Thailand in World War II officially adopted
a position of neutrality until it was invaded
by Japan in December 1941 which led to an
armistice and, later, the military alliance
treaty between Thailand and the Japanese Empire.
At the start of the Pacific War, the Japanese
Empire pressured the Thai government to allow
the passage of Japanese troops to invade British-held
Malaya and Burma.
The Thai government under Plaek Phibunsongkhram
(known simply as Phibun) considered it preferable
to co-operate with the Japanese rather than
fight them, since Japan promised to help Thailand
regain some of the indochinese territories
(in today's Laos and Cambodia) which had been
lost to France.
Axis-aligned Thailand declared war on the
United States and Britain and annexed territories
in neighbouring countries, expanding to the
north, south, and east, gaining a border with
China near Kengtung.Thailand retained control
of its armed forces and internal affairs.
The Japanese policy on Thailand differed from
their relationship with the puppet state of
Manchukuo.
Japan intended bilateral relationships similar
to those between Nazi Germany and Finland,
Bulgaria, and Romania.
However Thailand at that time has been labelled
by both the Japanese and the Allies as the
"Italy of Asia"Meanwhile, the Thai government
had split into two factions, the Phibun regime
and a well-organised, pro-Allied resistance
movement that eventually numbered around 90,000
Thai guerrillas, supported by government officials
allied to the regent Pridi Banomyong.
The movement was active from 1942, resisting
the Phibun regime and the Japanese.
The partisans provided espionage services
to the Allies, performed some sabotage activities,
and helped engineer Phibun's downfall in 1944.
After the war, Thailand received little punishment
for its wartime role under Phibun.
Thailand suffered about 5,569 military dead
during the war, almost entirely due to disease.
Deaths in combat included 150 in the Shan
States, 180 on December 8, 1941 (the day of
both the brief Japanese invasion and the failed
British assault on the Ledge), and 100 during
the brief Franco-Thai War.
== Background ==
=== Fascist Thailand ===
After the Siamese revolution of 1932, the
Thai military led by Major General Plaek Phibunsongkhram
as defence minister, and the civilian liberals
led by Pridi Banomyong as foreign minister,
worked together harmoniously for several years,
but when Phibun became prime minister in December
1938 this co-operation broke down, and military
domination became more overt.
Phibun was an admirer of Benito Mussolini,
and his regime soon developed some fascist
characteristics.
In early 1939 forty political opponents, both
monarchists and democrats, were arrested,
and after rigged trials eighteen were executed,
the first political executions in Siam in
over a century.
Many others, among them Prince Damrong and
Phraya Songsuradej, were exiled.
Phibun launched a demagogic campaign against
the Chinese business class.
Chinese schools and newspapers were closed,
and taxes on Chinese businesses increased.Phibun
and Luang Wichitwathakan, the government's
ideological spokesman, copied the propaganda
techniques used by Hitler and Mussolini to
build up the cult of the leader.
Aware of the power of mass media, they used
the government's monopoly on radio broadcasting
to shape popular support for the regime.
Popular government slogans were constantly
aired on the radio and plastered on newspapers
and billboards.
Phibun's picture was also to be seen everywhere
in society, while portraits of the ex-monarch
King Prajadhipok, an outspoken critic of the
autocratic regime, were banned.
At the same time Phibun passed a number of
authoritarian laws which gave the government
the power of almost unlimited arrest and complete
press censorship.
During the Second World War, newspapers were
instructed to print only good news emanating
from Axis sources, while sarcastic comments
about the internal situation were banned.On
23 June 1939, Phibun changed the country's
name from Siam to Prathet Thai (Thai: ประเทศไทย),
or Thailand, said to mean "land of the free".
This was directed against the ethnic diversity
in the country (Malay, Chinese, Lao, Shan,
etc.) and is based on the idea of a "Thai
race", a Pan-Thai nationalism whose policy
is the integration of the Shan, the Lao and
other Tai peoples, such as Vietnam, Burma
and South China, into a "Great Kingdom of
Thailand" (Thai: มหาอาณาจักรไทย)
Modernisation was also an important theme
in Phibun's new Thai nationalism.
From 1939 to 1942 he issued a set of twelve
Cultural Mandates.
In addition to requiring that all Thais salute
the flag, sing the national anthem, and speak
the national language, the mandates also encouraged
Thais to work hard, stay informed on current
events, and to dress in a Western fashion.
The mandates caused performances of traditional
Thai music, dance, theatre and culture to
be abolished, and changed into Western style.Meanwhile,
all cinemas were instructed to display Phibun's
picture at the end of every performance as
if it were the king's portrait, and the audience
were expected to rise and bow.
Phibun also called himself Than phu nam (Thai:
ท่านผู้นำ) ("the leader"),
in a bid to create a personality cult.
== Thai Invasion of Laos, Cambodia and French-Indochina
(1940-1941) ==
At the start of World War II, Plaek Phibunsongkhram
shared many of his countrymen's admiration
of fascism and the rapid pace of national
development it seemed to afford.
Consequently, Phibun cultivated and intensified
militarism and nationalism while simultaneously
building a cult of personality using modern
propaganda techniques.
The regime also revived irredentist claims,
stirring up anti-French sentiment and supporting
restoration of former Thai territories in
Cambodia and Laos.
Seeking support against France, Phibun cultivated
closer relations with Japan.
Faced with American opposition and British
hesitancy, Thailand looked to Japan for help
in the confrontation with French Indochina.
Although the Thais were united in their demand
for the return of the lost provinces, Phibun's
enthusiasm for the Japanese was markedly greater
than that of Pridi Banomyong, and many old
conservatives as well viewed the course of
the prime minister's foreign policy with misgivings.
=== Franco-Thai War (1940-1941) ===
On October 1940, the Franco–Thai War broke
out, the war was a sporadic battle between
Thai and French forces along Thailand's eastern
frontier and culminated in an invasion of
Laos and Cambodia in January 1941.
The Royal Thai Armed Forces were successful
in occupying the disputed territories in French
Indochina, with the French scoring their only
notable victory at sea at the Battle of Ko
Chang.
Japan used its influence with the Vichy France
to obtain concessions for Thailand.
As a result, France agreed in March 1941 to
cede 54,000 square kilometres of Laotian territory
west of the Mekong and most of the Cambodian
province of Battambang to Thailand, which
reinstated the original name of Phra Tabong
Province.
The recovery of this lost territory and the
regime's apparent victory over a European
colonial power greatly enhanced Phibun's reputation.Because
Japan wanted to maintain both her working
relationship with Vichy and the status quo,
the real beneficiaries of the conflict were
the Japanese.
They were able to expand their influence in
both Thailand and Indochina.
The Japanese intention was to use Thailand
and Indochina as their military base to invade
Burma and Malaya in the future.The Thais were
forced to accept only a quarter of the territory
that they had lost to the French, in addition
to having to pay six million piastres as a
concession to the French.
Relations between Japan and Thailand subsequently
stressed as a disappointed Phibun switched
to courting the British and Americans in the
hopes of warding off what he saw as an imminent
Japanese invasion.
== Adoption of neutrality ==
After the Franco-Thai War, Phibun compromised
with Pridi, the Thai government adopted a
policy of neutrality.
It was sponsored by Pridi himself, produced
a Thai historical drama film, The King of
the White Elephant.
The film carried a propaganda message from
anti-war interests in Thailand: Thailand should
remain neutral, only going to war to defend
its sovereignty against foreign invaders.
== War comes to Thailand ==
Phibun and the Thai government still hesitant
to join the Allies or the Japanese.
At 23:00 on 7 December, the Japanese presented
the Thai government with an ultimatum to allow
the Japanese military to enter Thailand.
The Thais were given two hours to respond,
but the Thai government didn't have any response.
On 8 December 1941 Japan invaded Thailand.
After several hours of fighting between Thai
and Japanese troops, Thailand acceded to Japanese
demands for passage through the country for
Japanese forces invading Burma and Malaya.
Phibun assured the country that the Japanese
action was pre-arranged with a sympathetic
Thai government.
== Military alliance with Japan (1941-1945)
==
=== The War in Malaya ===
The Royal Thai Police resisted British Commonwealth
forces invading Southern Thailand in December
1941 at The Battle for The Ledge, following
the Japanese invasion of Malaya.
Thailand was rewarded for Phibun's close co-operation
with Japan during the early years of war with
the return of further territory that had once
been under Bangkok's control, namely the four
northernmost Malay states after the Malayan
Campaign.
=== Death Railway ===
On 21 December 1941, a mutual offensive-defensive
alliance pact between the two countries was
signed.
The agreement, revised on 30 December, gave
the Japanese full access to Thai weaponry
and to Thai railways, roads, airfields, naval
bases, warehouses, communications systems,
and barracks.
To promote greater military and economic co-operation,
Pridi was removed from the cabinet and offered
a seat on the politically impotent Regency
Council of the absent king, which he subsequently
accepted.
Japan meanwhile stationed 150,000 troops on
Thai soil and built the infamous Death Railway
through Thailand using Asian labourers and
Allied prisoners of war.
=== Allied Bombing of Thailand ===
Since the Empire of Japan was using the country
as a staging area for its invasions of both
Malaya and Burma, Allied planes began bombing
raids on the Thai capital city of Bangkok.
With this added pressure, the Phibun Government
decided to declare war on the Allies.
=== Contrast of Thai and Japanese Policy ===
The Thai government declared war on Britain
and the United States on 25 January 1942.
With Phibun inspired by the Japanese military
operation in Malaya and China, Phibun and
Luang Wichit Wathakan believe that if Japanese
won the war Thailand could gain some territories,
finally Phibun re-adopted the previous "Great
Thai Kingdom policy", but the Japanese had
the idea of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere.
The Thais, who loathed the idea of being treated
on the same level as the two Japanese puppet
regimes, (Manchukuo and Wang Jingwei regime)
initially resisted, but ultimately the Japanese
had their way.
Thai resentment on this issue lasted throughout
the war, however, and resulted in Phibun refusing
to attend the following year's Greater East
Asia Conference.Although the declaration of
war, the Thai ambassador in London had delivered
Phibun's declaration of war to the British
government, the Thai ambassador in Washington
DC, Seni Pramoj, had refused to do so.
Accordingly, the United States did not declare
war on Thailand.
With American assistance, Seni, a conservative
aristocrat with well established anti-Japanese
credentials, organised the Free Thai Movement
in the United States, recruiting Thai students
to work with the United States Office of Strategic
Services (OSS).
Seni was able to achieve this because the
State Department decided to act as if Seni
continued to represent Thailand, enabling
him to draw on Thai assets frozen by the United
States.
=== The War in Burma ===
In addition at Japanese conquest of Burma,
the Thai Phayap Army was permitted to invade
the part of the Shan States and Karenni States
of Burma that was annexed as Saharat Thai
Doem.
At this point Phibun wanted to annex more
of Burma, including Mandalay.
As a result, Thailand sent more troops to
support the Japanese conquest of Burma, which
later became known as the "Thai Burma Area
Army".
The Japanese Southern Expeditionary Army Group
didn't allow the Thai Burma Area Army to really
control a part of occupied Burma.
They limited the area of the Thai Burma Area
Army under their command.
=== Natural disaster and Economic Failure
===
==== Bangkok Great Floods (1942) ====
In September 1942, there was a long rainy
season in Northern, Northeastern and Central
regions of Thailand, causing a great floods
in many provinces, including Bangkok.
In Bangkok, the major flooding was recorded
as having effects on the city's infrastructure
lasting three months.Although the majority
of Thais were initially "intoxicated" with
Japan's string of brilliant victories in early
1942, by the end of the year there was widespread
resentment as a result of arrogant Japanese
behaviour and war-induced privation.
Even during the early stages of the war there
was friction over issues such as the confiscation
of Allied property and economic and monetary
matters, as well as the treatment of Thailand's
ethnic Chinese community.
A vicious contest for saw mills and teak forests
owned by British companies erupted early on,
followed by similar disputes over the control
of enemy energy and shipping facilities within
the country.
Other problems were more severe.
For a time Germany continued actively purchasing
Thai products, but once shipping difficulties
became intractable, Japan became Thailand's
sole significant trading partner.
Similarly, Thailand had to rely on the Japanese
for consumer goods previously imported from
Europe and the United States, which Japan
was increasingly unable to provide as the
war wore on.
A shortage of commodities quickly developed,
with inflation soaring and standards of living
dropping.
Worse still, the Japanese had aggressively
claimed the right to import goods duty-free,
significantly reducing Thai government revenues.
=== Thai offensive into China ===
After the Japanese Army seized Rangoon, British
troops and Chinese troops was forced to withdraw
from Burma.
Since 9 May 1942, Thai Phayap army crossed
Thai-Burmese border and engage the Chinese
Expeditionary Force, Thais captured many Chinese
soldiers, and in 1943 the Phayap Army invasion
headed to Xishuangbanna at China, but were
driven back by the Chinese nationalist force.
The Thai government feared that Phibun might
lose popularity.
Consequently, the government spokesman decided
to lie to its people.
Luang Wichit announced the Phayap Army had
captured Xishuangbanna.
Thailand also oversaw a military occupation
over significant sections in a Burma-China
border, west of Yunnan.
But despite the official territorial achievements,
the so-called "Great Thai Kingdom" was a paper
tiger.
It was faltering as its economy failed to
adapt to the conditions of war, natural disaster
(floods) and the Thai capital being bombed
by the Allies.
=== Thai-Japan Naval co-operation ===
The Royal Thai Navy contracted the Japanese
Kawasaki Shipbuilding Corporation of Kobe
and Mitsubishi to construct coastal defence
ships and submarines.
=== Thai regain territories ===
The following territories of Burma, Laos,
Cambodia and Malaya were returned to Thailand
during World War II.
All these territories were part of Thailand
(Siam) before the Western Powers severed them
from the Thai hegemony in the late nineteenth
century.
The Thai army would remain in these territories
until the end of the war.
Saharat Thai Doem (Burma), including Mueang
Phan District.
It did not include, however, the two districts
of Möngmaü and Mehsakun of Mawkmai of the
southern Shan States, nor part of Kantarawadi
in the Karenni States, all east of the Salween
River, which although claimed by Thailand,
were assigned by the Japanese to their client
State of Burma in September 1943.
Sirat Malai (Malaysia), including Saiburi
(Kedah State).
Lan Chang Province (Laos)
Nakhon Champassak Province (Laos and Cambodia)
Phra Tabong Province (Cambodia)
Phibunsongkhram Province (Cambodia)Following
the fall of the Phibun government in August
1944, the new government of Khuang Aphaiwong
communicated to the British government that
it renounced all claims to the Shan states
and northern Malaya, and that it would immediately
cedes the territories to Britain.
The Churchill government did not accept the
Thai overture, and was prepared to retaliate.
The Thai army evacuated the two Shan states
only in August 1945.Thailand was still allied
with Japan when the war ended, but the United
States proposed a solution.
In 1946 Thailand agreed to cedes the territories
regained during Japanese presence in the country
as the price for admission to the United Nations,
consequently all wartime claims against Thailand
were dropped and the country received a substantial
package of US aid.
Following this event all the Thai-occupied
territories returned to their pre-war status
and became again part of the states from which
they had been annexed.
== Allied Offensive ==
=== Resistance ===
In December 1942 an armed confrontation between
Japanese troops and Thai villagers and police
escalated into a shoot-out in Ratchaburi.
Although the Ban Pong incident was promptly
and peacefully resolved, it served as "a warning
signal that alerted Tokyo to the seriousness
of the problems in Thailand".
This led to General Aketo Nakamura being sent
to command the newly formed Thailand Garrison
Army.
Nakamura's ability to understand the Thai
perspective, combined with his affable personality,
significantly helped to improve Thai-Japanese
relations.
The Other Japanese intention is to help defend
Thailand, Nakamura expect that could against
possible invasion by the Allies from Burma.This
more conciliatory stance occurred at a moment
when the tide began to turn against Japan,
something which many within the Thai government
recognised.
Realising that the Allies had seized the initiative
in the war, Phibun, well aware of his predicament,
distanced himself from the Japanese.
In January 1943 he had two of the Phayap Army's
divisional commanders arrange the return of
a group of Chinese prisoners-of-war as a gesture
of friendship designed to open secret negotiations
with Chongqing.But the prime minister's star
was waning at a much faster rate than he had
thought.
With the Allies intensifying their bombing
raids on Bangkok, public confidence in Phibun,
already tested by his idiosyncratic domestic
policies, was waning fast.
His frequent absence from Bangkok led morale
to plummet, while a sudden proclamation that
the capital and its inhabitants immediately
be moved north to malaria-infested Phetchabun
was greeted with near-universal bemusement
and discontent.
The kingdom's ruling elite was becoming increasingly
weary of Phibun, whose intimidation and demotion
of dissenters within the government served
to further unite his opponents, who were rallying
to Pridi.Even the Japanese were becoming disaffected
with Phibun.
The possibility that a military scheme lay
behind Phibun's attempt to relocate the seat
of government was not lost on the Japanese.
Remote, with the nearest rail connection at
Phitsanulok, a half-day's drive away, Phetchabun's
main asset was its suitability as a mountainous
fortress.
Moreover, the site was in an area where the
majority of the Thai army was based.Coinciding
with Phibun's efforts to distance himself
from the Japanese, the Allied Invasion of
Italy and the downfall of Benito Mussolini
sent shock waves through the Thai government,
and an emergency cabinet meeting was convened
to discuss the European situation.
Analogies with Italy were soon being made.
"Badoglio" became an increasingly popular
Thai political epithet, and the Japanese envoy
in Berlin was advised by Reichsmarschall Göring,
who was old friend with Tojo and many Thai
generals at Prussian Military Academy, to
keep a close watch on Thailand, lest it turn
into an "Oriental Italy."Despite the increasing
domestic discontent and Japanese distrust,
Phibun's political demise would not come until
the following year.
Pridi, the regent, from his office at Thammasat
University, ran a clandestine movement that,
by the end of the war, had, with Allied aid,
armed more than 50,000 Thais to resist the
Phibun government and the Japanese.
In 1944 he managed to engineer the unseating
of Phibun, who was replaced by Khuang Aphaiwong,
the civilian son of a minor nobleman and linked
politically with conservatives like Seni.
Khuang's main task was to continue the charade
of collaboration whilst shielding the growing
underground movement.
He succeeded in this to a great extent, convincing
not only Nakamura, but also the notorious
Masanobu Tsuji.By the beginning of 1945, preparations
were actively being pursued for a rising against
the Japanese.
Plans for an uprising relied on the success
of a quick, surprise strike by a special police
unit against the Japanese command structure.
The residences of leading officers and the
Japanese communications facilities were kept
under surveillance.
The police assault was to be coordinated with
a general attack by the partly mechanised
Thai 1st Army against Japanese troops in Bangkok.
Fortifications, in the guise of air raid shelters,
had been dug at key crossroads, and additional
troops had been brought into the city in small
groups in civilian clothing.
The task of Free Thai forces elsewhere would
be to thwart Japanese efforts to reinforce
their Bangkok garrison by cutting communications
lines and seizing airfields.Pridi had to take
into consideration that the Japanese were
building up their forces in Thailand, which
was likely to become a battlefront in the
near future.
Previously most Japanese soldiers stationed
in Thailand had been support troops, but in
December 1944 the local command had been upgraded
from garrison status to a field army.
The Japanese were gathering supplies and constructing
fortifications for a last-ditch defensive
effort at Nakhon Nayok, about 100 kilometres
northeast of Bangkok.
== Post-war ==
The atomic bombings and subsequent Japanese
surrender precluded the uprising, however.
Pridi immediately issued a declaration stating
that Phibun's 1942 declaration of war was
unconstitutional and legally void, thereby
dispensing any need for Thailand to surrender.
The Thai armed forces initially attempted
to disarm the Japanese garrison, but Nakamura
refused, arguing that the matter was for the
Allies to decide.
Khuang in the meanwhile resigned, citing his
previous association with the Japanese as
a possible obstacle to Thailand's rapprochement
with the Allies.
A caretaker premier was found in the person
of Thawi Bunyaket, a Pridi loyalist.In early
September the leading elements of Major-General
Geoffrey Charles Evans's Indian 7th Infantry
Division landed, accompanied by Edwina Mountbatten.
Later that month Seni returned from Washington
to succeed Tawee as prime minister.
It was the first time in over a decade that
the government was controlled by civilians.
But the ensuing factional scramble for power
in late 1945 created political divisions in
the ranks of the civilian leaders that destroyed
their potential for making a common stand
against the resurgent political force of the
military in the post-war years.Moreover, the
post-war accommodations with the Allies weakened
the civilian government.
As a result of the contributions made to the
Allied war efforts by the Free Thai Movement,
the United States refrained from dealing with
Thailand as an enemy country in post-war peace
negotiations.
Before signing a peace treaty, however, Britain
demanded war reparations in the form of rice
shipments to Malaya.
An Anglo-Thai Peace Treaty was signed on 1
January 1946, and an Australian–Thai Peace
Treaty on 3 April.
France refused to permit admission of Thailand
to the United Nations until Indochinese territories
annexed during the war were returned.
The Soviet Union insisted on the repeal of
anti-communist legislation.
== In popular culture ==
The Overture is a 2004 Thai tragic-nostalgia
musical-drama film.
A fictionalised account based on the life
story of Thai palace musician Luang Pradit
Phairoh (Sorn Silapabanleng), The backdrop
to Sorn's life tale is the story of Thailand's
classical music from its golden age during
the reign of King Rama V. Until the rule of
the dictator, Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram,
whose government declared Thai cultural mandates,
led to abolition of traditional Thai music
performances, dance, theatre and culture.
Khu Kam is a Thai novel written by Thommayanti.
It was also adapted into a film, Sunset at
Chaopraya, the story is a love triangle, set
in World War II-era Thailand, and depicts
the star-crossed romance between an Imperial
Japanese Navy officer and a Thai woman who
is involved with the Free Thai resistance.
== See also ==
Thai cultural mandates
Syburi
== Bibliography ==
Aung Tun, Sai (2009).
History of the Shan State: From Its Origins
to 1962.
Chiang Mai: Silk Worm Books.
ISBN 978-974-9511-43-5.
== References ==
== External links ==
This article incorporates public domain text
from the Library of Congress July 1994, Retrieved
on 11 June 2008.
