Chapter 1: The Fire of the Orient"If the total occupation of the Indochinese territory appears inevitable in the short term, I want every soldier, every officer, native or metropolitan, without any distinction, to follow me in the great project that I have secretly started to set up. Namely, the setting up of fallback bases in the hinterland from where, from these impregnable fortresses, we will make life impossible for the occupier.
General Salan's order of the day of December 27, 1941, nicknamed the "Paské Oath".General Salan was facing the unleashing of the Japanese offensive against French Indochina. Despite the reforms initiated by the Algiers government in favor of the "Indigènes," the French position was most precarious. Already, the Republic had been reduced to making Ho Chi Minh's Vietnamese communists partners in the allied coalition, while the reports that reached it announced a major revival of the activity of the non-communist nationalists of Prince Cuòng Dê's Phuc Quôc Hôi.
Attacked from occupied China (people were dying again at Lang Son) and assaulted from the sea in the Haifong and now Tourane regions by the Japanese, the colony also had to face the Thai offensive on its western flank, mainly in Cambodia. Its destiny already seemed to be mapped out, even for an officer as combative as Raoul Salan.
But Salan was already looking beyond a simple surrender of the colony's forces, not very confident in the Chinese support negotiated by Mandel. However, his project implied a temporary and honorary victory, but one that would have an important impact on one of the offensives underway against the French army in the East. General Salan shared his idea with Governor Auriol. The latter, well aware of the inevitability of defeat, was delighted with the audacity, courage and ambition of the officer's project and gave him his blessing while he himself was about to leave the colony for Singapore (itself already threatened by the offensive of this devil Yamashita) to put "out of reach of the Nipponese, the sovereignty of France!" as the General had so well said.
Salan was going to realize the improbable, to attack, and soon the impossible, to win...
Yamashita Tomoyuki did not really have time to enjoy the triumphant welcome that the Thais gave his troops as soon as they landed in ancient Siam. Already, a few kilometers to the south, the army of Phibun, the Thai prime minister, was struggling to contain the British offensive, which had been launched after the announcement of Pearl Harbor.
His men, mostly veterans of China, were extremely confident. They were going to crush these decadent Westerners with their tanks...
Yamashita, on the other hand, had kept his head. He planned a lightning offensive to take the British crown colony, because of the extreme complexity of supply in the jungle. His offensive was based on the intelligent use of his armor and his fast and light forces.
The British command, beginning with Lord Gort himself, had made a quick and fatal mistake. They thought it foolish what the French had done in sending their precious M3 tanks to Indochina, considering the use of tanks in the Asian jungle impossible.
As the late Pétain of the Ardennes thought...
Their morale was shaken by the destruction of the Z Force, and it definitely collapsed when they had to face the combined action of the firepower of the tanks (although they were more like tankettes) and the mobility of the Japanese infantry. The different defense lines of Her Gracious Majesty's soldiers were bypassed by the jungle (Kuala Lumpur fell on January 19th), as well as by the sea, dominated by the Japanese Imperial Navy. All this ended up turning the implausible, the unthinkable, into fact.
The Japanese were at the gates of Singapore on February 7, 1942!
The sending of large reinforcements from all over the Empire (Indians, Rhodesians etc...), the mobilization of Australia, all this had only served to clog up the Japanese prison camps...
It was an army on its knees that was preparing to defend Singapore, whose defenses were powerful on the sea side, but non-existent on the land side...
But a shadow was watching Yamashita and was about to strike a blow that she hoped would be fatal.
Meanwhile, in Resistance China, American General Stilwell was appointed Chief of Staff to Marshal Chank Kai-shek following the agreement of the Chinese government. Stillwell was until then American military attaché to the Republic of China. To think that the American general and the Chinese "prime minister" hate each other and can only work together through the latter's wife, Soong Mei-ling. Indeed, the American wanted an equitable distribution of American aid between Chiang's government and Mao's communists. Worse, he wanted to place the Chinese army under U.S. command... All of this was sprinkled with a detestable character, which made him universally hated... He was given the unflattering sobriquet of Vinegar Joe ("Joe the Vinegar").
Concerning the Philippines, attacked in spite of the semi-independence of the archipelago from the United States (the total independence being planned for 1942), the Japanese assault was commanded by General Honma Masaharu at the head of the XIVth Japanese Army, 43,000 men strong. They faced 100,000 Allied soldiers (although in reality, only 20,000 were really in fighting condition because the Allies lacked equipment...) led by the formidable Douglas McArthur, an individual capable of the best as well as the worst and who left nobody indifferent... After exceptional efforts to increase the range of their aircraft, originally based in Formosa, the Japanese destroyed the American aircraft on the ground. Indeed, "Mac", who could have taken advantage of the chance offered by a storm over Formosa that grounded the enemy air force, to anticipate his assault by striking his own bases first, was convinced... to do nothing! Worse, while the Orange Plan for the defense of the archipelago foresaw a retreat to Bataan, McArthur, who had certainly foreseen that the main landing of the Nipponese would take place in the Lingayen Gulf, only launched Filipino divisions, worthy of a "Bourbaki army", which were quickly crushed.
Plan Orange was reactivated and Manila was declared an open city.
The final battle will take place in Bataan...
Meanwhile, another final battle, which will not be a final battle, takes a new turn.
The battle for Moscow...
Zhukov led a general counter-offensive against the German attackers since December 5 and 6. 450 000 Soviet troops supported by 1427 planes surprised 240 000 Germans supported by only 550 planes. This numerical superiority was due to the timely arrival of Siberian units that guarded the border with the Japanese Empire. This one being emptied of troops on the Japanese side, and the spy Richard Sorge having guaranteed that the Nipponese would not attack the USSR, unless it collapsed of course, Stalin could also expose his eastern flank without fear of a deadly backlash.
The Russian tactic, aiming to avoid the fortified points and on the contrary, to penetrate deeply into the German system to attack its communications and isolate it, was a success. The enemy is dropping out everywhere. A wind of panic in the face of the Russian surge blew over the Nazi generals. Should they hold on, or at least try to do so? Or should they withdraw to the Rjev-Kursk line, 100 km to the west? Von Bock, commanding the offensive, naturally turned to his Führer...
He himself was happy to see Japan attacking the United States, which would have to wage war on two fronts! Better still, in his mind, his U-Boats could now attack American trade with the Franco-British Allies...
Hitler then ordered to hold on at all costs! And he dismissed dozens of senior officers, including Guderian, who was now advocating retirement! At the same time, he sent reinforcements to the USSR by drawing on the reserve army in Germany itself, and by withdrawing units from the Balkans or from Western Europe. But their precipitous engagement only offered mixed results... The Luftwaffe, mobilized on too many fronts, could only send reinforcements to the USSR in dribs and drabs. The morale of the German people collapsed in the face of a war that was thought to be victorious and that turned out to be not only long, but also increasingly badly engaged.
Especially since the Soviets were not only attacking in the center. They attacked everywhere, distilling the fear of a general collapse of the German side. Rostov is already taken, the besiegers of Leningrad threatened to the right and, above all, the Soviets installing a bridgehead in Feodosia, in the Crimea! Only Manstein's maneuvering skills will save the German presence in the peninsula...
But the main threat is in the Center. The Germans certainly settled in hedgehog fashion (like the French on the Somme and the Aisne in June 1940) but like them, the defenders were quickly isolated by the points of the armored vehicles and even the formidable Russian cavalry. The Luftwaffe, which suffered heavy losses, seemed unable to stop the advance of the Soviet troops, who had advanced by almost 100 km. The collapse of the German front seems to be close...
Singapore is not the only thing that gives Churchill cold sweats. The shadow of the giant battleship Tirpitz loomed over England and particularly over the sea routes linking it to North America, the sacred path of Albion. Indeed, Hitler could, if he wanted to, transfer the monster from Norway to France, from where he could attack the convoys supplying Great Britain.
Churchill had a nose for it, for Hitler had predicted a forthcoming Allied landing in France (he had once envisaged such an action in Norway, but had changed his mind, aware that those "damned French" had to pressure their British and now American allies to make the landing happen in their country). Consequently, not only would the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau remain stationed in mainland France (instead of leaving for Norway as had been envisaged), but the Führer was thinking of sending the gigantic battleship to occupied France.
However, in all of Western Europe, only the Joubert form located in Saint-Nazaire was able to accommodate the beast.
The Prime Minister entrusted Lord Mountbatten (to whom he had entrusted the combined operations, the creation of weapons to crush Nazism forever and the preparation of the future return of the Allies to Europe) with the implementation of Operation Chariot/Char, the destruction of the dry dock.
And the British royal family member soon has an idea...
To face the Japanese invasion, the Allies decided to create a joint command, the ABFDA for American-British-French-Dutch-Australian under the direction of General Lord Gort. One of the objectives of the ABFDA was to defend Singapore and the Dutch East Indies against Japanese aggression. Although Indochina was also part of his command area, it already appeared to be doomed, due to its geographical isolation and the brutality of the Japanese action against it. In fact, in Indochina, battles were being fought in the streets of Hanoi and Hué, while everything seemed to show that the Japanese troops were going to land in Cochinchina.
It seemed that Salan's troops were destined to be crushed like the British in Malaya or the Americans in the Philippines, and all the more so following the debacle of the Chinese "relief army" of the warlord Long Yun, cacique of Yunnan, crushed by the Japanese in northern Tonkin, and quickly retreated to his own country, where the Nipponese had not pursued him.
But the French commander-in-chief did not hear it that way, as we have seen...
Having sensed the present situation, he had regrouped his elite divisions, composed in majority of "Metropolitans" (while the only indigenous people present were Khmers and Laotians of indisputable loyalty) and equipped by the material that the powerful America was already delivering to France in exile, northwest of Battambang, on the RC1, the main axis of progression of the Thai invaders, supported as they were by Japanese units.
Intoxicated by the "disappearance" of the French units that were facing them, the enemy advanced rapidly toward its very short term objective, Battambang, and in a less short term, Phnom Penh, almost forgetting all prudence...
"The enemy is walking right into my trap!" said the Frenchman.
Informed of the enemy's movements by the Khmer peasants, whose people massively support the French, galvanized as they are by the fiery calls for resistance against the invaders of King Sisowath Monireth, who succeeded his father King Sisowath Monivong in April. Sisowath Monireth, his father's natural heir, was elected "from an armchair" because he also had the support of the French authorities, who were happy to see this 1940 veteran, who fought bravely in the 2nd RIMa, obtain the crown during those perilous hours.
The young king appointed his brother, Sisowath Monipong, an Air Force veteran, to the newly created post of prime minister of the first "modern" government in the country's history. At the time of the Hué Accords, this no longer went against the policy of liberalization initiated by the Republic in the Empire in general and in Indochina in particular.
In the same spirit, Bao Dai, who had taken refuge in Singapore, met the former emperor of Annam, Duy Tan, now known as Vinh San. He had voluntarily joined the French Navy as a radio-telegrapher after the outbreak. Mandel decided that the Vietnamese prince would be more useful to the French cause with Bao Dai.
Bao Dai initially feared that he would be relieved of his imperial power in favor of Vinh San, who was now a strong supporter of France, but Vinh San explained that it was neither his intention, nor that of Algiers, to replace him. Vinh San offered to put himself at Bao Dai's service by taking over a "modern" government of the Vietnamese Empire, just as the Khmers had done. Bao Dai, who suspected that the French were behind this idea and who had feared being deposed, easily accepted. The two men would henceforth be the face of imperial Vietnam fighting alongside the Allies.
Already, the Thais and the Nipponese were crossing the Paské River, undefended at first sight by the French.
It was then that hell broke loose on them...
The French artillery, massed by Salan and carefully concealed, unleashed a terrible fire on the enemy troops having crossed the Cambodian river. Then it was the counter-attack led by the tanks of American origin M3, whose baptism of fire, closely supporting the infantry, which threw the enemy back into the river.
Despite the enemy rout, Salan ordered not to undertake any pursuit beyond the Paské. Indeed, he knew the opponent was far too strong and therefore he had another project for his forces because, for him, this victory served above all to show that we could fight against the Japanese...
Thus, Salan contented himself with making unusable the equipment abandoned by the Thais and the Japanese before dropping his forces. The agenda he transmitted to them was clear and will go down in history as the founding event of the Resistance.
“Soldiers!
You have today proved to the world that the Japanese enemy and his Thai servants, far from being invincible, could be defeated in a line fight.
The hated enemy, however, has means that are immensely superior to ours. The latter can, as it pleases, receive new forces where our military reinforcement capacities prove to be zero, because of the situation on the other fronts. However, it is indeed a message of hope that I am sending you now and a call not to lay down your arms!
If the total occupation of Indochinese territory appears inevitable in the short term, I want every soldier, every officer, Indigenous or Metropolitan, without distinction, to follow me in the great project that I have secretly begun to put in place. Namely, the establishment of fallback bases in the hinterland from where from these impregnable fortresses, we will lead the life impossible for the occupier.
Exhausted by the hell that we will put him through, the enemy will consume significant resources there, accelerating the future reconquest and the arrival of the relief armies! Because if the enemy triumphs today, the immeasurable capacities of American industry will one day bring him victory over the aggressor!
Brave soldiers, I make this oath to you. One day, the hour of our revenge will strike, and it is you who will be on the front line in this final battle!
To arms, citizens ! »
At the other end of the world, in the region still spared by the war in East Prussia, the Boches show all the barbarity of which they are capable. Indeed, knowing that the harsh climate of the province will be fatal to them, it is there that they decided to lock up the Tirailleurs of the French army taken prisoner, that is to say that they did not coldly execute … Léopold Sédar Senghor also lost his life in February 1942, in a Prussian Stalag.
But the Reich may be demonic, some German fighters show great humanity while not being part of the anti-Nazi resistance embodied by Rudolf Hilferding's Free Germany Committee, quite the contrary.
Thus, on February 9, 1942, the U-156, commanded by Werner Hartenstein, crossed the road to Normandy, converted into a troop transport following an agreement between Algiers and Washington and the torpedo. The liner had dropped off hundreds of American soldiers in Casablanca and, heading back to America, it had taken on board thousands of Italian prisoners, captured during the "Lightning Desert War" of 1940, which the Allies had decided to put out of reach of the Axis, in the United States. Hundreds of civilians wishing to reach the safety of the Western Hemisphere had also been embarked.
Hartenstein, realizing the presence of civilians and Italian prisoners on board the dying ship, took the risk of sending an unencrypted SOS proposing a truce, all in English and French. The German officer announces his intention to drop off the lifeboats taken in tow at Ponta Delgada, capital of the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago that is therefore neutral.
Quickly, other U-Boats arrive on the spot on the orders of Admiral Donitz and support the survivors.
The Allies are obviously not left out. Their ships in the Atlantic picked up the message and relayed it to their respective admiralties. Mandel is stunned by the situation. While until then the Germans had trampled on France, now a Third Reich submarine commander takes considerable risks to save the survivors of a French ship (many of whom are Jews by the way)!
Darlan, Minister of the Navy, offers to send destroyers as "scouts" on the spot. Indeed, they are very fast ships and, if ever the German lays a trap, it will be sunk with their depth charges.
3 destroyers/destroyers (2 French, 1 British (Churchill was less suspicious than the French as to the intentions of the Germans and quickly agreed)) which were escorting a convoy a day's sailing away were detached from their task and sent to square.
A patrolling French task force will remain at a good distance and on the lookout but ready to help the survivors if the Germans have not lied.
In case Hartenstein betrays his word, the Allies send only a sibylline “Truce accepted. Help is on the way. in clear text and in German.
However, once there, the Allies discover U-Boats in full rescue mission and whose deck is covered by huge Red Crosses.
Meanwhile, to everyone's amazement, a message signed by Admiral Donitz seemed to confirm the truce!
The captains of the destroyers/destroyers inform their commands of the situation and quickly receive the order to deal with the survivors.
A few hours later, the French operational force (composed in particular of Gloire) arrives on the scene and collects the rest of the castaways.
This unprecedented truce therefore made it possible to save most of the survivors of the Normandy who were taken care of in the Azores before resuming, a few weeks later, the road to America.
However, this truce will remain unique due to the hardening of the war at sea and the increasingly massive use by the Allies of the convoy system.
The U-156 will be sunk, like so many other U-Boots, in May 1943 but Werner Hartenstein and his crew will survive the sinking and end up captured by the Allies.
Moreover, this same Darlan decided to send a large submarine fleet from the ranks of the Royal in the Pacific, to harass the Japanese communication channels. Because indeed, apart from the crucial mission consisting in maintaining links with the metropolitan resistance and the attack on the German convoys ensuring the shuttle between the Reich and occupied Norway, the French submersibles are only little used, in spite of the manifest courage and crews' will to fight.
Moreover, one of them will enter the pantheon of the glories of the French navy through the front door, having won his place alongside Jean Bart, Surcouf, de Grasse and Courbet.
Douglas Mc Arthur in Corregidor (Source: Wikipedia)
