Souphanouvong, Prince (b. l909). Laotian. The Vietnamese communists recruited Souphanouvong, a Lao engineer in Hanoi in 1945, to organize an anticolonial movement in Laos beginning a long collaboration between Souphanouvong and the Vietnamese. In 1950 he broke with nationalists who accepted the limited independence conferred on Laos by France and proclaimed a resistance government headed by himself. He was a founding member of the Lao People’s Revolutionary (Communist) Party and became head of the Lao Patriotic Front at its creation in 1956. Souphanouvong was the most visible Pathet Lao leader during the war years 1960—1973, nominally in charge of the Pathet Lao Army. He was chief spokesman for the Pathet Lao in negotiations with the Royal Lao government headed by his half-brother. Prince Souvanna Phouma. He became president of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic upon its founding in December 1975. WST.
South Dakota. US battleship. Name ship of class of 16in battleships. Completed 1942. Suffered crippling power failure in action at Guadalcanal. Spent most of war in the Pacific.
South East Asia Command (SEAC). Formed after the Quebec conference (“Quadrant”) in August 1943 with* Mountbatten as Supreme Commander, a US Deputy, and a substantial staff representing land, air and naval forces, hq opened on November 1 1943 at Delhi and on April 15 1944 was transferred to Kandy, Ceylon: Mountbatten’s critics emphasized its inordinate size. Originally it was expected that seac would mount combined operations to recover Japanese-occupied territories in Southeast Asia, but it soon became obvious that landing craft would not be supplied. The task would be mainly a land operation, predominantly British and Indian in personnel. During 1944, little advance was made, but early in 1945 SEAC became really operational. Mountbatten played a diplomatic and political role, with
Fourteenth Army as the fighting force. Among Mountbatten’s personal decisions was one to recognize the Nationalist movement in Burma; his attempt to follow the same policy in Indonesia was blocked by Dutch intransigence. On August 15 1945 the boundaries of SEAC were extended to include the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina by order of MacArthur. Mountbatten handed over to Lt Gen Sir Montagu Stopford as Acting Supreme Commander, June 1946, and with the withdrawal of the British-Indian forces from Indonesia, seac ceased to exist on November 30 1946. HT.
South East Asia Lake Ocean River Delta Strategy (SEALORDS).
Complemented Operation “Market Time”, the blockade of the coast of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, by attacking waterborne infiltration from Cambodia. This required intensive surveillance of the dense network of canals and rivers that criss-cross the Mekong delta from the Gulf of Siam to the outskirts of Saigon, in an attempt to blockade South Vietnam’s land border. The strategy reorganized Operation “Game Warden”, which had spread forces throughout the entire delta, by concentrating forces in a line against waterways in the border area. Beginning November 1968, SEALORDS deployed elements of three US Navy riverine assault forces and South Vietnamese naval craft along a 200-mile (325km) barrier. WST.
South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). On September 8 1954, representatives of Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand and the USA signed a treaty at Manila, hoping to create a nato-style organization. Their disparate interests resulted in seato’s disbandment in the 1970s.
Southern France, Allied invasion
Of (1944) see France, southern, allied invasion of. ¦
South Georgia, Argentine invasion of (1982) see Georgia, south.
Southwest Africa campaign see
GERMAN SOUTHWEST AFRICA CAMPAIGN.
Souvanna Phouma, Prince
(1901-1983). Laotian. Halfbrother of Souphanouvong; intermittent terms as Premier after
1949. The centre of efforts to unite Laos through coalition government, 1960—73, but from 1964 accepted growing US presence and cooperated with military rightists. His Provisional Government of National Union collapsed in December 1975.
Soviet military assistance for North Korea. Some 250 advisers remained with the nkpa when Soviet troops withdrew, 1948, and Russia sold North Korea 150 T-34 tanks and 100 aircraft. The Russians re-equipped the nkpa after its defeats of 1950 and Soviets piloted MiGs against the Americans. According to US intelligence, there were 3,000 Soviet advisers with the communists in 1951.
Spaatz, Gen Carl (“Tooey”) (1891-1974). US. Commander, US Strategic Air Forces, Europe 1944-45; Pacific 1945; perhaps, the greatest air commander of World War II. After command experience in North Africa and the Mediterranean, he succeeded Eak-er as Commanding General, Eight Air Force, UK, following the Schweinfurt disaster. He maintained the daylight offensive, but not Eaker’s tactics, seizing on the long-range fighter not merely as an escort to bombers but as an extension of their role, deploying the P-51 Mustang equipped with drop-tanks. He directed his bombers primarily to bring up enemy fighters, and his long-range fighters primarily to engage and destroy them, recognizing that the real target was the enemy air force in being and the essential prerequisite to victory its defeat in the air. It was mainly to him that the Germans owed their inability to control the daylight air at the time of the Normandy landings and afterwards.
Although Spaatz’s Pacific command entailed responsibility for the atomic raids, Europe provided the greatest challenges to his original genius as a commander. He was appointed commander of the USAAF, February 1946, and in September 1947 became cos of the newly-formed usaf. ANF.
World History
