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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 August 2009
At the end of World War II, American Office of Strategic Service (OSS) officers in Bangkok were dismayed to discover that, contrary to their expectations, the Thai showed little animosity toward the Japanese. The OSS unit reported in August 1945 that ‘there has been very little in the way of hostile reaction’. Japanese accounts confirm this, with a Foreign Ministry study, for example, concluding: ‘The general attitude of Thai officials and citizens toward Japan just after the war's end was relatively sympathetic….’
An earlier version of this article was published in Thai translation in Warasan Thammasat, a journal published by Thammasat University in Bangkok. The author wishes to express his appreciation to the East-West Center, the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship Committee, the Japan-U.S. Educational Foundation, the Department of Education Fulbright Program, the Robert Sakai Travel Fund, the University of Hawaii Japan Studies Endowment (funded by a grant from the Japanese government), the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies, and the San Jose State University of Foundation for various financial support of his research on Japanese-Thai relations over the past seven years.
1 XL18986, 16 Aug. 1945, Record Group (hereafter, RG) 226, U.S. National Archives (hereafter, USNA).
2 Daigoka, Gaimushô Chôinkyoku [Foreign Ministry Research Bureau, Fifth Section], Sengo ni okeru Shamu no seiji keizai jôsei [Postwar political and economic conditions in Siam] (Tokyo: Gaimushô, 1948), p. 9Google Scholar. The East Asian Library at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, has a copy of this volume.
3 This is a main thesis of Schaller, Michael's The American Occupation of Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985)Google Scholar. In particular, the Americans wished to encourage Japanese trade with Southeast Asian countries instead of with the People's Republic of China.
4 Quoted in Neher, Arlene B., ‘Prelude to Alliance: The Expansion of American Economic Interest in Thailand During the 1940's’ (Ph.D. diss., Northern Illinois University, 1980), p. 366Google Scholar.
5 Bangkok Post, 13 04 1950Google Scholar.
6 Regarding Thai casualties, shortly after the event Japanese Military Attaché Colonel Tamura Hiroshi estimated the total at 150 in ‘Tamura Bukan memo, sono ni’ [Memo by Attaché Tamura, number two], a hand-written document held by the National Institute for Defense Studies, Tokyo. According to a privately published 1987 book by a group of Japanese war veterans who re-visited Thailand (Katayama Hiroshi, ed., Himerareta Nittai sen [The War between Japan and Thailand which was kept secret]), the Thai war memorial at Nakhon Si Thammarat lists Thai losses at 217 dead. However, an article in the 31 July 1987 Asahi Shimbu indicated that the memorial has the names of 116 Thai soldiers who died. The reason for the discrepancy in the latter figures is not clear, but perhaps the additional dead were policemen or civilians.
7 An account is contained in Jayanama, Direk [Chayanam] (tr. by Keyes, Jane G.), Siam and World War II (Bangkok: Social Science Association of Thailand, 1978), pp. 64–66Google Scholar.
8 Hideo, Iwakuro, Seiki no shingun Singapôru sôkôgeki [The advancing army of the century's attack on Singapore] (Tokyo: Chô Shobô, 1956), pp. 16, 26–27Google Scholar.
9 The problems of this period are described in Kametarô, Tominaga, Chototsu hachijûnen [80 Reckless Years] (Aato Kôpansha, 1987), pp. 168–78Google Scholar. Also, on the Ban Pong Incident, see: Ken, Iwai, C56 Nanpô senjô o iku [The C56 locomotive goes to the southern region battlefields] (Tokyo: Jiji Tsûshinsha, 1978), pp. 133–36Google Scholar and Kenkyûkairenaikai, Zenkoku [Nationwide Alliance of Kempei Associations], ed., Nihon Kempei seishi [The true history of Japan's Kempei] (Tokyo: Zenkoku Kenkyûkairenaikai, 1976), pp. 946–48Google Scholar.
10 On such matters, see Flood, E. Thadeus, ‘Japan's Relations with Thailand: 1928–1941’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1967), pp. 190–91Google Scholar and Hiromichi, Yahara, ‘Taikoku shinchô to Pibun shushô’ [The advance into Thailand and Prime Minister Phibun], 05 1956, a hand-written document held by the National Institute for Defense Studies, TokyoGoogle Scholar.
11 An OSS document (XL 30948, RG 226, USNA) quotes Thai Ministry of Interior figures of 8,711 air raids deaths in 1944–45 and damage to more than 10,000 buildings, most of them totally destroyed. However, an account by M.R. Seni Pramot [Pramoj] (a typescript entitled ‘The Negotiations Leading to the Cessation of a State of War with Great Britain’ and filed under ‘Papers on World War II’, at the Thailand Information Center, Chulalongkorn University, p. 12) indicates that only about 2,000 Thai died in air raids.
12 Swan, William L., ‘Thai-Japan Monetary Relations at the Start of the Pacific War’, Modern Asian Studies 23, no. 2 (1989): 313–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 Kenjirô, Ichikawa, ‘Japan's Repayment of the World War II Special Yen Account to Thailand’, in Thai-Japanese Relations in Historical Perspective, ed. Khamchoo, Chaiwat and Reynolds, E. Bruce (Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Institute of Asian Studies, 1988), pp. 204–205Google Scholar. The Thai budget figure appeared in the Japan Times and Advertiser, 23 12 1942Google Scholar.
14 Numnonda, Thamsook, Thailand and the Japanese Presence (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1977), pp. 91–92Google Scholar.
15 Coast, John, Some Aspects of Siamese Politics (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1953), p. 23Google Scholar.
16 XL 34352, 27 December 1945, RG 226, USNA.
17 The Japanese Embassy strongly held this view. See: Aketo, Nakamura, Hotoke no shireikan [The Buddha's Commander] (Tokyo: Nihon Shûhôsha, 1958), pp. 100–101Google Scholar. M.R. Seni Pramot, the Thai Minister in Washington, told Joseph Grew on 5 June 1944 that he believed Wanit's death most likely was ‘an outright case of murder’ (Grew memorandum, 5 June 1944, 892.01/6–544, RG 59, USNA). After the war an American-educated Thai informant told OSS: ‘Nai Wanit Pananon is suspected of having been murdered by CID police…. He knew too much about affairs and people during the time before the Japanese entered the country’ (XL 22759, 30 September 1945, RG 226, USNA).
18 Quoted in Neher dissertation, p. 377. In fact, at least one American official, quoted in Schaller, , The American Occupation of Japan, p. 179Google Scholar, frankly admitted that he believed it necessary to create a new version of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
19 Sôsaku dai yon rentai’ [The search of the Fourth Division], 1 June 1946 in: ‘Taihômen butaishi shijitsushiryô’ [A collection of accurate historical documents on forces in the Thailand area], National Institute for Defense Studies, Tokyo.
20 Nakamura, , Hotoke no shireikan, p. 150Google Scholar.
21 XL 18986, 16 August 1945, RG 226, USNA.
22 An English-language history of the Garrison Army is found in the U.S. Army Forces Far East Military History Section's Japanese Research Division's ‘Thailand Operations Record’ in: Detwiler, Donald C. and Burdick, Charles B., eds., War in the Asia and the Pacific, Vol. 6 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1980)Google Scholar.
23 An account of the liaison committee is contained in the cremation volume of one of its key members: Chiwit lae ngan khong Phontho Momchao Phitsaphon Ditsakun [The life and work of Lieutenant General Prince Phisit Ditsaphong Ditsakun] (Bangkok: n.p., 1966)Google Scholar.
24 Tsutomu, Takase, Bangkoku yori kaeri [Return from Bangkok] (Tokyo: Nihon Kôtsû Kyôkai, 1942), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.
25 On such wartime shortages, see: Chaya, Prem and Aletha, , The Passing Hours (Bangkok: Chatra, 1945), pp. 16–18, 57–58Google Scholar and Caulfield, Genevieve (ed. Fitzgerald, Ed), The Kingdom Within (New York: Harper & Bros., 1960), pp. 196–97Google Scholar.
26 As an example of this, a Free Thai member, Trachu, Sawat, relates in his book Lapsutyot mua khaphachao pen Seri Thai kap khunphon Phu Phan Tiang Sirikhan [Top Secret, when I was a Free Thai with the warrior of Phu Phan Mountain Tiang Sirikhan] (Bangkok: Matichon, 1984), pp. 1–4Google Scholar, that he had to give up his occupation as a rice shipper in the Northeast due to the disruption of rail transport.
27 According to Bôeichô Bôeikenshûjo Senshishitsu [Self-Defense Agency Defense Research Institute's War History Office], Shittan-Meigo sakusen [The Sittang-Meigo Operations] (Tokyo: Asagumo Shimbunsha, 1969), p. 690Google Scholar, in 1945, although the Thai rice export reserve had declined to 300,000 tons, the Japanese army was fully supplied and each month 10,000 tons of rice were being shipped to Malaya, 3,000 to Burma, and 2,000 to (famine-stricken) northern French Indochina.
28 Manot Wutthatit (secretary to Free Thai emissary to China Thawin Udon) who left Thailand in the fall of 1944 wrote in a lengthy report for OSS (XL 14550, p. 25, RG 226, USNA): ‘With their unlimited supply of money, the Japanese buy all the food for themselves — with their usual readiness to pay high prices. Thus, they do not force Thailand to feed them with her provisions.’
29 Yoshihisa, Hamada states in Biruma haisenki [A record of the lost war in Burma] (Tokyo: Tosho Shuppansha, 1982), p. 28Google Scholar, that the baht's black market value was six or seven times that of the Burmese military rupee, creating opportunities for quick profit through illegal currency dealings, since officially they were of equal value.
31 This conclusion is supported by Manot's report on conditions in Thailand (XL 14550, RG 226, USNA) in the fall of 1944. He described the ‘clerical class’ as being ‘the most distressed in the country’ (p. 26) and added that conditions in the villages ‘do not alter much’, suggesting that for farmers inflation had been offset by higher prices for their products (p. 27).
31 Kôzaburô, Yoshimura, Ano hito kono hito [That person, this person] (Tokyo: Kyôdô Kikabu Shuppanbu, 1967), p. 160Google Scholar.
32 Nakamura, describes his efforts in Hotoke no shireikan, especially pp. 48–54Google Scholar. Numerous other sources attest to his success in improving Japanese behaviour and relations with the Thai, including a post-war letter to the American diplomatic representative George Atcheson in occupied Japan from Wichit Wichit-wathakan, the last wartime Thai Ambassador to Tokyo (792.94/10–2645, RG 59, USNA). For more on Nakamura see the author's article ‘Nakamura Aketo: A Khaki-clad Diplomat in Wartime Thailand’ in Chaiwat, and Reynolds, , eds., Thai-Japanese Relations in Historical Perspective, pp. 161–202Google Scholar.
33 This shift is discussed by Iriye, Akira in Power and Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 96–121Google Scholar.
34 The text of the policy outline is contained in Ichirô, Ôta, ed., Ninon gaikôshi: Daitôasensô senji gaikô [Japanese diplomatic history: diplomacy during the Greater East Asian War] (Tokyo: Kajima Kenkyûjo Shuppankai, 1971), p. 182Google Scholar.
35 Ibid., p. 188, quoting a Yamamoto message to Tokyo of 24 April 1945.
36 Yamada is quoted from a May 1944 message in: Senshishitsu, Bôeichô Bôeikenshûjo, Nansei hômen rikugun sakusen [Army operations in the southwestern region] (Tokyo: Asagumo Shimbunsha, 1976), p. 229Google Scholar.
37 XL 23037, 11 October 1945, RG 226, USNA.
38 Coast, , Some Aspects of Siamese Politics, p. 21Google Scholar.
39 Direk, , Siam and World War II, p. 107Google Scholar.
40 XL 37109, 9 December 1945, RG 226, USNA.
41 For example, the comments of Hamada Yoshihisa on p. 28 of Biruma haisenki and Susumu, Araki in Biruma haisenkôki [A record of a journey to the lost war in Burma] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1982), p. 23Google Scholar.
42 Itarô, Ishii, Gaikôkan no isshô [The life of a diplomat] (Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, 1988 reprint edition), p. 449Google Scholar.
43 In his report after repatriation to the United States (‘Internment and Repatriation of the American Legation in Bangkok, Thailand’, 22 August 1942, 892.00/233, RG 59, USNA) American Minister Willys Peck noted the favoured position of the Japanese companies. He reported that in the early months of the war, when exports were still coming in, that items not needed by the Japanese army went to the Japanese trading firms.
44 892.00/9.3044, RG 59, USNA.
45 This is described in a book by the Japanese operative who served as chief liaison with the Chinese, Ken'ichi, Fujishima, Gendô suru sensô no urabanashi [A little-known story from the war of upheaval] (Bangkok: Kokusai Insatsu Yûgen Koshi, 1977), pp. 148–50Google Scholar.
46 Bangkok Post, 29 11 1946Google Scholar.
47 XL 14550, p. 26, RG 226, USNA.
48 In Gendô suru sensô no urabanashi, p. 148, Fujishima rather uncharitably suggests that while Japanese would have considered such activity cooperating with an enemy and therefore ‘wouldn't have considered it’, the Chinese had no reservations about pursuing their business interests, no matter the circumstances.
49 Ibid., p. 150.
50 Dantrakun, Suphot, ed., Phon Tamruat Ek Adun Adundetcharat phut thung kothetching thang prawattisat kieokap Nai Pridi Phanomyong lae Chomphon P. Phibun Songkhram [Police Gen. Adun Adundetcharat speaks on the historical facts about Pridi Phanomyong and Field Marshal Phibun Songkhram] (Bangkok, n.p., 1979), pp. 185–86Google Scholar. This is the text of Adun's testimony at the Thai war crimes trials and this source is hereafter cited as: ‘Adun's Testimony’.
51 (Phra) Sukhumwit, Phisan, Chotmaihet khong Seri Thai [A record of the Free Thai] (Bangkok: Thai Kasem Press, 1979), p. 30Google Scholar.
52 For example, see: ‘Bangkok Monthly Political Report, September 1941’, 892.00 PR/149, RG 59, USNA. In the fall of 1941 Wanit was accused of corruption and treason in the Thai press. For more details on this incident, see the Flood dissertation, pp. 645–54. Police Commander Adun, who ordered Wanit's arrest in 1944 and is often blamed for his death, bluntly referred to Wanit was a ‘Japanese spy’ (Suphot, ed., Adun's Testimony, p. 72).
53 Kunitarô, Yamada, Meiji shônen no ayumi [The steps of a Meiji youth] (Nagoya: Yamada Sensi Kairoku Shuppan sunt Kai, 1979), p. 242Google Scholar. In a talk with British Minister Sir Josiah Crosby on 3 July 1939, Regent Prince Athit discussed reasons for an upsurge of pro-Japanese sentiment and suggested that the Japanese were ‘distributing money freely’ to win the sympathy of Thai military officers (Crosby to Lord Halifax, 10 July 1939, Foreign Office 371–23595–6536, F7486/1860/40). American journalist Joseph Newman was equally convinced of such activities, writing in Goodbye Japan (New York: L.B. Fischer, 1942), p. 115Google Scholar, that Japanese ‘attempts to bribe corrupt Thai officials were no secret’.
54 XL 37109, 9 December 1945, RG 226, USNA.
55 Senshishitsu, Bôeichô Bôeikenshûjo, Shittan-Meigo sakusen, pp. 693–95Google Scholar and Bunyaket, Thawi in Direk, , Siam and World War II, pp. 120–21Google Scholar.
56 Cruickshank, Charles, SOE in the Far East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 120Google Scholar.
57 Senshishitsu, Bôeichô Bôeikenshûjo, Shittan-Meigo sakusen, pp. 692–93Google Scholar; Smith, Nichol and Clark, Blake, Into Siam the Underground Kingdom (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1946), p. 298Google Scholar; Interview with Yano Toshio, Tokyo, 20 March 1987; ‘MAGIC Far East Army Supplement’, 24 July 1945, RG 457, USNA; and Haseman, John B., The Thai Resistance Movement in World War II (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1979), p. 150Google Scholar, which states without attribution that the operation had been re-scheduled for 19 August.
58 For example, Smith, and Clark, , Into Siam the Underground Kingdom, pp. 228–29, 298–99Google Scholar.
59 SIREN to OPERO, 21 August 1945, Entry 154, Box 150, File 2575 and Coughlin to THAI COMM, 21 August 1945, Entry 136, Box 66, File 802, RG 226, USNA.
60 See the comments of Thawi Bunyaket in Ray, Jayanata, Portraits of Thai Politics (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1972), p. 107Google Scholar.
61 MAGIC Diplomatic Summary, 24 August 1945, SRS 1769 in the microfilm collection ‘The MAGIC Documents: Summaries and Transcripts of the Top Secret Diplomatic Communications of Japan 1938–1945’ (Washington, D.C.: University Publications of America, 1980).
62 Caulfield, , The Kingdom Within, pp. 247–48Google Scholar.
63 Ibid., p. 248. The late Jorge Orgibet, who was in Bangkok in 1945 as a representative of the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI), expressed the same views in almost identical words during an interview with the author in Bangkok on 18 August 1984.
64 Ibid., pp. 244–45; Nakamura, , Hotoke no shireikan, pp. 182–83Google Scholar; and Ishii, , Gaikôkan no isshô, p. 483Google Scholar.
65 Nakamura, , Hotoke no shireikan, pp. 149–50Google Scholar and ‘Chûtai yonnen kaisôroku’ [A memoir of four years in Thailand], vol. 4, pp. C24–26, the handwritten document on which the briefer Hotoke no shireikan is based, a copy of which is held by the National Institute for Defense Studies, Tokyo.
66 Stowe, Judith A., ‘Japan's Relations with Thailand in 1945’, in 1945 in Southeast Asia, Part One (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 1985), p. 35Google Scholar.
67 Withrow to Coughlin, 25 August 1945, Entry 154, Box 157, File 2660, RG 226, USNA.
68 ‘Developments in Thailand Connected with the Japanese Surrender’, 31 August 1945 in the microfilm collection ‘OSS/State Department Intelligence and Research Reports, Part I, Japan and Its Occupied Territories During World War II’ (Washington, DC: University Publications of America, 1977).
69 Brailey, Nigel J., Thailand and the Fall of Singapore (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), pp. 2, 19Google Scholar.
70 Batson, Benjamin A., ‘Siam and Japan: The Perils of Independence’, in Southeast Asia Under Japanese Occupation ed. McCoy, Alfred W. (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies Program, 1980), pp. 267, 286Google Scholar.
71 Many books are available about the independence movements, but a particularly interesting one which casts much light on the nature of the internal difficulties they faced is Nair, A.M.'s An Indian Freedom Fighter in Japan (Sahibabad: Vikas Publishing, 1985)Google Scholar. Nair and his mentor Rash Behari Bose were accused by other Indians of being too much under the control of the Japanese, but whatever the merit of these charges, at least Bose and Nair, through their long experience of dealing with the Japanese, had a much more realistic sense of what might be accomplished under their patronage.
72 Brailey, , Thailand and the Fall of Singapore, pp. 18–19Google Scholar, for example.
73 A Thai scholar, Dhiravegin, Likhit, has suggested in Siam and Colonialism (1855–1909): An Analysis of Diplomatic Relations (Bangkok: Thai Watana Panich, 1975), p. iiiGoogle Scholar, that ‘whether consciously or unconsciously, through the socialization process at school or learning from colleagues or from books on Thai diplomatic history, Thai diplomats tend to counsel the pattern of diplomatic policy pursued by their fore-fathers at the time when Western colonialism was at its peak’.
74 Ibid., pp. 78–79.
75 The most notable instance where Thai hopes for intervention failed was in 1893 when they risked military opposition to the French in expectation of British support. However, as Wyatt, David K. points out in Thailand: A Short History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 202–204Google Scholar, the British did not react as the Thai had hoped.
76 Mokarapong, Thawatt, History of the Thai Revolution (Bangkok: Chalermnit, 1972), pp. 107–109Google Scholar and Tarling, Nicholas, ‘King Prajadipok and the Apple Cart’, Journal of the Siam Society 64, Pt. 2 (1976): 3–14Google Scholar.
77 Japanese sources indicate that Japan turned down a proposal for an alliance between the two countries made by King Chulalongkorn in 1902. This incident is mentioned in Yoneo, Ishii and Toshiharu, Yoshikawa, Nittai kôryû roppyaku nenshi [600 years of Japanese-Thai intercourse] (Tokyo: Kôdansha, 1987), p. 135Google Scholar and in Chôinkyoku, Mantetsu Tôa Keizai [The East Asian Economic Research Bureau of the South Manchurian Railway], Shamu hen [Siam volume] (Tokyo: Kaimeidô, 1941 reprint of 1938 original), p. 81Google Scholar. Japanese lack of interest was such that when Ishii Itarô received notice of his appointment as Minister to Thailand in 1936, he feared that his career was in jeopardy, explaining: ‘Siam had been a friendly country for many years, but it was out of Japan's diplomatic mainstream. As a ministerial post it was a dumping ground’ (Ishii, , Gaikôkan no isshô, pp. 267–68)Google Scholar. In regard to economics, Swan, William L. concludes in ‘Japanese Economic Relations with Siam: Aspects of their Historical Development 1884–1942’ (Ph.D. diss., Australian National University, 1986), p. 216Google Scholar, that: ‘The noteworthy feature of Japan's economic relations with Siam for much of the period before World War II was the relative unimportance of those relations.’
78 On these negotiations, see chapter four in Santaputra, Charivat, Thai Foreign Policy 1932–1946 (Bangkok: Thai Khadi Research Institute, 1985)Google Scholar.
79 For examples of the Realpolitik arguments made for reliance on Japan, see Flood dissertation, p. 222 and a May 1940 position paper presented to the Thai Cabinet by Wichit Wichitwathakan entitled ‘Raingan khong chaonathi ruapruam ekasan kieokap kansongkhram (chabap phiset) banthuk ruang thana khong Prathet Thai nai songkhram khraw ni’ [Report of the official responsible for gathering war documents (special issue) a memorandum entitled: the status of Thailand during this war], a copy of which is held by the Thailand Information Service Library, Chulalongkorn University.
80 Asada Shunsuke, Japanese Consul-General in Bangkok 1940—41 wrote in a post-war article (‘Wannito no higeki’ [The tragedy of Wanit], Minnami, 01 1950, pp. 10–11Google Scholar) that none of the leading Thai, not even Wanit ‘who was presumably the most pro-Japanese as well as the best acquainted with Japan, yearned for Japanese culture. I had never met any Thai, including Wanit, who spoke Japanese.’ Also, Phibun's cultural programme was notably devoid of any Japanese influence. Even the substitution of bowing for the traditional wai, often cited as such, in fact represented only another example of borrowing from the West. The American Legation ‘Political Report for October 1941’ (892.00/P/R/150, RG 50, USNA) described the new custom as consisting of a ‘bow and doffing of the hat’.
81 Miwa Kimitada discusses the differences between the ‘New Order’ and ‘Co-Prosperity Sphere’ schemes in ‘Japanese Policies and Concepts for a Regional Order in Asia’, Research Paper A-46, Institute of International Relations, Sophia University, Tokyo, 1983.
82 Note the comments of Virginia Thompson, in Thailand: The New Siam (New York: MacMillan, 1941), pp. 129–30Google Scholar.
83 Asada, , ‘Wanitto no higeki’, p. 12Google Scholar.
84 Ibid., p. 6.
85 Ibid., pp. 11–12.
86 This period is described in detail in chapters 3–5 of the author's ‘Ambivalent Allies: Japan and Thailand 1941–1945’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Hawaii, 1988)Google Scholar. On Phibun's efforts to get Allied support, also see: SirGilchrist, Andrew, ‘Diplomacy and Disaster, Thailand and the British Empire in 1941’, Asian Affairs 13 (1982): 249–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar and American Minister Willys Peck's report of 22 August 1942 (892.00/233, RG 59, USNA) in which he writes: ‘Had the Prime Minister [Phibun] been able confidently to rely on the desire and ability of the French and British to defend their respective territories, he probably would have defied Japan.’
87 The minutes of the Thai cabinet meetings of 7, 8, 10, and 11 December 1941, which were used as evidence at the abortive Thai war crimes trials, and have been translated from the published Thai version by Swan in an appendix to his dissertation, reflect this. Perhaps most illustrative are Phibun's comments on 11 December after he had already decided to sign an alliance with Japan (Swan dissertation, p. 290): ‘… if we don't sign it means we will all be destroyed. If we join with them and Japan is destroyed, we will be destroyed, too. Or if Japan comes out OK, we still could be ruined. Or if Japan does OK, we too could do OK. Or if Japan wins we could end up like Manchukuo. So what should we do? There's only one way. What could we do economically…. How could we get the things we need, like medicines?… I don't see that there is any way that we can't give in to them…. I don't know if it will be like Manchukuo or what. It's up to Japan. It means we submit to death; we hand ourselves over to them. They might even have some morality, like when we handed ourselves to Britain and France a long time ago….’
88 Junjirô, Nishino, Nittai yonhyaku nenshi [A 400-year history of Japan and Thailand] (Tokyo: Jiji Tsûshinsha, 1984 second edition), pp. 178–79Google Scholar.
89 Brailey, , Thailand and the Fall of Singapore, p. 19Google Scholar.
90 Appropriately, retired Thai diplomat and former Free Thai Konthi Suphamongkhon stresses the importance of this axiom in his book Kanwithesobai khong Thai [Thailand's foreign policy] (Bangkok: Thammasat University Press, 1984)Google Scholar. unpaginated foreword.
91 Nishino, , Nittai yonhyaku nenshi, pp. 208–209Google Scholar.
92 These events are described in Nakamura, , Hotoke no shireikan, pp. 12–15Google Scholar. Also, on Nakamura's visit, see the Bangkok Post, 10, 16, and 20 06 1955Google Scholar.
93 Ichikawa, , ‘Japan's Repayment of the World War II Special Yen Account to Thailand’, pp. 206–210Google Scholar.
