Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of Japanese-occupied Indochina, Admiral Jean Decoux, placed 19-year-old Prince Noro-
dom Sihanouk on the Cambodian throne. The French authorities assumed young Sihanouk
would prove pliable, but this proved to be a major miscalculation.
Journalist Henry Kamm spent many years filing reports from Cambodia and his book Cambodia:
Report from a Stricken Land is a fascinating insight into recent events.
During WWII, Japanese forces occupied much of Asia, and Cambodia was no excep-
tion. However, with many in France collaborating with the occupying Germans, the
Japanese were happy to let their new Vichy France allies control affairs in Cambodia. The
price was conceding to Thailand (a Japanese ally of sorts) much of Battambang and Siem
Reap Provinces once again, areas that weren't returned until 1947. However, after the fall
of Paris in 1944 and with French policy in disarray, the Japanese were forced to take dir-
ect control of the territory by early 1945. After WWII, the French returned, making Cam-
bodia an autonomous state within the French Union, but retaining de facto control. The
immediate postwar years were marked by strife among the country's various political fac-
tions, a situation made more unstable by the Franco-Vietminh War then raging in Vietnam
and Laos, which spilled over into Cambodia. The Vietnamese, as they were also to do 20
years later in the war against Lon Nol and the Americans, trained and fought with bands
of Khmer Issarak (Free Khmer) against the French authorities.
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search