Post by s***@yahoo.comSorry I forget the source, maybe Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow
At the end of WWII various allies had the task of ushering out the Japanese occupiers from several countries. My dad went to Korea. The british general leading the force in Vietnam was General Gracie. His mission was to get rid of Japs. He, however, publicly stated hatred for the indigenes, and actually armed Japanese troops to suppress the populace. There were also French who had suffered for years in captivity. He also armed them, and they went around madly shooting people.
So, maybe if US troops had also taken Vietnam from the Japanese, we would have had not so much trouble and converted them to a US ally.
This would of course lead to endless enmity with the French and both
FDR and Truman knew of the influence of the French Communist party in
the French resistance which while the details of the postwar
settlement in Europe was still in flux during Aug/Sep 1945 (i.e. the
first postwar elections were being held right about that time in most
of the previously Nazi occupied countries outside the Soviet bloc) it
was clear that steps against European colonial powers (mostly France,
Netherlands and Belgium) would give aid and comfort to local Communist
parties.
Your point would be more to the point if the Japanese surrender had be
3-4 months later than in OTL when the western European elections were
done (and by the beginning of the next electoral cycle after that the
Marshal plan would be ramping up so probably not a good time for
European Communist parties) but right during the election periods
could have had catastrophic results for non-communist election
prospects.
Trivia point: the last overseas deployment of British 1st Airborne was
NOT at Arnhem (which I assume most readers here know about as well as
knowing about the American landings at Nijmegen and Einhoven) but in
Norway where the King of Norway had asked for a brigade of British
troops to receive the German surrender and maintain basic local
policing until the Norwegian elections could be held. After Arnhem 'a
brigade sized unit' fairly described the survivors of 1 Abn and Norway
in May 1945 was considered to be a fairly safe deployment.
1st Airborne stayed until the elections were done and were immediately
repatriated home thereafter and not surprisingly the men of 1st
Airborne were front of the British demobilization queue (which also
included the 1st Airborne POWs released from German captivity).