Vietnam 1945 - America's first intervention

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:03]Here with an SS shot of US helicopters evacuating from this pretty small rooftop for an apartment building in the center of Saigon is the iconic photo of the ignominious end of America's long war in Vietnam.

[00:00:26]In this Rusty Compass video, we head back to where it all began.

[00:00:31]It was 1945 and the final months of World War II.

[00:00:37]A group of US intelligence officers parachuted into the remote jungles of Vietnam's border with China to collaborate with Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh forces in the fight against the Japanese.

[00:01:00]>> [music] >> Welcome to this Rusty Compass travel guide to America in Vietnam.

[00:01:06]And America's first 20th century intervention. [music] It was a time of hope and idealism.

[00:01:14]This series is designed for people who love to combine history and travel.

[00:01:20]I hope it introduces fascinating people, places, and events that you might not have previously been aware of.

[00:01:29]You might meet some new Vietnamese historical figures, too.

[00:01:34]It's all stuff that we hope will bring extra meaning to your travels.

[00:01:39]It's what we do at rustycompass.com and at our little travel company, Old Compass Travel.

[00:01:49]When the Japanese occupied Vietnam in 1940 as part of their conquest of Southeast Asia, they came to an agreement with the French colonial administration to manage the colony on their behalf, the Vichy French taking their orders from the occupying Japanese.

[00:02:08]The next year, Ho Chi Minh, the man who would lead Vietnam's long struggle for independence, slipped back into Vietnam across its northern border with China.

[00:02:18]He'd spent three decades abroad developing his networks and his ideas.

[00:02:24]His travels included the United States, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China.

[00:02:34]Ho Chi Minh's first attempt at courting the US government came at the end of World War I and the peace conference at Versailles.

[00:02:42]He penned a petition and carried it to the conference hoping to meet US President Woodrow Wilson. His petition laid out modest self-determination demands on behalf of the Vietnamese people.

[00:02:56]He failed to get a meeting with Wilson or any other world leader and returned to Paris rebuffed and dejected.

[00:03:04]It wasn't the last time that Ho Chi Minh tried to persuade the United States that colonized peoples had the same rights to freedom and self-government as their colonizers.

[00:03:17]Back in Paris and frustrated, his time mixing with French radicals sharpened his awareness of the hypocrisy of colonialism.

[00:03:27]Exposure to the writings of Lenin on the subject was especially influential.

[00:03:33]In the 1920s, Ho Chi Minh became a prominent member of the international communist movement. He spent long periods in Moscow.

[00:03:42]Like many others, by the 1930s, his situation in Stalinist Russia was perilous.

[00:03:50]Among other things, his fierce Vietnamese nationalism put him at odds with hardline Stalinism.

[00:03:57]At the time, Stalinists were busy executing ideological foes.

[00:04:03]Many of them were fellow communists, and some were Vietnamese.

[00:04:08]Ho Chi Minh managed to escape Moscow 1 year before Stalin's pact with Nazi Germany.

[00:04:14]When he finally made it back to Vietnam, his purpose was to secure his long-held dream, a free and independent homeland.

[00:04:24]His first task, the fight against the Japanese.

[00:04:29]A task he'd take up here in Vietnam's northern Cao Bang province.

[00:04:35]In December 1944, a guerrilla force of 34 assembled here and created the People's Army of Vietnam.

[00:04:45]Ho Chi Minh's partner in the creation of what would become one of the most formidable fighting force of the 20th century, was a teacher and intellectual, Vo Nguyen Giap, seen here in a tie.

[00:04:59]Giap would go on to be one of the most important military commanders in modern history, and second only to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam's pantheon of revered national heroes.

[00:05:11]General Giap would cut his teeth in the art of guerrilla warfare fighting the Japanese in World War II.

[00:05:18]He couldn't have imagined that he'd spend the next three decades fighting ever more formidable adversaries.

[00:05:25]In early 1945, Ho's Viet Minh guerrillas teamed up with US intelligence officers in the fight against their common enemy.

[00:05:35]In this shot, Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap are pictured with their American collaborators.

[00:05:42]They formed a bond of trust and respect that carried through to their victorious return to Hanoi after the Japanese surrender.

[00:05:56]Behind me here is the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, uh President Ho Chi Minh.

[00:06:01]And it was on this square in uh on September 2nd, 1945, that Ho Chi Minh gathered here with thousands of his followers to declare independence. It was the end of World War II, and Ho Chi Minh quite rightly thought that was a pretty good time to uh to assert uh his people's right to independence.

[00:06:21]Ho Chi Minh and his forces had made common cause with the allies in the fight against the Japanese. The Vietnamese people had suffered terribly.

[00:06:30]And as the war ended, the north of the country was beset by a famine that would take more than a million lives.

[00:06:38]The French and the Japanese share culpability for that final World War II humanitarian catastrophe.

[00:06:46]But Ho Chi Minh believed that the winds of change were blowing in his favor as he gathered in Ba Dinh Square with hundreds of thousands of devout followers.

[00:06:57]Ho Chi Minh was joined on that day by members of a force called the OSS, which was the precursor to the United States CIA.

[00:07:07]The Americans of the OSS were welcome guests of Ho Chi Minh, the same men he'd been collaborating with in the fight against the Japanese.

[00:07:16]If they understood Vietnamese, they would have felt some pride as Uncle Ho commenced his speech acknowledging Thomas Jefferson's US Declaration of Independence, re-stating its core premise, "All men are created equal.

[00:07:33]They are endowed by the creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

[00:07:44]Ho's Declaration of Independence, composed in this room in Hanoi's Old Quarter, is a stinging indictment of French colonial rule.

[00:07:54]He writes, "Nevertheless, for more than 80 years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of liberty, equality, and fraternity, have violated our fatherland and oppressed our fellow citizens.

[00:08:09]They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice."

[00:08:15]He reserves his most scathing critique for the French response to Japanese aggression in World War II.

[00:08:23]He writes, "When the Japanese fascists violated Indochina's territory to establish new bases in their fight against the allies, the French imperialists went down on their bended knees and handed over our country to them.

[00:08:39]Thus, from that date, our people were subjected to the double yoke of the French and the Japanese. Their sufferings and miseries increased."

[00:08:51]Ho Chi Minh's Declaration of Independence provides an indispensable insight into his eloquence and clarity of thinking and the righteous fury that drove his movement.

[00:09:03]It was an outlook that captivated millions across his country.

[00:09:07]Also captivated were his US collaborators.

[00:09:12]Make sure you check out Ho Chi Minh's Declaration of Independence before you visit historic Ba Dinh Square, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, and his beautiful house on stilts.

[00:09:23]It'll add a lot to the experience of visiting these places.

[00:09:27]There's a copy on Rusty Compass and there's a link in the description.

[00:09:33]Back to the declaration and the Americans who were there in support.

[00:09:38]Seen here in this photo is Archimedes Patti, the head of the OSS mission.

[00:09:44]Beside him is General Z Noting the significance of the day, Patti sent a cable back to his superiors in Washington that read Have had a long conference with Prime Minister Ho Chi Minh and he impresses me as a sensible, well-balanced, politically minded individual.

[00:10:05]His demands are few and simple.

[00:10:07]Namely, limited independence, liberation from French rule, the right to live as free people in the family of nations, and lastly, the right to deal directly with the outside world.

[00:10:22]Archimedes Patti may have been sympathetic to the aspirations of Ho Chi Minh and his people. The French, however, had other ideas and by later in 1945, they decided they wanted their colonies back and so began 30 years of of bloody war. The Cold War set in, the anti-communist agenda started to consume all US policy and Ho Chi Minh found himself on the wrong side of the US government.

[00:10:50]At significant political cost, Ho Chi Minh had tried to negotiate with the French, befriend the Americans, and steer a moderate road to self-government.

[00:11:02]His efforts were betrayed by France, nostalgic for its pre-World War II colonial glory.

[00:11:12]By late 1946, Ho Chi Minh and his men were in full-blown war with the French.

[00:11:20]They were forced back into the jungles of the north, where they'd stay fighting for eight long years until the historic defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

[00:11:35]The friendships forged with the OSS in 1945 were long forgotten.

[00:11:41]The death of President Roosevelt had weakened global advocacy for decolonization.

[00:11:47]An escalating Cold War in Europe, the victory of Mao's communists in China, and the Korean War extinguished any prospect of American support for Uncle Ho's ambitions.

[00:12:02]Vietnam was a tiny player in world affairs that would soon have a leading role thrust upon it.

[00:12:18]>> [music] >> Thanks for joining me.

[00:12:24]This video is part of a series called America in Vietnam, a travel guide, and this is the fourth video in that series.

[00:12:33]You can check out the others on this YouTube channel.

[00:12:36]Make sure you subscribe to for more great information for travelers who love history. You can also head over to rusticcompass.com for the blogs and for more information about the places visited.

[00:12:49]If you'd like to travel with us in person exploring places of history in Saigon and Sydney, head over to allcompasstravel.com.

[00:13:00]With the exception of the archival stills, everything in this video and everything we do at Rustic Compass is original and AI-free.

[00:13:10]Thanks very much for joining me. Talk soon.

[00:13:22]>> [music] >> Mhm.