One of the worst atrocities, and least talked about atrocity, committed by the Japanese force in WW2 was the 1945 Vietnamese famine, or Ất Dậu Famine.

In 1940, using the chaos in France, Japan moved into Indochina and occupy it. While promoting its "Greater East Asia cooperation" ideology, the Japanese had no intention of making an independent Vietnam: they were there to bleed Vietnam dry. However, since Vichy France (who was in control of Indochina) was a Nazis' ally, the Japanese had to "respect" their ally by keeping a puppet French colonial administration in power while they themselves controlled Vietnam from behind.

From 1940, they began a policy of "requisitioning" aka "looting". First, they directed all produces, particularly food and agricultural products, to Japan and other colonies. Secondly, they forced Vietnamese farmers in the Red River delta (where they had more control) to stop cultivating rice and cultivated cochorus and cotton tree to provide the Japanese with material for army uniform production.

So when the crop failure hit in 1944, it hit like a tidal wave. All of Northern Vietnam was affected with many rich families even dying because there was no food. Any attempts by local Vietnamese administrators to help was denied by the Japanese who sat on massive stockpile of rices which were rotting inside the warehouse. Southern Vietnamese tried to help their countrymen up North by sending rice, but all these rice were re-directed to Japanese stockpile. Desperate Vietnamese tried to ambush these rice wagons, hoping to get rice, and the Japanese replied brutally. In one instance, a Vietnamese man followed a Japanese cavalryman, hoping to take some of the horse dung so he could search for some leftover corn the horse had not digested. The Japanese waited for the man to find some corn then cut open his stomach, stuffed the horse dung in it, and beheaded the Vietnamese man.