hannibal
16th June 2006, 01:39
During the last couple of months several people have contacted me through my personal e-mail address, asking me a variety of questions, which are hard to answer or require in depth research. Since I am not in a mood to answer al these e-mails individually, as it will taken me too much of my time, I am here answering to one of the most common books and namely about French Indochina 1940-45. The bibliography of the History of French Indochina during World War 2 is widely known, so I am not going to repeat some of the books, which everyone who is interested in it should have on his bookshelve (Hesse D'Alzon, Grandjean, Charbonneau, Esmerian, Boulle, De Cockborne, Sabattier, Decoux, Mordant, Bousanger, De Boisboissel (both Hubert and Yves), Frey, Murray, Catroux, Gautier, Rome, Sommet, Gaudel, Legrand, Bao-Dai, Deuve, Valette etc....etc... etc...)). One of the new and perhaps a very interetsing book for Indochina nostalgics is the new book by Mrs. Mandalay Perkins about her stepfather Michel L'Herpiniere, who among others, served as artillery officer at Lang Son in September 1940. It is a very book with good descriptions of raise of fall of French colonial empire in French Indochina.
http://images.seekbooks.com.au/0732281962.jpg
Hanoi, adieu – A bittersweet memoir of French Indochina.
Hanoi, adieu is a memoir of the fragile beauty and dark undercurrents of the years of French occupation in Vietnam. Michel L'Herpiniere was a child of the French empire who arrived in Hanoi in 1936 with his family as a teenager. The family became enamored with the country and the story follows the next fifteen turbulent years: through Michel’s school and university years, his loves and opium addictions, his soldiering experiences, through resistance and incarceration and starvation under the Japanese, his marriage to a planter's daughter and the loss of their estate, through his experiences during the Vietminh siege of Hanoi and its aftermath, and his desperate attempts to keep his business going and raise a family in Hanoi long after most French civilians had left the country. The story is inevitably entwined through the traumatic events of the time, including the Japanese occupation in WWII, the post-war Chinese occupation, the rise of the Vietminh, the fall of French Indochina and the beginning of the American involvement in Vietnam.
Of what has been published in English of the period, most has been written by people who were in Hanoi only briefly or who were never there at all. For this reason, Michel wanted his story told. Mandaley worked with him closely in writing this book, trying to recreate the most vividly remembered scenes in his life. They are his experiences, his memories, his sentiments. Only the words are hers.
Published by Fourth Estate, an imprint of Harper Collins, August, 2005.
Question about 5e REI: About 5e REI I am afraid there has been no new books, except a recently published memoir of a Russian legionnaire (sous-lieutenant), who commanded a company of II/5e REI in March-April 1945 and was captured by ther Japanese at Dien Bien Phu on 1st April 1945. However, if you don't master Russian Cyrillic and language fluently, it is useless for reading.
So much about Indochine 1940-45 questions.
http://images.seekbooks.com.au/0732281962.jpg
Hanoi, adieu – A bittersweet memoir of French Indochina.
Hanoi, adieu is a memoir of the fragile beauty and dark undercurrents of the years of French occupation in Vietnam. Michel L'Herpiniere was a child of the French empire who arrived in Hanoi in 1936 with his family as a teenager. The family became enamored with the country and the story follows the next fifteen turbulent years: through Michel’s school and university years, his loves and opium addictions, his soldiering experiences, through resistance and incarceration and starvation under the Japanese, his marriage to a planter's daughter and the loss of their estate, through his experiences during the Vietminh siege of Hanoi and its aftermath, and his desperate attempts to keep his business going and raise a family in Hanoi long after most French civilians had left the country. The story is inevitably entwined through the traumatic events of the time, including the Japanese occupation in WWII, the post-war Chinese occupation, the rise of the Vietminh, the fall of French Indochina and the beginning of the American involvement in Vietnam.
Of what has been published in English of the period, most has been written by people who were in Hanoi only briefly or who were never there at all. For this reason, Michel wanted his story told. Mandaley worked with him closely in writing this book, trying to recreate the most vividly remembered scenes in his life. They are his experiences, his memories, his sentiments. Only the words are hers.
Published by Fourth Estate, an imprint of Harper Collins, August, 2005.
Question about 5e REI: About 5e REI I am afraid there has been no new books, except a recently published memoir of a Russian legionnaire (sous-lieutenant), who commanded a company of II/5e REI in March-April 1945 and was captured by ther Japanese at Dien Bien Phu on 1st April 1945. However, if you don't master Russian Cyrillic and language fluently, it is useless for reading.
So much about Indochine 1940-45 questions.