Timeline, September 2nd

[David]

HISTORICAL:
September 2, 1858: Da Nang falls to French naval forces.

INTERBELLUM:

September 2, 1945 (Year of the Rooster [At Dau]): The formal surrender of Japan is signed on board the USS Missouri, while Japanese forces on the Palau Islands, Truk, and on Pagan Island and Rota in the Marianas surrender in different ceremonies.

Michael Novosel, Air Corps pilot of one of the 462 B-29s flying in formation over the Missouri during the signing, will go on to do two tours as an US Army aviator in the Second Indochina War, earning several medals, including the Congressional Medal of Honor.

September 2, 1945 (Year of the Rooster [At Dau]): Ho Chi Minh publicly reads "The Declaration of Independence, Democratic Republic of Vietnam." Some sources say that American officers are on the platform during the reading, though these officers aren't identified. Hoping to get Allied support, the DRV government is set up with pro-Chinese, non-Viet Minh politicians included and with the Indochina Communist Party taking only 6 out of 16 cabinet posts.

SECOND INDOCHINA WAR:
September 1962 (Year of the Tiger [Nham Dan]) (US Advisory): All of South Vietnam's major military units are linked by telephone and all radio frequencies are standardized.

On the other side, while early local guerrilla forces had often operated without electronic equipment, by the early 1960s field radios and other forms of electronic communication, including a limited number of short wave radios, were in use by both infiltrated NVA forces and VC main force units. These came primarily from the Soviet Union and Communist China. After the entry of the US into the conflict, allied interception of NVA and VC radio transmissions was so successful that the Communists often had to use field telephone land lines, usually of Soviet or Chinese make, but sometimes built on the spot from captured or abandoned US wire. These "point to point" wire communications links were more difficult to monitor, but were in many cases.

The Communists, particularly the VC, also widely used bugles, drums, whistles and small arms fire/flares for signaling. At the Battle of Foxtrot Ridge, an American momentarily confused the attackers by firing a colored flare that they believed was the signal to call off the attack, and Woodruff quotes the thoughts of an Australian private during the Battle of Long Tan: "...They were coming in waves. They were blowing bugles off to the left, in front, and across the right. I remember thinking, 'By Christ I wish I had a set of bagpipes here. I'd put the fear of Christ up these blokes!"

The Communists' most reliable method of communication throughout the war, however, was always the personal messenger. During the final stages of the Second Indochina War, the Politburo sent its highest priority messages to their field leader, General Van Tien Dung, via personal courier down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

September 2, 1963 (Year of the Hare [Quy Mao]) (US Advisory): The first of President Kennedy's television interviews on Vietnam airs.

September 2, 1967 (Year of the Goat [Dinh Mui]) (US Counteroffensive Phase III): Task Force Oregon begins Operation Cook.