High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Vietnamese Famine of 1945 was a famine that occurred in northern Vietnam from October 1944 to May 1945, during the Japanese occupation of the country. Between 400,000 and 2 million people are estimated to have starved to death during this time. There were many causes of this famine. The direct cause was the effects of World War II on French Indochina. Involvements of France, Japan, and the United States in Vietnam caused detrimental effects to the economic activities of the Vietnamese. Military and economic changes caused the northern part of the country, historically barely able to sustain itself, to plunge into famine.