Thread: Thailand declares war on United States and Britain, Jan. 25, 1942

On this day in 1942, Thailand, in league with the Japanese, who had invaded Southeast Asia, declared war on the United States and Britain. South Africa and New Zealand declared war on Thailand on the same day and Australia followed soon after. A pro-Japanese prime minister, Plaek Pibulsonggram, known as Phibun, who was appointed acting regent for King Ananda Mahidol.
When Nazi Germany sparked World War II in September 1939, Thailand declared its neutrality. Britain and France, which had colonies surrounding Thailand, had hoped the Thais would support the Allied war effort. But Thailand opted to move in the opposite direction, creating a “friendship” with Japan and adding to its school textbooks a futuristic map of Thailand with a “Greater Thailand” encroaching on Chinese territory.

Thailand’s first conflict with the Allies came after the fall of France in 1940 and the creation of a puppet government at Vichy. Thailand saw this as an opportunity to redraw the borders of French Indochina. After the pro-German Vichy government refused to accommodate the Thais, Thai forces crossed into French Indochina and battled French troops. Japan interceded in the conflict on the side of the Thais and used its political alliance with Germany to force Vichy France to cede 21,000 square miles to Thailand.
The Japanese landed on the Thai coast on Dec. 8, 1941, even as they swept into the South Pacific in the wake of their raid on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Phibun took dictatorial control of Thailand and became a puppet of the Japanese.
A pro-Allied movement that eventually numbered around 90,000 Thai guerrillas resisted the Phibun regime and the Japanese. The partisans spied for the Allies, contacted some sabotage and helped engineer Phibun’s downfall in 1944.
The United States viewed Thailand as a puppet of Japan and declined to declare war. After the Allied victory over the Japanese in 1945, the United States blocked British efforts to impose a punitive peace on Thailand.

SOURCE: WWW.HISTORY.COM

Careful. History is illegal, unless Thailand wins at something.

Interesting little snippet. I wasn't aware of some of that.