Immediately after the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War,Saigon was occupied by the British forces directed from Mountbatten's South East Asia CommandThese forces became the first of a Western nation to clash with a Communist-led revolution in Asiaand by thwarting the Viet Minh's desperate attempts to seize power,made it impossible for South Vietnam to hold out when North Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1954