Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat was a Thai general who staged a coup in 1957, replacing Plaek Phibunsongkhram as Thailand's prime minister until Sarit died in 1963. He was born in Bangkok, but grew up in his mother's home town in Isan-speaking northeastern Thailand and considered himself from Isan. His father, Major Luang Ruangdetanan, was a career army officer best known for his translations into Thai of Cambodian literature. He had partial Chinese ancestry.

Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram, locally known as Marshal P., and contemporarily known as Phibun (Pibul) in the West, was a Thai military officer and politician who served as Prime Minister of Thailand from 1938 to 1944 and 1948 to 1957.