Bombing of South East Asia, 1944–1945

From 1944 to 1945, during the final stage of World War II, the Allies undertook the strategic bombing of South-East Asia. The main victims of Allied air raids were Japanese-occupied Thailand and Indochina.

By 1944, the German Navy no longer presented a major threat and the Royal Navy was able to transfer major units to the Far East. This would fulfil a British wish to become involved in the Pacific War. First, however, experience was required of large-scale naval air operations and of United States procedures. To this end and to degrade Japanese capabilities, attacks were made on Indonesian oil installations, some in concert with the American carrier, USS Saratoga.

Because colonial French Indochina remained loyal to the Vichy government and made numerous concessions to Japan, including allow Japanese troops, ships and airplanes to be stationed in Cochinchina, the Allies targeted industrial and military facilities in neutral Indochina beginning in 1942. In this the Allies were aided by a young French naval officer, Robert Meynier, who, beginning in May 1943, organised a network of informants in the bureaucracy of French Indochina. Before the collapse of the network in mid-1944 it managed to provide information on bombing targets, Japanese troops whereabouts and fortifications. In August 1942, the United States Fourteenth Air Force based in southern China undertook the first air raids in Indochina. In September 1943, the United States picked up the pace of the bombing, hitting the harbour of Haiphong repeatedly. By the end of 1944 the Japanese were entirely avoiding Haiphong. In late 1943 the Americans began raiding the phosphate mines at Lao Cai and Cao Bang. In all of this the air force had the help of "GBT", a multi-ethnic (and possibly Freemason) network of spies and informants working outside control of either Vichy of the Free French. In September 1944 the Americans dropped leaflets in French and Vietnamese showing pictures of the liberation of Paris, and quoting various jovial war correspondents from Europe.

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