Indian Army. In the reforms of 1858-60, the old East India Company was disbanded and a new Indian Army created from those of the former Presidencies. Recruited during the British Raj from the martial races of the subcontinent and mainly British-officered, its roles were internal security, frontier operations (at which it excelled) and imperial policing. Enormously expanded for service on many fronts in both world wars. On the Partition of India in 1947, it was divided to form the new Indian and Pakistani armies.
Indian Army in Korea. India did not commit combat troops to Korea but sent the Indian 60th (Parachute) Field Ambulance. As part of the cease-fire agi'eement, India also provided a custodial force to guard pows on behalf of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission.
Indian National Army see rose,
SUBHAS CHANDRA.
Indiana. US battleship. South Dakota-class. 9 x 16in guns,
44,500 tons full load. Completed in 1942 and went into action at the Solomons landings: bombarding Gilberts and Tarawa (1943); Marshalls landings, collision with Washington, bombardment of Saipan, Leyte invasion (1944); and Okinawa operations then bombardments of Japanese mainland (1945). She was scrapped in 1963.
Indianapolis, sinking of. On July 28 1945, the heavy cruiser uss Indianapolis (9 x 8in; c9,950 tons), having just delivered atomic bomb components from the US to Tinian, sailed from Guam for Leyte Gulf. Although unescorted, Capt Charles B McVay did not zig-zag and did not have his ship fully secured. At 2332 hours on July 29, Indianapolis was struck by two torpedoes from the Japanese submarine 1-58 (Lt Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto). Immediate electrical failure meant that no SOS was sent; Indianapolis sank within 12 minutes, taking c350 men with her. The signal giving the cruiser’s eta at Leyte on July 31 had been garbled by weather conditions, and Hashimoto’s signal claiming “an Idaho-class battleship” was at first discounted by
US codebreakers. Thus, three days elapsed before rescue aircraft ‘and ships were dispatched: the total death roll from a complement of 1,199 reached 883. Postwar, Capt McVay was court-martialled for hazarding his ship: he was found guilty but sentence was remitted. RO’N.
Indochina, French reoccupation
Of. The effort of France to reestablish its authority in Indochina after World War II was greatly complicated by the agreement at Potsdam providing for the surrender of Japanese troops to the Chinese in the north and the British in the south. Blocked by the Chinese, the French Expeditionary Corps entered Saigon on October 5 1945 with the aid of 20th Indian Division under British Maj Gen Douglas Gracey. Subsequent negotiations with the Chinese led to the entry of French ships into Haiphong on March 6 1946. On that date Ho Chi Minh also agreed to allow 15,000 French troops to be stationed in the north for five years, while France recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a “free state” in the French Union. Further negotiations were inconclusive, and violent incidents occurred repeatedly. On November 20 the French commander in Haiphong seized control of the city, and firing by the French heavy cruiser Suffren caused the deaths of 6,000 civilians. Anticipating
.war, the Vietnamese struck French posts and garrisons on December 19. In counterattack the French took two months to subdue Hanoi, and 47 days to break a siege at Hue. Reinforcements brought the total of French troops in Vietnam to 94,000 by March
1947. WST.
Indochina-France War (1946
54). The First Indochina War centred upon the conflict between Vietnam’s communist-led anticolonial movement and the French empire. Seizing the opportunity presented by World War II, during which Japan invaded and occupied Indochina, the communists decided in 1940 to prepare for an armed struggle. In two base areas near the Chinese border they set up the Viet Minh front and began organizing guerrilla forces. From the latter they formed a mobile
Force that numbered about 1,000 troops by spring 1945 and these, in combination with a rural militia and dextrous manipulation of mass demonstrations, were sufficient for them to seize power in the August Revolution. For the next 15 months the communists exercised real if unsteady power over a united Vietnam. But they were unable by means of tactical concessions, such as Ho Chi Minh made at the Fontainebleau Conference, to deter France from attempting to reoccupy all of Indochina. The French returned to Saigon in October 1945, gradually extended control to the Mekong delta, and seized Haiphong in November
1946. Open warfare broke out on December 19.
The lightly armed People’s Army of Vietnam (pavn), commonly referred to as the Viet Minh, were at first no match for French regulars. But they compensated for their material deficiencies with superior motivation, popular support and guerrilla tactics. They were most numerous in Tonkin, where the communists enjoyed their strongest popular support, but communist political organizations and guerrilla forces were active in all regions of the country. In 1947 the French attempted to surround and seize the entire communist leadership in the mountains of Cao Bang province and to seal off northeastern Vietnam from China. But the communists eluded them, and the French fell back on the lowlands to begin a frustrating search for a big set-piece battle in which their mobility and fire power should give them an advantage.
Meanwhile, the United States pressured the French to mobilize Vietnamese support by making an unequivocal commitment to independence for Vietnam. Although, since 1945, the US had permitted France to redirect US-supplied war materials from Europe to Indochina and had provided ships for the transport of French troops, it made expanded direct aid contingent on the creation of a Vietnamese national government. This led to negotiations between France and Emperor Bao Dai, which culminated in 1949 in the establishment of the State of Vietnam as an Associated State of the French Union.
World History
