"Tomorrow Saigon!"

General Charles de Gaulle looked at the bright new posters and found them good. They pictured Indo-China's blue skies, palm trees and temples as a backdrop for French tanks and jungle troops. Their slogan: "Yesterday Strasbourg, tomorrow Saigon! Join the French Expeditionary Forces of the Extreme Orient!"

But the news from the Extreme Orient had more effect than the posters. In Hanoi, capital of French Indo-China, Japanese troops violated the last pretense of French sovereignty, * took full control over France's richest colony (rice, rubber, tin, coal). They arrested Vice-Admiral Jean Decoux, Vichy-appointed Governor General, promptly decreed martial law, a sunset-to-sunrise curfew. In Hanoi, Saigon (strategic harbor on the South China Sea) and other cities they disarmed French and Annamite garrisons. They formally proclaimed the "independence" of the Empire of Annam, province nearest the Philippines.

Cried Tokyo: the French had permitted U.S. planes to use a landing field near Hanoi, were planning an uprising against Japanese occupation forces.

* Japan has not declared war against France.

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