Did Vietnam and Thailand both fight France?

Yes, Thailand also fought a large-scale naval battle with France, but the Thai navy was completely defeated, and Vietnam expelled the French army with the support of China.

Fatai naval battle

Elephant Island, also known as Elephant Island or Gechang Island, is the second largest island in Thailand with an area of 429 square kilometers. It is located in Datuk, which borders Cambodia in the east of Thailand, more than 300 kilometers away from Bangkok. There are 52 small islands around Qiangdao, 47 of which are designated as national marine parks with a total area of 650 square kilometers. Now it is a famous tourist attraction in Thailand, but 7 1 years ago, a fierce naval battle broke out here, and the blood of the Thai people dyed the blue sea water red.

It all started in the 1930s. At that time, a great event happened in the kingdom of Siam, the only independent country in Southeast Asia, which could change the national luck. Military dictatorship replaced the attempt of parliamentary democracy, and the military hardliners headed by Placke Pibl Songmu (1897- 1964) seized the real power of the country. Siam began to learn from Japan, formed a fascist organization "Youth Party" and vigorously expanded its armaments. 1On June 24th, 939, the Siam National Assembly decided to change the country name from Siam to Mengtai, and the English country name from Siam to Thailand. The name Thailand comes from the Thai word "Muang Thai", in which "Meng" means "country" and "Thailand" means "freedom".

The name change was undoubtedly related to chauvinism and nationalism in Thailand at that time. National chauvinists in Thailand also put forward the slogan of "Greater Thailand", believing that Laos, Vietnamese monks, Dai people in China and Shan people in Myanmar all belong to "ethnographic Thais", and they intend to unify all "3,000 Wan Tai people" into "Greater Thailand" and build a powerful empire in Indochina Peninsula.

1September 3, 939, Britain and France declared war on Germany over the Polish issue. When the Second World War broke out, Pivan Sukan immediately declared Thailand neutral, but immediately made a speech to the people, saying that "it is time to ask France to return the territory ceded by the 1893 Treaty". Since 1939, large-scale anti-French demonstrations have broken out in Bangkok and some cities bordering French Indian zhina on Thailand's northeast border, and a chauvinist organization "Thai Blood Corps" has also been formed, demanding to "recover" the territory of Laos and western Cambodia from France.

1The unexpected defeat of France in June 1940 gave Thai nationalists a good opportunity to recover their lost land. With the weakening of French influence in the Far East, Thai nationalism is on the rise. 194 1 year, when the territorial claim of Vichy government in France was not met and the British mediation failed, the Thai army launched a military operation, entered Cambodia under the cover of planes and artillery, and soon occupied Shishufeng province, then bombed Hanoi. 65438+ 10/3, Thai troops crossed the Laos border again. By the middle of 5438+ 10, the war between the Thai army troops of five divisions and the French colonial army had been launched on the front of 1000 kilometers.

In the face of the Thai army's attack, the French army resisted tenaciously, but the strength of the two sides was indeed very different. Thailand has 600,000 well-equipped army, 134 tanks, according to Asian standards. The French colonial army only had10.5 million troops and 20 Renault FT- 17 light tanks produced in World War I. As a result, the Thai army quickly occupied the whole territory of Laos, and the soldiers pointed directly at Cambodia.

Although the situation is grim, the arrogant French will certainly not give in easily. The French Governor-General Jean Deju (Jean Deju, 1884- 1963, 1940- 1945) decided to send his own small fleet to take the initiative to attack while organizing the army to counterattack.

The Royal Thai Navy has never experienced actual combat, but at least on paper, it is not a force to be reckoned with. It has 4 submarines, 4 shallow heavy gunboats, 1 destroyer, 12 torpedo boat, 2 frigates, 2 minesweepers, 4 torpedo boats and other auxiliary ships. Thailand, as the object of Japan's efforts to win over, also wants to rely on Japan's self-esteem to fight against the French troops stationed in zhina and India and the British troops stationed in Myanmar (life in the cracks is sad), so there are many Japanese original goods in the Thai navy. Submarine is the most expensive.

Compared with the Royal Thai Navy, the French-Indian-zhina sub-fleet is a bit mixed. This fleet was established in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam on February 9, 1940, under the command of Colonel de Wisler Bo Langille, including the light cruiser Lammote-Picquet, the light frigates Admiral Admiral of the fleet and Dumond.

The French were not sure of victory before the attack. First of all, the French army is at a disadvantage in tonnage, firepower and number of personnel. The total tonnage of the main warships of the Royal Thai Navy is 1600 tons, with 2,300 people. Including 2 Japanese shallow-water heavy gunboats, 9 Italian torpedo boats, 1 British destroyers, 2 Japanese frigates, 4 submarines and 2 mine-laying ships, not including some second-line ships that are older but can still participate in the war, such as the other 2 British shallow-water heavy gunboats. The French only have 1.25 million tons and 950 people.

Secondly, the main warships of the Royal Thai Navy were all newly built in the late 1930s, while the French warships are much older than others.

In addition, the French navy is not familiar with the sea conditions in the Gulf of Siam, while the Thais are just the opposite. Based on these factors, Colonel Bur Langille thinks that the outcome of this battle is very uncertain.

Actually, he's a little worried. In terms of real combat effectiveness, although the French navy has fewer ships, the lamotte Bigay can definitely crush any Thai warship in terms of firepower and speed. The only worry is the lack of air cover and attack capability. Of the French Air Force's approximately 100 aircraft, only 60 can be considered to have reached the first-line combat level, which is mainly used to defend against the attacks of the Thai Air Force. The navy only has eight Loire-65,438+030 seaplanes to provide reconnaissance. In addition, the French can get information from three coastal survey vessels and local fishermen.

When 194 1 year 1 month 13, Governor Dekus's order arrived in Cam Ranh Bay, Bolangjile's small fleet was organizing an exercise. The governor asked them to go to Siam Bay immediately to search for and destroy all Thai ships they met, so as to support the ground forces to launch a counterattack on 16. The ultimate goal of this plan is to completely expel the Thai army from the French colony it occupied.

Colonel Langille opposed the plan, because his warships had different speeds, and in order to wait for two slower frigates, the fleet could never reach its destination within the stipulated time, and finally decided to postpone the operation for 24 hours.

65438+ 10 15, Loire-130 seaplane carefully searched the coast of Thailand and reported to Saigon headquarters that a shallow heavy gunboat and three torpedo boats were in Elephant Island; Another light and heavy gunboat, four torpedo boats and two submarines are in Sattahip. Obviously, the Thai people didn't expect the weak French fleet to take the initiative to attack, and it was a risky posture, so that any sub-fleet could not compete with the Indian zhina sub-fleet. If we can concentrate most of the main battleships and send submarines to monitor the movements of the French fleet at any time, then we will certainly not fall into a passive situation in the future.

This information was quickly transmitted to Bo Langille's fleet, which had entered the Gulf of Siam. The colonel decided to attack the Thai sub-fleet of Qiangdao at dawn. The specific plan is that the frigate will enter the anchorage from the southwest of Qingdao. Because there are many small islands around the strong island anchorage, many of them are above 200 meters above sea level, which can effectively cover the submarine of the fleet. The most powerful warship "lamotte Piguet" was placed in the east channel of Qiangdao, which can prevent enemy ships from escaping from this main channel. Obviously, Bo Langille's original idea was a war of annihilation at sea, and he wanted to hurt Thais as much as possible.

65438+1October 17 At 5: 30 in the morning, the French left the anchorage. Fifteen minutes later, they were divided into three groups according to the plan: "lamotte Bigay" sailed to the east of the anchorage, "Chanel Admiral of the fleet" and "dumont de Ville" sailed directly to the center of the anchorage, and the other two old ships sailed to the west of the anchorage-just in case.

The climatic conditions are very suitable for naval warfare: sunny, calm and almost no waves. But "Langille's mood is not perfect. At 6: 05, the results of the last aerial reconnaissance arranged by the headquarters came. A Loire-130 flying over Qiangdao reported that there were still Thai shallow heavy gunboats at the anchorage, but not one, but two!

This is not a mistake in previous reconnaissance. The newly arrived "Dun Wuli" just arrived last night to replace the original "Big City" and will leave for Sotoi later today. The French had a chance to discover this area earlier. On the way, Langille was going to send two Loire-130 ships, lamotte Bigay, for reconnaissance, but the catapult was out of order and had to be cancelled.

This is not the only bad thing. Loire-130 was hit by a 76 mm anti-aircraft gun on a Thai warship during reconnaissance. Although not injured, it is obvious that the Thai people have been alarmed. "Langille can think of, they will be vigilant in their posts.

Because of these two extreme coincidences, the French, who originally intended to break them one by one, now have to face these two heavy firepower Thai capital ships at the same time. This is an accident, but also an opportunity. Anyway, we can only move forward now. There are still 30 minutes' voyage from the anchorage, and the front is still dark, just like the mood of the Langille-the road ahead is uncertain.

As the colonel expected, the Thai people had a premonition of the arrival of the French fleet, and the sailors began to heat the boiler desperately to get a lot of steam necessary for sailing. The windlass also shook violently, trying to pull up the heavy iron anchor that was deeply immersed in the seabed. Two shallow heavy gunboats moved first, because they used diesel engines and could start almost immediately.

At 6: 30, the sun shone its first ray on the sea level, completely dispelling the remaining haze. It was immediately surprised to find that the originally calm sea was filled with smoke and blood waves.

The naval battle began at 6: 0014, and the Thai fired the first shot. At this time, the distance between the two fleets is 9000 meters. The French responded almost immediately. At 6 o'clock in 19, the155mm cannon on the cruiser roared. If the French had God's help, the first volley did not hit any Thai ships, but it also created great results. A stray bullet destroyed the telegraph device of Thais on the island, which directly caused the Royal Thai Air Force to be late in the battle.

At 2000 hours, the lamotte Bigay fired three torpedoes at the anchorage with a fan, and one of them hit the Dacheng. Although its name is impregnable, it is obvious that the 63mm side armor is not enough to resist the tremendous destructive power of the 550mm torpedo. The unlucky guy who got involved in the battle because he left late was badly damaged and had to struggle to run aground on the island. Fortunately, however, he was forced to run aground

At 6: 25, I saw that the Ayutthaya had lost its combat effectiveness, and the torpedo boat Tato became the next target of the lamotte Bigay. It seems that the firepower of the eight-door 155mm main gun is not enough. French sailors also tried to flatten the 75 mm anti-aircraft gun and bombarded "Dadao" violently, and the shells rained down. This torpedo boat, which desperately increased its speed, was badly damaged when it failed to reach the favorable torpedo launching position, so it had to follow the example of Ayutthaya and sail to the shore, but it could not support itself without armor on the way. At 6: 35, the ship quickly tilted and disappeared at sea level.

Two French frigates also rushed into the anchorage from the west and had a fierce exchange of fire with the two sister ships of Da Dao: Chunwuli and Songkhla. The latter is obviously at a disadvantage, and the 76 mm gun cannot compete with the 138 mm gun in range and power. Although the speed of Thai torpedo boat is much faster than that of French ship in theory, it can't speed up because of the insufficient steam storage in the boiler. This hand-to-hand battle lasted from 6 o'clock in 19 to 6: 35, and both Thai ships caught fire, among which the "Chunwuli" exploded violently. The officers and men on board lost confidence and abandoned the ship. French frigates range from 8000 meters to 5000 meters. Two torpedo boats that lost their ability to resist were hit hard, surrounded by flames and smoke, and finally capsized and sank, leaving only the red bottom still exposed on the sea. The smoke rose to 30 to 40 meters high.

Although two enemy ships have been "sunk" (the French don't know that Ayutthaya still has a breath) and gained a lot, Colonel Langille is still not satisfied. "lamotte Bigay" is like a bloodthirsty monster, searching around the island bay for targets. At 6: 38, it finally found the second Thai gunboat. At that time, the distance was 1. 1, 000 meters. "Swallow Wu Li" didn't dare to fight, and fled to the northwest at full speed. The two immediately began a tense chase.

Not long after, "Langille found himself meeting a cunning opponent. He clearly knew that he was at a disadvantage in speed, so he skillfully crossed the dotted islands and constantly changed the speed and course, making it impossible for the French gunner to obtain accuracy. Of course, because the eight-door 155 mm guns have been roaring diligently and hit the target, the observers found the flames from the enemy ships. At this time, the other side will hide behind the island, suddenly come out after the emergency damage, and fire slowly but accurately at the French cruiser.

Thai shooting training is still good, and the landing point of each shell is quite close to the French ship. Therefore, the "lamotte Bigay" had to maintain a high speed of 27 knots to avoid the sneak attack of the Thai people, but the maximum depth of this sea area was less than 10 meter, and the huge French ship was in danger of being stranded at any time.

The deadlock was finally broken at 7: 00 15. "Swallow Wu Li" found that not only cruisers, but also French frigates joined the chase. Thais may think that they can find bargains on a French ship much smaller than lamotte Bigay, so they lashed out at the Charnell Admiral of the fleet with an 8-inch main gun. There are many huge water columns around the latter, but perhaps because of personality problems, none of them can be hit.

The Thais soon discovered that this way of fighting on two fronts was stupid, but they regretted it too late and paid a heavy price: the back main gun of "Swallow Wu Li" was hit by a cruiser, so they were forced to give up attacking the frigate and turned their fire to "lamotte Bigay" again. Then it tried to sail to shallow water, so that French warships that ate deep water would not get close to it, so as not to run aground. However, this wise decision was made too late. The "Swallow Wu Li" was repeatedly shot and ignited a raging fire. Due to a large amount of water, the hull began to tilt seriously to the right. At 7: 50, in order to end the protracted battle, "lamotte Bigay" fired a torpedo at a distance of10.5 million meters, but it hit the reef group in front of "Swallow Wu Li".

In the next hour, French ships searched the sea area repeatedly, looking for surviving enemy ships, but found nothing. At 8: 40, the Thai Air Force is expected to retaliate soon. Bo Langille ordered to return, but he was attacked by the Royal Thai Air Force not far away.

At 8: 58, an O2U-2 biplane bomber swooped down under the cover of sunlight, dropping two bombs, but the landing point was far away. Then the second, this time the bomb fell to a distance of 200 meters, and the violent explosion made some shrapnel fly to the deck of the cruiser.

At 9 am, a bomb was dropped 500 meters away from the Chanel Admiral of the fleet. Since then, the bombing has never stopped, but it is always attacked by two or one plane, and the bombs are always dropped at a height of 3000 meters. This may be to avoid the anti-aircraft fire of the French ship, but it also directly caused a low hit rate. In addition, every time an aircraft strikes, no matter which ship it targets, all French ships will immediately use 75 mm anti-aircraft guns and 13.2 mm anti-aircraft machine guns to violently fire, forcing Thai bombers to leave or drop bombs hastily. Sometimes bombs fall thousands of meters away from the French fleet.

Nevertheless, some bombs landed very close to lamotte Bigay, but the latter finally escaped through flexible evasion and fierce anti-aircraft fire. At 9: 40, the last air strike in Thailand ended, and several tons of bombs were thrown into the sea, but there was still no result. The French army successfully returned to Saigon.

After the French army retreated, the "Chang" transport ship rushed to Qiang Island, trying to tow the "Tun" back to Sotoi for repair, but it capsized on the way. Besides, three torpedo boats were lost. Only the torpedo boat Luo Yong, the minesweeper Nhong Sarhai and the fishery boat Thiew Uthok survived. They wisely chose to hide in the northern part of Qiang Island without saying a word, so they were not discovered by the French.

In a sense, this naval battle is of decisive significance. The elite of the Royal Thai Navy was wiped out, and the remaining ships never dared to leave the base. Fortunately, the severely stranded Ayutthaya did not sink. After the war, it was towed to Japan for repair and survived the Second World War safely, but it was sunk by a coastal battery in an attempted revolutionary uprising on July 3, 195 1. For the loss of personnel, the caliber of the two sides is very different. Thailand claimed that 16 people were killed in the naval battle, while France believed that about 300 people were killed, and pointed out in particular that only 82 crew members were rescued from the lost ship in Thailand. Among the published post-war casualties, Thailand admitted that 4/kloc-0 sailors and marines died and 67 were injured. Maybe this is a more realistic number. Compared with the heavy losses suffered by the Thai navy, the French fleet has almost no losses in terms of personnel or ships.

The French are in high spirits. They think they have won a great victory similar to the naval battle in Mahai, especially in the closed waters that are not conducive to maneuvering, and their opponent, the Thai navy, is also brave and persevering (the French seem to like to praise their opponents after victory). In the end, all these achievements came to nothing-65438+1October 16, the land counterattack launched by the French army was defeated by the Thai army. Five days later, the Japanese government proposed "arbitration" and Japan arranged a truce. The general ceasefire came into effect on June 28, 65438+/kloc-0. On May 9, the two sides signed a peace agreement in Tokyo. France gave up the disputed territory under the threat of Japan, and the victory of the naval battle of Qiangdao only played a role in saving face for the proud Gaul.