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Japanese with the Viet Minh (part 2)

A number of years ago, there was some discussion [on the moderated Vietnam newsgroups] about the Imperial Japanese soldiers who, in 1945 and 1946, volunteered to serve with the Viet Minh in exchange for protection from World War II era Allied war crime tribunals. Cecil B Currey's new book reviews the subject. Below are some notes about it for any student who wants to look into it. Most critically, it should be easy these days to get a copy of the original American DIA report about it. See below. With a copy of that report in hand, a most interesting article could be written about a long forgotten subject.

Victory At Any Cost: The Genius of Vietnam's General Vo Nguyen Giap
By Cecil B Currey
Brassey's, 1997
ISBN 1-57488-194-9

See page 125, where it is a question of Viet Minh repression of opposition groups just after the Chinese Kuomintang armies pulled out of Hanoi and northern Vietnam in June of 1946:

"In this activity, Giap had the help not only of his regular Viet Minh cadres but of another special unit as well. In 1945, Giap had enlisted 1,500 fanatically "antiwhite" Japanese military personnel who offered their services to him following Japan's surrender to the Allies. For them it was more attractive than the idea of returning to a defeated and occupied homeland. These soldiers were led by 230 noncommissioned officers and forty-seven gendarmes of the once dreaded Japanese Kempetai, all of whom were wanted for questioning by the Allies on charges of suspected war crimes. The entire group was commanded by Colonel Mukayama from the general staff of the 38th Imperial Army. Giap arranged for them all to receive Vietnamese citizenship and false identification papers. Mukayama became one of Giap's firm supporters and willingly served him when called upon, as he was in this instance, to attack opponents of the Viet Minh regime."

Unfortunately, the footnote to this text points only to the words "DIA Document". It does not matter however, because there is the name Colonel Mukayama. A search of old DIA documents for this name will certainly yield the original DIA report on the subject. It would have been written in 1945 or 1946.

On page 166 of this same book [Curry's book]is the note that "Colonel Mukayama was killed in December of 1947 at Cho Chu during a battle with French paratroopers."

A quick search of the index of the classic 1952 book from Philippe Devillers "Histoire du Vietnam de 1940 at 1952" yields the same name Mukaiyama. Devillers has him listed as a Lieutenant Colonel. See page 282.

"Pendant tout le printemps et l'ete (1946), les preparatifs dans les "chien khu" sont intensifies. Des technicians et des specialistes japonais pretent leur concours au commandement viet-minh comme conseillers techniques adjoints aux chefs ou comme instructeurs. Parmi les officiers nippons fanatiquement anti-blancs, venus apres la capitulation offrir leurs services au gouvernement vietnamien, figurait par exemple le lieutenant-colonel Mukaiyama, de l'Etat-Major de la 38e armee."

A quick translation of the above: "In the spring and summer (1946), preparations in the "chien khu" intensified. Japanese technicians and specialists offered their services to the Viet Minh as technical consultants and as instructors. In this group of fanatically anti white Japanese officers who offered their services to the Viet Minh government after the capitulation in Tokyo, was, for example, Lieutenant Colonel Mukaiyama, from the General Staff of the Imperial Japanese 38th Army." End translation.

Another angle on the subject is in a relatively new book by Professor Valette:

La Guerre d'Indochine, 1945 - 1954
Jacques Valette
Paris, Armand Colin, 1994
ISBN 2-200-21537-1

See page 27, where he reviews the role of the Japanese: "Des deserteurs japonais se sont mis au service du Viet-minh, beaucoup venant de la Kempetai. Les service francais ont eu quelque tendance a en gonfler les effectifs: `armee de 10,00 hommes" pres de Hue, `7,000 Japonais' entre Nam Dinh et Quinhon, au Tonkin, `7,000 repartis surtout dans les provinces de Backan, Vietri et Lang-son'. Au printemps 1946, ils revisent leur estimation: 2,000 Japonais dans les groupes armes du Viet-minh. Quant aux Chinois, ils etaient indifferents au probleme; des prisonniers furent embauches par eux, habilles en civil parce que techniciens."

A quick translation of the above: "Japanese deserters put themselves at the service of the Viet Minh, many of them coming from the Kempetai. The French services tended to over estimate their numbers: `army of 10,000 Japanese' near Hue, '7,000 Japanese' between Nam Dinh and Quinhon, in Tonkin, `7,000 above all in the provinces of Backan, Vietri and Lang Son'. In the spring of 1946, the French services revised their estimate: 2,000 Japanese were serving in armed Viet Minh groups. As for the Chinese, they were indifferent to the problem; their Japanese prisoners were hired and given civilian clothing because of their technical capabilities." End translation.

Needless to say, Backan, usually spelled Bac Kan or Bac Can, Vietri and Lang Son were Viet Minh controlled areas at the time. It was the first Viet Minh "liberated" zone.

The footnote for this text reads: "Note about the situation in the Hue region. Non dated and not signed - established for the services of the DGER in 1946. Private archives."

What this means is that the note is now in the possession of Professor Valette. As of 1994, he was a Professor at the University of Poitiers in France and the President of the Indochinese War Commission at the Institute of Contemporary Conflicts. He is also the author of a book on Japanese French relations in Vietnam between 1940 and 1945.

DGER is the acronym for one of the World War II era military intelligence services, Direction des Etudes et de la Recherche, which was later combined into the SDECE. Some explanation about it is on http://www.fas.org/irp/world/france/defense/dgse. Most of their old Indochina related documents are available to the public at the main French Indochina archive in Aix-en-Provence in southern France. This archive, long used by many students, now has a web page. See it on http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/caom/fr/index.html.