At 08:40 AM 11/6/96 -0500, you wrote:
>>closely knit and organized native population that excelled at jungle warfare
>>and had an almost ingrained hatred of Americans. True fact: in WWII, when
>>American and British pilots were in training, they were warned about flying
>>over Vietnam (then called Annam). If a pilot went down over Annam, he was
>>urged to surrender to the Japanese before allowing himself to be taken by
>>the hostile Vietnamese natives(technically our allies in that conflict).
>>They just didn't like us over there.
>
>>Fritz V. Wilson
>>Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. USA
>>f-wilson@nwu.edu
>
>I have no hard facts to back this up, but even by 1975 it was clear that US
>leadership had no clue about the Vietnamese mind; that anybody had an
>accurate picture of them in WWII is even more doubtful. My perception is
>that Vietnamese people had an understandably ingrained hatred of colonists
>and invaders, be they Chinese, Japanese, French or American. The leap to
>distrust of foreigners in general is not a large one.
True enough.....I perhaps should have been more specific. However, even
though our leadership had very little knowledge as to their mindset prior to
the Vietnam war, it is probable that our allies (French in particular) in
WWII had an idea as to their hostility. As a source, I cite the writings of
Col. Larry Guarino, air force veteran of both wars. His personal experience
indicates that his commanders were aware of the hostility of the Vietnamese
to us/British/French/anyone else I forgot even in the 1940s. Of course, the
military tends to be discreet about disclosing such information, so it is no
wonder that politicians were ill informed about the conflict from the beginning.
Fritz V. Wilson
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. USA
f-wilson@nwu.edu