Indochina, Indochina, Indochina, and WWII

 The third Inochina war is between China and Vietnam.

"Since the border war of February-March 1979, there have been negotiations held at irregular intervals between China and Vietnam. 
These negotiations have been held in part to discuss the border problems. But there has been no sign of progress in this area. 
Despite pledges of entering the talks with good intentions by both sides, neither government has made significant efforts to get 
beyond name calling and symbolic attempts to settle the issues."

Hood, Steven J.. Dragons Entangled: Indochina and the China-Vietnam War (p. 117). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition. 

That's the very beginning of the book.  Now let's get back to the 0th Indochina war, that is WWII.

WWII started On December 8, 1941, the United States Congress declared war (Pub.L. 77–328, 55 Stat. 795) on the Empire of Japan in response to that country's
 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the prior day. It was formulated an hour after the Infamy Speech of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

Now for the lead up to the war:

Britannica:
When Japanese troops entered northern Indochina in September 1940 (in pursuance of an agreement extorted in August from the Vichy government of France), 
the United States uttered a protest. Germany and Italy, by contrast, recognized Japan as the leading power in the Far East by concluding with it the Tripartite,
 or Axis, Pact of September 27, 1940: negotiated by Japanese foreign minister Matsuoka Yosuke, the pact pledged its signatories to come to one another’s help 
 in the event of an attack “by a power not already engaged in war.” Japan also concluded a neutrality pact with the U.S.S.R. on April 13, 1941.
 
 Aha!  Notice, when this happened, the United States entered a protest.  That's the watershed event.  
 
 But,
 
 FDR limited the American response to Japan’s aggressive moves to extension of another $50 million credit line to China. 
 He ratcheted up pressure on Japan by adding scrap steel and iron,vital to Japanese industrial production, to his list of embargoed exports.

Wortman, Marc. 1941: Fighting the Shadow War: A Divided America in a World at War (pp. 120-121). Grove Atlantic. Kindle Edition. 

I didn't realize we already had an embargo at that point.
 
 After the Japanese invaded southern French Indochina in July, the United States cut off oil exports to Japan. With the conflict in China rapidly consuming Japan’s
  already scarce resources and the trade embargo imposed on the country only tightening, Tokyo was determined to expand deeper into Southeast Asia to secure new 
  sources of oil and other war-making materials.

Kupchan, Charles A.. Isolationism (p. 286). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. 

More specifically, from Britannica

On July 2, 1941, the Imperial Conference decided to press the Japanese advance southward even at the risk of war with Great Britain and the United States;
 and this policy was pursued even when Matsuoka was relieved of office a fortnight later. On July 26, in pursuance of a new agreement with Vichy France, 
 Japanese forces began to occupy bases in southern Indochina.
 
Some more Britannica,  
 This time the United States reacted vigorously, not only freezing Japanese assets under U.S. control but also imposing an embargo on supplies of oil to Japan. 
 Dismay at the embargo drove the Japanese naval command, which had hitherto been more moderate than the army, into collusion with the army’s extremism. 
 When negotiations with the Dutch of Indonesia for an alternative supply of oil produced no satisfaction, the Imperial Conference on September 6, at 
 the high command’s insistence, decided that war must be undertaken against the United States and Great Britain unless an understanding with the United 
 States could be reached in a few weeks’ time.
 
 That lead up to the war is awful exciting.  I should really interject something here about the end of World War II.  From the wikipedia

Victory over Japan Day (also known as V-J Day, Victory in the Pacific Day, or V-P Day^[1]) is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end. The term has been applied to both of the days on which the initial announcement of Japan's surrender was made – August 15, 1945, in Japan, and because of time zone differences, August 14, 1945 (when it was announced in the United States and the rest of the Americas and Eastern Pacific Islands) – as well as to September 2, 1945, when the surrender document was signed, officially ending World War II.

From Brittanica,

Truman designated MacArthur as the Allied powers’ supreme commander to accept Japan’s formal surrender, which was solemnized aboard the U.S. flagship Missouri in 
Tokyo Bay: the Japanese foreign minister, Shigemitsu Mamoru, signed the document first, on behalf of the Emperor and his government. 
He was followed by General Umezu Yoshijiro on behalf of the Imperial General Headquarters. The document was then signed by MacArthur, Nimitz, and representatives 
of the other Allied powers. Japan concluded a separate surrender ceremony with China in Nanking on September 9, 1945. 
With this last formal surrender, World War II came to an end.

I find the separate peace with China puzzling because if you watch the video, a Chinese general does sign the document.

It's worth noticing that Japan surrenders to several countries in that video including the Netherlands.  

I think this document was a basis for SEATO.  The country obviously left out of the alliance: China.  

Victory over Japan led to the First Indochina War which ended in the battle of Dien Bien Phu.  

The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina on December 19, 1946, and lasted until July 20, 1954. Fighting between French forces and their Việt Minh opponents in the south dated from September 1945. The conflict pitted a range of forces, including the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps, led by France and supported by Bảo Đại's Vietnamese National Army against the Việt Minh,^[30] led by Hồ Chí Minh^[31] and the People's Army of Vietnam led by Võ Nguyên Giáp.^[32] Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in northern Vietnam,^[33] although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia.

From the footage it looked like the French capitulated rather than surrendered.  There is footage of a British CH-47F performing a rescue operation.

[youtube] Victory at Dien Bien Phu - YouTube [/youtube]

It's worth pointing out that the first Indochina war was fought in the north and won by the communists.  Then American got involved.  And the first thing we tried was an election.  
 
 This information is not available on the wikipedia or Britannica any longer, but in 1954 the United States held a 3 way race for president of South Vietnam, the 
 contenders were Ngo Dinh Diem, Bo Dai, and Ho Chi Minh.  There was widespread accusations of voter fraud.  The result was the Second Indochina War.  
 
 The Vietnam War (Vietnamese: Chi?n tranh Vi?t Nam), also known as the Second Indochina War,[56] and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America 
 (Vietnamese: Kháng chi?n ch?ng M?) or simply the American War, was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of 
 Saigon on 30 April 1975.[10]

Some other postulated starting dates for the Vietnam War are the assassination of president Diem 2 November 1963,

the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution August 7, 1964

or the arrival of a marine expeditionary force in March 3, 1965.

It's worth pointing out that the second Indochina war was fought in the south, and once again won by the communists.

If you want to get particular about it you could say WWII wasn't finished until the legal status of Germany (a searchable topic on the wikipedia) was settled

The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (German: Vertrag über die abschließende Regelung in Bezug auf Deutschland^[a]), or the Two Plus Four Agreement (German: Zwei-plus-Vier-Vertrag; short: German Treaty), was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (the eponymous Two), and the Four Powers which occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

World War II was a victory for NATO.  Vietnam was not a victory for SEATO.  The allied casualties for the second Indochina War look rather dreadful on the wikipedia.  And they don't even include the UK or France.  

I am looking for a Vietnam documentary with the acoustic version of Revolution by the Beatles on it - that is older.  The modern one with Ken Burns has it, but that isn't fair.

One web posting said the war really begins November 3, 1963, the day after Diem was deposed.  The problem is that I can't find any reference to what happened on that day.

This is a major gotcha question in college.  The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is not seen as a good enough answer.

This is a bit speculative, but it is the best memory will serve.  There was an engagement on November 3, that is not listed online as a prewar battle.  I think we refused to allow, by treaty, Bo Dai to return as king of South Vietnam, waiting until the 6th to put a new president in power.  Ho Chi Minh considered that a complete repudiation of the original Geneva Accords of 1954.  

The legitimacy of the 1954 elections has always been called into question.  I really don't know what went wrong.

On 11/1/2020 at 2:42 PM, dnewhous said:

I am looking for a Vietnam documentary with the acoustic version of Revolution by the Beatles on it - that is older.

The only more acoustic version I could find:

I do remember that question on the AP American history exam.  November 3, 1963 is the answer, and it is not usually taught.  I have to admit it, I learned it from Ben J Russell.

On the wikipedia you can search by year or by calendar day - no dice for November 3, 1963.

I have a more plausible memory - Kennedy started a bombing compaign called "Operation: Limelight" that began on November 3, 1963.

The key battle that shook the Kennedy administration:

Britannica: "In January 1963 a Viet Cong battalion near the village of Ap Bac in the Mekong delta, south of Saigon, though surrounded and outnumbered by ARVN forces, successfully fought its way out of its encirclement, destroying five helicopters and killing about 80 South Vietnamese soldiers and three American advisers. By now some aggressive American newsmen were beginning to report on serious deficiencies in the U.S. advisory and support programs in Vietnam..."

that's the battle that really scared Kennedy.  

The year matters because it is a common convenience to blame Johnson for the war.  Thus, the movie "Running Against Time (1990)," which a lot of people saw.  

The movie is still available on VHS on ebay.

Also, Stephen King's 11/12/63.  Apparently this is another time travel story but I haven't had time to see or read it.

On 11/1/2020 at 12:42 PM, dnewhous said:

That lead up to the war is awful exciting.  I should really interject something here about the end of World War II

Towards the end, there were joint Japanese/German efforts to share critical, blockaded materials like rubber. 90% of such Japanese cargo subs were sunk on the way to or returning from Germany. In around the middle of this video, there are graphic recordings of a submerged Japanese sub (also containing a few Germans) being hit by a torpedo and spewing bubbles and crunching for many minutes. It was in the Atlantic by the same type of torpedo plane the first prez Bush flew, this time at night from a junior size aircraft carrier. It is conventional to pity the noble enemy targeted by this nerdy bomber channel, but I am more in awe of the technical learning applied in a high risk altruistic effort by ex farm boys: