The Malayan campaign began when the 25th Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita, invaded Malaya on 8 December 1941. Japanese troops launched an amphibious assault on the northern coast of Malaya at Kota Bharu and started advancing down the eastern coast of Malaya. Japanese forces also landed at Pattani and Songkhla in Thailand, then moved south across the Thailand-Malayan border to attack the western portion of Malaya. French Indo-China was was still under French administration, had little option but to co-operate with the Japanese. The French authorities therefore submitted to Japanese military uses in particular to use the territory's ports as naval bases, build air bases, and mass forces there for the invasion. Japan also coerced Thailand into co-operating with the invasion, though Thai troops resisted the landings in Thai territory for eight hours.