View source for Indochina and the Second World War

===Return of French control===
Through the OSS Patti mission, often through emissaries, <ref>Patti, p. 68</ref> from the fall of 1945 to the fall of 1946, the United States received a series of communications from Ho Chi Minh depicting calamitous conditions in Vietnam, invoking the principles proclaimed in the Atlantic Charter and in the Charter of the United Nations, and pleading for U.S. recognition of the independence of the DRV, or &mdash; as a last resort &mdash; trusteeship for Vietnam under the United Nations.

British and French troops landed in Saigon on September 12, with their commander, MG Douglas Gracey, arriving the next day. Gracey's headquarters instructed him, on the 13th, to exercise control only in limited areas, at French request, and after approval by the Southeast Asia [theater] Command under  [[William Slim|Field Marshal Sir William Slim]]. He was responsible for taking the Japanese surrender, and acting in temporary command of both British and French troops.

Cedile, on 18 September, asked Dewey, in Saigon, to try to head off the threatened Viet Minh general strike. Dewey met with Thach and other Vietnamese, and took back the message "it would be extremely difficult, at [this] point in time to control the divergent political factions &mdash; not all pro-Viet Minh, but all anti-French." <ref>Patti, p. 318</ref>

On 21-22 September 1945, British Gurkhas, under , took the central prison back from the Japanese, releasing French paratroopers. Cedile, with those paratroopers, captured several Japanese-held police stations on the 22nd, and then took control of the administrative areas on the 23rd. Some Viet Minh guards were shot. French control was reasserted.<ref>Patti, pp. 315-316</ref>

Patti's guidance was that the U.S. had essentially given up the idea of a trusteeship, but still, at the U.N. foundation conferences, the U.S. was in favor of gradual independence. <ref>Patti, pp. 266-267</ref>But while the U.S. took no action on Ho's requests, it was also unwilling to aid the French.<ref name=PntPapV1Ch1-12-29>{{citation
 | title = The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 1
 | contribution = Chapter I, "Background to the Crisis, 1940-50" Section 2, pp. 12-29
 | url = http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent2.htm}}</ref>

It has been suggested that the Viet Minh accepted a significant number of Japanese troops, estimated by Goscha as at least 5,000, who had no immediate way to get back to Japan, and often had ties to the local culture. Their experience in a conventional military would have been welcome. <ref name=Ford>{{citation
 | title = Japanese soldiers with the Viet Minh
 | first = Dan | last = Ford
 | url = http://www.warbirdforum.com/japviet.htm}}</ref>