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Japan's Role in the Vietnamese Starvation of 1944–45

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Bùi Minh Dũng
Bùi Minh Dũng
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge and University of Tokyo
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Extract

A contemporary Hanoi newspaper, Viêt-Nam Tân Báo, reported on 28 April 1945: ‘Old men of 80 to 90 years of age that we talked with all told us that they had never before seen a famine as terrible as this one’. The Vietnamese starvation was described in a letter written in April 1945 by a foreign visitor named Vespy:

They roam in long, endless groups, comprising the whole family, the elderly, the children, men, women, all of whom are disfigured by poverty, skinny, shaky and almost naked, including young girls of adolescent age who should have been very shy. From time to time they stop to close the eyes of one of them who has collapsed and who would never be able to rise again or to take the piece of rag (I do not know what to call it exactly), that has covered the fallen victim. Looking at those human shadows who are uglier than the ugliest animals, seeing the shrunk corpses, with only a few straws covering them for both clothes and funeral cloth, at the side of the roads, one could feel that human life was so shameful.

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , July 1995 , pp. 573 - 618
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

The substance of this paper has also been incorporated in an essay by the present author in a volume of the 21-volume series, The British Trials of the Japanese in the Far East, ed. John R. Pritchard (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., forthcoming). The author is indebted to Oka Kazuaki, Nguyên Thi Bích Ha and Vu Quôc Ca who translated with efficiency the Japanese material used in this article.

1 Long, Ngô Vinh, Before the Revolution: The Vietnamese Peasants under the French (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: The MIT Press, 1973), 132.Google Scholar

2 Témoinages et documents français relatifs à la Colonisation français au Vietnam (Hanoi: Association Culturelle pour le Salut du Vietnam, 1945), 1:15, as quoted in Tao, VanGoogle Scholarand Thanh The Vy, Binh, Nguyên Công, Lich Su Cách Mang Tháng Tám [History of the August revolution] (Hanoi: Nha Xuât Ban Su Hoc [History publishing house], 1960), 71;Google ScholarLong, Ngô Vinh, Before the Revolution, 133Google Scholarand Dam, Nguyên Khác, Su That Vê Hai Triêu Nguoi Chêt Dói Nam 1945 [The truth about the two million starved to death in 1945] (Hanoi: Viên Su Hoc Viet Nam, 1988), 126.Google ScholarThough valuable by setting out a Vietnamese version of the story as well as being so far one of the most comprehensive attempts on the subject, Nguyên Khác Dam fails to appreciate the resource-flow-mechanism within the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ during the ‘Greater East Asia War’. A great deal of factual information available from Vietnamese on-the-spot investigation reports is neglected while he also lacked access to relevant Japanese sources (either in Japanese or in English and French).Google Scholar

3 Tønnesson, Stein, The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1345: Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh and de Gaulle in a World at War (London: Sage, 1991), 302.Google Scholar

4 Though these reports pay more attention to the way Viet Minh's policy was implemented successfully or unsuccessfully in different provinces rather than the local socio-economic conditions, a comparison of their contents may shed light on the various degrees of seriousness of starvation in different localities. In that they referred to failures as well as successes with a view to drawing internal lessons, useful information might be carefully inferred from them. The series done chiefly during the Vietnam War is incomplete and several of them are in preliminary form. See also, Furuta, Motoo, ‘Tinh Hinh Nghiên Cúu O Nhât Ban Vê Tôi Ác Chiên Tranh Cua Phát Xít Nhât Tai Viêt Nam,’ [State of Researches in Japan on Japanese fascism's war crimes in Vietnam] Tap Chí Khoa Hoc—Khoa Hoc Xà Hôi [Research Bulletin — Social Sciences] (Hanoi University, 05 1988): 35–43 and 64, for the mention of how study of the above material could provide further information about the starvation in Vietnam.Google Scholar

5 Hatano, Sumio and Asada, Sadao, ‘From the Sino-Japanese War to the Pacific War’, in Japan and the World, 1853–1952: A Bibliographic Guide to Japanese Scholarship in Foreign Relations, ed. Asada, Sadao (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 310–11.Google Scholar

6 For an example of death registration complications, see Tô, Ngô Tât, Tat Den [when the Light's Put out] (Hanoi: Mai Linh, 1938; 5th ed.Hóa, Van, 1962), in Ngô Vinh Long, Before the Revolution, 171–3.Google Scholar

7 See, for example, Long, Ngô Vinh, Before the Revolution, 62–4.Google Scholar

8 The Thanh Nghi magazine in its issue of 26 May 1945, for example, could only gather that according to a preliminary investigation in Thuong-Câm village of Thái-Ninh district of Thái-Binh province, South of Tonkin, out of a total of 900 men above the age of eighteen, 500 had starved to death whereas out of a total of 4000 old and young males, 2000 had died of starvation by May 20 1945. See Thanh Nghi, no. 110, 26 May 1945, as quoted in Tao, Van, Lich Su Cách Mang Tháng Tám, 72. There was no mention of female victims in that passage. Ironically, it seemes possible that there may have been more women who had starved to death than men did.Google ScholarSee, for example, Bose, Sugata, ‘Starvation amidst Plenty: The Making of Famine in Bengal, Honan and Tonkin, 1942–45’, Modern Asian Studies 24, 4 (1990), p. 724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Even in a highly developed country like Great Britain, for example, a person simply declared as ‘missing’ may have actually died of other causes. See, for instance, Reid, Robert, ‘Missing Girl file reopened’, The Daily Telegraph, 25 03 1993.Google Scholar

10 Trong kim, Trân, ‘Loi Tuyên-Cáo Cua Nôi-Các Vói Quôc-Dán’ [Proclamation of the cabinet to the people], 8 05 1945, in Thanh Nghi, no. 108, 12 05 1945, p. 24.Google Scholar

11 Co Giai Phóng, No. 14, 28 June 1945, as quoted in Tønnesson, The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 302.Google Scholar

12 Nông, Viêt, Trung Bác Chu Nhât [Central-North Sunday], No. 255, 19 July 1945, as quoted in Nguyên Khác Dam, Su That Vê Hai Triêu Nguoi Chêt Dói Nam 1945, 125. Tønnesson thinks that ‘The figure of two million was mentioned by Ho Chi Minh in the Vietnamese declaration of independence on 2 September 1945, and subsequently became commonplace in Vietnamese publications’. Tønnesson, The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 293.Google Scholar

13 Tønnesson, The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 293.Google Scholar

14 Son, Pham Van, Viel-Su Toan-Thu [A Complete History of Vietnam] (Saigon: Thu Lân Ân Thu Quán, 1960; reprint, Taiwan: Co So Xuât Ban Dai Nam), 703.Google ScholarSmith, Ralph refers to … ‘The two million deaths which appears in communist accounts of the period … ’Google ScholarSee Smith, Ralph B., ‘The Japanese Period in Indochina and the Coup of 9 March 1945’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies [JSAS] 9, 2 (1978), p. 202.Google Scholar

15 Shiraishi, Masaya, ‘Vietnam under the Japanese Presence and the August Revolution’ in Shiraishi, Masaya and Nish, Ian, 1945 in South-East Asia — Part Two, London: Suntory Toyota International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines & London School of Economics and Political Science, 1985, 16.Google Scholar

16 Anh, Nguyên Thé, ‘La Campagne Nord-Vietnamienne de la dépression économique de 1930 à la Famine de 1945’, in The Vietnam Forum 9 (Winter-Spring 1987): 134.Google Scholar

17 Marr, David, ‘Vietnam 1945: Some Questions’, The Vietnam Forum 6, (Summer-Fall 1985), p. 159,Google Scholarnote 7 and Vietnam 1945: the Quest for Power (forthcoming), chapter 2, unpublished manuscript, p. 28, as cited in Tønnesson, The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 293.Google Scholar

18 Decoux, Amiral, A la barre de l'Indochine, Histoire de mon gouvernement général (1940–1945) (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1949), 267.Google Scholar

19 Havens, R. H. Thomas, Fire Across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan, 1965–1975 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987), 17.Google Scholar

20 For a related review, see also, Furuta, Motoo, ‘Tinh Hinh Nghiên Cúu O Nhât Ban Vê Tôi Ác Chiên Tranh Cua Phát Xít Nhât Tai Viêt Nam’.Google Scholar

21 For reference to arguments in Japan, differentiating between the nature of the war in China and that in Southeast Asia, see Sumio, Hatano, ‘Japanese Foreign Policy: 1931–1945 Historiography’, in Japan and the World, 1853–1952, ed. Asada, Sadao, 223Google Scholar. For a recent balanced discussion of Japanese attitudes towards war responsibility in general, see Large, Stephen S., Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 204–22.Google Scholar

22 The fact that the Defence at the the International Military Tribunal for the Far East endeavoured to draw parallels between the Japanese occupation of French Indochina and the Allied Occupation of Iceland and the British invasions of Norway and Madagascar [Pritchard, R. John, ‘What the Historians can Find in the Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East’, in Japan and the Second World War, Discussion Paper IS/89/197, ed. Nish, Ian (London: Suntory Toyota International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines & the LSE, 1989), 9–10]Google Scholar, seemed to be one of the indications that the Pacific War was often seen as primarily a matter between Japan and other Western powers as well as China, rather than a matter between the Japanese and the Southeast Asians.

23 Japan-Vietnam relations during the Second World War as seen from a Vietnamese angle, seem to be rather neglected. Hosoya Chihiro, for example, speaks of the present state of research in Japan and collaborative projects between Japanese and Western scholars as follows: ‘It is to be regretted, however, that these joint undertakings have been limited to collaboration with American and British colleagues. Ideally, there should be opportunities for joint research and discussions with historians from other countries in multinational projects … I should add in passing that, so far as research on bilateral relations is concerned, studies on Sino-Japanese relations are the most advanced, perhaps followed by those on Japanese-American relations … several issues have appeared that examine bilateral relations, such as Japan's relations with China, the United States, Korea, Russia and the Soviet Union, Britain, and (more recently) Australia and Canada’.See Hosoya, Chihiro, ‘Introduction: An Overview’, in Japan and the World, 1853–1952, ed. Asada, Sadao, 7–8 and 11–12.Google Scholar

24 See also, for example, Thuy, Hoang Co, Viêt Su Khao Luân [Discourse on Vietnamese history], vol. 8 (Paris: Association Culturelle d'Outre-Mer, 1991), pp. 1833 and 1837.Google Scholar

25 Long, Ngô Vinh, Before the Revolution, 233–8 and Sugata Bose, ‘ Starvation amidst Plenty’, 701.Google Scholar Sugata Bose perceptively points out that her study of the starvations in Bengal [of India], Honan [of China] and Tonkin [of Vietnam], in 1942–45, ‘puts into bold relief the role played by the state, fluctuations in wider economic systems and varying social structures in the translation of chronic hunger into dramatic famine and the uneven social distribution of its costs. It also highlights the role of famine in undermining the legitimacy of the state and the pre-existing social structure’, ibid., 726–7. Though the ripe conditions for revolution in Vietnam come out well in her comparative analysis, Sugata Bose tends to generalize what she sees as similarities between the starvations in Bengal, Honan and Tonkin, rather than actually pointing out fundamental differences among them. What seems neglected is that at the time that starvations rampaged, 1942–43 in Honan, March-November 1943 in Bengal, and 1943–1945 in Tonkin, only Tonkin had been under Japanese military occupation for quite a long time.

26 See also Lance, , ‘Government Famine Relief in Bengal, 1943’ in The Journal of Asian Studies 47, 3 (1988), 541.Google ScholarIn one of his messages, for example, Hô Chí Minh appealed to the people in September 1945 as follows: ‘Dear Compatriots! From January to July this year, in the North, two million people have starved to death … How painful we are at our meals when we think of those who are dying of hunger! Therefore I propose to you and I will do it first: To do without a meal every ten days, that is three meals every month, and spare this rice (one tin each meal) for the poor. Thus these people will have something to eat while waiting for the next crop, and escape death. I am confident that all our compatriots out of charity are eager to respond to my proposal. Thank you on behalf of the poor.’ See ‘Letter by Ho Chi Minh to the Vietnamese People to Fight Famine, September 1945’, in Porter, Gareth (ed.), Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation of Human Decisions, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Publishers International Corporation, 1979), 72.Google Scholar

27 Marr, ‘Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power’, Introduction, unpublished ms. p. 3, as cited in Tønnesson, The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 29.Google Scholar

28 See, for example, Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch, R & A No. 1715, ‘Indochina's War-time Government and Main Aspects of French Rule’, pp. 70–1. In O.S.S./State Department Intelligence and Research Reports, Part I: Japan and Its Occupied Territories during World War II (Washington, D.C.: A Microfilm Project of University Publications of America, Inc., 1977) (hereafter OSS/SDI and R Reports pt 1), Reel 12, Item 5. According to Japanese regulations, farmers were allowed to retain only a minimum amount of rice. The rest had to be sold to the Japanese at extremely low price as what was called ‘dépot rice.’ Apart from Japanese delegated food agencies, nobody was allowed to either accumulate or deal in cereals. See Quyêt, Nguyên, Ha Nôi — Tháng Tám: Hôi Ky [Hanoi — August: Memoirs] (Hanoi: Nha Xuât Ban Quân Dôi Nhan Dan, 1980), 9.Google Scholar

29 James Scott, for example, applies the view of R. H. Tawney, who is referring to the Chinese circumstances in 1931, though, to help reason the Vietnamese famines in 1943–45: ‘There are districts in which the position of the rural population is that of a man standing permanently up to the neck in water, so that even a ripple is sufficient to drown him’ Scott, James C., The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976), vii and 1–2.Google ScholarHe cites that metaphor mainly to tackle the ‘Nghê Tinh Soviets’ phenomenon in Vietnam and the ‘Saya San rebellion’ in Burma in 1930–31, however.Google Scholar See ibid., 118–49. Scott's reference to the subsistence crisis seems useful in that it helps explain why ‘There were attempts to create similar Soviets in other areas of Trung Ky [Annam or Central Vietnam] such as Quang Tri, Dong Hoi, and Quang Ngai, but they were unsuccessful.’ Khành, Huynh Kim, Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945 (Ithaca and London: Published under the Auspices of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, by Cornell University Press, 1982), 152–4.Google Scholar

30 Tønnesson, , The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 293.Google Scholar

31 Ministère de l'Économie Nationale, Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, Statistique Générale de la France, Annuaire Statistique, Cinquante-sixième volume, 1940–45 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1946), 360.Google Scholar

32 République Française, Ministère des Finances et des Affaires Économiques, Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, Direction de la Statistique Générale, Annuaire Statistique Abrégé Deuxième volume, 1949 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1950), 321 and 324.Google Scholar

33 Annuaire Statistique Cinquante-sixième volume, 1940–1945, p. 360.Google Scholar

34 Annuaire Statistique Abrégé, Deuxième volume, 1949, pp. 321 and 324.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., p. 320.

36 Yuichi, Tsuchihashi, Gunpuku Seikatsu Yonjiu Nen No Omoide [40 years of life in military uniform remembered] (Tokyo: Keiso Shuppan Saabisu Senta, 1985), 547.Google Scholar

37 Shiraishi, Masaya, ‘Vietnam under the Japanese Presence', 15–16. Shiraishi Masaya is one of the few authors that pay particular attention to the impact of Japan's policy in his meritoriously comprehensive paper. But, at the same time, the way Shiraishi organizes his narration tends to suggest that two million people perished under a seemingly confused combination of many causes, none of which were clear enough to be of prime importance.Google Scholar See Ibid., 8–16.

38 For divergent emphases in appreciating the August General Insurrections, see Khánh, Huynh Kim, Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945Google Scholarand Tønnesson, , The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945.Google Scholar

39 For an ex post-facto witness account of the August General Insurrections, see Yuichi, Tsuchihashi, Gunpuku Seikatsu, 555–7.Google ScholarFor a recent overview of political developments in Vietnam in perspective, see Williams, Michael C., Vietnam at the Crossroads, Chatham House Papers (London: Pinter Publishers for The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1992).Google Scholar

40 Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Uy Ninh Binh [Ninh Binh province Party executive committee's study committee of Party history], Cuôc Van Dông Câch Mang Thdng Tarn O Ninh Binh [The preparation for and carrying out of the August revolution in Ninh Binh], (Ninh Binh: Ban Nghien Cuu Lich Su Dang Tinh Uy Ninh Binh, 1970), 44–9 and 58,Google Scholarand Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Quân Dôi, [Study committee of history of the army], Lich Su Quân Dôi Nhân Dan Viêt Nam—Tâp I (Du Thao Tóm Tàt) [History of Vietnam people's army—volume I (brief draft)] (Hanoi: Nha Xuât Ban Quân Doi Nhân Dân, 1974), pp. 147–8, for example, to see how people of a locality seriously struck by famine reacted.Google Scholar

41 To Sugata Bose, ‘The extent of crop damage occasioned by the Tonkin typhoons is indetermintate’. Sugata Bose, ‘Starvation amidst Plenty’, 702. Tønnesson also notes: ‘Bad harvests had been a recurrent phenomenon in northern Indochina, while famines were not’. Tønnesson, The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 293.

42 Department of State, Office of Research and Intelligence, Report No. 3499, ‘The World Rice Situation, 1945–46, With Particular Reference to the Far East’, Preliminary Confidential, Washington, D. C, 2 03 1946, Appendix L: Indochina, p. 56. In OSS/SDI and R Reports, Part II: Postwar Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: A Microfilm Project of University Publications of America, Inc., 1977), Reel 1, Item 1.Google Scholar

43 Cúu Quôc, 4 01 1946 and Su Thât, 13 April 1946, as quoted in Van Tao, Lich Su Cách Mang Tháng Tám, 178.Google Scholar

44 Cúu Quôc, 14 05 1946 and 19 July 1946,Google Scholar as quoted in ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 ‘The World Rice Situation, 1945–46’, (see fn 42), p.22.Google Scholar

47 Cúu Quôc 14 05 1946 and 19 July 1946 as quoted in Van Tao, Lich Su Cách Mang Tháng Tám, 178.Google Scholar

48 Tønnesson, , The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 293.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., 294.

50 Marr, ‘Vietnam: The Quest for Power’, ch. 2, unpublished ms. p. 23, as quoted in Ibid., 303.

51 Decoux, , A la bam de I'Indochine, 267.Google Scholar

52 See, for example, Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch, R & A No. 2644, ‘Rough Summary of Information on Inflation in Southeast Asia’, 13 10 1944. In OSSISDI and R Reports, Part I, Reel 9, Item 18. According to Lê Hông Lân, ‘In the capital of Hanoi, prices, especially the rice price was rocketing. In October 1944, one hundred kilograms of rice cost 150 piastres. In December 1944, it was 500 piastres. In February 1945, it was 800 piastres.Google ScholarAfter the Japanese coup d'état it was up to 1000 piastres.’ Lân, Lê Hông, Nhung Ngay Khoi Nghia O Ha Nôi [Insurrection days in Hanoi] (Hanoi: Nha Xuât Ban Thanh Niên, 1975), p. 32.Google Scholar

53 Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch, R & A No. 1715, ‘Indochina's Wartime Government and Main Aspects of French Rule’, pp. 70–1.Google ScholarIn OSSISDI and Reports, 1, Reel 12, Item 5 and Marr, David G., ‘World War II and the Vietnamese Revolution’ in Southeast Asia Under Japanese Occupation, ed. McCoy, Alfred W. (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1980), 133–4.Google Scholar

54 See, for example, ‘Extract from the Report to the Combined Chiefs of Staff by the Supreme Allied Commander, South-East Asia, 30 06, 1947’ in [British] Foreign Office, Documents relating to British Involvement in the Indo-China Conflict, 1945–65, Command Papers 2834, December 1965, pp. 48–50 for more details.Google Scholar

55 See, for example, Spector, Ronald H., United States Army in Vietnam—Advice and Support: the Early Years, 1941—1960 (Washington, D. C: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1983), pp. 56–65.Google Scholar

56 Yuki, Tsuchihashi, Gunpuku Seikatsu 547.Google Scholar

57 See, for example, Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch, R & A No. 1007, ‘Japanese Use of Land Transport in Southeast Asia’, 15 05 1944, p. 24. In OSSISDI and R Reports pt I, Reel 9, Item 16; ‘Rough Summary of Information on Inflation in Southeast Asia’ (see fn. 52).Google Scholar

58 Decoux, , A la bane de l'Indochine, 267. H o a n g Co Thuy considers American air raids only as an additional factor.Google ScholarCo, Hoang, Viêt Su Khao Luân, p. 1837.Google Scholar

59 See, for example, Tønnesson, , The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 294.Google Scholar

60 Yuki, Tsuchihashi, Gunpuku Seikatsu, 547.Google Scholar

61 ‘Japanese Use of Land Transport in Southeast Asia’, 15 05 1944, p. 28 (see fn 57);Google Scholarand Shiraishi, Masaya, ‘Vietnam under the Japanese Presence’, 9.Google Scholar

62 Yuki, Tsuchihashi, Gunpuku Seikatsu, 547.Google Scholar

63 Ibid., 502.

64 Department of State, Office of Intelligence Coordination and Liaison (OCL), Intelligence Research Report, OCL-3794 ‘Economic Reconstruction in the Far East’, 08 10, 1946, Secret/control, US Officials Only, p. 99. In OSS/SDI and R Reports pt II, Reel 1, Item 2. By the time the above report was made, the French had been able to transport only 1,600 tons of rice to famine-threatened Tonkin, ‘and most of this was requisitioned by Chinese or stolen by dock workers’, whereas ‘rice stocks in Saigon-Cholon have been almost exhausted’. Also, ‘Incoming shipments are small because of the scarcity of lighters, the necessity for French patrols to protect each shipment from guerrilla raids, and actual guerrilla control of a portion of the rice area’. See ‘The World Rice Situation, 1945–46’ (see fn 42), pp. 57–8.Google Scholar

65 Shiraishi, Masaya, ‘Vietnam under the Japanese Presence’, 17;Google ScholarTønnesson, , The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 295.Google Scholar

66 Tønnesson, , The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 295.Google Scholar

67 Ky-Nam, Nguyên, Hôi-Ky 1925–1064, Tâp II: 1945–1954, [Memoirs 1925–1964, volume II: 1945–1954] (Saigon: Nhut-báo Dân Chu Mói, 1964), 65–6.Google Scholar

68 Minoda to Dr. Thinh, Nguyên Van, No. 89, 13 04 1945, VNNA-II, Goucoch file, D.O-96, as quoted in Tønnesson, The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 295.Google Scholar

69 ‘Japanese Use of Land Transport in Southeast Asia’, 15 05 1944, p. 28 (see fn 57).Google Scholar

70 Ibid., p. 25.

71 Hattori, Colonel Takushiro and others, ‘History of Imperial General Headquarters, Army Section,’ [Japanese Monograph No. 45,] pp. 49–53 in War in Asia and the Pacific, ed. Detwiler, Donald S. and Burdick, Charles B. (New York: Garland, 1980), vol. 3.Google Scholar

72 ‘Economic Policies for the Southern Areas adopted by the Liaison Conference of 12 December 1941,’ in Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in World War II: Selected Readings and Documents, edited and introduced by Lebra, Joyce C. (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975), 116–17.Google Scholar

73 An American intelligence report later also observed: ‘In the early days of occupation, Japanese firms were interested in promoting trade among the countries of southern Asia, and the Japanese administration encouraged the conclusion of trade agreements between various countries’. ‘Japanese Use of Land Transport in Southeast Asia’, p. 28 (see fn 57).Google Scholar

74 Gaimusho Futsu In Shigen Chyosa Dan [Delegation of the Foreign Ministy for investigation of French Indochinese resources], ‘Futsu In Shigen Chyosa Sokatsu Hookoku Sho’ [General report on the investigation of resources in French Indochina], 07 1942, p. 5. Tokyo, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Archives.

75 Ibid., p. 5.

76 For figures, see, for example, Foreign Trade of Japan: A Statistical Survey (Tokyo: The Oriental Economist, 1935;Google ScholarFacsimile reprint, Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shimposha, 1975), pp. 349–50 and 359–60;Google ScholarBoekikyoku, Shokosho [Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Foreign Trade Bureau], ‘Hompo Tai—Indoshina—Boeki shinho—Shisetsu Ni Kansuru Kosatsu’ [Investigation of the base for promotion of Japanese trade with Indochina], 1938, p. 14,Google Scholarand Roth, Andrew, ‘French Indochina in Transition, 1938–1941’, in Roger Levy, Guy Lacam and Andrew Roth, French Interests and Policies in the Far East (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, International Secretariat, 1941; AMS reprint edition, 1978), 202.Google Scholar

77 Foreign Trade of Japan: A Statistical Survey, 394–99;Google Scholarand Levy, Roger, Part I, ‘A Century of French Far Eastern Affairs’, in Levy, Lacam and Roth, French Interests and Policies in the Far East, 42.Google Scholar

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79 Regarding rubber and tin, for example, at the 36th Liaison Conference of 06 30, 1941, Chief of the Bureau of Military Affairs Muto opposed Foreign Minister Matsuoka's insistence on attacking the Soviet Union instead of occupying Southern French Indochina, by reasoning that: ‘It is by occupying southern French Indochina that we can acquire rubber and tin’.Google ScholarRecord of the 36th Liaison Conference of June 30, 1941, in Japan's Decision for War: Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences, translated and edited by Ike, Nobutaka (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967), 72. Testifying to the International Military Tribunal after the Pacific War, Japanese leaders explained that the main reason for their occupation of French Indochina was to ensure that they obtained its rice, rubber and tin.Google ScholarSee Feis, Hebert, The Road to Pearl Harbor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950; Seventh Hardcover Printing, 1971), 233–4.Google Scholar

80 Futsu, Gaimusho In Shigen Chyosa Dan, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

81 Ibid., p. 6.

82 Ibid., pp. 17–18.

83 Ibid., p. 19.

84 Khánh, Huynh Kim also mentions: ‘Meanwhile, to fulfill military requirements, farmers in Bac Ky [Tonkin] were made to plant oil seeds and peanuts (to produce hydrocarburants), cotton, and jute instead of rice. Ironically, most of the conversion occurred in Bac Ky, which had to depend on rice supply from Nam Ky [Cochinchina]. Only early in 1944 was the conversion mandated in Nam Ky.’ Huynh Kim Khánh, Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945, 299.Google Scholar

85 Futsu, Gaimusho In Shigen Chyosa Dan, p. 31.Google Scholar

86 Annuaire Statistique, Cinquante-sixième volume, 1940–1945, 360.Google Scholar

87 Futsu, Gaimusho In Shigen Chyosa Dan, p. 19.Google Scholar

88 Shiraishi, Masaya, ‘Vietnam under the Japanese Presence’, 15.Google Scholar

89 See Murakami, Sachiko, ‘Japan's Thrust into French Indochina 1940–1945’ (Ph. D. diss., New York University, 1981), 387–401, for more details.Google Scholar

90 It was noted in his memorandum of 03 21, 1942 to the British War Cabinet: ‘Her [Japan's] conquests have already secured to her all the raw materials she needs except lead (which is available in Burma and Australia), wool (which is available in Australia, Chile, Peru and Argentina), cotton (which is available in India, Peru and Brazil) and copper (which is available in Chile and Peru)’. Memorandum by the Minister of Economic Warfare ‘Allied Economic Warfare Strategy in 1942’, W. P. (42) 126 March 21, 1942, CAB 66/23, London, Public Record Office.

91 Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Ha-Tây, [Ha-Tay province study committee of party history], So Thao Lich Su Cách Mang Tháng Ha-Dông—Son-Tây [Brief history of the August Revolution in Ha-Dông—Son-Tây province] (Ha Tay: Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Ha-Tây, 1967), 71.Google Scholar

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93 See also Ienaga, Saburo, The Pacific War, 1931–1945 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, 1968; English translation, New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 178.Google Scholar

94 Shiraishi, Masaya, ‘Vietnam under the Japanese Presence’, 15.Google Scholar

95 Marr, , ‘Vietnam 1945: the Quest for Power’, ch. 2, ms. p. 22, note 89,Google Scholaras cited in Tønnesson, , The Vietnamese Revolution of August 1945, 293 and 302.Google Scholar

96 Ministére de la France d'Outre-Mer, Service des Statistiques & Ministére des Finances et des Affaires Économiques, Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, Annuaire Statistique de l'Union Française Outre-Mer, 1939–1946, Chapitre F—Agriculture, Élevage, Forêts (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de France, 1949), F-76,Google Scholarand Ministère de la France d'Outre-Mer & Ministère Chargé des Relations avec les États Associés, Service des Statistiques & Ministére des Finances et des Affaires Économiques, Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, Annuaire Statistique de l'Union Francaise Outre-Mer, 1939–1949, Tome Premier (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de France, 1951), F-371.Google Scholar

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98 Ministère de la France d'Outre-Mer (see fn 96), F.77.Google Scholar

99 Ibid., F-76, 77, 78, 79.

100 Annuaire Statistique, Cinquante-sixiéme volume, 1940–45, 360.Google Scholar

101 Annuaire Statistique Abrégé, Deuxième volume, 1949, 324.Google Scholar

102 From around 1943, more and more Japanese companies in French Indochina, which hitherto had carried out mainly trading activities, began to switch to production. The Japanese companies began to cultivate jute, castor beans, hemp, flax, cotton. In early 1943, the Japanese Jute Cultivation Association was organized under the guidance of the Japanese Embassy in Hanoi. See Murakami, , ‘Japan's Thrust into French Indochina 1940–1945’, 387–401 for more details. The ‘Indochina Jute Planting Association’, comprising of twenty-two Japanese firms, was responsible for ‘the cultivation and manufacture of jute and ramie’. The ‘North Indochina Timber Control Guild’ comprising of six firms; the ‘Indochina Lacquer Exporters Guild’ and the ‘Indochina Pinegums Federation’ were responsible for ‘the Japanese purchase and supply of their respective products’. ‘Indochina's War-time Government’, pp. 71–2 (see fn 28). Several Vietnamese provincial studies, as referred to earlier, indicated that crop shifting was forced on the peasants from essentially 1943. See also Table 1.Google Scholar

103 Duc, Hoang Van, Comment la révolution a triomphé de la famine, 1946, p. 6, as quoted in Nguyên Khác Dam, Su That Vê Hai Triêu Nguoi Chêt Dói Nam 1945, 121. See also Marr, ‘World War II and the Vietnamese Revolution’, 154.Google Scholar

104 See also Son, Pham Van, Viet-Su Toan-Thu [A Complete History of Vietnam] (Saigon: Thu Lân Ân Thu Quán, 1960; reprint, Taiwan: Co So Xuât Ban Dai Nam), 703Google Scholarand Thuy, Hoang Co, Viêt Su Khao Luân (see fn 24), vol. 8, p. 1837.Google Scholar

105 Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Uy Ninh Binh [Ninh Binh province Party executive committee's study committee of Party history], Cuôc Van Dông Cách Mang Tháng Tam O Ninh Binh [The preparation for and carrying out of the August revolution in Ninh Binh], (Ninh Binh: Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Uy Ninh Binh, 1970), 22–3.Google Scholar

106 Ibid., 23.

107 Ibid., 23. Several natives were executed at Nam Dan market (Kim Son district,) and Rông market in Ninh Binh's provincial capital, Ibid., 42. Airfields and military bases in French Indochina claimed large areas of cultivated land. In late 1943, for example, the Japanese intended to appropriate the Ngoc-Trúc field, comprising the lands of five villages: Ngoc-Trúc, Van-Phúc, La-Ca, La-Khê, Dai-Mô (Hoai Dúe district, Ha Dông province) to set up an aerodrome. With the backing of the communists, local people from landless to land owners and junior local officials staged a big protest movement, during which more than seven thousand objection letters signed by individuals and groups were forwarded to the provincial administraton. See Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Ha-Tay [Ha-Tay province study committee of party history], So Thao Lich Su Cách Mang Tháng Tam Ha-Dong—Son-Toy [Brief history of the August Revolution in Ha-Dong—Son-Tay province] (Ha Tay: Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Ha-Tay, 1967), 72.Google Scholar

108 Cuôe Van Dong Cách Mang Tháng Tam O Ninh Binh, 24.Google Scholar

109 As cited in Ibid., 24. For a long account of the Vietnamese starvation in verse, see, for example, Lân, Bàng Bá, ‘Dói’ [Hunger] in Hôàg Bay Mây Lá [Pink Leaves Flying] (Paris: Lá Bôi, 1975), 13–17.Google Scholar

110 Cuôc Van Dong Cách Mang Tháng Tam O Ninh Binh, 43.Google Scholar

111 Mitsubishi Shioji Kabushiki Gaishia [Mitsubishi trading limited company], Kinbubu Bu Kooseki Ka [Metal department, mineral section], ‘Futsuryo Indo narabinhi Ranryo Indo no Koosan Shigen Gaikyo Hookoku’ [Approximate report of mineral resources of French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies], Top Secret, June 1940, pp. 2–7, Tokyo, Defence Agency, Military History Department.

112 Futsu, Gaimusho In Shigen Chyosa Dan, p. 6.Google Scholar

113 Ibid., p. 23. In Bác-Thái province and 1941 alone, for example, 168 tons of manganese ore and 5, 500 of lead ore were exploited. Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Bác Thai [Bác Thai province study committee of Party history], Lich Su Cách Mang Tháng Tarn Tinh Bác-Thai [History of the August Revolution in Bác-Thái province] (Bac-Thai: Ban Nghiên Cún Lich Su Dang Bác Thai, 1978), 16.Google Scholar

114 It was pointed out in 1938 that 70% of all Japanese import items from Indochina went out through Saigon port. Shokosho Boekikyoku, ‘Honpo Tai—Indoshina—Boeki shinho—Shisetsu Ni Kansuru Kosatsu,’ 15.

115 ‘Japanese Use of Land Transport in Southeast Asia’ (see fn 57), p. 24.

116 Ibid., pp. 24–5.

117 Ibid., p. 25.

118 Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch, R & A No. 1286, ‘Selection of S. O. Objectives in the Southeast Asia Theatre’, 11 November 1943, Appendix, p. 15. In OSS/SDI and R Reports, Reel 9, Item 14.

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120 Ibid., pp. ii-iii.

121 In so far as a comparable case of Malaya was concerned, for example, it was observed: ‘The most important land movement might occur in rice going south to Malaya but this southward flow could be regulated so as not to conflict with the movements of raw materials out of Malaya by rail if that should ever become necessary. Ibid., pp. 28–9.

122 [British] Naval Intelligence Division, Indo-China (B. R. 510 [Restricted] Geographical Handbook Series), December 1943, 353.

123 For more details, see Foreign Trade of Japan: A Statistical Survey, pp. 390–1.Google Scholar

124 [British] Naval Intelligence Division, Indo-China, 353.

125 Nguyên Khác Dam, Su That Vê Hai Triêu Nguoi Chêt Dói Nam 1945, pp. 70–1.Google ScholarSee also Gauthier, Julien, L'Indochine au travail dans la paix française (Paris, 1949), p. 290Google Scholarand Annuaire Statistique Abrégé, Deuxiéme volume, 1949, 327.Google Scholar

126 Gauthier, , L'Indochine au travail dans la paix française, p. 290.Google Scholar

127 Decoux, , A la barre de l'Indochine, 430.Google ScholarSee also Dam, Nguyên Khác, Su That Vê Hai Triêu Nguoi Chêt Dói Nam 1945, pp. 70–1, for related information.Google Scholar

128 By the summer of 1943, American submarines along the French Indochina coast sank more and more Japanese ships en route from Saigon and Sumatra, laden with rice, oil, tin and rubber. On all fronts, the average was one ship sunk a day. Hoyt, Edwin P., Japan's War (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1986), 376.Google ScholarGeneral Yuki, Tsuchihashi, for example, cites one example in his memoirs: ‘On 01 10, 1945, an American mobile fleet suddenly appeared in the waters of the South China Sea, attacked and sank a whole group of Japanese transport vessels which were anchoring at Cap Saint Jaques, south of Saigon.’ Tsuchihashi Yuki, Gunpuku Seikatsu, 517.Google Scholar

129 By late 1944, Japan had been suffering from a severe lack of supplies. Not much rice could be safely transported from French Indochina and Thailand through the American blockade. The modest supply of shipping was now almost completely devoted to military purposes. Hoyt, P., Japan's War, 367.Google Scholar

130 See also Son, Pham Van, Viêt-Su Toan-Thu, 703Google Scholarand Thuy, Hoáng Co, Viêt Su Khao Luân, pp. 1833 and 1837.Google Scholar

131 ‘Copy of telegram from Commander-in-Chief, China to Admiralty, timed 0325/1st 05, 1941.’ F. E. (41) 67, 6th May, 1941, CAB 96/3, London, Public Record Office. The importance of supplies of rice from Indochina to Hong Kong was also pointed out in that an alternative supply of rice to Hong Kong was available in Burma, ‘but there are clear advantages in getting it from Indo-China from point of view of saving shipping’Google Scholar.See ibid.

132 Daito A Sho, Nan Po Jimukyoku [Ministry of Greater East Asia, Secretariat for the ‘South’], ‘Futsu In Shigen Chyosa Dan Hookoku Dai Nhi Shiuu (Kono Ichi):Nosan Shigen’ [Report on the investigation of resources in French Indochina—Volume II (Part I): Agricultural resources], 03 1943, p. 41.Google Scholar

133 ibid.

134 ibid. pp. 41–3.

135 Ibid., pp 40–1.

136 Katayanagi, Shinkichi, Nippon senji shokuryo seisaku [Japan's wartime food supply] (Tokyo: Ito Shoten, 1942), p. 264, as quoted in Yukichika Tabuchi, ‘Indochina's Role’, 98.Google Scholar

137 Weekly Resume (No. 128) of the Naval, Military and Air Situation from 0700 February 5th, to 0700 February 12th, 1942, W.P.(42)74 (also COS, (42) 104), February 12, 1942, CAB 66/22, London, Public Record Office.

138 Lt. Sukai, Colonel Tateki and others, ‘French Indo-China Area Operations Record,’ [Japanese Monograph No. 25,] pp. 10–11 in War in Asia and the Pacific, vol. 6.Google Scholar

139 ibid.

140 See Shiraishi, Masaya and Furuta, Motoo, ‘Taiheiyo Senso Ki No Tai Indoshina Seisaku: Sono Futatsu No Tokuisei o Megutte’ [Two features of Japan's Indochina policy during the Pacific War], in Ajia Kenkyu [Asian Studies] 23, 3 (1976), 1–37.Google Scholar

141 Nguyên Khác Dam, Su That Vê Hai Triêu Nguoi Chit Ddi Nam 1945, 57.

142 Yuki, Tsuchihashi, Gunpuku Seikatsu, 516.Google Scholar

143 Kido's diary entry of 01 24, 1941, in transcripts of the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, in The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, vol. 13: Transcript of the Proceedings in Open Session/Pages 30, 421–32, 971, annotated, compiled and edited by Pritchard, R. John and Zaide, Sonia Magbanua (New York & London: Garland Publishing Inc., 1981), p. 30, 917.Google Scholar

144 Joint Army-Navy Intelligence Study of Indochina: People and Government (see fn. 92).

145 Fukai, Eigo, Sumitsuin juyo giji oboegaki [Memoranda on important Privy Council matters] (Tokyo: Iwami Shoten, 1953), p. 160, as quoted in Yukichika Tabuchi, ‘Indochina's Role’ (see fn 92), 101.Google ScholarSee also Decoux, , A la barre de l'Indochine, 427–8;Google ScholarTranscripts of the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, in The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, Vol.3, p. 6725;Google Scholarand Nguyên Khác Dam, Su That Vê Hai Triêu Nguoi Chêt Dôi Nam 1345, 56–9 and Hoang Co Thuy, Viêt Su Khao Luân, p. 1833 for related discussion about the treaties.Google Scholar

146 Document No. 51021, by Major General Okada, Kikusaburo, ‘Japan's Prewar Material Potential and the Resolve to Fight the United States and Great Britain,’ 24 and 26 in War in Asia and the Pacific, vol. 2.Google Scholar

147 ‘Economic Policies for the Southern Areas adopted by the Liaison Conference of 12 December 1941,’ in Lebra, (ed.), Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in World War II, pp. 116–17.Google Scholar

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149 ibid.

150 See for example, État Français, Ministère de l'Économie Nationale et des Finances, Service National des Statistiques, Statistique Génerale, Annuaire Statistique Abrégé, Premier Volume (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1943), 194.Google Scholar

151 Annuaire Statistique, Cinquante-sixième volume, 1940–45, 360.Google ScholarThe low Cambodian and Lao yields may help explain why it is noted by Bastin, John and Benda, Harry J. that Laos and Cambodia were ‘marginal to Japanese designs’. John Bastin and Harry J. Benda, A History of Modern Southeast Asia (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1968), 136.Google Scholar

152 A Japanese of some present political influence, who had lived in Vietnam and witnessed the starvation there during the Greater East Asia War, expressed his opinion to the present author that ‘The War must be won first!’

153 The Ministry of Greater East Asia, which took over the task of the Foreign Ministry's investigation mission, subsequently noted that in Cochinchina and Cambodia there were still new lands not previously cultivated, the state of which was due to the lack of labour. Commenting on the French colonial administration's plan to move people from the densely-populated Tonkin area to the South to create domestic colonies, the Ministry of Greater East Asia mission contended that: ‘The opening up of such a vast area by a people who possess no will and determination like the Annamese seems fictitious. It is therefore best to have the Taiwanese, who are richly experienced with tropical agriculture, moved there together with Taiwanese entrepreneurs’. Daito A Sho, Nan Po Jimukyoku, ‘Futsu In Shigen Chyosa Dan Hookoku Dai Nhi Shiuu (Kono Ichi): Nosan Shigen’, p. 21.

154 Murakami, Sachiko, ‘Japan's Thrust into French Indochina 1940–1945’, 365–6 and 375–6.Google Scholar

155 The delegation of the Japanese Foreign Ministry for ‘Investigation of French Indochinese Resources’, which had been formed in September 1941 and arrived in the colony in November 1941, as partly referred to earlier, noted in its report of 30 July 1942 the possibility of expanding both the rice cultivation area in the Tonkin delta and that surrounding Saigon. Gaimusho Futsu In Shigen Chyosa Dan, p. 16.

156 ‘Indochina's War-time Government’, pp. 71–2 (see fn 28).Google Scholar

157 ibid. Ironically Mitsui stores were where the indigenous starved to death. Tsuchihashi, Gunpuku Seikatsu, 547.

158 ‘Indochina's War-time Government’, pp. 71–2 (see fn 28).Google Scholar

159 See Murakami, , ‘Japan's Thrust into French Indochina 1940–1945’, 387–401 for details.Google Scholar

160 Decoux, , A la bane de l'Indochine, 430.Google Scholar

161 ‘Indochina's War-time Government,’ p. 70.Google Scholar

162 Ibid.,

163 The cultivation of caster-oil plants was forcibly implemented in Vinh Phúc province, for example, as early as 1942, however. See Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Vinh-phúc [Vinh-phúc province study committee of Party history], So Thao Lich Su Cdch Mang Thdng Tarn Tinh Vinh Phuc (1939–1945) [Brief history of the August Revolution in Vinh Phuc province (1939–1945)] (Vinh-phúc: Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang, 1966), 32–3 and 54 for more details.Google Scholar

164 Further, wherever the Japanese troops were stationed, the practice of intimidations, pillage, killings and rapes were common. See Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Ha-Tay, [Ha-Tay province study committee of party history], So Thao Lich Su Cách Mang Thdng Tarn Ha-Dong-Son-Tay [Brief history of the August Revolution in Ha-Dong-Son-Tay province] (Ha Tay: Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Ha-Tay, 1967), 69.Google Scholar

165 Ibid., 207.

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167 Ibid., p. 68. See also Marr, ‘World War II and the Vietnamese Revolution’, 133–4.

168 TsuchihashiYuki, , Gunpuku, Seikatsu, 504–5.Google Scholar

169 Gallagher saw this ‘as a lie’, however. See ‘memorandum of conversation by Richard L. Sharp, division of Southeast Asian Affairs, 01 30, 1946,’ in Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation of Human Decisions, vol. 1, ed. Porter, Gareth, 93.Google Scholar

170 See also Headquarters of Japanese Southern Army, ‘History of the 38th Army’ Exhibit No. 663 in transcripts of the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, in The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, vol. 3, p. 7181 for related information.Google Scholar

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173 [United States Army], Headquarters, Far East Command, Military History Section, Special Staff, Lt. Sukai, Colonel Tateki and others, ‘French Indochina Area Operations Record’ [Japanese Monograph No. 25], Tokyo, 1952, pp. 12–13, in War in Asia and the Pacific, vol. 6.Google Scholarsee also See Dũng, Búi Minh, ‘Japan-Vietnam Relations’ pp. 119–20.Google Scholar

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175 Ministére de la France d'Outre-Mer, Service des Statistiques & Ministére des Finances et des Affaires Économiques, Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, Annuaire Statistique de L'Union Française Outre-Mer, 1938–48, Chapitre J—Commerce Extérieur (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de France, 1948), J-166.Google Scholar

176 United States Army, Japan, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, Foreign Histories Division, Hattori, Colonel Takushiro and others, ‘History of Imperial General Headquarters, Army Section’ [Japanese Monograph No. 45], Tokyo, revised 1959, p. 250, in War in Asia and the Pacific, vol. 3. By the end of 01 1945, the Imperial General Headquarters had instructed the Southern Army about the methods relating to lines of communications, especially underlining the fact that the Southern Army had to be ‘fully self-sufficient’.Google ScholarIbid., pp. 250–1.

177 Yuki, Tsuchihashi, Gunpuku Seikatsu, 507.Google Scholar

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180 Tsuchihashi, , Gunpuku Seikalsu, 504–5.Google Scholar

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182 [Koiso Kuniaki's] Defense Document 2531-Exhibit 3375 in transcripts of the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, in The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, vol. 13, pp. 32, 243–4.Google ScholarSee also Allen, Louis, ‘The Japanese Coup of 9 03 1945 in Indo-China’, 16.Google Scholar

183 Ibid., 16–17.

184 Tsuchihashi, , Gunpuku Seikatsu, 516.Google Scholar

185 Ky-Nam, Nguyên, Hôi—Ky 1925–1964, Tâp II: 1945–1954, [Memoirs 1925–1964, vol. II: 1945–1954] (Saigon: Nhut-báo Dân Chu Mói, 1964), 168–9Google Scholarand Hoe, Pham Khác, Tu Triêu Dinh Hué Dên Chiên Khu Viêt Bac [From the Hué court to the Viêt Bac resistance zone] (Hue: Nha Xuât Ban Thuân Hóa, third printing, revised edition, 1987), 14–18.Google Scholar

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187 See Headquarters of Japanese Southern Army, ‘History of the 38th Army’ Exhibit No. 663 in transcripts of the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, in The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, vol. 3, pp. 7, 180–1.Google ScholarSee also Elsbree, Willard H., Japan's Role in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements, 1940 to 1945 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 25–6. Even as late as in 1965, such a strain in Japanese attitude towards genuine independence was reflected in the argument by playwright Fukuda Tsuneari, for example, who contended that Vietnam was not ready to be on her own, pointing out that allowing Vietnamese independence would be ‘more criminal and cruel than what the United States is doing in Vietnam—including the bombing of the North’.Google ScholarTsuneari, Fukuda, ‘Let's Not Make the United States Stand Alone,’ in Journal of Social and Political Ideas in Japan 4:1 (04 1966), p. 82 as quoted in Havens, Fire Across the Sea, 31.Google Scholar

188 See Kim, Trân Trong, ‘Loi Tuyên-Cáo Cua Nôi-Các Vói Quôc-Dân’ [Proclamation of the cabinet to the people,] 05 8, 1945, in Thanh Nghi, no. 108, May 12, 1945, p. 24Google Scholarand Hoe, Pham Khác, Tu Triêu Dinh Hué Dên Chiên Khu Viêt Bac [From the Hué court to the Viêt Bac resistance zone] (Hué: Nha Xuât Ban Thuân Hóa, third printing, revised edition, 1987), 37–8.Google ScholarKim, Trân Trong however later deliberately omitted this part of the ‘Proclamation’ in the appendix of his memoirs. See Pham Khac Hoe, 37–8.Google Scholar

189 See Hoe, Pham Khác, Tu Triêu Dinh Hué Dên Chiên Khu Viêt Bac, 37–8. An ex Japanese official who had lived in Vietnam during the Greater East Asia War told the present author: ‘The War must be won first!’.Google Scholar

190 See Kim, Trân Trong, Mót Con Gió Bui (Kiên Van Luc) [A gust of wind and dust], completed in 1949, (Sai Gon: Vinh Son, 1969), 90–1.Google ScholarHe wrote in exile in Phnom Penh in 1949: ‘Japan used to be a country of [our] same East Asian culture, but later had followed Europeanization, using malicious means to expand its imperialism. Japan had earlier annexed Korea and Manchuria, later also wanted to invade China and other Asian countries, occupied by the Europeans. Though using slogans such as ‘allies and the same race’ and the name of ‘liberating the oppressed people,’ the dark designs of the Japanese were to draw all benefits to them. Their policies were, therefore, full of contradictions. Their deeds did not match their words. Their policy was that of hegemony, which is very fashionable in today's world. They used humanitarian words to lure people into their trap, making it easy for them to rule. What they did, in fact was for their own interests, not at all for justice’. Kim, Trân Trong, Mot Con Gió Bui, 12.Google Scholar

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195 By the end of the war, there were about 110,000 Japanese troops in French Indochina and about 693,000 in the whole Southern Area. For details, see Note by the Secretary of the Defence Committee ‘Feeding of Japanese Forces on Surrender’, DO (45) 11, 7th 09, 1945, CAB 69/7, London, Public Record Office.Google Scholar

196 Nitz, Kiyoko Kurusu, ‘Independence without Nationalists? the Japanese and Vietnamese Nationalism during the Japanese Period, 1940–1945,’ in JSAS (Singapore), XV, 1 (03 1984): 129.Google ScholarSee also Son, Pham Van, Viet-Su Toan-Thu, 703 and Hoang Co Thuy, Viêt Su Khao Luân, pp. 1833 a nd ‘837 for related discussions.Google Scholar

197 Ienaga, Saburo, The Pacific War, 1931–1945, 178.Google Scholar

198 ‘Therefore people had to starve in Mitsui store’, explained Tsuchihashi. See Yuki, Tsuchihashi, Gunpuku Seikatsu, 547. Mitsui was the company that was authorized to control ‘Japanese purchases of food stuffs’, as referred to earlier.Google Scholar

199 Nguyên Quyêt, Ha Nôi—Tháng Tám: Hôi Ky (see fn. 28 ), 9.Google ScholarSee also Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Nam Ha [Nam Ha province study committee of Party history], So Thao Lich Su Dang Bo Nam Dinh-Ha Nam [Brief history of Party in Nam Dinh-Ha Nam provinces] (Nam Ha: Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Nam Ha, 1970), 81 and 168.Google Scholar

200 In May 1945, for example, a fight took place in Gia village (Dan-Phuong district, Ha-Dong province) between the peasants and this rice collection corps. So Thao Lich Su Cách Mang Tháng Tarn Ha-Dong-Son-Tay, 105.Google Scholar

201 Any indigenous village officials jugded as inefficient were severely punished. Ibid., 104.

202 Ibid., 103.

203 Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Ha Bác [Ha Bác province study committee of Party history], So Thao Lich Su Cách Mang Tháng Tam Bác Ninh [Brief history of the August revolution in Bác Ninh province] (Ha Bác: Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Ha Bác, 1967), 61–2.Google Scholar

204 See Vinh, Khuât Thi, ‘Vinh Tuong Vung Day’ [Vinh Tuong district stands up] in Nhung Ngay Cách Mang Tháng Tam—Hoi Ky Tap I [August revolution days—memoirs volume I] (Vinh Phu: Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Vinh Phu, 1974), 86–7 for details.Google Scholar

205 Ms Khuât comments that the struggle to protect their rice by Yên Lac people failed ‘because the local people had not been well prepared and organised enough’. Khuât Thi Vinh, ‘Vinh Tuong Vung Day’, 87. Many thousands of famine victims were reported in Vinh Phúc province.Google ScholarSee Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang Tinh Vinh-phúc [Vinh-phúc province study committee of Party history], So Thao Lich Su Cách Mang Tháng Tam Tinh Vinh Phuc (1939–1945) [Brief history of the August Revolution in Vinh Phuc province (1939–1945)] (Vinh-Phúc: Ban Nghiên Cúu Lich Su Dang, 1966), 54.Google Scholar

206 ‘Memoranda for Secretary of State James Byrnes from Donovan, O. S. S. Director William J. September 5 and 6, 1945’, in Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation of Human Decisions, vol. 1, p. 71.Google Scholar

207 Annuaire du commerce chinois du Sud Vietnam (Saigon: La chambre de commerce chinois du Sud Vietnam, 1953) and U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Nippon senso keizai no hokai [The effects of strategic bombing on Japan's war economy], trans. Masaki, Chifuyu, 2nd ed. (Tokyo: Nippon Hyoronsha, 1972; orig. pub. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946), table C-121, as cited in Figure 2 of Yukichika Tabuchi, ‘Indochina's Role’ (see fn 92) 88.Google Scholar

208 According to Ngô Vinh Long, however, 40,000 tons of rice were exported to Japan from Indochina through the Mitsui Bussan Company in early 1945. See Ngô Vinh Long, Before the Revolution, 132.Google Scholar

209 Ministère de la France d'Outre-Mer (see fn 175), J-166.Google Scholar

210 Telegram from Mr Bevin to Lord Halifax, 22 December 1945, CAB 122/512, London, Public Record Office. According to this British source, 500,000 tons of rice were exported from Indochina in 1944 and 922,000 tons in 1943, bigger than the statistics of Japanese rice imports from Indochina according to the American source published in Japan as cited in Yukichika Tabuchi, ‘Indochina's Role’ (see fn 92) 99.