With just 10,000 men, Japanese forces took just a week to secure control of Vietnam.
2,709,918 Americans with far better technology couldn't even secure control of half of Vietnam in ten years, even with the greatest technology and weapons on earth at that time.
I repeat, the Japanese did a better job in Vietnam, securing control of North and South Vietnam in a week with 10,000 men. America with better weapons couldn't do that in 10 years with over two million men and better technology.
One of the reasons the Vietnamese were such good fighters is that thousands of Japanese officers and soldiers assisted the Viet Mihn (North Vietnamese enemies of America and the French) , after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the surrender of Japan.
Famously able to subordinate the means to the end, the Communists naturally put the Japanese in Vietnam to work after the surrender on August 15, 1945, in war against the French.
The Viet Minh had very little experience in warfare or government, as opposed to guerilla resistance of the sort they had used against the occupying Japanese. They would have been glad of the expertise available in the left-behind Japanese population, both military and civilian.
The first Japanese aid came in the form of arms: in the north, Vo Nguyen Giap equipped his troops with French weapons that the Japanese had issued to its puppet Indochinese Guard. Japanese weapons made their way into the black market soon after the surrender. It wasn't long before Japanese soldiers and officers also became available: there was no immediate way home for these men, even if they wanted to go. They hadn't been defeated in the field; they couldn't understand why the Emperor had ended the war; they had nothing to greet them at home but shame and desolation. Many had Vietnamese wives or girlfriends. When the war ended, they thought of themselves in the tradition of the ronin or leaderless samurai warriors. Like the ronin, they simply gravitated toward whatever employer was willing to hire them.
And the Viet Minh wanted them, the officers and NCOs particularly, as training cadres. In September 1945, there were about 50,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians in northern Vietnam.
One of the results of the Japanese presence in the Viet Minh army was an increase in French losses at the beginning of the war," Goscha writes. During the first battles in the north, Japanese soldiers served in the front lines.
So, one of the ways the Vietnamese became such good soldiers so as to cause Americans to not accomplish their military objectives and essentially lose the Vietnam war, was the Vietnamese learned from the occupying Japanese soldiers who didn't want to return home, as it was thought to be dishonorable, shame, and disgrace to return home defeated.
The Vietnamese learned a lot from Bushido and were willing to fight against impossible odds and die honorably with unflinching courage, high threshold to pain and suffering, and essentially accomplish the impossible.
Like, the great battle against the French fort that ended the 8 year conflict with the French at Dien Bien Phu, the Vietnamese didn't have good weapons. The main tool that they used to win that battle was the shovel.
They dug trenches and tunnels around the fort, cut off supply lines, and the methods with which they used a most primitive weapon for war (a shovel) they dug until they were close to the fort, impervious almost to French artillery and bombs, then charged fearlessly indifferent to pain, suffering, death, and casualties, and to the surprise of the French, the forts were overrun and the war with France over.
Now I don't like Communism , but I'm just saying they fought exceptionally well, and I have a theory that they learned how to do so from the Japanese who had occupied the country and thousands stayed there to train the Viet Mihn , and even fight in the frontlines as Ronin (masterless Samurai).
Studying this stuff helps me with my sobriety , because I reflect on the suffering I endure, the battles I face, and realize it's nothing. If these soldiers could do what they did off of a few small bowls of rice a day, how much more can I face the ugly spider of Sobriety.
. I was deathly scared of spiders so I started holding them and now I love them. By facing my fear, I learned I love my fear.
So, every thing ugly I face is a spider. The ugliest spider that scares me the most is sobriety. That is one of the reasons I keep using is fear. If I had the unflinching fearlessness of the Samurai, and the love for suffering that they and some of the Catholic and Buddhist and Shinto Saints had, sobriety would be a piece of cake.
Let me know if anyone has any thoughts about that. God bless!
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