FDR was very supportive of an invasion of Hainan Island and Indochina as a way to create a secure route to supply the Chinese that didn't involve flying over Burma, despite the fact that all of the military leaders in the Pacific theater were against the plan. What if FDR gets what he wanted and the United States end up invading the island and north Vietnam. FDR was in favor of a Chinese trusteeship over Vietnam, a position that alienated the British and the French, so does the presence of US troops in Vietnam give any viability to FDR's plan and if the French never get Indochina back what's this going to mean for Franco-American relations in the Cold War?
WI:Roosevelt gets his invasion of Hainan and Indochina
- Thread starter GeneralInTheShell
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Little Red Bean
Banned
I have a hard time imagining Jiang agreeing to a trusteeship over Vietnam. He was offered Indochina IOTL and turned it down. The OTL post-war Chinese occupation of northern Vietnam was only made possible because the Viet Minh happily cooperated --- they used the opportunity to build their forces to fight against the impending resumption of French colonialism. The Vietnamese would never agree to a trusteeship under Chinese rule or even an occupation if the threat of the French returning is gone. And Jiang would have no interest in holding down Vietnam nor would he have the capacity to do so even if he wanted to.
That goes against the whole plan of island hopping. Can the U.S really risk fighting an army that's basically trained hard to operate in many conditions despite technological and operational shortcomings, in an environment much larger than an island? Unless we are supposed to assume this isn't going to end in failure for the U.S.
When exactly is this invasion to take place?
The Burma road was re-opened January 28th, 1945, a week before the US Army even reached Manilla. And without reasonably securing the Philippines in advance, you can't really invaded Hainan. However, by the time you're in a position to invade it, the Burma road is already open, leaving the whole invasion without a raison d'etre.
Umm... No.
The Burma Road was a thin straw allowing a tiny amount of supplies in. Getting northern Vietnam (so you could run supplies on the RR north) would be a garden hose. Getting a good port in China proper would be like a fire hose.
Obviously Hong Kong or Shanghai were too far out of reach, but Vietnam might not have been.
It WOULD, however, have been a major distraction from taking the Marianas, Okinawa and then Japan.
OP said finding a supply route that didn't involve flying over Burma. That happened OTL in early 1945.
Not sure, Mark Lawrence's The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis and what I've read in the Pentagon Papers seem to indicate that FDR was still pushing for an invasion of Hainan and Indochina all the aw up until the invasion of Okinawa which was a little over a week before his death. China was one of the 4 policemen that FDR saw keeping the world safe after the second world war and because of that he pushed for things that did not make sense to many of the commanders in the Pacific.
Well if they did go in that way it would probably mean no Vietnam War as US forces would be working with the local rebels (Ho Chi Minh's crowd) a lot more then in our time meaning they are more likely to recognize an Independent Vietnam at the end of the war. They would need to keep friendly relation to funnel heavy arms to Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (KMT) ant-communist forces in the Chinese Civil war. Perhaps meaning rather them retreating to Taiwan there is North/South split in China.