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Thailand World War II
Thailand responded pragmatically to the military and
political pressures of World War II. When sporadic fighting broke
out between Thai and French forces along Thailand's eastern
frontier in late 1940 and early 1941, Japan used its influence
with the Vichy regime in France to obtain concessions for
Thailand. As a result, France agreed in March 1941 to cede 54,000
square kilometers of Laotian territory west of the Mekong and
most of the Cambodian province of Battambang to Thailand. The
recovery of this lost territory and the regime's apparent victory
over a European colonial power greatly enhanced Phibun's
reputation.
Then, on December 8, 1941, after several hours of fighting
between Thai and Japanese troops at Chumphon, Thailand had to
accede to Japanese demands for access through the country for
Japanese forces invading Burma and Malaya. Phibun assured the
country that the Japanese action was prearranged with a
sympathetic Thai government. Later in the month Phibun signed a
mutual defense pact with Japan. Pridi resigned from the cabinet
in protest but subsequently accepted the nonpolitical position of
regent for the absent Ananda Mahidol.
Under pressure from Japan, the Phibun regime declared war on
Britain and the United States in January 1942, but the Thai
ambassador in Washington, Seni Pramoj, refused to deliver the
declaration to the United States government. Accordingly, the
United States refrained from declaring war on Thailand. With
American assistance Seni, a conservative aristocrat whose antiJapanese credentials were well established, organized the Free
Thai Movement, recruiting Thai students in the United States to
work with the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
The OSS trained Thai personnel for underground activities, and
units were readied to infiltrate Thailand. From the office of the
regent in Thailand, Pridi ran a clandestine movement that by the
end of the war had with Allied aid armed more than 50,000 Thai to
resist the Japanese.
Thailand was rewarded for Phibun's close cooperation with
Japan during the early years of war with the return of further
territory that had once been under Bangkok's control, including
portions of the Shan states in Burma and the four northernmost
Malay states. Japan meanwhile had stationed 150,000 troops on
Thai soil and built the infamous "death railway" through Thailand
using Allied prisoners of war.
As the war dragged on, however, the Japanese presence grew
more irksome. Trade came to a halt, and Japanese military
personnel requisitioning supplies increasingly dealt with
Thailand as a conquered territory rather than as an ally. Allied
bombing raids damaged Bangkok and other targets and caused
several thousand casualties. Public opinion and, even more
important, the sympathies of the civilian political elite, moved
perceptibly against the Phibun regime and the military. In June
1944, Phibun was forced from office and replaced by the first
predominantly civilian government since the 1932 coup.
Data as of September 1987
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