I AM WITH THE VIETMINH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00423R001500590011-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 21
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 1998
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: June 11, 1954
• Content Type: REPORT

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x , re corded
'benton ,Williams
My name is Pierre Jean d'Huac, and I *aeborn in the
Chinese town of Cholon at the end of Aueuet 1'922, though it
was not until my nineteenth birthday that I took very much
interest in anything but my purely personal affairs.
There were, in'our part of Cholon, a number of Japanese
residents, quite a few of whom had a'workig`kriowledge of both
fr
the Fr,A c h. and Am ami to t on jSue'a 0
One of these people live'
and I was friendly with his two sons named Yoshi and Horio
The family name was Murata. a y t
I was particularly friendly with Hori, and whenever we had
the opportunity we used to take a tramride into the big neigh-
bouring French city'of Saie_on. We never paid a fare because we
were also friends of the train conductor.
It was in the summer of t940 that I first heard of the
Japanese plans for occupying French Indo-China,, France had
just fallen to the Germans and the French Commander-in-Chief
in Indo-China was known to be very sympathetic to the Vichy
regime0
The Japanese community in the twin cities of Saigon-Cholon
must have numbered about 5CCC, and suddenly the woi~d went round
.that the Japanese Foreii,n Minister was arran6in to send garrison
troops to Indo-China in order to forestall any trouble and to
protect the people from warlike threats which, it was said, were
to be expected from Britain or America, or from one or other of
the Liberation armies which were at the disposal of the ,Iritish
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 CPYRGHT
Goverrment, or from the many European refugees who were building
action groups in the United states and. were planning; to come
back and free their countries from the axis forces.
The same week. Mori and I were walkinr;; down the Hue Catinat
in Saigon and were on the point of turning down a side street In
order to work our way back to the dock area, when we were drawn
aside to a public meeting at the main entrance to the Hotel
Continental. Speakers were advocating the cr..,atlon of a free
Indo-China movement to take over the responsibilities of the
Government fr:rm P. destroyed and d.yin- France.
That was surprising was the presence of quite a ;;roue of
F rencrmen who were applauding atl these ideas,
Before we could move away from this gathering, we hau agreed
to si;n our names to a register which was being prepared by a
group called the Vietminh, and which was collecting si6na.tures
from any persons who would be willin(L to support a new political
party designed to save the country from a sell-out to the Japan-
ese.
My friend Hori did not disclose the fact that he was a
Japanese citizen but also signed with me,
Upon our return home, we discovered that Hori's father had
left town without any warning, In order to attend a very import-
ant meeting of his compatriots at the seaside town of Cap St
Jacques, about forty miles down river from :Saigon.
Soon rumours were rife that the Japanese fleet would be
arriving and preparations were being made to billet Nippon
soldiers. Each Japanese family was asked to receive as many
soldiers into it as. there were members of the family.
 CPYRGHT
3.
This an a w Y
five soldiers - there being two sons, an adopted daughter and
the father and mother.
Old Murata himself became busier than ever, because he ran
a small vegetable business under the name of Bambu Brothers and
it was evident that he would be called, upon to supply the Japan-
ese forces with fresh produce from the day that they arrived.
For "3ip2onese troops, the most essential thins is a well-
ballanced diet containing a regular amount of fresh vegetable
and rice bran to safe ; card them a"ainet beri-beri, which was
apparently the main threat to their health.
For six months these preparations went on, not in any
vlandestine fashion, but quite openly. Then, all at once tnings
bean to happen.
First the French coma:aander, Admiral Decoux made an official
pronouncement, which was broadcast over Saigon radio and publiahei
prominently in the press.
He declared that French. Indo-China could not be Expected to
survive alone in'a hostile world and that therefore after careful
consideration he had decided to invite the soldiers of Nippon to
come and protect the country.
'Furthermore,' he said, ' we must develop our trade tokki the
mutual advantage of our two great people', and consequently, he
had decided that the best possible way to do this would be for
Indo-China to be made a full member of the Co-Prosperity Sphere
of Greater South-Fast Asia. Thus, overnight, the ancient and
glorious land of my fathers had been sold out to a foreign race.
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I immediately went and found Hors and told him the news wh
I had heard over, Saigon r?;dioo He already knew all about it, a
that mlrning the first party of Jr+.panese had arrived at jai6on
air from Japan and were now staying at the &overaor General's
Palace.
As had been planned, the Japanese would ue sending troops
to garrison all the b16 coastal towns of the country, and the
first battalion was :arriving on the Yokohama .:aru due oft' Cap
St Jacques in a matter of days.
Vy aaakts r action to this sudden turn of events was to
,seek out some Chinese friends who ran a fleet of river. sampans
and had control Qf most of the traffic by canal from Cholon to
the Ulekonc River _Sys tern,
I knew that If there was to be a resistance ;movement, then
it would have created some secure bases in the comparative peace
and remoteness of Cambodia, and I felt that the old Chinese
river traders would be the people to have most information on tg
the niatter0
True enough, I was directed from one Chinese trader to
another, until eventually I was given an Annamite pass to enter
a restricted area-at Mytho in southern Cochin-China,
I told Horl about this and he said that he would come with
me, notwithstanding his nationality. He said that he could
easily pass as anAnnamite, having been born in the country and
spesAk speaking the monosyllabic lan6uae like a native,
It was avery wet day, raining cats and dogs, when we went
down to the canal and embe rked on a small river boat to start
our journey. In the back of the boat we were givers seats, and
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o )iii me ves a ng to a Frenchman.
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His namme was also Pierre and it turned out that he was a
Free French supporter of General de Gaulle and had decided to
go into hiding until the day when he could return to Saigon and
oust the foolish Vichy Government which was now hand in glove
with the Japanese. As a measure of his good faith he had brought
with him 5000 piastres which represented his life's savings apart
from a house which.,he owned and had left ce hind. Be had been
a senior roan working in a shipyard in aigon
At Mytho we were met by two young Annamite girls
who could
do nothing else but speak about the coming revolution. They
spent fully quarter, of an hour telling us about this before we
were. able to gain any practical instructions from them.
Horl, whose name we had changed to ?Jong Than was not rec-
ognized as a Japanese, and we were allowed to remain together
for the next part of our journey which led us into the delta
region of the Mekong river system,
It took us two days of meandering in small boats to locate
our destination - a well-co:,structed fishing camp more or lees
hidden by very tall grass which almost encircled ito
Not only was this fishing village in touch with events
throughout Souther Indo-China, but it was also in radio com-
munication with friends further north along the coast of Annam,
and through their with other friends in the Red Delta region of
Tonkin. The equipment was of Am erican manufacture and had been
purchased through agents in Bangkok, from where it had been
PWNOM-pEKN,
brought overland via Battamban;g and .
This little fishing camp hidden away amongst the tall
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 a cLFoJ R e1ease ?2000/08/04 :-=-GIA C1 ' -0042238.001500590011
I r!o " <
oo .or fur
Ca 'te ` r ` T Ri: o two
-Pp d ~ . e! 2000/ 04 GIA-RDP8 001'
i" 2,
el e into,.
town$ People
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CPYRGHT 70
the Japanese and a&4ainst the Vichy Government. s revo w a
very quickly dealt with by the Japanese army, and all the French
residents (almost twenty thousand) in :southern Indo-China were
confined to one ortwo residential areas, and the French (Vichy)
Government was deposed
I'(/ N6C C`raQ~~ ~ v /tf mi~ri L1~ r~j~~15
1 received an invitation to form a government at once,
and this was done successfully within two days. A shadow cabinet
was in any ogee already in existence and full plans had long
since been made for just this eventuality,
To our dismay{, we soon discovered that the Vichy French
had sold almost every major asset which was in Indo-China to
the Japanese. The'latter, in turn, had simply taken possession
of the currency rintin
noth of aaigon, they had
noted as they required.
machines and at a place called 13en Cat,
proceeded to print as many 500 piastre
No one except the French ~ad anything;
worth selling, so that all these piastres came into the hands
ofthe French, at`leaat initially. The trench even sold things
which were not their own to sell, such as the big Shell fuel
and installations'down the Saigon River, subsegnently bombed
by American Liberator bombers.
Cori eequeAtl`l when inflation enveloped everything, the
French iid not suffer unduly as they had ample piastres to
keep pace with riain prices, but not so the Chinese and
Annamites whosuf!ered Immensely. There were, of course some
exedptionn, particularly among the wealthy Chinese business
community in Cholon (there were nearly` .e hundred thousand
Chinese in Cholonfat the time), some of whom accumulated great
fortunes from operations in the black market. They usually
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nv p QVe 4~ e~ ~ d h
2.1
were eventually glad to sell in exchange for a guaranteed food
supply.
In Saigon, we took over the Palais de Justice, and the
minor courts and ran them tolerably well; we occupied the dock
area, and successfully ran the Cold Jtorage and the port transport
in addition to all the other municipal duties, such as the oper-
atir:l of the power house, the zxkx running of the Postal Services
(we printed our own liberation stamps) and the sanitary services,,
We carried out all these tacks efficiently, and even attended
to the repair of some of the roads "iArn a-titre/ Al a=ty
'Me manaVed to reatore a measure of public transport, getting
some old trams to work, and improved the food supply immeasurably,
as we had the confidence of all the country peoples, who again
resumed shipments of rice, fresh vegetables and fish in large
enough quantities to feed every community.
t.k' n.tt1 1
was half a
Japanese and their war prisoners,
hundred thousand between them.
The total population
million, quite apart from the
who probably totalled another
We noti,ced that the Japanese were still relying; upon Bambu
fresh
Brothers for their/food supplies, and a roaring-business they had
built up in the intervening years. Old man Murata had been en-
listed into the Japanese army on the Commissariat side, and his
son Yoshi had taken.control of a mixed unit of transport, mostly
old vehicles brought from Japan - Ni&san and Toyoda trucks, of
the type with collapsible sides, and often kept going through
the cannibalizing of English, American and French vehicles which
had been captured in one or other part of South-east Asia.
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Hong Than (Hors) was sent up to Hanoi, so that the chance
oe,ni zed would be avoided.
of his beir_~; roe
.14r~~v~,,..:.,t u' F,. ,.QO:~=a Ord
-G~ the beginnlnt; of September 19+5 when we knew that the
free nations of the world would be coming to disarm the japan-
ese and send them back to the land of the Risiri6 Sun, we/felt
ourselves to be well in the saddle-of government, and we were
fill of hope for a bright futute, having Lmiana6ed to survive the
tricky period irn;'iediately following upon the collapse of Japan,
We le:u'rLt froilr our radio that the British Cormilander In
Burma wo?-tld be sending a division of Indian troops to occupy
our country. This seemed to be the best possible news as we
all r^ra.ci a pretty good notion of the Indian position and we were
convinced that any country which was going itself to become
self-; overnir.g after a lone, period of tutela6e; would never
a
hinder the march of freedom in/ic.kx nel6hbourir6 land in very
similar circumstanceb.
Accordinj,ly, when the first Gurkha troops arrived in Jalgon
by a_r, we welcomed therm as fellow liberators. ',7e brrantLea for
th ? popalFtion to line the streets from the airport to the
Cathedral 3quFere. veryone carried flags (r.ut tricolours) a.id
tanners proclai"iing in :n,lish their welcome to the Li:--or-tors
from Tyranny, to the Fighters for r'reedom and to the Indians
and the British and to the Americans, who had won the war for the
liberty of nations Great and small,
But most banr.erIs ha,]. a little note at the bottom which
read ''Vi'e have no room for the French' or words to that effect,
"5e were told that the terms of reference of the Allied
Troops, at that time under the command of a British Brigadier,
 CPYRGHT i
reppr
, t raror
y, to maintain law and order, and secondly, to
and concentrate
disarm/the Japanese surrendered personnel prior to making
arrangements for their transference back to Japan,
seven luxury b..inealowa belon yin ; to a wealthy Chinese
millionaire and hla -six sons were placed at the disposal of
the Indian troops - all forerunners of the main body which was
coming more slowly by sea.
These troops were a part of the 20th Indian Division, which
had had a very fine record in Burma, having amon ;'at other thin
battered the Japanese 2nd Division, the remnants of which were
at tha this time stationed in saieon. We trusted this division
to maintain law and order and to clear the country of Japanese
and other foreigners,
For a few days,'al1 seemed to be 6oln6 very well, at least
in southern Indo-China. In the North, word came from Hanoi that
the Chinese (Nationalists) were occupying the whole of Tonkin.
There was also no trouble there.
14owever, we were informed privately that the a French lxta
interneed were presain6 the British Brigade Commander for arms
and ammunition, in order 'to protect themselves adequately from
posL.ible terrorist action', so they said, After considerable
In , an issue of w in
debate about ma} . weapons to civilian/internees
and not without 's')raed~,ubt, it appeared that the brigade Com=
mander agreed to xixa to give these Frenchmen a few rifles
and a small quantity of ammunition , simply as a ,rotective
measure. The strongest point in favour of this policy, was,
apparently, the realization that the maintenance of law and
order mainly rested (indeed, almost entirely rested upon the
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trouble 'did arts
It was felt that a few armed Frenchmen, rnieht be useful if any
Meanwhile, the Annamite
a colleague, e,1tt ing
on a bunchy in the last
in full cooperatio- with the
on a verandah opposite the
its duties
competently.
I was with
entrance to
the Palaie de Just ce when I heard a shout from the watchman,
by several
irnilr .yt,s,. took place at a
of the tpivn, and 'the Tricolour was seen
flyin& high over' _te Governor General's Palace, over the General
It
lunne
ce5srg
t
was a, cone tec # inal~rrection by the Vichy trench t
atain+ t the tkia existing lawful ~,over,unent,
ex-intern-
We did no f'~i 4ht back at this tune, in order to avoid
deaths and because we were sure that the British
Commatnder v o3
t l r~te psuFc u laa#,er l Lion',ais this,
nl would rest re
'soon as th
There foowe
11.
Government earned on_w th
Allied troops and quite
week of September 1 91+5,
ran out into the courtyard ansi was
abuse from two kmaxant bearded Frenchmen in a
r a
ao~t,. t
3ri;ade Peadquartere.
This 1}e .clciuar era
wa s
in the ruornin to be
the ~y' at least
~`rpriee
action.
3, dgy s of meetints in the British
st hl ensconced
the Chinese
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11 Post Cfflce, and over many other Gover nmAnt and Business premiaeaa
city `U11 knowlei~ e
 CPYRGHT
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millionaire's bungalows ( they were in fact three storey buildings
and our meetin6s were held a;ainst a backcloth of the Union Jack.
We still had faith that the British would not let us down,
despite the fact that their policy towards India was not yet
clarified. Had we not been told that they would maintain law
_~nd order? And was not this a breach of the peace which they
were resk_:onsible a3 for restorin ,? Were they not in all pro-
bability going to grant India her independence, and were not
the,-;e troops entirely (but for most of the officers and a few
British other ranks) Indian?
But our hopes were not as well founded as we had thought,
and finally we declined to continue with the negotiations until
It was clearly recognized that we were In, fact the lawful gover-
nment of Indo-China, and that if the French wished to stay, then
trey would have to negotiate with us after, but not before,
relinqu1shine, their hold on the main public buiildin s,
several British officers of the British amay told us that
they would have li11Led to have supported us, but that their
instructions from t"e British Ferei,gn Office were to the effect
that they should assist the French to regain control in Indo-China.
This decision was reported to have reclilted from a private
a,reement between the britiah Fvrei3n I~?inister and the 2nfl
tarn gm 43f tsa Quai d'Orsai, whereby the JJritieh had agreed to
support the French In Indo-China, so long as the the French save
up any hopes they ~_~ight be entertianirig of a return to ayria and
.L,ebanon.
Concurrently, the British would use their good offices in
Chungking, to influence Chian, Kai-Shek to withdraw his troops
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from Tlorthern ;.nd9 ,,China, where the trench _feared that he had
ideas of remainin6 9indefinitoly, havin6 regard
of eontrollim. Haiphong port as an outlet for
We called the secret Treaty of Par.
-4aa6nin6 iYiRt ;er for, our freedo3 movement.
to. the (dvanta.,
the Yunnan railw
bat it was no
'what
had happened,
fact, was that the BriJ1sh Indian troops, perhaps
unwittin6ly,
perhaps intentionally, had formed a bridgehead for the ., French,
who wol{Id now fine It fairly
force
In the country,
easy to land a new expeditionary
and so reconquer the plug of their empire
Insurrection
What hack bee
un as a liberation movement was now turned
into a case of insurrection, and the world was, informed.
accordingly by the .French.
The month of October 1945 saw tragedy sweep the land.
Oi.ir nationalist mov"I"ent was suppressed ruth].e 1y by the
Allied forces, most of whom were Indian at this time, and
by, of all. people, the Japanese army:
Instead of disarmin- the Japanese surrendered personnel
and corcentratin them into a m mall area ready for movement
by sea back to Japan, they were now rearmed and deployed
against the Annuraitep,
In some camas they were issue( with Bitish three inch
mortars, which the Japanese had themselves captured in Malaya
in 1941.
The Japanese, several battalions of them were moved to
strateGic points In the defence perimeter established around
the twin cities of S11gc)n-Cholona
Japanese battalions defeated several major attacks by
4`)
our Vietminh forces,raeanwhile French troops were broudht into
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Y.
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t! brid6e sad, "aboard French and British ships.
Or were they''French troops? Several deserter"e'joined
tie towards the end of 1945, and they were Ge`rmahi- -"Who!- hid
been captured in" the Western' Desert, and, no gited`t one asked
had 'enlisted into tie French 'ores n i+eeion, T'he'ir' officers
were rrenchmen,' trained at
St Cyr", but few o the men were
French, so thekecueserters informed us,
We 1.ised to be on friendly terjn with cial st "editor
in $ai on. One day, German 'troops took his "tf ree girl typists'
away, stripped them naked, and' hauled them around Ciolon on the
back of alorry, for all the world-to ridicule.
"Often' at night, these 'orei&n Le~;ionaxs1ee would fire
automatic weapons into the top stories of the `main buildings,
simply out of sheer joy and merriaent~
one croup' of French troops which arrived in Saigon
built up a Peputatxion for General misbehaviour a~idthere
were inatances`o1 atrocities.
'Several authentic casdsof wounded prisoners being
Chc~Ion 'Whene'ver T`troc des war's eoz tt'ec :!
the Prenoh
Rr rorei n Le 3
the practice of e-nolosing all transport with wire'` netting.
Grenade throwink an;d atrociti es ,"on, a
aommonpl,oe occurenoes.
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Q81114 GIA Q131292 0012314994500690-
4
Two r c
WSpaper correspondents, one of a aris paper and the other
of an Australian paper, were imprisoned by General Le Clero, then
after release on the' instructions or French Indo-Chime Governor
General, Admiral Thierry d'Argenlieu, they were sent out of the
country post haste,because they had seen some' of these atrocities
and their aftermath and were declared to be hostile to the drench
Saigon was in fact beseiged, and at least during the hours of
no European or Indian troops could move safely.
During November. and December 1945, efforts were made by the
defenders to push out into the countryside and to assist with this,
several American Ariq Landing Craft (1st) were brought into use-
being particularly valt ile on the inland waterways.
We made several- serious mistakes, chiefly through trying to
fight pitched battles against the much superior firepower of the
defenders, but we never lost the moral support of the Aw ite and
Chinese population.
Meanwhile, the most serious thing which happened was the
devaluation of the piastre. On the face of it this was a reasonable
step for the ?renoh to I take. They devalued a,11 five hundred piastre
notes by 40%, but only those notes printed in Indo-China; notes
printed in' France were not affected. As was sensible, they
announced the devaluation to the general public on a Saturday
afternoon, when the banks had closed'for the week-ends qO E
g t .rC..e Deposits in the
bank were not affected.
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16
This move wa s/e a by the new French administrator, a man
named Cedille, who thereby became particularly unpopular with those
Free Frenoh and Amnnanites (and some Chinese too) who had never
trusted the banking system during the Japanese occupation, but had
kept their savings in old hiding places, such as the proverbial
stocking. One of the reactions of this move was a strike of the
Chinese boatmen along the canals.
Meanwhile, the British Indian Army troops were gradually
handing over their dude s to the incoming Frenoh and Foreign
Legion men.
However, they had saved Saigon for the return of a French
Government, and they had-also saved Saigon from starvation through
the development of some` inter--:sting systems of supply. For
example, they brought fresh fish into the town by canal. The fish
were kept alive in the flooded bottoms of the barges. These
purchases were made possible through the operation of a clever
Chinese millionaire, who, once a week, was flown into Pnon-penh
by a Japanese pilot Of. the Kamikaze squadron. He carried a large
sun: of money with which to y the Cambodian merchants for goods
, y i,rn a.,.d /At Z4/4
to be shipped to Saigon by4canal. We allowed these cargoes to go
through, as they were o m j e y 6 x b y Japanese ",dWaWre.
We were not sufficiently au ?s it with the true position to knew
whether or not Japanese parties were for or against us, and as they
had only been deployed against us on limited sectors Lt was not
always clear whether'or not they should be given freedom to pass
through out barriers. On the oanals they had the benefit of our
doubts.
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.CPYRGHT
We were highly amused to lean: om our agents in Saigon that
the French troops arrived without SO, -mtah as a day's landing rations,
but they made up for this by land , i3g a ship Toad o f red Algerian wine
!'hioh they then tried to barter wig h the British.
S ioh food as w s given to the French forces by
the British, invariably found its way into the black market, which
flourished in the besieged area of Saigon.
Unfortunately, we soon discovered that the French did not plan
on any ration system but to `live off the lazy, from which
o rely
seized livestock and poultry, and even dug up sweet potatoes,'
gtner vegata Dies .
the same time, the British were making; great efforts to
raw from their commitments, as if realising that, they had
Afi-,,"s xtinwittingly become involved in an unwanted colonial war, so
teful to the now British Labour Government.
French troops were at first ill-disciplined and ill-
equipp0' - their problems were aggravated by such incidents as the
`deatruc "of their main petrol depot in the entral Park, in a
fire whc 'was' purely accidental.
the 'French a j'peared on the battle front with better
equipn-.enE weapons - ironically this was found to be lend-lease
material 6"Am ric_: We had always counted upon the help and
s mpathy of en` Americans.
Had `not they Amin ~oans given` the f Philippines complete
pexule e after v war's
The policy of ('rsneral Le Clero was to reconquer the country,
ittle thought toFthe destruction which his methods brought in
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Whole towns and villages were razed to the ground, and the poop
lived in terror of their lives.
The French troops were even equipped with lend-lease Dodge true
and green jungle uniforms, left behind by the British.
Thus it was that l and nor colleagues became 'rebels' and thus i
is that we will continue to saorifioe~ur sorts and our lives for a
cause which we believe to be just. If there is any Justice left
.n the world today, then we shall be heard fairly in the' end,
Our neighbours are all independent - Thailand to the immediate
West, which country has never known what it is to'be under colonial
rule. Burma also to the West, a country which is novr'utterly free
from colonial rule. To the East lie the Plilippine `Islands which
have become free, and not so far away to the South in Indonesia
which is now a free country. While to the North, the Colonial
Powers renounced their extra territorial rights in China.
Are we alone to be kept under the subjugation of a -nation which
sold us to the Japanese? Are we to be content with the status of a
puppet regime?
Did the Indians remain satisfied with the suggestion that they
should have a semi-independent status under the os"tensibl:e rule of
the Maharajahs? Then why Bao Dui'"
You will say that many of us are Cor monists, that is ' so, but
our people have lived for generations in cOthr ne.I groups whose
produce did not go to enrich the individual but for the benefit of
the entire community, usually a village. What examples of
capitalism have the people seen in recent years? They hive seen
Chinese aliens making fortunes out of the black market, and from
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the Japanese. UPT,
Now, all eyes are upon our country, and so they should be, to
warn the world of wrongs perpetrated and wrongs which can be done
to any nation, whether great or small, if the propaganda and censor
r*3hines are formidable enough.
Almost any issue can be clouded by these means, and the world
will have to pay for it - if necessary by snore years of war and
death and destruotion.
You might think we are mortal enemies of the Trench - not so,
we are great admirers of many things from and of France, and we
have many Frenchmen who are in sympathy with our cause.
One day, the truth will out, it has a way of doing so, and
if this short account is the small opening upon that truth then
it will have been ~ustified.
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"A Vietminh's Case History"
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