Hi everyone, I've heard my grandfather and other older people talked about how the Japanese occupied Vietnam during WW2 and forced them to grow resources for the war effort instead of rice and resulted in about 2 million deaths due to starvation. Obviously these sources are a tad biased, does anyone know exactly what happened and the statistics of it?
There are no hard statistics. This was during the war, and more particularly during the period when French colonial control was suspended after the Japanese led coup in March 1945. Very few documents exist on the subject as a result. The figures range from 400,000 to two million. Two million is the most inflated figure and the one that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam/Viet Minh used in their propaganda materials. It seems unlikely that this highest figure is accurate. Somewhere in the middle is more accurate.
The famine itself had several causes. First, the Allied bombing of Japanese supply routes meant that American bombers were destroying railways and ports in Indochina that supplied the Japanese war effort in China and SE Asia. Northern Vietnam traditionally had to import rice from southern Vietnam, Cochinchina, and the war broke off much of this supply. And as Japan struggled for resources, it did force some famers to begin growing cotton or jute. In addition, they maintained their own rice reserves and exported rice to their SE Asian empire. The Japanese Army also used the rice to produce alcohol as a fuel source. Up until the 1945 coup, French Vichy officials were complicit in this program, establishing rice reserves for the Japanese Army.
But, the famine also dragged on into the spring and summer. A disastrous series of floods struck northern Vietnam and exacerbated the famine. This occurred under the Viet Minh's control, and likely was due to their inexperience controlling the dikes in the Red River delta. In addition, the returning/re-conquering French colonial administrators in southern Vietnam (the DRV controlled north of the 16th parallel until December 1946) offered food aid to Ho Chi Minh and the DRV government. But, worried that French aid would lead peasants to see the French in a positive light, they refused the aid. Instead the DRV organized a grassroots donation campaign.
In sum, the figure is likely much less than two million, and the deaths can be attributed to Imperial Japan, Allied bombing, French colonial policy, and to a lesser extent the DRV/Viet Minh's policies.