The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 5 | Number 4 | Article ID 3483 | Jan 24, 2011

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The Great Vietnamese Famine of 1944-45 Revisited　　1944−45年ヴィエトナム大飢饉再訪

Geoffrey Gunn

The Great Vietnamese Famine of1944-45 Revisited

Geoffrey Gunn

The deaths stemming from the great famine of1944-45, which reached its zenith in March-April 1945 in Japanese-occupied northernVietnam, eclipsed in scale all human tragediesof the modern period in that country up untilthat time. The demographics vary from Frenchestimates of 600,000-700,000 dead, to officialVietnamese numbers of 1,000,000 to 2,000,000victims.1 Food security is an age-old problem,and dearth, famine, and disease have long beena scourge of mankind across the broadEurasian landmass and beyond. While morerecent understandings2 recognize that faminesare mostly man-made, it is also true that inecologically vulnerable zones, alongside naturaldisasters, war and conflict often tilts thebalance between sustainability and humandisaster.3 Allowing the contingency of naturalcause as a predisposing factor for mass famine,this article revisits the Vietnam famine of1944-45 in light of flaws in human agency(alongside willful or even deliberate neglect) aswell as destabilization stemming from war andconflict. While I avoid the issue of impacts ofthe famine in favor of seeking cause - thehuman suffering of the famine has not beeneffaced by time. It was recorded in Hanoinewspapers at the time. It survives in localmemory and in fiction by Vietnamese writers.4

The great famine was never construed as a warcrime by the Allies, yet the question of blame,alongside agency or lack of it, was an issuebetween the French and the Viet Minh in the

immediate aftermath of the Japanese surrenderand entered into propaganda recriminations.Indeed, as written into the DemocraticRepublic of Vietnam (DRV) declaration ofindependence, both Japan and France werejointly blamed for the disaster. South Vietnam(the Republic of Vietnam) also raised thefamine issue in postwar reparation negotiationswith Japan. While such charged issues as theNanjing Massacre, the comfort women, forcedlabor and unit 731 have long been the subjectof intense debate in the historical memorywars, in textbook controversies and museumexhibits, the Vietnamese famine, and Japan’srole in creating it, appear to have disappearedf r o m J a p a n e s e w a r m e m o r y a n dcommemoration whether in textbooks ormuseum representations.

It may nevertheless be asked, why is itimportant now to apportion blame? I wouldargue that the great Vietnam famine of 1944-45is at least one of the underwritten tragediesstemming from the Pacific War. Outside ofVietnam, very few articles or studies havesought to contextualize this event, whetherfrom the side of Vietnamese history, or fromthe perspective of Japanese and/or French andAmerican responsibility. No doubt a court oflaw would seek to distinguish betweendeliberate policy, benign neglect, and/or theunanticipated consequences of social action.But, rather than pinning blame as with a courtof law or a war crimes trial, what I seek here iscloser to a truth commission-style investigationthat precisely seeks to uncover a number ofthinly veiled truths that could possiblystimulate further research, not only on war andmemory issues related to the famine, but also

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in the field of famine prevention.

Background to the Famine

The background to the great famine innorthern Vietnam is the increasing scale andcharacter of Japanese military intervention inIndochina from 1940 down to surrender inSeptember-October 1945. While the VichyFrench regime in Indochina and Japan existedin a tense albeit unequal cohabitation withJapanese forces, matters changed absolutely on9 March 1945, when Japan mounted a coup deforce, militarily attacked and interned allFrench military personal who did not escape tothe mountains, and sequestered all Frenchcivilians.

The Japanese mi l i tary took over fu l ladministrative responsibility alongside localpuppet regimes as with the Tran Trong Kimcabinet in Annam, under a pliant Emperor BaoDai. Economically, Japan had used Indochinaunder the Vichy administration as a source ofindustrial and food procurement, from coal torubber, to a range of industrial crops and,especially rice from the surplus-producingMekong delta region. Though notionally underFrench administration, Japanese militaryrequisitions profoundly distorted the colonialpolitical economy, shattered the import-exportsystem, and eroded many bonds acrosscommunities and classes, sowing the seeds ofdisasters to come. Even with Frenchadministrative services continuing, includingdike repair, the monitoring of agriculturalactivities, and the collection of taxes, the rural

population, increasingly bereft of cash asmarket mechanisms collapsed, was obliged tocope in a situation of virtual economic autarkyjust as Indochina came to be subordinatedwithin Japan's Greater East Asia Co-ProsperitySphere.5

Towards the end of the war, US bombing raids,mounted from India and Yunnan in China aswell as the Philippines, and from carrier-basedaircraft, also took a toll on infrastructure,targeting the TransIndochinois rail line, linkingnorth and south Vietnam, as well as miningharbors and launching submarine raids onJapanese and local coastal shipping. With allbut a few French administrators behind bars,administrative services deteriorated, bothcentral (run from Hanoi) and local, whether runf rom Hano i , Sa igon o r Hue . In th i senvironment, customary rural statisticalsurveys were rarely conducted. Japanesemilitary authorities, moreover, paid scantattention to local needs across Vietnam, not tomention traditionally rice-deficit Laos, and evenrice surplus Cambodia, which was alsoruthlessly exploited of its rice resources. Thepriority was fulfilling Imperial imperativesdes igned to feed Japan's own on thebattlefronts and at home.

Colonial Famine Protection

From time immemorial coastal Vietnam hadsuffered frequent droughts, floods, andtyphoons, inflicting misery and suffering.According to Nguyen dynasty chronicles asinterpreted by Ngo Vinh Long, destructivefloods occurred on average every three years,usually around the seventh or eighth months,but sometimes in the forth and fifth months aswell. Prolonged droughts proved even moredisastrous to crops. Added to that were cropfailures due to locusts and other insects.6 Inofficial French discourse, protection of thepopulation against threats of famine was aconstant preoccupation of the administration.The colonial administration did not neglect the

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new and expanding modern communicationlinks to re-supply afflicted regions. The need todiversify crop production was not ignored givenunderstandings of the risks of monoculture insituations of crisis and food insufficiency, andclose monitoring of agricultural production andhuman needs became a f ine ly honedbureaucratic procedure at the local, regionaland federal (Indochinese) levels. Nevertheless,the colonial economy was above all geared forexport of rice, especially from the rice surplusMekong River delta area of southern Vietnam.

Writing half a century prior to the greatdisaster, Governor General Jean Baptiste PaulBeau (October 1902-February 1908) reflectedthat there was no unique solution to the famineproblem. One speaks of irrigation works as asolution, he opined, but Tonkin or northernVietnam had not generally suffered droughtover a ten-year period commencing in 1896. Onthe contrary, it had suffered an excess of waterover this period, whether caused by heavyrainfall or floods. Irrigation systems, he argued,did not have incontestable value and could onlybe viewed as a partial solution to the famineproblem. As well understood, several regions inAnnam, the central region of Vietnam with itscapital in Hue, supported excessive populationdensities. Prone to famine, it was not thenpossible to render assistance to these remoteareas by either land or sea. At the time ofBeau's writing, only northern Annam remainedoutside of access to the new colonial railwaysystem. But thanks to the extension of the railhead to this area, timely rice assistanceprovided by the Hue government had helpedthe population of Thanh-Hoa, then sufferingfamine. Similarly, in Annam wherever the railhead reached, relief could be speedilyarranged. Alongside new transportation routes,the old system of rice stores that the imperialgovernment hosted in each of the provinceswas deemed a less practical solution, eventhough some individuals demanded theirrestoration. High population density in parts ofTonkin likewise aggravated the effects of

famine. Alongside experiments in relocatingemigrants from Tonkin to western Cochinchina– as the French called their colony in the south- incentives were also offered by theadministration to peasant cultivators to moveaway from rice monoculture.7

Throughout the colonial period, a large numberof irrigation works were created in northernand central Vietnam, in particular, usingconscript labor and drawing upon local budgetswith both flood control and expandedcultivation as objectives.8 Nevertheless, faminedid occur in the central provinces of Nghe Anand Ha Tinh in 1930-1931. Combined withfalling rice prices and a constant tax burden,the result was to ignite mass peasant protestalong with communist-inspired attacks on theadministration.9 It is true that the Frenchintroduced a range of plantation or exportcrops, as with rubber, tobacco, coffee, etc., butneither, as demonstrated below, did colonialeconomic managers ignore the need tomaintain a basket of food crops to tide overemergencies, such as fitting long-establishedpeasant cultivator practice.10 Generally, thepaix Français in Indochina was marked by itsmanagerial response to famine and hunger,even as large numbers of people, particularlymountain-dwellers and those in more marginalsettings, barely survived in the naturaleconomy.

Managing the Food Crisis of 1937

Recovering from a low of 960,000 tonnes ofrice, unhusked paddy, and rice derivativesexported from the port of Saigon during 1931,a depression year, the figure for 1934 rose to1,505,493 tonnes. Major export markets were,in rank order, metropolitan France, otherFrench colonies, Hong Kong, and China-Shanghai. A certain quantity of rice alsoreached Japan (60,000 tonnes in 1931-32),although still a new and irregular market.Cochinchina and Cambodia combined providedthe overwhelming bulk of rice exports from

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Indochina and rice represented 27 percent oftotal tonnage exported, contributing up to 36percent of total value of exports.11

By 1937, rice exports from Indochina hadfallen, owing to a generalized drought causedby a delay in the arrival of the monsoon rainswhich affected a wide swathe of territory fromsouthern Tonkin, to northern Annam, north andcentral Laos, and even the northeast of Siam.As a remedia l measure, the colonia ladministration, now under the socialist PopularFront government of Léon Blum, imposed atotal ban on the export of rice from Laos(including rice surplus Bassac in the south),while seeking to reserve all quantities of ricefor local consumption. With northern Annamsuffering a marked lack of precipitation,especially in Vinh and Than-Hoa provinces,50,000 piasters was earmarked for distributionof rice to victims. In order to preventspeculation on existing stocks of rice, theadministration opened a 40,000-piaster line ofcredit with the official small loan institution,Credit Agricole Mutual, a measure seen ashelping to regulate the price of rice. Answeringto the Minister of Colonies in France, theIndochina government reported monitoring thesituation with “extreme caution,”12 and this isborne out by the facts.

In early 1937, a number of locales in ThanhHoa were drastically affected by poor harvestsleading to a certain “malaise” (read, majordiscontent) on the part of the affectedpopulation. No doubt with memories of 1931-32in mind, the authorities did not stand idly by. Aseries of public works projects, roadsespecially, were created offering indigentpeasant farmers a stipend to cover their needs.This was not a small investment but translatedinto 192,000 paid workdays. Roads and bridgesin the view of the authorities would open newmarkets, thus satisfying demand on the part ofthe population. More than that, the extra

income earned would enable peasant-workersto purchase rice-seeds ready for planting in thenext season. In the words of an officialrapporteur, “Misery was banished owing to thegenerous support of the government and theagricultural rhythm reestablished in the bestconditions while allowing even the mostdisinherited to receive support.”13

Pressed by Paris and the Governor General, theFrench Resident Superior in Hanoi scrambledto take stock of food reserves in Tonkin byconducting a province-level investigation. Asthe top French official concluded, the soudureor gap between the intervening harvests wasnot at a cr i t ica l leve l in Tonkin . Hisinvestigation disclosed that 566,217 tonnes ofrice were held in reserve (stockpiled),amounting to some 56,000 tonnes in excess of(annual) consumption needs of 510,310 tonnes.To this was added approximately 22,500 tonnes

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of maize, along with a reserve of secondaryitems of everyday consumption, includingpotatoes, soy beans, manioc, and taro, “whichalso makes up an appreciable part of the diet ofthe indigenous population,” albeit an amountdifficult to accurately calculate owing to thesmall-scale or household character of itsproduction.14

From October 1938, however, the price of ricebegan to fall. Between September andDecember 1938, the price of rice on the Saigonmarket fell 30 percent with paddy diminishing40 percent in value. Although the fall in pricewas less accentuated in the Haiphongmarketplace, it also fell by 15 percent. Thereasons given for this alarming state of affairswas, paradoxically, the arrival in Saigon-Cholonof an abundant new harvest at a time whenFrance and the major global cereal producersalso experienced a good harvest, combinedwith a fall in demand in China owing to thewar. Simultaneously, the cost of living indexcontinued to increase in the fourth quarter of1938, affecting Europeans and middle classlocals alike, and with an even deeper impact onthe working class. Linked with a majordevaluation of the piaster in September 1936,the average cost of living in Hanoi during thisperiod increased a steep 44 percent with aneven more alarming 60 percent increase for theworking class.15

But with the worst of the 1937 crisis behind it,total rice production in Indochina (includingexports , reserves, and r ice for localconsumption) rose to 1,650,000 tonnes in 1939,declining to 1,500,000 tonnes in 1940. The year1940 also marked a disruption of traditionalmarkets. Owing to the wars in China andEurope, the China-Shanghai and Hong Kongmarket was lost. Shipping linking France andits colonies to Vietnam simply disappeared. In1940, Japan stepped into this market in a bigway, shipping 500,000 tonnes of rice on its ownships to homeland or Japanese-controlledterritories.16 Japan also benefited from the

March 1941 annexation by Thailand of the richrice producing province of Battambang inCambodia, depriving Indochina of around500,000 tons of paddy between 1941-46, not tomention rice consumed or requisitioned byarriving Japanese occupation forces.17 Further,on 6 May 1941, having entered a commercialagreement with the Vichy administration, Japancontracted delivery of over one million tonnesof Indochinese rice a year.18 This figure wouldincrease as the war progressed, just as ricecame to be extracted under duress includingforced or compulsory deliveries outside ofmarket conditions or consideration for localneeds.

According to the first Vichy Governor ofCochinchina, René Veber (1940-42) (writingfrom Vichy in France and signing himself asGovernor of Colonies), considerable effort hadbeen made in 1940 to create rice producercooperatives, notably the collective purchase ofselected seeds of the same variety in order toproduce a degree of homogenei ty inproduction, while adding value to the crop. InVeber's words, “peasant producers, proprietorsand merchants would be rewarded with morehomogenous rice of better appreciatedvarieties.” While Veber also acknowledged thatsuch measures flew in the face of Vietnamesepeasant “individuality” (meaning resistance tocooperation), he also believed that, with tact,they could be persuaded.19 Given that Japannow commanded the lion's share of Indochineserice exports, we can only speculate as to whowas calling the shots as to rice type, but itappears likely that the Japanese market wasalready pushing the Vichy French in thedirection of standardization. Neither can wediscount the importance of risk aversestrategies typically adopted by peasantproducers in avoiding the unknown, such astaking on an untested rice strains that couldexpose the harvest to new vulnerabilities frompests and disease.

More generally, though, it is fair to conclude

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from the handling of the 1937 crisis that theFrench adopted a strict managerial approach tofood sufficiency across Indochina, backed bythe regular collation of province level statistics.The French not only kept and calculated ricereserves, but they also established a finelydetailed picture of food needs across vastterritory. Timely food relief and work-for-payschemes was another feature of colonial policyunder the Popular Front government.Vulnerable in the extreme to externalities orinternational factors, the French also vainlysought to micro-manage the macro-economy.Obviously, for the French, the threateningevents of 1930-32 had to be avoided at allcosts, just as they wished to lubricate theexport economy of which rice constituted animportant share. Still, even with peace, the costof living was skyrocketing and the returns fromrice production were diminishing. It would onlytake a few additional shocks, natural and man-made, to upset this state of equilibrium which,at least until the Japanese period, hadcushioned the rural population and averted theworst effects of mass famine. But thedisappearance of traditional markets linkedwith aggressive Japanese rice procurementoutside of international free marketmechanisms was already an ominous sign forrice producers, proprietors, and middlemenalike.

Origins of the Great Famine of 1944-45

According to Pham Cao Duong,20 a standardinterpretation is that the origins of the famineof 1945 lie with the crop failures of 1943-45;this was compounded by lack of dikemaintenance following US bombing of thenorth and the catastrophic rainfall of August-September 1944 causing flooding and loss ofrice plants. There are merits in a multi-causeapproach to the famine. In the following fewparagraphs I reassess some of the dominantarguments.

For Nguyen Khac Vien, a generally reliablesource from the Hanoi-side,21 the heaviestburden on the people under Japanese rule wasthe compulsory sale of rice to the state. EvenTonkin, where food was tragically scarce, hadto supply 130,305 tonnes in 1943; and 186,130tonnes in 1944. Whether the crop was good orbad, each region had to supply a quantity ofrice in proportion to the tilled acreage at thederisory price of 19 piasters a quintal, a smallfraction of the market price. In lean years,people had to buy rice on the market at 54piasters to meet that obligation. To providegunny bags for the Japanese economy, peoplewere obliged to uproot rice and plant jute. In1944 when US bombing cut off northernsupplies of coal to Saigon, the French andJapanese used rice and maize as fuel for powerstations. They vied with each other to storerice. During that time dams and dikes wereneglected. The slightest natural calamitycaused food shortages. Starting in 1943, faminebegan. It became more serious from 1944onward.

Historian of Vietnam, David Marr,22 contendsthat the prospect of dearth in Tonkin had beencreeping up for some years prior to the climax.He asserts that paddy output had been slippingover two decades owing to gradual reductionsin acreage and a failure to introduce newcultivation methods. In addition, a still smallpercentage of land had been given over to the

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production of industrial crops. Meanwhile, thenorthern population had increased by 36percent, forcing increased dependence onimports of Cochinchina rice. Drought andinsects reduced the 1944 harvest by 19 percentover the previous year, with typhoonsdamaging the autumn crop. Farmers acrossnorthern Vietnam realized by October that theycould not fulfill tax obligations, includingobligatory deliveries to the government, andfeed their families. While peasants startedtaking customary evasive actions, and whilehoarders and black marketers thrived in thisenvironment, the French and Japanesecontinued stockpiling rice, with GeneralTsuchibashi Yuichi, commander-in-chief of theoccupation army in Indochina and pro-governorgeneral after March 1945, planning 6 months(or 3 years) stockpiling ahead of an anticipatedAllied invasion.

Without citing sources, although offeringstatistics, Pham Cao Duong23 argues that thedecrease in crop yield during these crisis yearswas not drastic and there was still sufficientrice to avoid starvation. Rather, he sees thecause of the shortage as stemming from thepractice of converting rice to alcohol used as asubstitute for gasoline; illegal exports of rice byChinese merchants and coastal traders; and USinterdiction of north-south communicationroutes cutting off the north from rice importsfrom Cochinchina (estimated at 100,000 tonnesa year). Added to that, Vichy French GovernorGeneral Jean Decoux ordered the stockpiling ofrice (500,000 barrels), a necessary measure inthe circumstances, while the Japanese collectedrice. But it was the human factor, he claims,namely intensified speculation, inflation andscarcity, which drove up the price of rice. “Themore the price of rice rose, the more the grainbecame scarce because of stockpiling.” In1944, traditional mechanisms of reciprocitylinking large landowners to tenant farmersbroke down. As Duong asserts, in 1944, alllarge landowners were obliged to deliver thebulk o f the ir suppl ies to the French

administration, while all paddy on the marketwas monopolized by Vietnamese and Chinesemerchants.

According to Ngo Vinh Long, “beginning in late1942, largely because of the Japanese demandfor rice, the French colonial administrationimposed upon the population “the forced saleof given quotas of rice, depending upon thearea of land cultivated.” In 1943, this amountreached three-fourths of income for many, evenexceeding the amount that some peasantscould harvest, forcing purchase on the marketto resell to the administration. While theprocurement price was minimal, the blackmarket price spiraled upwards. Long assertsthat there was coastal junk navigation availablebut the French either discouraged thistransport or taxed it heavily as a disincentive tooperators. With Pham Cao Duong, he holds thatthe use of rice to make alcohol to run machineswas “one of the major causes of death fromstarvation.” Another was the French storage ofrice and export to Japan (including the exportof 300,000 tonnes of maize from 1942 to early1945), along with Japanese demands to plantindustrial crops.24

For Brocheux and Hémery,25 two close studentsof Vietnam's social and political landscape, thebackground to the crisis was essentiallydemographic (they assert that the mishandlingwas Japanese). Public health programs and

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vaccination campaigns did control mortalitystemming from terrible cholera epidemics and,after 1927, there were no longer anycatastrophic ruptures of dikes in Tonkin, atleast until the dramatic flooding of August 1945when 230,000 hectares were submerged, themost serious flooding of the century. But, in thecourse of a century of French contact, thepopulation of Vietnam had increased by afactor of six, and cultivated surface by two. Thebalance of population and grain productiontherefore became extremely uncertain and thepeasants were periodically wracked by agro-ecological crisis. Starting before 1930, vastareas of rural misery expanded in the regionswhere the ratio of population to cerealproduction was most strained, namely the RedRiver, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, and Quang Ngai. In1937, there were from 2-3 million agriculturalday laborers and more than a mil l ionunemployed in the Red River Delta. There wasalso extreme parcelization of land ownership,and a rising class of Chinese-style biglandlords. Taken together, they argue, thesituation approximated that of “agriculturalinvolution” such as described by Clifford Geertzin his study of late colonial-early postwar ruralJava.

Source: Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina: AnAmbiguous Colonization, 1858-1954.

Failure

What went wrong? American bombing, andresistance activities in the mountains by FreeFrench and Viet Minh guerillas aside, the RedRiver delta region and northern Annam was nota major conflict zone. David Marr26 contendsthat the only way that mass famine could havebeen averted would have been to arrangesupplies of 60,000 tonnes relief fromCochinchina by October 1944. Citing a Frenchsource, he demonstrates that, owing toAmerican submarine operations, air patrols andharbor mining exercises, the amount of rice

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shipped from south to north dropped from 126,670 tonnes in 1942 to 29,700 in 1943, to 6,830in 1944. Given hazardous junk transport andthe need for porterage between unbrokensections of the rail link, the challenge wasformidable. The knowledge and capacity werethere but, he asserts, neither the French northe Japanese had the will to achieve this goal.Both remained preoccupied with militarylogistics. Following the 9 March 1945 takeover,the Japanese ignored famine warnings for atleast two weeks. By Tet (March) of 1945,thousands, especially rural Vietnamese weredying. The Japanese did release some grainfrom captured French depots to urban people,in part to discredit the French. After muchhand wringing and remonstrations, suggestingadministrative malfeasance, relief started to beorganized. Eventually, in late June, junks fromCochinchina bearing rice for Tonkin arrived,but by this time the worst of the crisis wasover.

Having asserted the dual role of the French andJapanese in stockpiling rice, Marr makes noattempt to disentangle French and Japanesemotives. In contrast to the Japanese motive ofpreparing for future battles and securingsupplies for their armed forces, Frenchstockpiling could not have had a primarilymilitary intent. Surely the Japanese would nothave allowed French military stockpiling whenthey were calling the shots. A case couldequally be made that the French stockpiling ofrice, at least while they were in charge, was anadministrative response to a looming crisis and,indeed, a reversion to traditional practice. (Asnoted, the French, in the early decades of the20th century, had done away with thetraditional practice of the imperial Vietnameseauthorities in hosting rice stores in allprovinces, suggesting that the Vichy Frenchrevival of this practice had some logic.) It alsohas to be said that French agriculturalorganization excelled precisely in monitoringdeficits and surpluses across Indochina throughregular and intensive statistical surveys, dike

control, and the development of rapidcommunications. Space precludes analysis, butFrench colonial administrative prowess in thisarea was no less than say, the British in Malayaor, indeed, the Japanese in Taiwan.

In fact, French and Japanese motives andactions were entirely at variance. According toa Free French intelligence report of September1944 (derived from an anonymous Americaninformant), on top of an economic agreementcontracting 1,200,000 tonnes of rice, theJapanese demanded an additional 400,000tonnes for military provisions. Undoubtedlysensitive to the intolerable pressures that thiswould impose upon Vietnamese producers, theVichy administration under Admiral Decouxbalked. The Japanese answered with anultimatum. In a highly exceptional display ofautonomy, the Vichy administrat ionsardonically replied that, if the Japanesewanted the rice then they would have to take itand bear fu l l respons ib i l i t y for theconsequences. 2 7

All elements of Pham Cao Duong's argumentare cogent and convincing, as the paradox offood availability and unaffordability still hauntsinternational relief agencies confrontinganalogous situations to the present day. (Forinstance, overproduction of grain can translateinto famine as in Eth iop ia in 2003. )Nevertheless, Duong is reluctant to attributeprimary cause of the famine cause to Japanesepolicies, which shattered the marketmechanisms that the French had superimposedon traditional practices, albeit these were mademore efficient by Indochina-wide stocktaking,stockpiling, and modern transport. BehindDecoux of course it was the Japanese militarythat had siphoned off rice surpluses and it wasJapanese orders that forced Vietnamesefarmers to plant industrial crops and convertpaddy to biofuels. In general, Decoux wasobliged to follow Japanese orders on ricerequisition, whatever the consequences,although the Japanese correctly assumed that

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the Vichy French were also subverting theirorders towards the end.

A full accounting would also have to examinethe specific stages in the development of thefamine in northern Vietnam, from the first cropfailures of 1943-44 to the abrupt transitionfrom Vichy French administration to Japanesemilitary rule in March 1945, to the period ofsocial breakdown (August-October 1945), to thecomplex transition to Viet Minh rule, as well aspartial French administrative responsibility(March-November 1946), coinciding with there-entry of French forces into the Red Riverdelta area following Japan’s defeat. The issue ofwho controlled the keys to the rice stockpiles isalso important. If, as Brocheux and Hémery28

assert, the Japanese lacked the shippingcapacity after 1943 to send rice north owing tolosses incurred due to US air raids andsubmarine attacks, then it does seem likely thatrice stocks were accruing in the south ratherthan declining. Even so, Japan was stillleaching food out of Indochina, overland viaC a m b o d i a o r , v i a t h e s e a r o u t e ,notwithstanding the American submarine risk.

American Bombing

Although the bombing of strategic Japanesetargets in northern Vietnam started in 1942,first by the American Volunteer Group (AVG),better known as the “Flying Tigers,” the tempoincreased under the Yunnan-based China AirTask Force (CATF) of the Tenth Air Force, andlater by the Fourteenth Air Force, as with thebombing of the Hanoi-Haiphong area in April1944. Additional attacks were made by B-29s ofthe XX Bomb Group flying out of India and byLiberators, Mitchells, and Lightnings belongingto the Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces operatingfrom bases in the Philippines. Beginning inDecember 1944, attacks on Japanese targets insouthern Vietnam were made by the U.S. NavySeventh Fleet's Catalinas, B-24s, and Privateersas well as by carrier aircraft from AdmiralWilliam Halsey's Third Fleet.29

Beginning in April 1944, US India-based B-29'stargeted the Saigon Naval Yard and Arsenal.Cap St. Jacques (Vung Tau) also became abombing target with 5-7 Japanese ships sunk ina raid of 15 April 1944, just as Americansubmarines began to take their toll on bothJapanese and French shipping (delivered byDecoux to the Japanese, notwithstanding theresistance of French crews). For example, on29 April 1944, two French ships heading northwere sunk by submarines off the coast ofVietnam, one a French destroyer lost with allhands, the other a merchant vessel which,according to Allied intelligence, was “carryingbadly needed rice to Tonkin and Annam.” Thisis an important revelation - or admission - asthe Allies would have known something of thehuman consequences of their actions beyondthe mere sinking of ships. Notably, on 12January 1945, US T-38 aircraft attacked fourlarge enemy convoys off the Vietnam coastsinking 25 vessels and severely damaging 13.Among the losses was the French light cruiser,Lamotte-Picquet. Shipping losses along thecoast were reported as heavy, just as portarrivals in Saigon-Vung Tau began to trenddownwards. The French announced their losseswhile the Japanese remained silent.30

The above leads to the question of what kind ofshipping was entering Indochinese ports, forwhat purpose and to what destination? Saigonand its ocean-going port of St. Jacques/VungTau were the most important for Japaneseshipping between Taiwan and Singapore withshipping movements in 1943-44 averagingbetween five (Saigon) and 13 (Cap St. Jacques)ship visits a day. As the assembly point forJapanese convoys plying between the SouthSeas and Japan, during the same approximateperiod up to 33 ships a day sometimesanchored of f Cap St . Jacques. Al l iedintelligence offers highly detailed weeklysummaries of shipping movements into and outof these ports. In April-June 1944, a largenumber of Japanese troop-carrying vesselsreportedly arrived in the Saigon River and

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immediately reloaded with rice from bargesfloated down from Mekong delta rice fields.Summarizing from a single day's maritimeactivity out of Saigon in early August 1944,Allied intelligence stated that the Japanesewere shipping considerable rice from Saigon tooccupied Java, Singapore, Hong Kong,Shanghai as well as Japan. In August 1944,Macau Governor Gabriel Teixeira gainedJapanese agreement to send a vessel (the SSPortugal) to northern Vietnam to load coal andbeans for shipment to Macau at a time whenthe Japanese choke on Portuguese-controlledMacau had reduced sections of the populationto cannibalism.31 The picture that emergesthrough 1944-early 1945, besides intenseJapanese naval activity in and around Saigonport, is one of near total command of riceproduced in rice-surplus Cochinchina andCambodia and its export under Japanesemilitary auspices to virtually all parts of theJapanese empire.32

But with US interdiction of Japanese shippingtaking its toll, the deployment of shipping alsoadded to the problem of servicing the coastaltrade. Dated 19 July (1944), an unreliable Alliedintelligence source stated that at Saigon,“there are 300,000 tons of rice awaitingshipment, part of which is rotting on the quays.Even if the figure covers all Japanese-held ricein Saigon including quantities earmarked forlocal Japanese consumption and production ofalcohol,” the account continued, “theaccumulation during the first six months of1944 amounts to over a quarter of the totaltonnage scheduled for shipping this year.”33

With a superabundance of rice rotting in theharbor, we may ask, why wasn't even aproportion of this food surplus freighted northto cover the then apparent rice deficit innorthern Annam and the lower Tonkin delta?

Another measure undertaken to alleviate theshortage of shipping was a concerted attemptby the Japanese authorities in Saigon toconstruct some 200 wooden ships of 500-ton

capacity, an enterprise involving over 1,000local Chinese and Vietnamese craftsmen.Mitsubishi even set up an engine plant whileother engines arrived by freighter from HongKong. But rather than deploy these vessels inthe coastal trade, the first four were dispatchedto Singapore carrying a total of 900 tons ofrice. One foundered and two others returned toport badly leaking. Other motor-driven woodenships were directed towards Thailand and theKhra Isthmus. On 2 September 1944, theJapanese commandeered four Chinese-ownedsteamships to carry military personnel andsupplies between Phnom Penh and Saigon.Although we lack parallel data for Haiphongport, the point is that almost all of thismaritime activity was geared to meet Japan'sgreater strategic needs, while coastalnavigation such as would connect up the south,center and north of Vietnam, apparently stillundertaken by the French, was neglected,fatally as it turned out.34

Nevertheless, the main transport conduit forthe domestic movement of rice was the railsystem. Rail transport was the more reliablenorth-south communication link especiallyduring the typhoon season (July-October), whenall maritime activity was hazardous. TheSaigon-Hanoi TransIndochinois was singletrack, meter-gauge, with double track at allstations. The steepest gradient was 1: 100.Normally - or before the bombing started tointerrupt the timetable - a journey from Saigonto Hanoi took 42 hours, at an average of 42 kmper hour with somewhat lower speed on newlyopened track between Nha Trang and QuangNgai. The capacity of the line was six trains ineach direction every 24 hours. According to anAllied intelligence report of 1944, expresstrains ran daily between the two centers.35

Obviously with such an efficient transportsystem in place there should have been notechnical obstacle to moving food from surplusto deficit areas. But, decisions about use of theline also needs to be considered. According to

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an unconfirmed Chinese intelligence report oflate 1944, owing to the movement north of50,000 Japanese troops from Saigon to Hanoi,all civilian traffic on the line was suspendedthrough 7 September 1944.36 Whatever theveracity of that report, it does fit generalizedaccounts contending that the Japanese militarysubordinated use of the line to military needs,both before and after the 9 March 1945 coupde force. Undoubtedly, the Allies were alsoacting upon this kind of assessment, intargeting the TransIndochinois line.

There is also some conflict in Allied intelligencereporting. A report from September 1944indicates that American bombing and strafingattacks destroyed or damaged several bridgeson the Saigon-Hanoi l ine resulting indislocation of transport services. The tenor ofthis account is confirmed by a 10 October 1944report citing the “poor condition” of the line,making possible a maximum of 4,000 tons ofcargo monthly with possibilities of repair“negligible.” But, we know that differentsectors of the line were not subject toirreparable damage (Saigon-Danang-NinhBinh), and that repair and porterage were alsoways to minimize the problem. According to anintelligence assessment of January 1945, theJapanese army had demanded of the French(still technically in charge of the line), that sixpairs of trains per week should run betweenSaigon and Tourane (Danang), with one train aday running in both directions from Vietri(northwest of Hanoi) to Laokay (at the Vietnamterminus of the Haiphong-Kunming line).37 Thisassessment suggests that there was nobreakdown in the rail transportation system atthis stage, and there is no reason why ricecould not have been entering this traffic ifthere had been the will.

By 29 November 1944, however, traffic overthe railway bridge at Ninh Binh (in the lowersouthwestern Red River delta) had beenstopped by aerial bombing, two railway carsdestroyed. On 30 November 1944, the railway

was also damaged at Phu Ly (mid-way betweenNinh Binh and Hanoi in the mid-lower delta). Ifthese two sections of the line had not beenspeedily repaired, traffic in and out of thesouthern Red River delta would have beendrastically interrupted. Much of course wouldalso have depended upon non-rail transportfrom Phi Lu to local markets and theadministration and distribution of rice withinthe deficit zones. Summarizing, we can state,with the famine crisis beginning to bite, railtraffic was still reaching Ninh Binh fromDanang via Hue, Vinh, Dong Hoi, and ThanhHoa, without major interruption.38

In mid-April 1945, precisely at the peak of thefamine, Australian commandos landing byAmerican submarine inside Danang Baysabotaged a train or, at least, a locomotive (oneof two trains observed heading north). Theirmission was directed at northbound trains. Asobserved, the first two carriages of this 10-18-carriage train held passengers with – assurmised - the remaining covered carriagesreserved for troops. While the Australiancommandos reckoned they only immobilizedthe line for 24 hours, the picture they offer ofDanang (lights blazing) and rail activity at fullspate was one of near normalcy. They alsoobserved an extremely well maintained track.The view from the submarine periscope wasone of active and organized offshore nightfishing activity by multi-sailed boats all alongthe coast from Saigon to Danang Bay (200-300fishing vessels, all numbered as if part of afishing cooperative exercise). This suggestssome degree of food self-sufficiency along thecoastal literal of Vietnam, but that would alsodepend upon distribution networks, markets,and many other factors.39

US bombing of the rail line may not have beenthe critical factor in starving the north ofsouthern rice, especially as it appears thatnorth-south communication was not completelyruptured in the run-up to March-April the peakof the northern famine. But, combined with

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attacks on coastal shipping, it impededJapanese and French authorities efforts to dealwith transport and food issues. As Mickelsonexplains in a rare study of Allied bombing ofVietnam during the Pacific War, Americans didnot control the skies over Vietnam. Facingdown both Vichy anti-aircraft batteries andJapanese fighters the Americans suffered 414casualties in the course of these missions,alongside a host of downed fliers. For instance,in late 1943, three B-24 Liberators were shotdown in a single raid over Haiphong by 35 ormore Japanese fighters. For a time, Mickelsonalso argues, the Americans were diverted fromthe main mission by acts of “vengeance”against the Vichy French who betrayed thedowned American aviators, just as a turn-around in attitude by Admiral Decoux was oneof the leading reasons behind the Japanesedecision to carry out the March 1945 coup andassume direct military rule.40

A Contrarian View

Against the view that the French and Japanese,and perhaps even the Americans, all sharedresponsibility for the tragedy which is found ina number of official Vietnamese and otherwritings, a contrarian view suggests a highdegree of Japanese responsibility. Bui MingDung41 argues - and I agree - that the Japaneseexacted rice not only for their local use orexports to Japan, but for other parts of theempire, even at the height of the starvation. Atthe heart of Dung's analysis is a refutation ofcertain of the more enduring explanations ofthe famine. First, he dismisses the argumentthat Tonkin (as opposed to Annam) suffered asubsistence crisis (Tonkin rice productionexceeded that of Annam, while populationincrease was greater in Annam than Tonkin).Second, he refutes the arguments of certainJapanese interlocutors (General TsuchibashiYuichi included), who assert that bad weatheror typhoons were decisive: the big floodsactually occurred in August after, not before,the famine. Third, inflation, he argues, hit

urban rather than rural dwellers harder.Fourth, to the extent that the French wereactive under Japanese duress, that of courseceased abruptly after 9 March with Japaneseseizure of direct power. Nor does he find theFrench complicit in the making of the famine.To the extent that the French implementedpolicy changes, they were ordered to meetJapanese not indigenous demands. Fifth,notwithstanding American bombing, thetransport system did not entirely collapse. Itwas simply reoriented to Japanese military use(rice transport took less volume than othercommodities). Sixth, the Japanese forciblyintroduced not only jute, but cotton, vegetableoil plants and other industrial crops in northernVietnam at the expense of maize, rice and otherfood crops. Maize also began to supplant rice inexports to Japan and the Philippines in 1945,although rice was also exported to other placesduring this year. Seventh, the Japanesestockpiled rice in Laos right up to the point oftheir surrender. Finally, overarching allconsiderations, the export of Indochinese riceto Japan and the empire appears to have been aJapanese policy throughout.

Apportioning Blame

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy,according to Marr,42 famine survivors mostreadily blamed the French, who were still incharge until March 1945, and were lessinclined to blame the Japanese. According toMarr, no blame was attributed to the Alliedforces in destroying infrastructure or the VietMinh who were supporting Allied actions. Also,as mentioned in the DRV Declaration ofIndependence of 2 September 1945, both theFrench and the Japanese were targeted. From1940, it asserts, “Our people were subjected tothe double yoke of the French and theJapanese. Their sufferings and miseriesincreased. The result was that from the end oflast year to the beginning of this year from

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Quang Tri province to the north of Vietnam,more than two million of our fellow citizensdied from starvation.”43

While responsibility for the famine remainscontroversial, there is no question that the VietMinh derived maximum propaganda advantagefrom the tragedy. In an undated memorandumaddressing a Viet Minh allegation that it wasthe French who were to blame for the famine of1944-45, French intelligence responded that, tothe contrary, owing to the fact that the harvestof the 10th month of 1944 had resulted in ashortfall, the French administration had builtup reserve stocks in each province. However,the Japanese had distributed most of thesestocks. Moreover, the Japanese had reducedrice production and area under cultivationowing to a switch to industrial crops to servicetheir own requirements. In defeat, according toFrench intelligence, the Japanese had removedrice stocks and thrown them into the MekongRiver at Thakek and Paksane in southern Laos.This vandalism condemned thousands ofIndochinese people to die of famine. Theharvest of the 10th month of 1945 revealedanother compromise owing to the floods whichravaged the rice fields of the Red River deltacausing major losses of life. While the postwarFrench administration in central and southVietnam exercised protective measures, byprovoking or encouraging “disorder andpillage,” the “provisional government,” namelythe Hanoi authorities, “also hampered Frenchgovernment assistance in these regions. It isthey who should be held responsible forlaunching the famine as much for i tsaggravation and continuing disorders.”44

After the Revolution

The Viet Minh August revolution of 1945 in thenorth, leading to the DRV proclamation of thefollowing month, was not exactly propitiousfrom the point of view of food security and wewonder how the Viet Minh coped with thesituation. King C. Chen45 confirms that the food

situation was on the verge of disaster.According to Viet Minh estimates, the 1945autumn harvest was poor and hardly sufficed tofeed eight million persons for three months. Toavoid nation-wide starvation, the Viet Minhgovernment launched an All-out CampaignAgainst Famine. The entry of 152,000Nationalist Chinese army personnel in northernIndochina to accept the Japanese surrenderincreased the difficulty of food supply. Theproblem was only gradually alleviated with thearrival of supplies from Saigon though, as Chencontends, the French also tried to delayshipments to the north.

Gabriel Kolko46 is one who has appreciated thepolitical importance of the famine in preparingthe ground for the revolution that followed. Henotes that the communists broke open the ricestores to avert famine. Nguyen Khac Vien47

affirms that it was the Viet Minh who took thelead in calling upon the peasants to resistorders to plant jute and led opposition to theforced sale of rice, terming this a joint French-Japanese oppression. This view is notcontradicted by the head of the American OSSdelegation in Hanoi, Archimedes Patti, whoargues that the unplanned effects of Viet Minhseizures of paddy stocks had the effect ofproviding relief from the famine as the price ofrice fell; identification of the Japanese andFrench as the common enemy; encouragingpeople to organize for self-defense; highlightingthe importance of organized resistance, andrecruiting for the Viet Minh.48 But, as Brocheuxand Hémery hedge, the famine in the northprovided an ideal basis for denouncing thedeficiencies of the colonial regime, and even asupposed Franco-Japanese collusion atphysically liquidating the Vietnamesepopulation. The Viet Minh not only used thefamine as a propaganda weapon, but alsomobilized the population to seize stocks, whichhad been stored by the French and were inJapanese hands after March 1945.49

Remembrance

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At least until, 1975, the DRV did not have amonopoly on official Vietnamese remembranceof the famine. Indeed, the question of Japanesewar reparations was contested between thenorth and the south. Yet another version of thefamine was replayed postwar by the Presidentof the Republic of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem(October 1955- November 1963), in discussionswith the Japanese ambassador in Saigon,Konogaya Yutaka. Ambassador Konogayainformed Australian diplomats on 15 February1957 that, in claiming war reparations Diemmade the argument that, towards the end ofthe war, the Japanese army requisitionedenormous quantities of rice from the north andthe south, apparently with the intention ofbuilding up large stocks in the mountains toenable it to continue fighting. This requisitionled to the disastrous famine in the north andthe death of more than one million Vietnamese.Dismissively, Konogaya asserted, aside fromthe figure of one million dead, the Vietnamesehad supplied no statistics to support its claimsfor exaggerated amounts of reparations andthat, in fact, “no statistics exist.” Setting asidethe question of reparation claims (eventuallypaid to the Republic of South Vietnam afterprotracted negot ia t ions and b i t terrecriminations), Diem voiced a popularperception held in south Vietnamese elitecircles, at least, of the causes of the famine.50

As Bui Ming Dung51 remarks, the Japanese havelittle remembered or reflected on the tragedyin Vietnam. Rather, it is often argued there that“the Vietnamese starvation was the result ofconfused 'war time conditions.'” Undoubtedly,the pro-Saigon business lobby, eager to pick upwhere they left off in 1945, and which thecombative Ambassador Konogaya seemed torepresent, helped to consolidate this view. Atthe helm of this group stood the Japan-VietnamFriendship Society, inaugurated at a meeting inNihonbashi in 1955 although, 55 years on, it isnow appropriately pro-Hanoi. Present wasTsukamoto Takeshi, former Japanese consulgeneral in Hanoi, and Shigemitsu Mamoru

(1887-1957), Japanese foreign minister at theend of the war and, after release frominternment in Sugamo prison on war crimescharges, postwar foreign minister (1954-56).

Conclusions

Although Hanoi, together with a number ofindependent researchers, remains equivocal inapportioning blame to both French andJapanese, it should be noted that French andJapanese motives in stockpiling rice differed infundamentals. It also must be said that, even ifTonkin had become increasingly dependentupon imports of Cochinchina rice over theprevious two decades, France can hardly beblamed for the demographic increase in thenorth. Assessing responsibility for the famine isfurther complicated by the US recourse tobombing in Indochina that often did notdiscriminate between civilian and militarytargets. In fact, the Americans were warned bythe French of the consequences of destroyingdikes in the north.52 Finally, there remains thedifficulty in interpreting the willful destructionof rice stocks at war end by the Japanesemilitary.

It is nevertheless clear that continued heavyrice requisitions demanded by the Japanese andimplemented by the Vichy French in a situationof administrative breakdown and even semi-anarchy after the Japanese coup, magnified theimpact of the disaster. Human failure andagency combined to betray the people ofnorthern and north-central Vietnam. Affirmingperhaps the more general thrust of AmartyaSen's arguments about the causes of famines,food distribution mechanisms broke down notin a situation of absolute scarcity as in someconflict situations but in an environment inwhich all signs pointed to the urgent need forsurplus rice to be moved north from theMekong delta. More than that, more rationaland humane policies directed at northernVietnam would have seen more land under ricecultivation, less rice diverted to industrial

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alcohol, etc., corn and other crops planted andreserved as a backup, reduction of rice exportsunder shortage conditions, fewer forceddeliveries, greater availability of food crops inthe marketplace, and the rational and humaneuse of stockpiled rice.

Finally, I am in agreement with Bui Ming Dungwho argues that “the Japanese occupation ofVietnam was the direct cause, in the finalanalysis, of several other factors, in turnaffecting the famine, but their military effortstogether with their economic policy for theGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere per seseem to have systematically played a roleconsiderably greater than any other factors inthe Vietnamese starvation.” Even if thestatistics are wanting as Ambassador Konogayainsisted – especially as we lack knowledge ofprovincial and county level dynamics in thecrucial months of 1945 – the basic factssurrounding the great starvation of 1944-45 arestill persuasive of the general truths we haveoutlined here.

Geoffrey Gunn is the author of HistoricalD i c t i o n a r y o f E a s t T i m o r (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004LB4C8A/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), Singapore and the AsianRevolutions, and First Globalization: TheE u r a s i o n E x c h a n g e , 1 5 0 0 - 1 8 0 0(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0742526623/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), and an Asia-Pacific JournalCoordinator.

The author thanks Mark Selden and MartinMurray for comments on this article.

Recommended citation: Geoffrey Gunn, TheGreat Vietnamese Famine of 1944-45Revisited, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue5 No 4, January 31, 2011.

Notes

1 From a range of official and other sources,David Marr concludes that the death tollprobably reached one million or ten percent of

the population of the affected area perishing ina five-month period. See David Marr, Vietnam1945: The Quest for Power, University ofCalifornia Press, Berkeley, 1997, p. 104. NgoVinh Long asserts that two million people diedin Tonkin alone during the few months from theend of 1944 to the early part of 1945. SeeBefore the Revolution: The VietnamesePeasants under the French, ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1991, p.129. Bui Ming Dung,who sampled a range of sources, also estimatesbetween one and two million victims. Bui MingDung, ”Japan's Role in the VietnameseStarvation of 1944-45,” Modern Asian Studies,vol. 29, no.3, July, 1995, pp.575-76.

2 Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essayon Entitlement and Deprivation, OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford, 1981. In this seminaltext on food security, Sen broadly demonstratesthat famine occurs not only or primarily froman insufficiency of food but from inequalitiesbuilt into mechanisms for distributing food. Seealso, Sugata Bose, “Starvation amidst Plenty:The Making of Famine in Bengal, Honan, andTonkin, 1942-44” (Modern Asian Studies, 24,no.4, 1990: 699-727), “a study which puts intobold relief, the role played by the state,fluctuations in wider economic systems, andvarious social structures in the translation ofchronic hunger into dramatic famine and theuneven social distribution of its costs. It alsohighlights the role of famine in underminingthe legitimacy of the state and the pre-existingsocial structures.” (pp. 726-27).

3 My intuitive understanding of this linkage alsostems from working with statisticians seekingto calibrate the number of conflict-linkeddeaths in East Timor versus mortalitystemming from famine linked with forcedrelocation and political manipulation of reliefaid.

4 Personal accounts of the famine have beencollected as in Van Tao and Furuta Mota (eds),Nan doi Nam 1945 o Viet Nam: Nhung Chung

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tich lich su (Hanoi, 1995). Ngo Ving Long,Before the Revolution; Pham Cao Duong,Vietnamese Peasants under FrenchDomination, 1861-1945, Center for South andSoutheast Asia Studies, Monograph 25,University of California, Berkeley, Ca, 1985;and David Marr, Vietnam 1945, p.104, haveoffered partial translations or word pictures ofthe scope of the famine. According to Marr, theworst affected provinces were Nam Dinh, ThaiBinh, Ninh Binh, Hai Duong, and Khien An,with particular districts even more affected.Neither was Hanoi spared the famine, thoughobviously certain classes were differentiallyaffected. Notwithstanding these accounts andstudies, it appears to me that the actual impactof the famine and its geographical impact is theleast well-researched aspect.

5 Undoubtedly the first detailed accounting inEnglish language of these events owes to JohnR. Andrus and Katrine R.C. Greene, “RecentDevelopments in Indo-China: 1939-43,” inChar l e s Robequa in , The EconomicDevelopment of French Indochina (OxfordUniversity Press, London, 1944), pp.351-89.

6 See Ngo Vinh Long, Before the Revolution,p.32.

7 Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer (AOM)Indo/NF/ Situation de l'Indochine françaisedurée 1902-1907, Rapport par Beau,Gouverneur General.

8 On irrigation, dike construction, andagricultural improvements in Tonkin andAnnam, see Robequain, The EconomicDevelopment of French Indochina, (pp.222-25),the classic colonial-era account in English ofFrench agriculture practices in Indochina.

9 See, for example, James Scott, The MoralEconomy of the Peasant: Subsistence andRebellion in Southeast Asia, Yale UniversityPress, New Haven, 1976; Ngo Vinh Long, “TheIndochinese Communist Party and PeasantRebellion in Central Vietnam, 1930-1931,”

Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, vol.10,no. 4, (1978), pp. 15-35.

10 See Robequain, The Economic Developmentof French Indochina, p. 238, who also noted theneed for or the wisdom of stressing agriculturaldiversification away from crops other than rice.

11 AOM Indo/NF/104/1004 Gouverneur de laCochinchine Gouverneur Général del'Indochine, Saigon, no.734, 25 Dec. 1934;Bulletin Economique de l'Indochine, Dec. 1938.For a statistical analysis of the dramatic shift intrade from traditional markets (France, etc.) toJapan, see Andrus and Greene, “RecentDevelopments in Indo-China: 1939-43,” inRobequain, pp.363-64. As they note, much ofthe rice shipped to Hong Kong and otherChinese ports was probably shipped to Japan orused to feed Japanese troops in China.

12 AOM Indo/NF/48/578-583, GouverneurGénéral de l'Indochine M. le Ministre desColonies, Paris.

1 3 AOM Indo/NF/104/1004 Indochine etPacifique, p.7, 17 Mai 1939.

14 AOM Résident Supérieur, Tonkin GouverneurGénéral de l'Indochine, Hanoi, 10 Avril 1937.

1 5 Bulletin Economique de l'Indochine,Decembre 1938.

1 6 AOM Indo NF/330/2664, “RapportGouverneur Veber,” Vichy, 23 Avril 1941.According to Robequain, The EconomicDevelopment of French Indochina, (p.329), riceexports to Japan were never important andshrinking. Averaging 109,000 tons annually in1913-1928, they dropped to 36 tons in 1929-32and barely 2 tons in 1933-37.

1 7 Pierre Brocheux and Daniel Hémery,Indochina: An Ambiguous Colonization,1858-1954, University of California Press,Berkeley, 2010, p.439 note 33.

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18 See, Memorandum by the Acting Secretary ofState (Welles) Regarding A Conversation Withthe Japanese Ambassador (Nomura), 23 July1941, who stated that Japan was now importinga million tons of rice a year from Indochina. AsWells replied, “any agreement which Japanmight have reached with the Vichy Governmentcould only have been reached as a result ofpressure brought to bear upon the VichyGovernment by Berlin.” U.S., Department ofState, Peace and War: United States ForeignPolicy, 1931-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.,Government Printing Office, 1943), 1983, pp.692-96.

1 9 AOM Indo NF/330/2664, “RapportGouverneur Veber,” Vichy, 23 Avril 1941.Robequain, The Economic Development ofFrench Indochina, (p. 238), also contended thatthe biggest defect of Indochinese rice(compared to Burma) entering the market wasits heterogeneous character; different color,size, and hardness all mixed up from variousfields with no indication of origin. There werethen more than 2,000 varieties of ricecultivated in Indochina, well adapted to localconditions but, “too many” and selection wasrequired.

20 Pham Cao Duong, Vietnamese Peasantsunder French Domination, 1861-1945, Centerfor South and Southeast Asia Studies,Monograph 25, University of California,Berkeley, Ca, 1985, pp. 181-82.

21 Nguyen Khac Vien, The Long Resistance(1858-1975), Foreign Languages PublishingHouse, Hanoi, 1975, pp.92-95.

22 Marr, Vietnam 1945, p.99.

23 Pham Cao Duong, Vietnamese Peasantsunder French Domination, 1861-1945 ,pp.181-82.

24 Ngo Vinh Long, Before the Revolution: TheVietnamese Peasants under the French,Columbia University Press, 1991, pp.129-31.

25 Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina: AnAmbiguous Colonization, pp: 262-65. Geertz'sclassic study of the problem is AgriculturalInvolution: The Processes of Ecological Changein Indonesia (University of California Press,1970). Writing in 1944, Andrus and Greene,“Recent Developments in Indo-China: 1939-43,”in Robequain, p. 385, noted that there had beennumerous reports of food shortages in Tonkin.Citing the research of French agronomistPierre Gourou, population pressure was of theorder of 3,500 persons per square mile. Theyalso noted that the Japanese appeared to havebeen shipping northerners south but that suchinternal migration was unlikely to keep aheadof the birthrate.

26 Marr, Vietnam 1945, pp.99-100.

27 “Controle Japonais sur l'AdministrationFrançais en Indochine,” Bul let in deRenseignement, No.323/BO, DGER, 14 Sept.1944. For details of the January 1941 riceagreement between the Vichy authorities withJapan, see Andrus and Greene, “RecentDevelopments in Indo-China: 1939-43,” inRobequain, pp.367-78. According to theseauthors, “In addition to the rice guaranteed toJapan, that country was to receive any unusedportion of the 200,000 ton quota allotted toFrance and other colonies, plus any exportsurplus of white rice beyond a total of1,020,000 tons.” (p.369).

28 Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina: AnAmbiguous Colonization, p.90. Specifically,when a 1945 agreement on rice delivery toJapan was signed in March, the Japanese hadmore than 100,000 tons in stock that they hadbeen unable to transport (p.346). In September1945, when arriving British forces inventoriedthe rice supply in Cholon, they estimated that69,000 tons remained in Mitsui Companywarehouses, 66,000 in stores of the Vichy-created Comité des céreales (grain), and withJapanese stocks in Cochinchina. Cambodia, andnorthern Annam amounting to 25,000 tons

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(p.348).

2 9 S e e M a r t i n L . M i c k e l s e n(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3101/is_3_55/ai_n28571920/ ), “A mission of vengeance:Vichy French in Indochina in World War II,” AirPower History. FindArticles.com. 17 Dec. 2010.

30 National Archives of Australia (NAA) A 3269G5/4 [South China Sea, South China, FrenchIndochina and North] SHARK. In this operation,Vice Adm John S. McCain operating in theSouth China Sea hit Japanese shipping,airfields, and other shore installations insoutheastern French Indochina. For this andother detailed logs of Japanese shipping lossesinflicted by US sea and, with less detail, airpower, see Robert J. Cressman, The OfficialChronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II

31 See Geoffrey C. Gunn, Encountering Macau:A Portuguese City State on the Periphery ofChina, 1557-1999, Westview Press, Boulder,CO, 1996, p.126.

32 NAA A 3269 G5/4 [South China Sea, SouthChina, French Indochina and North] SHARK.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid. On the Japanese wooden ships, also seeAndrus and Greene, “Recent Developments inIndo-China: 1939-43,” in Robequain, TheEconomic Development of French Indochina. p.385.

35 This was not a disinterested report, butoffered four optimum target sites forsubmarine-based landing parties where the linewas at its closest point to the sea, from ThanhHoa in the north to Quang Nan-Danang in thesouth. NAA A3269 E3/4 Lower South ChinaSea, Singapore OPTICIAN copy [South ChinaSea].

36 NAA A 3269 G5/4 [South China Sea, SouthChina, French Indochina and North] SHARK.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid. On 1 July a bridge and railway line atPhu Lang Thuong (now known as Bac Giang)was hit. Although a strategic line connectingwith Lang Son, this was not in the delta region.

39 NAA A 3269 E7/A [Lower South China Sea,Singapore, POLITICIAN project copy [TouraneBay, Indo-China] Dubbed the Politician project,a first attempt to blow up the track south ofDanang was mounted on 5-6 April 1945 butfoiled by an armed maintenance group. Part ofa series of operations mounted out of WesternAustralia involving American submarines andAustralian commandos, other missions includedraids on railroads in Java, a successful andcelebrated raid on Japanese shipping inSingapore, operations in Malaya, attempts tocreate bases in the Paracels and NatunaIslands, and even a planned raid on Japaneseshipping in Nagasaki and Sasebo.

40 According to Mickelsen, “A mission ofvengeance,” the commander in chief of theFrench army in Vietnam, General EugeneMordant, was convinced that the FourteenthAir Force had deliberately bombed Hanoi inDecember 1943, and again in April 1944 inretaliation for Decoux's policy of surrenderingdowned American fliers to the Japanese.Notably, on 10 and 12 December 1943, Hanoi(and not the usual target of the nearbyJapanese airfield at Gia Lam) had beenattacked for the first time, causing 1,232casualties and 500 deaths. On 8 April 1944,Hanoi was hit again by the 308th Bomb Group(H) when the Yersin hospital complex wastargeted, leaving 46 civilians dead with 141wounded in Vietnamese and Chineseresidential areas. Mordant's fears werereinforced by a warning from Fourteenth AirForce commander, Claire Chennault that all themajor towns in Tonkin would be bombed ifsimilar incidents occurred in the future.

4 1 Bui Ming Dung, “Japan's Role in the

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Vietnamese Starvat ion of 1944-45,”pp.573-618.

42 Marr, Vietnam 1945, p.109.

43 See King C. Chen, Vietnam and China1938-54, Princeton University Press, Princeton,New Jersey, 1969, Append II, p.337.

4 4 AOM Indo NF 134/1219 Direct iond'Information, “Les Japonais et leurscollaborateurs sont responsible de la famine,”nd.

45 Chen, Vietnam and China 1938-54, p.133.

46 Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of War: Vietnam, theUnited States and Modern HistoricalExperience, Pantheon Books, New York, 1985,p.36. Also see Stein Tönnesson, Vietnam 1946:How the War Began, University of CaliforniaPress, Berkeley, 2010, p.201.

47 Nguyen Khac Vien, The Long Resistance(1858-1975), pp.92-95.

48 Archimedes Patti, Why Vietnam? Prelude toAmerica's Albatross, University of CaliforniaPress, Berkeley, 1982, p.133.

49 Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina: AnAmbiguous Colonization, p.34.

50 NAA A1838 3014/11/89 Part I, VietnamForeign Policy Relations with Japan, AustralianLegation, Saigon, to External Affairs, Canberra,11 Feb. 1957. As Australian diplomatic sourcesreveal, Diem felt nothing but contempt for theJapanese in general, and read back historyaccordingly. The last of the Southeast Asian

countries to receive Japanese reparationsunder the terms of the San Francisco Treaty of1951, in May 1969 the Republic of Vietnamaccepted US$39 million over a period of fiveyears, an outcome bitterly opposed by the DRV.Cambodia and Laos accepted “free technicalaid” rather than formal reparations. 5 1 Bui Ming Dung, “Japan's Role in theVietnamese Starvation of 1944-45,” pp. 576-77.We recognize that some Japanese academicwriting has acknowledged the DRV claims as tothe number of victims and general attributionas to cause.

5 2 Bui Ming Dung, “Japan's Role in theVietnamese Starvation of 1944-45,” p. 618.Fortunately, more sober minds prevailed inconsideration of US bombing of the northerndelta. On 6 August 1945, Joseph C. Crew,Acting Secretary of State, communicated to theSecretary of State that military operations inTonkin and the prospect of serial bombardmentof the dikes in the Red River Delta - asevidently contemplated by military planners -would cause “formidable danger to thepopulation of this area.“ This was nounderstatement. At risk were the lives of eightmillion people in densely populated landcrosscut by dikes built up over the centuries.The gravity of the situation had been conveyedinitially by the French Military Mission inKunming to the Commander of the USFourteenth Air Force. See State-War-NavyCoordinating Committee (SWNCC) 35 Crew toSecretary of State, 6 August 1945, SR. Thequestion of bombing the dikes was raised againby Pentagon planners in the 1960s, just asnuclear options were being weighed in somequarters in Washington.

APJ | JF 9 | 5 | 4

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