Fighting Breaks Out
Within a few hours, columns from the IJA 5th Division under Lieutenant-General Akihito Nakamura moved over the border at three places and closed in on the railhead at Lang Son, near Longzhou. This contravened the new agreement. In the Battle of Lang Son, a brigade of French Indochinese colonial troops and Foreign Legionaires opposed the IJA until 25 September. The Japanese victory opened the way to Hanoi. Still the Vichy French had defenders in the north and south, and fresh battalions in position on the route from Lang Son to Hanoi.
On 23 September, Vichy France protested the breach of the agreements by the IJA to the Japanese government.
On the morning of 24 September, Japanese aircraft from aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin attacked French positions on the coast. A Vichy envoy came to negotiate; in the meantime, shore defenses remained under orders to open fire on any attempted landing.
On 26 September, Japanese forces came ashore at Dong Tac, south of Haiphong, and moved on the port. A second landing put tanks ashore, and Japanese planes bombed Haiphong, causing some casualties. By early afternoon the Japanese force of some 4,500 troops and a dozen tanks was outside Haiphong.
By the evening of 26 September fighting had died down. Japan took possession of Gia Lam Airbase outside Hanoi, the rail marshalling yard on the Yunnan border at Lao Cai, and Phu Lang Thuong on the railway from Hanoi to Lang Son, and stationed 900 troops in the port of Haiphong and 600 more in Hanoi. Japanese forces remained in Indochina until the end of World War II.
Read more about this topic: Invasion Of French Indochina
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