The German Army entered Vienna citing "acts of provocation"
and united Austria and Germany, imprisoning Austrian Chancellor Shuschnigg.
Germany occupied Czechoslovakia citing "violent persecutions"
against the German minority in Bohemia in the Sudentenland.
Germany attacks Poland over the Danzig Corridor to start
World War II. France and Britian (and other nations) declare war on Germany
and her Axis partner Italy. USA remains its neutrality.
Japan forces occupy Vietnam, restricting local French
administrators to figurehead authority.
The communists organize the Viet Minh (Viet Nam Doc Lap
Dong Minh, or "League for the Independence of Vietnam") to launch
an uprising at the war's end.
Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, French Premier, suspends
the French constitution and establishes a fascistic government at Vichy
in collaboration with Nazi Germany.
Communist activist Ho Chi Minh secretly returns to Vietnam
after 30 years in exile and organizes a nationalist organization known
as the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh).
Japanese troops occupy Vietnam. The Vichy French colonial
government is allowed by the Japanese to continue to administer Vietnam.
French repression continues.
The Viet Minh resist Japanese occupation with the help
of the United States and China. The Chinese Nationalists set up the Vietnam
Revolutionary League (Dong Minh Hoi) as an anti-communist movement. The
Chinese Nationalists initially imprison Ho Chi Minh as a communist, but
he convinces them he is a Nationalist first and fighting teh Japanese
is a comon cause. Ho is set free and given command of the Dong Minh Hoi.
Ho returns to Vietnam and rejoins the Viet Minh under Vo Nguyen Giap.
USA assumes responsibility for trans-Atlantic convoys
from Canada to Iceland.
The Empire of Japan attacks the U.S. military forces on
Oahu in Hawaii, including the naval base at Pearl Harbor. The USA declares
war on Japan, Germany and Italy.
The U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the forerunner
of the CIA) allies with Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh guerrillas to harass
Japanese troops and to help rescue downed American pilots. Ho Chi Minh
becomes "Agent 19" under the supervision of MAJ Archimedes Patti.
Italy surrenders to the Allies.
Amid rumors of a possible American invasion, Japanese
overthrow the Vichy French Decoux Government which had been operating
independently as the colonial government and proclaim an "independent"
Vietnam, with Emperor Bao Dai as nominal ruler. Premier Tran Trong Kim
forms the first Vietnamese government.
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies.
Major Archimedes Patti US Office of Strategic Services(OSS)
meets with Ho Chi Minh who shows his support for America and later asks
Patti to take this message back to the American people., ".. . that the
Vietnamese loved the Americans; ... tell the Americans that the Vietnamese
would never fight the Americans". American arms and instructors support
is increased to Ho and Giap.
Severe famine strikes Hanoi and surrounding areas eventually
resulting in two million deaths from starvation out of a population of
ten million. The famine generates political unrest and peasant revolts
against the Japanese and remnants of French colonial society. Ho Chi Minh
capitalizes on the turmoil by successfully spreading his Viet Minh movement.
Germany surrenders unconditionally to the Allies.
Following the Nazi defeat, the Potsdam Conference is held by the Allies including the U.S., Britain, and Soviet Union to plan the post-war world. Vietnam is considered a minor item on the agenda; in order to disarm the Japanese in Vietnam, the Allies divide the country in half at the 16th parallel. Chinese Nationalists will move in and disarm the Japanese north of the parallel while the British will move in and do the same in the south. During the conference, representatives from France request the return of all French pre-war colonies in Southeast Asia (Indochina). Their request is granted. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia will once again become French colonies following the removal of the Japanese.
The Allies at the Potsdam Conference offer Japan an opportunity
to end the war by an unconditional surrender.
6 Aug 45
At 8:15 am the USA exploded the 15 kiloton "Little
Boy" atomic bomb over the Urakimi district of Hiroshima. It was dropped
from the Enola Gay, a B-29 flown by LTC Paul Tibbets. By the end of 1945,
the death toll from Little Boy stood at approximately 140,000, and an
estimated 60,000 later died from delayed effects of the bombing.
At 11:02 am the USA exploded the 21 kiloton "Fat
Man" atomic bomb over the Urakimi district of Nagasaki. By the end
of 1945, the death toll from Fat Man stood at 73,884 with another 74,909
injured. 6.7 million square meters were levelled, with 18,409 homes destroyed.
The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
Japan surrenders unconditionally by stating, "The
Japanese Government are ready to accept the terms enumerated in the joint
declaration which was issued at Potsdam on July 26, 1945..." However,
the Japanese response contained a condition affirming the perogatives
of the Emperor as a sovereign ruler.
James F. Bryne, U.S. Secretary of State, responded to
the Japanese that the surrender was to be unconditional, per the Potsdam
declaration.
The Japanese Government agree to unconditional surrender
per the Potsdam terms.
At a spontaneous non-communist meeting in Hanoi, Ho Chi
Minh and the Viet Minh assumed a leading role in the movement to wrest
power from the French. With the Japanese still in control of Indochina,
Bao Dai went along because he thought that the Viet Minh were working
with the OSS and could guarantee independence for Vietnam..
Vietnam's puppet emperor, Bao Dai, abdicates.
Ho Chi Minh's guerrillas occupy Hanoi and proclaim a provisional
government in the North of Vietnam.
On the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japanese
representatives sign the Instrument of Surrender proclaiming their unconditional
surrender.
Chinese Nationalists accept surrender of Japanese Occupation
Forces north of the 16th parallel.
The British are to accept surrender south of the line
under British Major General Douglas Gracey's 20th Indian Division, some
26,000 men in all. British General Gracey arrives in Siagon (South Vietnam)
which is in turmoil.
The Communist dominated Viet Minh Independence League
with support from United States officials seizes power: Ho Chi Minh establishes
the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (GRDV) in Hanoi,
and issues his Declaration of Independence, drawing heavily upon the American
Declaration of Independence as well as Sun Yatsen's "Three-people
Doctrine".
Emperor Bao Dai abdicates
Ho Chi Minh writes several letters to US President Harry
Truman requesting recognition, citing the Atlantic Charter and then the
United Nations Charter on self-determination. He received no response.
The head of the OSS mission in Saigon, COL Peter Dewey,
is shot by the Viet Minh, becoming the first American to die in the Viet
Nam war.
The British release 1,400 French Paratroop POWs from Japanese
camps around Saigon. With some of the 20,000 French citizens living there,
the French riot, killing Viet Minh suspects and ordinary Vietnamese civilians
in Saigon. The defeated Japanese forces are re-armed to assist and restore
order. The Viet Minh respond by calling a national strike and organize
a guerrilla campaign against the French.
French troops return to Vietnam and clash with Communist
and Nationalist forces and seize power in the south, with British help.
General Jacque Philippe Leclerc arrives in Siagon and
declares, " We have come to claim our inheritance". The first Indo-China
War of 1946 - 1954, had begun.
October A purely bilateral British/French agreement recognizes
French administration of the southern zone.
In the North 180,000 Chinese troops go on a "rampage".
Ho's Viet Minh are hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with it. Ho Chi Minh
accepts an Allied compromise for temporary return of 15,000 French troops
to rid the North of anti-Communists. The Chinese troops of Chiang flee
to Taiwan, looting as they depart.
As World War II ends, starvation kills over 1 million
Vietnamese.