japanese forces."

The directive provided that all resistance groups were to be treated impartially "irrespective of any particular governmental or political affiliations. The criteria will be that the resistance to the Japanese accrues to the advantage of United States and China military operations."53 Groups would receive aid not because of their resistance to, or sympathy for, French colonialism but solely on the basis of their performance in combat or their usefulness as sources of information.

The first OSS team to enter Indochina parachuted into Vietnam soon after the Japanese coup to join a retreating French column under Generals Marcel Alessandri and Gabriel Sabbattier. After a grueling retreat lasting almost two months, the column entered Kunmig in southern China in May, where OSS representatives met with Ales- sandri and worked out an agreement to conduct joint intelligence missions into Indochina. In early June, twenty-five French officers and about one hundred Vietnam colonial troops from Alessandri's force were assigned to OSS for joint operations in northern Vietnam. The OSS was to equip, transport, and supply the teams.54 They were to

53Memorandum from Acting Chief of Staff to OSS, China Theater, March 20, 1945, "In- telligence Activities and Aid to Resistance Groups in French Indochina," Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA.

14Text of agreement, June 9, 1945, in FIC book II, Wedemeyer files, and message from Col. Paul Helliwell to Gross, June 23, 1945, K5053, China Theater Records, both in RG 332, NA; R. Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley, 1973), 328-329.




report in OSS code, while the OSS would keep the French informed through Sabattier.

The joint Franco-American operations carried out under that agreement were uniformly unsuccessful, primarily because the French found it almost impossible to operate in the countryside amidst a hostile Vietnamese population. In July 1945, for example, Vietnamese guides deliberately led a Franco-American force conducting a raid against Japanese positions at the town of Lang Son in northeastern Vietnam into an ambush set by the Viet Minh.55

The Americans found the Viet Minh well-organized, efficient, and extremely helpful for intelligence purposes, as exemplified by an operation known as the "Deer Mission" under Major Allison K. Thomas. Along with another American officer and five enlisted men, Thomas formed a team to operate with about one hundred French and Viet- namese colonial troops against the Hanoi-Lang Son railroad. While the force was training during June at Tsingsi in southern China, Chi- nese and Vietnamese agents advised Thomas that if he entered Viet- nam with the French, he would "find the whole population against him,... would be sniped at ... and would get no food as the natives hate the French."56 Thomas decided to parachute with only part of his team and a single French officer as an advance party to see if the reports were true.

On July 16, Thomas and his party parachuted into northern Tonkin near the city of Thai Nguyen, a little over fifty kilometers north of Hanoi. The Viet Minh welcomed them warmly, displaying a large sign reading: "Welcome to Our American Friends." Thomas had a long conference with Ho Chi Minh-whom Thomas called "Mr. Hoo" -who informed him that French troops would not be welcome.

Thomas remained with the Viet Minh for over two months, training them for operations against Japanese communications. He was joined at the end of July by an additional team of four men under Captain Charles M. Holland. Thomas discerned that the Viet Minh had "the sympathy of 85% of the people of Tonkin." He saw no evi-

s5Smith, OSS, 330. 56Memorandum from Major Allison K. Thomas to Chief Special Operations Branch (SO

Br.), OSS, China Theater (OSS/CT), "Report of Mission 'Deer,' " Sept. 17, 1945, in U.S. Senate, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations on Causes, Origins, and Lessons of the Vietnam War, 92 Cong., 2 sess., p. 255.




dence that the Viet Minh were communistic and thought that their "sole purpose was independence.""'

Limited and almost accidental, cooperation between the OSS and the Viet Minh was destined to become the subject of considerable controversy. Later Frenchmen sometimes angrily suggested that without American-supplied arms and ammunition, the Viet Minh would have been unable to seize control of so much of Vietnam after the Japanese surrender. Likewise American critics of U.S. policy in the 1960s sometimes suggested that the OSS contacts with the Viet Minh should have been exploited to ascertain the true state of political opinion in Vietnam and to provide firm bases for cooperation between the United States and future leaders of the country.

In reality, arms received from the Allies during the war accounted for only about twelve percent of the estimated 36,000 small arms in Viet Minh hands in March 1946 and only about five percent of the weapons available to them at the start of the war against the French in December 1946.58 In any case not all of the arms supplied to the Viet Minh came from the Americans, since French intelligence agents also "retained liaison with Viet Minh elements and supplied them with arms."59

As for intelligence, little of the information on the strength and intentions of the Viet Minh collected by the OSS ever reached the policy level in Washington. In July 1945, Under Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew complained that "the State Department lacks accurate information from OSS and the military on conditions in Indochina and as to the temper of the native peoples."60 Even Wedemeyer's headquarters received only brief reports on OSS operations in Indochina, and those were wholly tactical in nature.61 Yet a considerable amount of information about the Viet Minh was forwarded to Washington from American diplomats in southern China who had frequent contact with Vietnamese nationalists there. But that information had little discern- ible influence on American policy.62

57Ibid. "SMcAlister, Vietnam, 229-230. 59Sainteny, Histoire d'une Paix Manquee, 104-105; McAlister, Vietnam, 147-148. 60Joseph C. Grew to Director OSS, July 19, 1945, RG 59, NA. 61OSS Weekly Operations Report, July 6-14, 1945, China Theater Records, RG 332, NA. 62Ronald Spector, "What the Local Annamites Are Thinking; American Views of Viet-

namese in South China 1942-1945," Southeast Asia, III (1974), 741-752; Thorne, "Indo- china and Anglo-American Relations," 82-83.




The principal effect of the brief American collaboration with the Viet Minh during the last months of the war was probably psychological. It aroused annoyance and suspicion on the part of the French, and it enhanced the prestige of the Viet Minh, who could claim to be the associates and thus, by inference, the representatives of the vic- torious Americans.63 The period from the Japanese takeover in March 1945 witnessed a shift to more direct and active involvement by American forces in Indochina. Yet the basic American policy toward Indochina, particularly the question of the region's post-war fate, remained indefinite. This indecision, in turn, left U.S. Army and Army Air Force commanders on the scene without any firm sense of direction.

The need for a more definitive Indochina policy was appreciated by most leaders in Washington. There was a general feeling, at least in state and war department circles, that it was no longer a matter that could be postponed. Certain basic decisions would have to be made well before the end of the war. The State, War, and Navy Coordinat- ing Committee, on March 13, 1945, concluded that "failing to take action in this area with U.S. forces may lead to a situation where inaction by the United States has the practical effect of indicating lack of American interest in this area and giving greater influence to the British and the French.... ."64 The committee requested clarification of U.S. policy from the president, but before any action could be taken Roosevelt was dead.

On April 13, 1945, the day after Roosevelt's death, Under Secretary of the Army Robert A. Lovett told the State, War, and Navy Coordi- nating Committee it was essential that Roosevelt's prohibition on for- mulating a definite Indochina policy until "post-war" be reconsidered. The lack of a firm policy, he noted, was a "source of serious embar- rassment to the military." The head of the French military mission in Washington, Admiral Raymond Fenard, Lovett said, had taken advantage of the situation to submit questions to various agencies of the U.S. government, and "by obtaining negative or even non-committal

63Fenn relates that Ho used an autographed picture presented to him by Chennault for rescuing a Fourteenth Air Force pilot and six pistols given him by the Air Ground Aid Service to demonstrate to his rivals that he was the special representative of the American military. Fenn, Ho Chi Minh, 76.

64Minutes of the meeting, March 13, 1945, records of State, War and Navy Coordinating Committee, RG 165, NA.




answers," Fenard had been in effect writing American policy in Indo- china.65

The State Department's representative on the committee observed that its sub-committee on the Far East had been unable to agree upon a firm Indochina policy "due to a divergence of views.66 That divergence in the sub-committee reflected in microcosm the views of the entire State Department. Support for Roosevelt's anti-colonialist policy came mainly from a few Far Eastern specialists, such as John Car- ter Vincent, soon to be head of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs, and Abbott Low Moffatt, chief of a newly created Southwest Pacific Af- fairs Division (later the Southeast Asian Affairs Division). They were convinced of the need for the United States to come to terms with "the mounting groundswell of nationalism engulfing all Southeast Asia.67

Most other American officials were more concerned with the problem of relations with Europe, and they were anxious to avoid any policy that might tend to complicate the already strained relations with France. French cooperation would be needed, they pointed out, in helping check Soviet expansionism in Europe and in supporting the United Nations.68 A study prepared by the OSS warned against "schemes of international trusteeships which may provoke unrest and result in colonial disintegration and may at the same time alienate us from the European states whose help we need to balance Soviet power."''69 "There was virtually no sympathy, ouside of F.E. [the State Department's Far East Division]," recalled the Southeast Asia desk officer, Kenneth P. Landon, "for Roosevelt's Indochina policy."70

The coordinating committee's request for a policy statement thus touched off a debate in the State Department. After two weeks of discussion, the department adopted a compromise policy paper which recommended no U.S. opposition to the restoration of French sovereignty in Indochina; meanwhile, the United States was to seek as- surances of French intentions to establish self-government and local autonomy.7' While labeled a compromise, the recommendation was a

65Ibid., April 13, 1945. 66Ibid. 67Testimony of Abbott Low Moffatt, in Senate, Hearings on Vietnam War, 163. 68Herring, "Truman and Restoration of French Sovereignty," 100-101, 116. 69See ibid., 107, for reference to OSS Report, "Problems and Objectives of U.S. Policy,"

April 2, 1945. 70Author's interview with Kenneth P. Landon, Nov. 29, 1971, Washington, D.C. 71Draft memorandum for French government, April 30, 1945, file 851G.00/4-2845, RG 59,

NA; Moffett testimony, in Senate, Hearings on Vietnam War, 176-177.




long step away from Roosevelt's unwavering insistence on a trusteeship plan.

Over the next few months the United States moved ever further in the direction of granting the French a free hand. At the San Francisco Conference, which convened in April 1945 to discuss the post-war structure of the United Nations, the United States failed to raise the matter of a trusteeship for Indochina. Indeed, one member of the U.S. delegation, Harold Stassen, told fellow delegates that independence was "not as important as interdependence" and compared colonial empires to "the American federal system."72 In May 1945, Secretary of State Stettinius told French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault that "the record is entirely innocent of any official statement of the U.S. government questioning, even by implication, French sovereignty over Indochina."73

Meanwhile, the State, War, and Navy Coordinating Committee fi- nally reported agreement on a policy for Indochina. It was incorporated into a long report on "Politico-Military Problems in the Far East and Initial Post-Defeat Policy Relating to Japan," which the Sec- retary of State sent to President Harry S. Truman in June 1945. While conceding that "independence sentiment in the area is believed to be increasingly strong," the report declared that "the United States recognized French sovereignty over Indochina."74

President Roosevelt's death thus marked the end of any genuine American opposition at the governmental level to a French return to Indochina, but that fact was not yet apparent to American leaders in the Far East. Even as Indochina policy was being carefully reassessed in Washington, Wedemeyer was engaged in a heated dispute with Ad- miral Lord Mountbatten, head of the Southeast Asia Command, over theater boundaries in southeast Asia. They were at the root of the old Roosevelt policy.

Since the beginning of 1944, Mountbatten's command had conducted intelligence and para-military operations in Siam (Thailand) and Indochina in anticipation of the day when Allied military operations would be extended to those countries. The operations into Indo-

72U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945, Vol. I: General: The U.N. (Washington, D.C., 1967), 790.

731bid, Vol. VI: British Commonwealth and Far East, 307. 74Ibid., 557-568.




china were carried out in cooperation with officers of the French military mission at command headquarters. They were intended to establish contact with French leaders in Indochina loyal to De Gaulle and to lay the foundation for underground operations against the Jap- anese.75

Although Indochina lay within the boundaries of the China The- ater, Mountbatten felt justified in conducting those operations. Siam and Indochina were of direct importance to his planned future military operations and "with the passage of time ... become of ever increasing importance to the strategy of SEAC."76 In addition, Mountbatten considered that he had obtained Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's approval for the operations in Chungking in October 1943. He had achieved an informal "gentlemen's agreement" whereby Siam and Indochina would remain in the China Theater, but "as the war develops, [and] the scope of operations ... of the Southeast Asia the- atre ... may involve Thailand and Indochina,... the boundaries between the two theaters are to be decided ... in accordance with the progress of advances the respective forces make." 77 Mountbatten also claimed to have obtained approval, when Chiang visited India in November 1944, to carry out clandestine operations in Indochina.

Mountbatten could further claim to have Roosevelt's tacit approval for his actions. Only a few weeks after Roosevelt, in October 1944, had bluntly declared that "we should do nothing in regard to resistance groups ... in relation to Indochina," British Ambassador Lord Halifax told the President it was essential that "Mountbatten should be free, without delay, to get some parties of French into Indo- china to do sabotage." According to Halifax, the president said "that if we felt it was important that we had better tell Mountbatten to do it and ask no questions." Yet Roosevelt made it clear that "he did not want to appear to be committed to anything to prejudice a political decision. "78

75"Force 136: Future Plans for French Indochina," Dec. 28, 1944, W0203/4331, SEAC Records, Public Record Office.

76Political advisor, SEAC, to Foreign Office, Feb. 8, 1945, W0203/5561, SEAC Records. 77Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against

Japan, 1942-1945 (London, 1978), 301. 78AMSSO to Argonaut, Feb. 12, 1945, F986/1 1/G, F0371, Foreign Office Records, Public

Record Office.




Wedemeyer knew little or nothing of those informal understand- ings. He was concerned, however, about the fact that military operations, over which he had no control and about which he had little knowledge, were being conducted in his war theater. Wedemeyer told the British he was "diametrically opposed to [Mountbatten's] concep- tion of his 'gentlemen's agreement' with the Generalisimmo."79 More important Mountbatten appeared to be wasting airplanes and other scarce resources on peripheral and, to Wedemeyer, highly question- able, ventures in unconventional warfare. He felt those resources might be better employed in conventional operations in China or Burma.so0

Each side suspected the other of political motives. Wedemeyer and Ambassador Hurley believed that the British operations in Indochina were designed to aid the French to reestablish their hegemony. Mountbatten's chief political adviser complained that it was "mili- tarily indefensible that this command, which at present is alone in a position to organize effective clandestine operations in these areas, should be hampered ... by American obstruction which we know to be based on purely political considerations." 81

When the French refused to reveal details of their part in the operations, Wedemeyer closed Kunming airport to planes of the Southeast Asia Command flying in support of clandestine operations. The Brit- ish nevertheless continued to carry out operations from Jessore, near Calcutta in eastern India. On the night of January 23, 1945, fighters of the Fourteenth Air Force mistook three British bombers, on an intelligence mission into Indochina, for Japanese planes and shot them down. The Royal Air Force liaison officer with the Fourteenth Air Force had not been informed of the mission "owing to the political situation."82

Both Mountbatten and Wedemeyer appealed to their respective governments, whereupon President Roosevelt suggested to Prime Minister Churchill that "the best solution at present is for you and me

79Political advisor, SEAC, to Foreign Office, Feb. 10, 1945, W0203/5561, SEAC Records. 80Wedemeyer to SACSEA, May 19, 1945, W0203/5210, Public Record Office; Wedemeyer

to Marshall, June 5, 1945, file OPD 336ts, June 6, 1945, RG 165, NA. 8tlbid.; Political advisor to Foreign Office, Feb. 8, 1945, W0203/5561, "Extract from report

of Lt. Col. Carver," W0203/5210, both in SEAC Records. Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sunderland, Time Runs Out in CBI (Washington, D.C., 1959), 259-260.

82Unsigned note, "Note on Loss of Three Liberator Aircraft of No. 358 Squadron, Night of Jan 22/23 1945," W0203/4331, SEAC Records.




to agree that all Anglo-American Chinese military operations in Indochina regardless of their nature be coordinated by General Wedemeyer as Chief of Staff to the Generalissimo.""83 Meanwhile, late in March, Wedemeyer visited Mountbatten's headquarters at Kandy, Ceylon, and departed believing firmly that Mountbatten had agreed not to conduct further operations in Indochina unless approved in advance by the China Theater.84

Mountbatten, to the contrary, understood only that he had agreed to inform Wedemeyer about his operations, not to submit them for approval.8" Thus in May, when Mountbatten informed Wedemeyer that he intended to fly twenty-six sorties into Indochina, the way was open for further misunderstanding. Wedemeyer asked for more information and suggested that the equipment might be used to better advantage reequipping French forces which had retreated into China following the Japanese takeover. He also wanted to be sure that "equipment furnished guerrilla units will be employed against the Japanese." When Mountbatten responded with only general information, Wedemeyer pronounced it "incomplete" and asked for more details. After a further fruitless exchange of messages, Mountbatten announced that because of weather, he could delay no longer and that "the operations are now being carried out."86

Wedemeyer was furious. "It had never occurred to me," he wired Mountbatten, "that you would presume that you have authority to operate in an area contiguous to your own without cognizance and full authority of the commander of that area.... Your decision ... is a direct violation of the intent of our respective directives."87

Wedemeyer was being true to his charge from President Roosevelt to "watch carefully to prevent any British and French political activities in Indochina."88 Control of clandestine activities in Indochina might enable the British to influence political developments and align-

83Memorandum on Indochina by assistant to the President's Naval Aide, n.d., in U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945. Vol. I: Conference of Berlin, (Wash- ington, D.C., 1960), 918.

84Ibid. 85Ibid.; SACSEA to Chungking, April 8, 1945, W0203/5561, SEAC Records. 86Memorandum by Assistant to President's Naval Aide, in U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign

Relations, 1945. Vol. I: Conference of Berlin, 919. The exchange of messages is in W0203/ 5210, SEAC Records.

87Wedemeyer to Mountbatten, May 25, 1945, FIC book I, Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA. 88Ibid., May 28, 1945, FIC book II.




ments there. Wedemeyer was also concerned that French guerrillas might employ their arms not against the Japanese but against indige- nous forces opposing the Japanese.89 To Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, Wedemeyer noted that the British refusal to rec- ognize Indochina as being in the China Theater, the increased activities of the British in Indochina, and the large French military staff at headquarters of the Southeast Asia Command all pointed to the existence of "a British and French plan to reestablish their pre-war political and economic positions in Southeast Asia."90 Ambassador Hurley supported the general with an even stronger letter to Truman. The ambassador called attention to the British actions in Indochina and asserted that Mountbatten "is using American lend-lease supplies and other American resources to invade Indochina to defeat what we believe to be American policy, and to reestablish French imperial- ism."91

Washington's reply undoubtedly came as a surprise to Wedemeyer and Hurley. While declaring that "there has been no basic change in policy," the State Department pointed out that decisions reached at the conferences at Yalta and San Francisco "would preclude the estab- lishment of a trusteeship for Indochina except under the French government. The latter seems unlikely." The United States at that point, the message stated, "welcomes French participation in the Pacific war to the extent practical," and French offers of assistance should "be considered on their military merits." American forces in China were free to cooperate with French resistance groups in Indochina "provided such assistance does not interfere with requirements of other planned operations."92

In a similar message, Marshall informed Wedemeyer that "the State Department's [new] position eliminates the political necessity of curtailing Lord Mountbatten's operations in Indochina." Those operations should in the future "be judged strictly on their military merits and in relation to the stand of the Generalissimo.""93 So ended the last

89Memorandum by assistant to the President's Naval Aide, in U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign Relations, 1945. Vol. I: Conference of Berlin, 919.

9oWedemeyer to Marshall, May 28, 1945, OPD 336TS, June 6, 1945, RG 165, NA. g9Hurley to Harry S. Truman, May 28, 1945, in U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign Relations,

1945. Vol. I: Conference of Berlin, 920. 92Secretary of State to Hurley, June 7, 1945, copy in OPD336TS, RG 165, NA. 93Marshall to Wedemeyer, June 4, 1945, FIC book II, Wedemeyer files, RG 332, NA.




American attempts at the field command level to restrict French and British activities in Indochina.

When the heads of the Allied governments and the Soviet Union met at Potsdam in July 1945, the dispute between Mountbatten and Wedemeyer over theater boundaries was still fresh in the minds of the British and American chiefs of staff. The British chiefs of staff had decided that the only solution was to transfer the whole of Indochina to Mountbatten's Southeast Asia Command,94 but when they proposed that arrangement at Potsdam, the Joint Chiefs of Staff coun- tered with a suggestion that Indochina be divided between the two theaters. In the end it was agreed, despite Wedemeyer's objections, that Indochina south of the sixteenth parallel would be the responsibility of the Southeast Asia Command and north of the parallel the responsibility of the China Theater.

The true nature of the changes in American policy toward Indo- china during the spring of 1945 never became generally known in the China Theater. Wedemeyer, for example, saw Marshall's message as signifying no fundamental change in American policy, but as merely another concession to French pressure for a role in the Pacific war. In regard to Indochina he still considered himself bound by the instructions he had received from the president.95 Both Wedemeyer and Hurley continued trying to implement Roosevelt's policy long after Washington had abandoned it.

The need for a continuous flow of intelligence by both American and British commanders in the Far East together with a lack of timely, clear, and specific guidance from Washington thus combined to produce a situation whereby Americans in the field, acting in virtual ignorance of American intentions, often took actions which signifi- cantly affected policy. The ambiguity of U.S. policy itself was chiefly responsible. Commanders inclined to work with the British and French could easily find supporting policy pronouncements, while those commanders wanting to steer clear of identification with colonialist projects could also find ample justification in the President's ad hoc pronouncements.

While American commanders were aware that their actions could have political consequences, they usually justified their decisions on

94Thorne, Allies of a Kind, 627. 95Author's interview with Wedemeyer.




the bases of military necessities in prosecuting the war against Japan. To the Americans, it was always the British and French who seemed to be influenced by political motives.

Far from cold-bloodedly sacrificing French lives to American inter- ests, U.S. commanders in the field had from the first cooperated with the French in intelligence matters and moved quickly to aid them during the Japanese coup of March 1945. It was only after it became obvious that the French could no longer operate in Vietnam that the Americans turned reluctantly to the Viet Minh. This collaberation resulted neither in decisive advantages for the Viet Minh nor in unique opportunities for the United States. Yet coming at a time when Washington was attempting to move closer to France on international issues, it could not but complicate French-American relations and give false signals to the Viet Minh. Similarly Wedemeyer's well-inten- tioned attempt to carry out Roosevelt's directives on Indochina- which had already been superceded-led only to misunderstandings and suspicion on the part of the British.

While American generals in Vietnam later complained in the 1960s and 1970s that Washington unduly interfered in their conduct of operations, commanders such as Chennault and Wedemeyer might well have wished for a little more "interference" and direction from the nation's capital during World War II.



Documents

Allied Intelligence in Indo-China 1943-45