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Viet Nam1945 - 1954

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2 Sep 1945 Ho Chi Minh issues his Declaration of

Independence, drawing heavily upon theAmerican Declaration of Independence from acopy provided by the OSS as well as Sun Yatsen's"Three-people Doctrine".

Ho declares himselfpresident of theDemocratic Republic ofVietnam and pursuesAmerican recognition butis repeatedly ignored byPresident Harry Truman.

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22 Sep 1945 In South Vietnam, 1400 French soldiers releasedby the British from former Japanese internment camps enter

Saigon and go on a deadly rampage, attacking Viet Minhand killing innocent civilians including children, aided byFrench civilians who joined the rampage. An estimated20,000 French civilians live in Saigon.

Oct 45 35,000 Frenchsoldiers under thecommand of World War IIGeneral Jacques PhilippeLeclerc arrive in SouthVietnam to restore French

rule. Viet Minh immediatelybegin a guerrilla campaignto harass them. The Frenchthen succeed in expellingthe Viet Minh from Saigon.

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6 Jul 1946 Viet Minh andFrench meet in Paris fornegotiations. Talks breakdown.

19 Dec 1946 30,000 Viet Minhunder Giap initiate the eight-year Indochina War with anattack on French troops atHaiphong. The attack failsunder superior Frenchfirepower but it takes theFrench a week to clearHaiphong of the Communistforces. By seizing control ofseveral cities, the FrenchExpeditionary Army force the

Viet Minh to conduct guerrillawarfare. "If these [people] wanta fight, they'll get it," Frenchmilitary commander Gen.Etrienne Valluy states.

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13 Mar 1954 50,000 Viet Minh under Gen. Giap begin theirassault against the fortified hills protecting the Dien Bien Phuair base. They outnumber the French by nearly five-to-one.

Giap's artillery pounds the French and shuts down the onlyrunway, thus forcing the French to rely on r isky parachutedrops for re-supply. Giap's troops then take out their shovels

and begin construction of a maze of tunnels and trenches,slowly inching their way toward the main French positionand surrounding it.

1 May 1954 The siege at Dien Bien Phu occurs as nearly10,000 French soldiers are trapped by 45,000 Viet Minh.French troops soon run out of fresh water and medicalsupplies.

The French urgently appeal to Washington for help. The U.S.Joint Chiefs of Staff now consider three possible militaryoptions: sending American combat troops to the rescue; amassive conventional air strike by B-29 bombers; the use oftactical atomic weapons. President Eisenhower dismissesthe conventional air raid and the nuclear option aftergetting a strong negative response to such actions fromAmerica's chief ally, Britain. Eisenhower also decides againstsending U.S. ground troops to rescue the French, citing thelikelihood of high casualty rates in the jungles around DienBien Phu. No action is taken.

7 May 1954 Dien Bien Phu falls. At 5:30 p.m., 10,000 Frenchsoldiers surrender at Dien Bien Phu, depriving France of anybargaining power at Geneva. By now, an estimated 8,000Viet Minh and 1,500 French have died.

7 May 54-late-July 1954 French survivors are marched for up to 60days to prison camps 500 hundred miles away. Nearly halfdie during the march or in captivity.

8 May 1954 The U.S., Bri tain, China, Soviet Union, France,Vietnam (Viet Minh and representatives of Bao

Dai), Cambodia and Laos meet at the GenevaConference on Indochina to negotiate a solution forSoutheast Asia.