A Historical Analysis Of Why Thailand Likes America

[chiangmaikelly]

During the 1800's and 1900's numerous colonial powers primarily France began to chew at the edges of Thai territory and exacted territorial concessions from Thailand. America never did this.

A couple of years before the onset of WWII the French had a war with Thailand. The French lost and the Thais won and they built the Victory Monument in Bangkok.

After WW II, Britain, Australia and China were poised on the Burmese border to invade and occupy Thailand to extract war reparations principally rice. America did not let them do this. It was touch and go for a while but eventually Churchill gave in to the only country with an atom bomb at the time. In addition to the Brits, Aussies and Chinese wanting rice the French wanted the Jade Buddha. As a result of the reduced war reparations a lot of other Asians starved in 1946 and 1947 but not the Thais.

After WW II America became Thailand's largest trading partner.

America gave the Thai Police force and Army a tremendous amount of military equipment and money to run drugs from the 1950's thru the 1970's.

There were over 50,000 American troops stationed permanently in Thailand in the 1960's and 1970's. At any given time from 1968 to 72 there were probably over 100,000 Americans in Thailand. In addition to national security and infrastructure (look at what happened to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) the troops provided medical and educational facilities. They also completely built a state of the art communication network. They built this in Thailand instead of Vietnam because it was a more secure location. This made a lot of Thai millionaires in construction and communication.

There were a lot of bomber and fighter pilots and crews stationed in Thailand. They procreated more than normal troops. One didn't worry so much about condoms and trivial things like that when flying B-52 over Hanoi. There were a lot of losses. And there was a lot of out of wedlock children. Thailand was a smaller country before the Americans (and a few Aussies) got here. Gradually a large number of Thais became integrated into the American gene pool.

America rescued a large contingent of Thai military from the Plane of Jars who were facing certain death in the late 1960's.

The Thais kicked the Americans out in 1975 because the peasants and young Army Officers were getting too uppity. The ten years of education and increased earning power had began to threaten the Thai elite status quo.

Smaller but significant other reasons for Thai's liking Americans are 1. Americans don't wear speedo bathing suits. 2. Black socks with sandals or athletic shoes. 3. Americans shower more frequently than Europeans. 4. Americans tip 15 to 20% as a rule of thumb. It is a cultural thing.

The United States is Thailand's largest export market and second largest supplier after Japan. Hundreds of thousands of Thai's live and do business and go to school in America as a result of the 1960's Treaty of Amity.

The King is, of course, an American by birth.

It is reasonable to assume that without American intervention and friendship thousands of Thais would have starved and the entire country been occupied for the first time by a foreign troops. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese starved in Hanoi after WW II. It is further reasonable to assume that the death and destruction that visited Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam after the American pull out would have effected Thailand and the monarchy with disastrous consequences.

Note: Chiangmaikelly has told me he is the author of this article -thank you very much for clarifying that and for contributing such a thoughtful piece.-sbk

[Ulysses G.]

The Thais beat the French too?

[zaphodbeeblebrox]

Rama IV and Rama V were interested in western thought and education. They began discourse with American missionaries. In the 1860's, Samuel McFarland, a missionary, came to Thailand, and sparked the modernization of the Thai educational system. McFarland greatly expanded the scope of the Thai educational system to include education for girls, vocational training, English and other subjects, not previously taught in Thai schools.

In 1879, McFarland received a grant from the Thai government to start a school at the Royal Palace in Bangkok (the Suan Anand School). It included a program in which secondary school students received 5 years of 1/2 English - 1/2 Thai instruction. There was a diverse curriculum, including astronomy, physics, world geography and history, arts, literature and speech contests. In 1890, the school moved to the river, and was renamed Sunanthalai. It moved again in 1893 to Ban Phraya Nanaphitphasi, where it continued to operate for many years. McFarland is credited with playing a significant role in the modernization of the post-primary Thai educational system.

[Jingthing]

It goes both ways. Don't forget the gracious offer of Thai elephants by King Mongkut sent to President Buchanan but the mail was so slow it wasn't read until the term of President Lincoln (during the civil war).

Edited December 30, 2009 by Jingthing

[citizen33]

The Thais beat the French too?

There is also an interesting reference to the Plain of Jars (and the 'secret war') but I'm not sure the OP got the story right. Weren't the Thais on the plain (paid) 'volunteers' led by regular army officers? Making the connection between last week's news and the other group on the US side at that time, I wonder if the Hmong still love the Americans?

[sbk]

Unless the OP posts a source, link or some other attribution this thread will shortly be removed.

[zaphodbeeblebrox]

Rama IV and Rama V were interested in western thought and education. They began discourse with American missionaries. In the 1860's, Samuel McFarland, a missionary, came to Thailand, and sparked the modernization of the Thai educational system. McFarland greatly expanded the scope of the Thai educational system to include education for girls, vocational training, English and other subjects, not previously taught in Thai schools.

In 1879, McFarland received a grant from the Thai government to start a school at the Royal Palace in Bangkok (the Suan Anand School). It included a program in which secondary school students received 5 years of 1/2 English - 1/2 Thai instruction. There was a diverse curriculum, including astronomy, physics, world geography and history, arts, literature and speech contests. In 1890, the school moved to the river, and was renamed Sunanthalai. It moved again in 1893 to Ban Phraya Nanaphitphasi, where it continued to operate for many years. McFarland is credited with playing a significant role in the modernization of the post-primary Thai educational system.

Here is the source for this post: David K. Wyatt, Studies in Thai History, Silkworm Books (1994), pp. 245-258.

[sbk]

Rama IV and Rama V were interested in western thought and education. They began discourse with American missionaries. In the 1860's, Samuel McFarland, a missionary, came to Thailand, and sparked the modernization of the Thai educational system. McFarland greatly expanded the scope of the Thai educational system to include education for girls, vocational training, English and other subjects, not previously taught in Thai schools.

In 1879, McFarland received a grant from the Thai government to start a school at the Royal Palace in Bangkok (the Suan Anand School). It included a program in which secondary school students received 5 years of 1/2 English - 1/2 Thai instruction. There was a diverse curriculum, including astronomy, physics, world geography and history, arts, literature and speech contests. In 1890, the school moved to the river, and was renamed Sunanthalai. It moved again in 1893 to Ban Phraya Nanaphitphasi, where it continued to operate for many years. McFarland is credited with playing a significant role in the modernization of the post-primary Thai educational system.

Here is the source for this post: David K. Wyatt, Studies in Thai History, Silkworm Books (1994), pp. 245-258.

Cheers, when quoting from a source please be sure to always include attribution.

[bonobo]

The Thais beat the French too?

Actually, not quite.  After the Fall of France to the Germans and when the Japanese started to expand into Indochina, the French had several incidents with their colonial possessions powers.  The Thais saw this as an opportunity to get back land ceded to France earlier, and they attacked the Vichy French colonial administration in Laos, using their better-equipped air force to do some damage there.  The Thai Army was able to then move in and take Vientiane.   They were stopped by the French (mostly French Foreign Legion soldiers) in trying to take Cambodia, so that was mostly a stalemate.  And they lost the naval battle which was the last fighting of the conflict.  The Japanese stepped in and told both parties to stop, giving Thailand back some of the disputed territory, leaving Vichy France with the rest.

Militarily at best a draw, the Thai's trumpeted the fact that this was the first time they had ever gotten anything from a European power and quickly declared a victory.  Victory Monument was erected a very short time later.

[chiangmaikelly]

The Thais beat the French too?

There is also an interesting reference to the Plain of Jars (and the 'secret war') but I'm not sure the OP got the story right. Weren't the Thais on the plain (paid) 'volunteers' led by regular army officers? Making the connection between last week's news and the other group on the US side at that time, I wonder if the Hmong still love the Americans?

The Thais were Army who dressed up as Military police or something like that, its been a while. The Bangkok post was writing stories about how Thailand was not in Laos when we picked them up. Yes the Thais were technically mercenaries but they had 10 battalions in Laos and a whole division in Vietnam.

The Hmong story revolves around Tony P. Who was the model for the crazy guy in Apocalypse Now. The Thais kicked him out of Chiang Mai a few years ago because he used to go around town drunk shooting his 45. But the Hmong loved him and he was married to a tribal princess. Until he died he ran the Hmong community in the US. I don't know how many are in the US but there is a lot.

[chiangmaikelly]

The Thais beat the French too?

Actually, not quite. After the Fall of France to the Germans and when the Japanese started to expand into Indochina, the French had several incidents with their colonial possessions powers. The Thais saw this as an opportunity to get back land ceded to France earlier, and they attacked the Vichy French colonial administration in Laos, using their better-equipped air force to do some damage there. The Thai Army was able to then move in and take Vientiane. They were stopped by the French (mostly French Foreign Legion soldiers) in trying to take Cambodia, so that was mostly a stalemate. And they lost the naval battle which was the last fighting of the conflict. The Japanese stepped in and told both parties to stop, giving Thailand back some of the disputed territory, leaving Vichy France with the rest.

Militarily at best a draw, the Thai's trumpeted the fact that this was the first time they had ever gotten anything from a European power and quickly declared a victory. Victory Monument was erected a very short time later.

In 1940 the French forces in Indochina consisted of an army of approximately fifty thousand men, of whom twelve thousand were French, organized into forty-one infantry battalions, two artillery regiments, and a battalion of engineers. The most obvious deficiency of the French army lay in its shortage of tanks: it could only field twenty antiquated Renault FT-17s against the Thai Army's 134 tanks primarily built by a British tractor and lawn mower company, Carden Loyd.

The Thai Army was a relatively well-equipped force. Consisting of some sixty thousand men, it was made up of four armies, the largest of which was the Burapha Army with its five divisions. Independent formations under the direct control of the army high command included two motorized cavalry battalions, one artillery battalion, one signals battalion, one engineer battalion, 10,000 short time girls, 1000 monks, 300 souvenir sales people, 3 Indian tailors and one armored regiment. The artillery had available a mixture of aged Krupp and modern Bofors howitzers and field guns, while sixty Carden Loyd tankettes, 42 motorized food carts and thirty Vickers six-ton medium tanks made up the bulk of the army's tank arm.

In early January 1941 the Thai's invaded Laos and Cambodia. The Burapha and Issan Armies led the charge. Laos was not much of a problem because of the number of brothers and sisters of the Issan Army who lived in Laos. That and the fact that the Thai troops ate everything in sight. They ate the grass and trees and all of the small animals, bugs and anything else that moved. Cambodia proved more difficult as the Khmer began stealing the Thai communication equipment. Plus the Thai's didn't speak Khmer or have any relatives there. The Khmer's downright did not like the Thai's. They preferred the French as strange as that might seem.

On January 16, 1941 the French launched a counterattack initiating the fiercest battle of the war. The counterattack was launched against the Thai-held villages of Yang Dang Khum and Phum Preav. The French transmitted their battle orders in Morse code thinking the Thai's would not understand it. They would have been better off transmitting in French. The Thais cut the attack to ribbons and the French did what the French Army is good at doing, they retreated.

Seeing the Army was getting nowhere the French ordered the Navy to attack the Thai forces at Ko Chang island. When the French attacked the Thai ships tried radio the nearby airbase for support. However no one was awake since it was only 6 AM. The French bombed and shelled with impunity until 8 AM when a Thai Naval officer managed to get through to the airbase using a local telephone. Shortly thereafter appeared Corsair bombers who bombed their own flagship. Finally a Thai pilot who could recognize his own ships dropped a few bombs as close as 15 feet to the French Cruiser Lamotte Piquet but the French anti aircraft held off most of the planes. The battle ended at 9:40 AM. Two torpedo boats and a costal defense ship were sunk and it was considered a victory for the French.

The war had lasted a couple of weeks. That is a long time for Thai's or Frenchman to fight. Everyone was tired of war. Both sides decided the Second World War was not all it was cracked up to be.

The French army suffered a total of 321 casualties, of whom 15 were officers. The total number of men missing after January 28 was 178 (6 officers opened clubs in Bangkok, 14 non-commissioned officers became hotel chefs, and 158 enlisted men married ladies from Issan). The Thais had captured 222 men (17 North Africans who later became drug dealers, 80 Frenchmen who tried to teach English at an international school, and 125 Indochinese who became construction workers).

The Thai army suffered a total of 54 men killed in action and 307 wounded.

41 sailors and marines of the Thai navy were killed, and 67 wounded. At the Battle of Ko Chang, 36 men were killed, of whom 20 belonged to HTMS Thonburi, 14 to HTMS Songkhla, and 2 to HTMS Chonburi. The Thai air force lost 13 men. The number of Thai military personnel captured by the French amounted to just 21.

The Japanese mediated the conflict, and a general armistice was arranged to go into effect on January 28. On May 9 a peace treaty was signed, with the French relinquishing their hold on the disputed territories in Laos and Cambodia. That was the two Lao provinces to the west of the Mekong and a third of Cambodia's territory (in short, what Siam had had to cede to Indochina at the beginning of the century).

The Japanese won from Thai Prime Minister Phibun a promise to support them in an attack on Malaya and Burma in a few months. This was a de facto alliance of the Thai government and the Japanese almost a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The lightning swift attack by the Thai tank forces into Laos and Cambodia was termed a "Blitz Noodle" attack.

The Thai idea of putting stewardesses or hot water noodle makers in bombers never really caught on.

In this post I have taken a little liberty to add some facts that seem to make sense to me but might not have actually occurred. I think they are relatively clear. Most of the information is factual. In case they are not clear please message me for the specifics.

Edited December 30, 2009 by chiangmaikelly

[SeanMoran]

The Thai idea of putting stewardesses or hot water noodle makers in bombers never really caught on.

CMK, great to see you again after so long. This factual account is legendary too.

[Thanyaburi Mac]

The Thai idea of putting stewardesses or hot water noodle makers in bombers never really caught on.

CMK, great to see you again after so long. This factual account is legendary too.

The short piece on Tony Poe must also be part of the "fantasy" as it's mostly incorrect.

Mac

[londonthai]

I have taken a little liberty to add some facts that seem to make sense to me but might not have actually occurred ... Most of the information is factual.

an amatourish historian with great ambitions to prove somebody something

[chiangmaikelly]

The Thai idea of putting stewardesses or hot water noodle makers in bombers never really caught on.

CMK, great to see you again after so long. This factual account is legendary too.

The short piece on Tony Poe must also be part of the "fantasy" as it's mostly incorrect.

Mac

I am certainly not a Tony Poe expert. I only met him once years ago. I didn't like him and he didn't like me.

I didn't really write much about him. Although he certainly had an impressive career. I imagine the stories about the ears and heads on stakes are true and I guess he helped get the Dalai Lama out of Tibet but who really knows.

There were some in the American military who were convinced that a few more like him would have won the war.

He certainly was a brave man and had the loyalty of Hill tribe people associated with him.

Perhaps he was one of the reasons that some people in Thailand like Americans although I doubt that.

Please feel free to correct me if you in fact know anything interesting or relevant about Tony.

[chiangmaikelly]

I have taken a little liberty to add some facts that seem to make sense to me but might not have actually occurred ... Most of the information is factual.

an amatourish historian with great ambitions to prove somebody something

Yes, I am an amateur historian. There is a lot of history here. The people who made the history are dying fast. Walk around Sattahip and you may find old Thai women selling food in the market who speak perfect English with a New York accent. Before there were bars in Pattaya there were 50,000 Americans stationed 20 miles away. There is a lot of history there. The Swan Lake hotel is still at Kilo Sip. And my heart beats a little faster every time I drive past thinking of my youth as a young soldier in Thailand and Vietnam.

There are people living here who have wonderful stories to tell.

When the Americans left in 1975 the Eastern Seaboard was awash in tears. We'd been here for 10 years. That's a long time. A lot of relationships. A lot of marriages of one kind or another. Sure there were problems but minor ones, mostly it was a good relationship.

Vietnamese sappers continually tried to infiltrate U-Tapao. We had German Shepherd guard dogs to stop them. They were 99% effective. They made the troops kill the dogs when we left. But there is still some relatives of those animals hanging around the market in Sattahip. Maybe memory in dogs is genetic because every time I walk past this old dog he acts like a puppy wanting to play with me. And he is a big old dog.

I was a writer in the Army in from 1968 to 1970. I wrote about aircraft and the men who flew them. I visited Laos and Cambodia and was stationed in Vietnam and Thailand. I still like it here. I am not trying to prove anything. I am certainly not now or never was a hero or Pulitzer prizewinner. I look out over the Gulf of Thailand and write little stories.

[caf]

The Thais beat the French too?

Actually, not quite. After the Fall of France to the Germans and when the Japanese started to expand into Indochina, the French had several incidents with their colonial possessions powers. The Thais saw this as an opportunity to get back land ceded to France earlier, and they attacked the Vichy French colonial administration in Laos, using their better-equipped air force to do some damage there. The Thai Army was able to then move in and take Vientiane. They were stopped by the French (mostly French Foreign Legion soldiers) in trying to take Cambodia, so that was mostly a stalemate. And they lost the naval battle which was the last fighting of the conflict. The Japanese stepped in and told both parties to stop, giving Thailand back some of the disputed territory, leaving Vichy France with the rest.

Militarily at best a draw, the Thai's trumpeted the fact that this was the first time they had ever gotten anything from a European power and quickly declared a victory. Victory Monument was erected a very short time later.

Correct. Thanks for pointing that out.

The Japanese ultimate intention of course was to control Thailand and then up to and including India. Thailand was initially invaded and occupied but when it declared war against America and Britain its status changed to an axis member though the Japanese still treated Thailand as if it was occupied territory using, for example, thousands of Asians on the Death railway.

With this scenario in mind, the American attitude on reparations is confusing. The assumption I think is they traded having Thailand as a buffer state and ally against seeking reparations from Thaialnd who had declared war against them.

Churchills view and that of the French I believe was that reparations were due given the scale of the atrocities. That is not to say that relations could not then be friendly and future conflicts avoided.

So yes these are the reasons Thailand likes America - no reparations and the receipt of military aid. America's advantage is the maintenance of a buffer state.

Whether in the current climate that remains a good bargain is perhaps another topic. I have my views.

[koheesti]

The Hmong story revolves around Tony P. Who was the model for the crazy guy in Apocalypse Now. The Thais kicked him out of Chiang Mai a few years ago because he used to go around town drunk shooting his 45. But the Hmong loved him and he was married to a tribal princess. Until he died he ran the Hmong community in the US. I don't know how many are in the US but there is a lot.

Apparently at least 168,000 in the US. Thai is spoken at home by 120,000.

According to the US Census of 2000, there are over 320 languages spoken at home. I've selected some below. Some relevant to SE Asia, others as a reference or just out of curiosity.

You can find the source file here: http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen20...-t20/index.html

Language Spoken at Home for the United States: 2000

Language Number of speakers Arabic 614,580 Balinese 125 Burmese 19,700 Cantonese 259,750 Chinese 1,499,635 English only 215,423,555 Finnish 39,770 French 1,606,790 German 1,382,615 Hebrew 195,375 Japanese 477,995 Korean 894,065 Laotian 149,305 Mandarin 174,550 Miao, Hmong 168,065 Miao-Yao, Mien 16,510 Mon-Khmer, Cambodian 181,890 Spanish 28,100,725 Swedish 67,655 Thai 120,465 Vietnamese 1,009,625

[chiangmaikelly]

The Thais beat the French too?

Actually, not quite. After the Fall of France to the Germans and when the Japanese started to expand into Indochina, the French had several incidents with their colonial possessions powers. The Thais saw this as an opportunity to get back land ceded to France earlier, and they attacked the Vichy French colonial administration in Laos, using their better-equipped air force to do some damage there. The Thai Army was able to then move in and take Vientiane. They were stopped by the French (mostly French Foreign Legion soldiers) in trying to take Cambodia, so that was mostly a stalemate. And they lost the naval battle which was the last fighting of the conflict. The Japanese stepped in and told both parties to stop, giving Thailand back some of the disputed territory, leaving Vichy France with the rest.

Militarily at best a draw, the Thai's trumpeted the fact that this was the first time they had ever gotten anything from a European power and quickly declared a victory. Victory Monument was erected a very short time later.

Correct. Thanks for pointing that out.

The Japanese ultimate intention of course was to control Thailand and then up to and including India. Thailand was initially invaded and occupied but when it declared war against America and Britain its status changed to an axis member though the Japanese still treated Thailand as if it was occupied territory using, for example, thousands of Asians on the Death railway.

With this scenario in mind, the American attitude on reparations is confusing. The assumption I think is they traded having Thailand as a buffer state and ally against seeking reparations from Thaialnd who had declared war against them.

Churchills view and that of the French I believe was that reparations were due given the scale of the atrocities. That is not to say that relations could not then be friendly and future conflicts avoided.

So yes these are the reasons Thailand likes America - no reparations and the receipt of military aid. America's advantage is the maintenance of a buffer state.

Whether in the current climate that remains a good bargain is perhaps another topic. I have my views.

The aftermath of WWII in SEA was horrific. I have no idea if America realized this was going to happen.

The Brits let the French out of jail in Saigon and they went on a spree killing thousands of Vietnamese. The Chinese troops starved 2,000,000 in Hanoi.

Bangkok had become an OSS (later CIA) enclave and was providing Washington with information.

Why the US did not want reparations. I don’t know. I think it had something to do with raw materials. Tungsten and rubber. Tungsten at the time was as precious as gold and being run by a Japanese/Korean cartel. But I have never been able to get factual information about it.

As I posted before the Thai’s had entered into an alliance with the Japanese a year before Pearl Harbor so they were clearly combatants on the Axis side even though they put up a show of resisting the Japanese landings for a couple of hours. The Thai prime minister was out of touch for a day when the Japanese landed.

[ferd54]

The Hmong story revolves around Tony P. Who was the model for the crazy guy in Apocalypse Now. The Thais kicked him out of Chiang Mai a few years ago because he used to go around town drunk shooting his 45.

I'd like to hear more about that. I lived in Chiang Mai from 1991-2006. If he was doing that I think the (at first) small expat community would have heard about it -- and I would have gone a great distance to go and meet him.

More details? Before my time?

[chiangmaikelly]

The Hmong story revolves around Tony P. Who was the model for the crazy guy in Apocalypse Now. The Thais kicked him out of Chiang Mai a few years ago because he used to go around town drunk shooting his 45.

I'd like to hear more about that. I lived in Chiang Mai from 1991-2006. If he was doing that I think the (at first) small expat community would have heard about it -- and I would have gone a great distance to go and meet him.

More details? Before my time?

I have heard conflicting reports. Some said he was shooting up the town in Udorn and some say Chiang Mai. At any rate he left Thailand in 1992 because of illness.

Edited December 31, 2009 by chiangmaikelly

[Ulysses G.]

Most people think that photojounalist Tim Page was the model for the character that Dennis Hopper played in Apocalypse Now. Are you talking about another "crazy guy"?

I never heard of Tony P. in Chaing Mai and I was around back then.

[Stumbo]

I have taken a little liberty to add some facts that seem to make sense to me but might not have actually occurred ... Most of the information is factual.

an amatourish historian with great ambitions to prove somebody something

I very much enjoyed these naratives, they were very engaging and readable. And at least he can spell so how about you butt out and spare are your laborious moaning?

[Credo]

Very interesting and it explains why I've met some quite elderly people who speak English quite well in the oddest places. I now wish I wouldn't have been so self-absorbed and would have questioned them more about themselves and their pasts.

[ferd54]

I have heard conflicting reports. Some said he was shooting up the town in Udorn and some say Chiang Mai. At any rate he left Thailand in 1992 because of illness.

I tried to track down some info online and I could find that Tony Poe retired in Chiang Mai and lived there until 1992, when he, his Hmong wife and four children moved to California, where he later died.

Strange expats Chiang Mai weren't telling lies and legends about him in the early '90s. I did meet William Young, another spook who worked in Laos, whose missionary family stretches back several generations in Chiang Mai.

Edited January 1, 2010 by ferd54

[RustyYellowDodge]

I don't think anyone consider's Thailand to have been an Axis power. More to the point, their leaders were well aware they could not stand up to the Japanese militarily, and wanted to protect their country as best they could. No sense fighting a war that was lost before it started. The reason the US did not consider Thailand to be "at war" was the result of a canny Thai amabassador, who did not deliever Thailand's "Declaration of War" to the US.

[chiangmaikelly]

Thailand arranged a treaty with the Japanese almost a year before the Japanese landed in Thailand in exchange for a favorable settlement of the Thai French war in 1940. The Thai’s agreed to help Japan with their invasion of Burma.

Shortly after the Japanese landed in Thailand the Thais occupied the Shan states of Northeastern Burma which they called The United Thai State and increased the opium production from 8 tons to 36 tons by 1942.

Thailand fought the war on the Japanese side because it made sense for them to do so. America nor Britain would give them the arms or manpower to defend their country and the Japanese promised not only money and weapons but free reign in the opium areas of Burma that Thailand coveted.

All throughout the war the Japanese paid the Thais for manpower and other incidentals that were used by the Japanese. Thai engineers were paid to survey the railroads that the Japanese built in Thailand.

The Japanese never really liked the Thai’s and considered them inferior and still do. Of the 150,000 of Japanese troops who were stationed in Thailand and many more who moved through during the War there is only one registered marriage between a Thai and a Japanese. I guess the same can be said of the Koreans. You see examples on every street corner of an American or Brit marrying a Thai woman but rarely if ever a Japanese or Korean.

From all of the Thai women I have talked to the Americans and Brits treat their women much better than the Japanese or Koreans men.

I never thought much of the Free Thai movement as a resistance force during WWII but it is very well documented. And during the last year of the war Bangkok became kind of an American club. They had uniformed Thai guards guarding the doors of their hideouts. There were American spies all over the place being protected by the Thais. They even got into heated arguments when the spies told the Thais that the US would stop the bombing but the air force kept right on bombing Bangkok.

Search as I can, I can only find 5600 military deaths and 300 civilian deaths in Thailand during WW II.

Maybe someone can give me a better source but if those are real numbers then very few Thais died building either one of the two railroads built during the War.

The US lost 417,000 soldiers the UK 363,000 it is easy to see why the Thais liked the US considering how lightly they got off during the war.

I knew of no families in the aftermath of WW II that escaped unscathed in the US or UK. My own family was touched by death and disability many times during that time period and again during Korea and Vietnam.

Looking at who and what was won and lost the case can be made considering the cash from opium sales, Japanese roads and infrastructure built and American business connections made that Thailand actually won WW II.

The same thing happened during the Vietnam conflict. Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Vietnam lost millions of people and Thailand escaped unscathed with improvements to their economy and infrastructure.

It is truly no wonder that the Thai’s love the Americans given the billions we have put into their economy both of a positive nature and the absence of consequences suffered by the rest of South East Asia in the aftermath of war.

[caf]

I don't think anyone consider's Thailand to have been an Axis power. More to the point, their leaders were well aware they could not stand up to the Japanese militarily, and wanted to protect their country as best they could. No sense fighting a war that was lost before it started. The reason the US did not consider Thailand to be "at war" was the result of a canny Thai amabassador, who did not deliever Thailand's "Declaration of War" to the US.

Thailand declared war and therefore was a member of the axis powers. Their reason for doing so has been pointed out by other posters - they thought Japan would win. The war was certainly not lost before it started. Have you not read how the war developed. At the point when Thailand declared war no-one was certian of the outcome. Germany and Japan looked like winning. The turning point came much later.

America did accept that Thailand was a member of the axis powers, what it did not accept was that there should be reparations. If you look at the names on the headstones of war cemeteries in Kanchanaburi you will note the nationalities of those who died. Then you can see why it was not an American convern.

The fact that the US ambassador did not originally deliver the declaration of war is irrelevant. In international law a declaration is made when an aggressive nation makes the declaration. It does not have to be delivered.

To put this in perspective, France was overrun by Germany and large parts governed by Vichy but it never declared war. The legal government - in exile - under de Gaulle was an ally. You need to consider too the level of organised resistance put up by the respective nations.

[Credo]

The issue of reparations keeps coming up. I am not sure, but I am wondering what role the whole issue of colonization played in the US being opposed to reparations. Most of SEA, with the exception of Thailand, were colonies. Or is this part of the buffer zone idea?

[chiangmaikelly]

The issue of reparations keeps coming up. I am not sure, but I am wondering what role the whole issue of colonization played in the US being opposed to reparations. Most of SEA, with the exception of Thailand, were colonies. Or is this part of the buffer zone idea?

Not only did the UK, and China want reparations they wanted to occupy Thailand. The US insisted that the UK had agreed to the Atlantic charter in 1941 which stated 1. No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom. 2. Territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned. 3. All peoples had a right to self-determination. 4. Trade barriers were to be lowered. 5. There was to be global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare. 6. Freedom from want and fear. Freedom of the seas. 7. Disarmament of aggressor nations, postwar common disarmament.

Churchill tried to back out of this agreement on numerous occasions because of India and the Balkans in addition to Thailand. And the Charter had never actually been signed but the US prevailed in Thailand and Churchill backed down.