D. Use of Vichy or Third Republic Issues after joining the Free French

French Indochina: In March 1945, the Japanese ousted the Vichy French authorities in favor of Japanese administration of the possession. By war’s end, President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Hull, and General Stilwell warned Free French officials not to attempt to reassert French authority over French Indochina in light of the enfeebled French forces; the Viet Minh uprising that had begun in the late 1930s, and continuing friction with the Chinese Nationalist government. That American advice was ignored.

In this example, the front is shown above, and the reverse at the right. Mailed from Haiphong in the North to Saigon in the South on July 3, 1948. The Vichy Governor General stamp of 1944, printed in French Indochina, is shown together with a Third Republic issue of the 1930s.

Practically from the firm re-establishment of French rule in late September 1945, the French were faced with an increasingly widespread Viet Minh rebellion until the crushing defeat of French arms at Diem Bien Phu in 1954.

Cold War considerations, in the meantime, had shifted U.S. policy towards support of the French.