India's Freedom Struggle in South East Asia

(USS Arizona during the Japanese surprise air attack on the American pacific fleet, 7 December 1941)
The outbreak of War in the East in 1941 caused a great stirring among the Indians in these regions. Those living in territories freed from European domination.

A Chindit column crosses a river in Burma, 1943.

Date 8 December 1941 – 9 September 1945 (3 years, 9 months and 1 day) Location State of Burma, British India, Thailand,French Indochina, British Malaya,Singapore, British Ceylon, Dutch East Indies

The South-East Asian Theatre of World War II was the name given to the campaigns of the Pacific War in Burma, Ceylon,India, Thailand, Indochina, Malaya and Singapore. Purposes of the conquest of these countries included the securing of natural resources such as rubber and petroleum from the European colonies in the region. Conflict in the theatre began when the Empire of Japan invaded French Indochina in September 1940, the war went to a new level with the Raid on Pearl Harbor, and simultaneous attacks on Hong Kong, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Malaya on 7/8 December 1941. The main landing at Singora (now Songkhla) on the east side of the Isthmus of Kra preceded the bombing of Pearl Harbor by several hours. Action in the theatre officially ended on 9 September 1945.

IslandsThe Dutch and the Spanish controlled much of Southeast Asia during the early 1800s. The Dutch East Indies was renowned for its rich soil which allowed the harvesting of crops such as: coffee, pepper, cinnamon, sugar, indigo, and tea. Mines were formed to exploit the rich deposits of tin and copper. Forests yielded valuable timber including teak, ebony, and other hardwoods. The Dutch became notorious for the use of forced slave labor, known as the culture system, to gather these raw materials, while purposely discouraging westernization, or the spreading of European culture.The Spanish used similar methods to reap the rewards from their tobacco and sugar plantations located in the Philippine Islands. However in 1898, the Philippines were given to the United States as part of the settlement for their loss of the Spanish-American War. MainlandThe British took control of Burma from their colonial stronghold in India in the early 1800s. Meanwhile, the French imperialized modern-day Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam forming French Indochina in the 1880s. Siam became the embattled buffer zone between these two European powers, but was eventually guaranteed its independence by a treaty negotiated between France and Great Britain. After the Meiji Restoration led to massive industrialization in Japan, the nation found itself in great need of natural resources. Industrialization makes a nation dependent upon iron, coal, and oil, none of which were found in great quantity on the Japanese archipelago. This need led them to invade mainland Korea in order to exploit the natural resources there Outcome Japan took over much of the coast of China and the rest of Southeast Asia, eventually forming the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere which provided even more natural resources to feed its vast military-industrial complex. East Asian raw materials such as oil from the Dutch East Indies and rubber from French Indochina kept Japan’s manufacturing industry and military in China well supplied. The Japanese war machine was eventually aimed at the United States in WWII with their attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The French left French Indochina in the 1950s after years of warfare with nationalist groups. Communism seemed destined to spread into the region from China. The U.S. foreign policy of containment of communism would lead to their involvement in the area in the unpopular Vietnam Conflict. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos all eventually became communist in the 1970s. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge orchestrated mass killing of intellectuals and so-called reactionaries which became known as the Killing Fields.