Jean Decoux, born in Bordeaux on May 5, 1884 and died in Paris on October 21, 1963, was a French naval officer. Wing Vice-Admiral at the start of the Second World War, he was Commander-in-Chief of the naval forces in the Far East and Governor General of French Indochina from June 25, 1940 to March 9, 1945.
Biography
Jean Decoux was born in Bordeaux on May 5, 1884 into a family from Haute-Savoie. Son of Michel Decoux and Alice Mathéron, he is the youngest of three children. Entering the Naval Academy at a very young age in 1901, Decoux was promoted to second class midshipman in 1903 then to first class the following year, ensign in 1906, lieutenant in 1913, corvette captain in 1920, frigate captain in 1923, captain in 1929 and rear-admiral in 1935. He was also soon appointed to important positions, notably in the Toulon Defense Sector in 1938. He was promoted to vice-admiral, then vice-admiral in 1939.
Appointed commander-in-chief of the naval forces in the Far East on January 13, 1939, by the President of the Republic Albert Lebrun, he hoisted his command mark aboard the cruiser La Motte-Picquetn 1 on May 12, 1939 in Saigon.
He was appointed Governor General of French Indochina on June 25, 1940, replacing General Georges Catroux, by decree of Philippe Pétain, who had become chairman of the council of the short-lived last government of the Third Republic a few days earlier in France. then in full rout. He only took office on July 20 after the establishment of the Vichy regime. Decoux then becomes, in the words of the historian Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, "under the gaze of the Japanese and facing 24 million Indochinese, the leader of a little distant France".
French Indochina under the general government of Admiral Decoux.
This choice is determined mainly by a policy directed against any collaboration with the Japanese forces. General Catroux had already drafted some agreements in principle in order to avoid an immediate conflict with Japan. The military and political realities of the region forced Admiral Decoux to take the same path:on September 22, 1940, the Japanese invasion of Indochina and the fall of Lạng Sơn, the Tonkin border post and "lock of China" , forced him to let the Japanese troops move freely in Indochina.
However, beyond the status quo thus created to maintain the French presence in Indochina, he will have to accept other Japanese demands, such as an increase in the number of Japanese soldiers in the peninsula or more advantageous agreements on exported products ( food and minerals).
In 1941, Thailand (former Siam), eager to reconquer the former Cambodian provinces that it possessed in the 16th century, engaged in a series of aggressions along its border with Indochina). To put an end to it, Decoux decided to strike Thailand by means of an offensive and charged Admiral Jules Terraux and Captain Régis Bérenger with this mission. The naval victory of Koh Chang, on January 17, 1941, the only one won by France, without the help of its allies, during the Second World War, will signal the end of the Thai aggressions. Japan intervenes, as a "mediator", to have the belligerents sign an armistice, then a treaty. Following peace negotiations opened in Tokyo on February 7, 1941, France had to cede to Thailand the Cambodian provinces of Battambang, Sisophon and Siem Reap and the Laotian provinces on the right bank of the Mekong (Sayabouri and Champassak). In doing so, Japan secured Thailand's military cooperation.
Under his authority the cult of the Marshal developed and the fight against any form of official relations with Free France. Circular no. 57 CAB of October 31, 1940 organized the hunt for “dissidents”, before being hardened by that of April 17, 1943 (no. 49/S CAB). 110 administrative internments are decided without trial or statement of any accusation, 197 French civil servants are struck off, and even 167 Indochinese on October 1, 1942. Similarly, according to Decoux, taken up on July 5, 1941 by the ARIP press agency, 132 disciplinary sanctions were pronounced by the general services alone and those reporting to the governor general. In addition, the military tribunals pronounce sentences on secret instructions from Decoux himself, and he intervenes on several occasions to toughen the conditions of interrogation or internment of a prisoner, to prevent his hospitalization, etc. The status of the Jews, decided by Vichy on October 3, 1940, was also applied in Indochina by a circular of the following November 6, taking effect on December 20. 158 people, including 97 civilians and 61 soldiers are concerned by the rigor of the law and only 3 people are exempted according to the measures provided for by the legislative texts. The same policy is applied against Freemason civil servants - relatively numerous in education and the army - as well as the Gaullists. In addition to the destabilizing impact of such measures in Indochina under the gaze of the Japanese, the application of these measures cannot be understood without Decoux's desire to display his loyalty to the Vichy regime and to prove the continuity between France and its distant Asian possession. However, for the first time in Indochina members of the white colonial elite are hit by discriminatory measures.
In October 1940, he mounted an expedition to reconquer New Caledonia, which had opted for Free France in September after the Vichy government signed an agreement with the Japanese government authorizing the dispatch of 30,000 "Japanese workers with supervision of equipment", officially to extract the minerals necessary for Japanese industry. He sent Admiral Charner, who embarked a company of colonial infantry, but Captain Graille, a member of the resistance in Indochina, transmitted the information to Singapore and the colonial sloop, only armed with three 138 guns, had to turn back. way when he saw the Australian cruiser Canberra thrown across his course in the Sunda Strait. Shortly before the arrival of American forces in this territory in March 1942, Admiral Decoux and Rear Admiral Bérenger, Commander of the Navy in Saigon, devised the plan for an operation intended to regain control of it, in collaboration with Japanese naval air forces. After a first cable from Bérenger to Vichy on December 21, 1941n 4, Decoux in turn telegraphed to the government on January 23, 1942, two weeks before the fall of Singapore:"I consider, with the Commander of the Navy that despite the risks of war considerably increased by a lack of means, operation must be attempted as soon as the zone of action of Japan gets closer to New Caledonia", to which he is answered:"We would therefore be considered as belligerents". The following January 28, he proposed to "constitute as of February 1 a naval division of Indochina which would be at [his] disposal as High Commissioner of France in the Pacific", before specifying, on February 3:"We we cannot hope to send and maintain our forces there until a cover protects the communications and an indirect support is assured to them by the Japanese forces”.
In 1943, Decoux made contact with the French Committee for the National Liberation of Algiers but, his Petainism disqualifying him, he was not considered as the leader of the resistance networks against the Japanese:de Gaulle preferred him to be the head of the army. French in Indochina, General Mordant. After the fall of the Vichy regime in Europe, Decoux took full powers, as he had planned "in the event of a breakdown in communications with the metropolis". He recognizes the authority of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF), and sends messages advising caution, which do not receive a response. In October 1944, Decoux discovered Mordant's role as a clandestine emissary of the GPRF and threatened to resign if full powers were not confirmed to him. François de Langlade, emissary of the GPRF in India, was parachuted into Indochina, and ordered Decoux to remain in his post and to appoint Mordant as Inspector General in order to provide cover for his activities. Indochina then lived, for a few months, under a de facto two-headed system, Mordant holding Decoux in distrust and considering himself the true boss of the territory.
Fearing a reversal of the situation against them, Japanese troops put an end to French authority on March 9, 1945 by a coup without any real ultimatum. Only an “aide-mémoire”, issued by the command of the Japanese Imperial Forces, was presented to the Admiral by Ambassador Matsumoto at 7 p.m. to be returned, signed or not, at 9 p.m. This document requests the agreement of Governor General Decoux for the entire administration of Indochina to come under the sole authority of the Japanese army. The admiral, judging these conditions unacceptable, refused to give his agreement. A decision that earned him to be interned in Loc Ninh in Cochinchina, with around twenty people from his entourage, until the Japanese surrender in September 1945.
General de Gaulle reproaches Decoux for having collaborated with the Japanese. Decoux tried in vain to negotiate with Jean Cédile, envoy of the GPRF, to continue to ensure the interim in Indochina but, on October 1, he was brought back to France, to be brought before the High Court of Justice. He was kept in custody for several months at the Val-de-Grâce military hospital. The various charges against him having all been recognized as moot, he was finally dismissed in 1949.
Jean Decoux had been elevated to the dignity of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor by decree of September 5, 1941.
He died in Paris in 1963 and was buried in Annecy.
Tributes and posterity
A street in Bétheny, in the Marne, honors the memory of Admiral Decoux in a neighborhood named after illustrious sailors.
French sailors had nicknamed Admiral Decoux, "pan pan" ( two shots).
Posts
Jean Decoux is the author of several books and articles:
“The coup de force of March 9”, in the Revue des deux Mondes, July 15, 1949
At the helm of Indochina, Plon, Paris, 1950; reissue Soukha Éditions, March 2013 [archive] (ISBN 978-2919122523)
Wakes in the South Seas, Plon, Paris, 1953, 400 pages