Battle of Bangkok

Bedizened with flags and bunting, the dredge Manhattan, a $600,000 gift to Siam from the ECA, last week lay alongside a Bangkok wharf. After yellow-robed Buddhist priests chanted prayers, Siam's Premier Phibun Songgram, clad in gleaming white, made a formal speech accepting the dredge from the U.S. Charge d'Affaires. Grouped around Phibun were the fashionably dressed ladies & gentlemen of Bangkok's diplomatic corps. The first inkling of trouble came when a fluttery British lady in long gloves and a floppy picture hat was approached by a smooth-shaven young Siamese marine, who said quietly: "Please step to one side, Madam. We are about to arrest the Premier."

The lady stepped nimbly aside as a squad of ten heavily armed marines followed the first one up the gangplank. An ECA official who also got in the way was peremptorily brushed aside. A moment later, before anybody fully realized what had happened, Siam's Premier, waving a cordial farewell to his erstwhile guests, was whisked away upriver in a navy landing craft. A fusillade of gunfire splattered over the heads of the crowd, and the elegantly garbed guests on the dredge dived for the deck like well-trained rangers.

Thus began another of the coups d'etat characteristic of Siamese politics.

Army v. Navy. Unification of the armed services has made even less progress in Siam than in the U.S. In the two decades since Siam became a constitutional monarchy, political control has oscillated violently between the champions of either its army or its navy. The last successful Siamese coup in 1947 jolted navy-backed Premier Pridhi Banomyong, leader of Siam's pro-allied underground during World War II, out of power, and supplanted him with Army Man Phibun, a wartime Japanese collaborationist who is now an ardent friend of the West. Last week, with Phibun held prisoner on the warship Sri Ayuthia in the harbor, the navy announced that a new government, headed--with Siamese illogic--by a dissident ex-army officer, was taking over. The army supported Foreign Minister Nai Warakan Baucha as interim Premier.

Marines v. Police. Meanwhile, a full-fledged battle raged in Bangkok. Women seized their children, and cart ponies reared in their traces as the first detachment of soldiers came racing down Ploen Chit Road with bayonets fixed. As twilight fell, artillery fire was rocking the city streets. The navy established a beachhead at Lumphini Amusement Park. The army dug in at the Sports Club.

Time & again during the first night, the city was plunged into darkness as a main power plant became the scene of fierce engagements between marines and police. It changed hands five times during the night. Every time the power was restored, each party took the opportunity to broadcast the news that the revolution was over and it had won.

By dawn of the next day, the navy held all of south Bangkok. Army and police were in control of the north, while air force trainers, fitted with improvised bomb racks, fought a desperate duel with navy ships in the river for command of the west side's dockyards and fuel depots. A black pall spread over the city as a bomb struck square on a fuel depot. At one point, the navy sent out an amphibious landing force, only to see it wiped out from the air. An air-force bomb caught the Sri Ayuthia. Fire broke out on board and the ship began to list. Premier Phibun took to the water along with his captors, and, flanked by navy men, swam to shore and safety.

Still Tops. By the end of the second night's fighting, the navy had been blasted from its last stronghold. Some navy men on the west side changed hastily into civilian clothes and were shot trying to escape. As dawn broke, word spread through the city that all was over, that Phibun was safe and still top man. Unlike most Siamese coups (there have been six since 1932), in which practically nobody gets hurt, last week's battling piled up a casualty list well into the hundreds. Like most Siamese squalls, it was a private fight, apparently unconnected with the worldwide struggle between East and West. Foreigners, who feel that Siam is gravely threatened from Red China, could not help feeling that the Siamese were lighting matches in a tinder-dry hay barn. Local observers, on the other hand, felt that the coup had served a useful purpose. They pointed out that the navy, rated before the coup as the weakest link in Siam's defenses, had fought beyond all expectations. The air force, said one taxpayer, "had proved well worth the cost of its maintenance."

As a final gesture of solidarity with an ally, the navy officially apologized to the U.S. for spoiling its party. "We did not intend to insult much-appreciated goodwill to Siam," said the navy, "but we were compelled by patriotic motives."

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