The 1942 Henan Famine in Photos: A Historical Insight
Henan Province was hit by a terrible famine between the summer of 1942 and the spring of 1943 that led to the death of 3 million people (other sources report 1 million deaths).
Part of our China History Archive
Related: Episodes of cannibalism in China during the famine; The famine during the Chinese Civil War; Rare historical photographs of the 1931 China floods
Approximately three million individuals were compelled to relocate to different regions to evade starvation due to a series of calamities. The famine was triggered by a severe drought, the relentless devastation of crops by locust swarms, the increased domestic demand for supplies to support troops in the conflict against the Japanese, and the government’s excessive requisitions from local farmers, leaving them with virtually nothing. These factors combined to transform a poor harvest into a colossal catastrophe.
Causes of the Famine
The disaster did not emerge out of nowhere. Henan’s rural economy had already been under severe strain for years, worsened in 1938 when Nationalist forces retreating from Nanjing dynamited the dikes of the Yellow River near Huayuankou to slow the Japanese advance, flooding a vast stretch of farmland and displacing millions. Drought conditions through 1941 were compounded in the spring of 1942 by locust swarms that stripped what crops remained, while wartime disruption of transport routes made it nearly impossible to bring in surplus grain from other regions. On top of this, military and civil authorities continued to demand grain quotas from a population that increasingly had nothing left to give, a burden made worse, according to later historical accounts, by local officials who collected even more than Chongqing’s reduced quotas required.
Theodore White and Harrison Forman’s Reporting
Theodore White (白修德, Bái Xiūdé), a correspondent for both United Press and Time magazine, provided a firsthand account of the situation, which had been concealed by the Nationalist government based in Chongqing. White first cabled a report on the crisis in October 1942, but it was his dispatch published in Time on 22 March 1943, titled “Until the Harvest Is Reaped,” that brought the famine to wide international attention, describing dogs eating human corpses along the roads and peasants surviving on tree bark, elm leaves and cottonseed. White later secured a brief meeting with Chiang Kai-shek in Chongqing, where he presented photographs of the famine’s victims; the encounter reportedly embarrassed the Nationalist leader into ordering relief measures.
The plight of those affected was further documented through the lens of Harrison Forman, an American photographer who ventured through Henan province during the famine of 1942–1943. Forman’s observations and experiences were meticulously recorded in his diary (Harrison Forman Diary, China, December 1942 – March 1943), which today forms part of the historical photographic record of the crisis alongside White’s written reporting.
Accounts of Cannibalism
Amidst this dire situation, there were disturbing accounts of cannibalism. White reported harrowing stories from the mountain districts, where refugees traveling on secluded paths were allegedly killed and consumed. While it was challenging to discern the veracity of these tales, the consistency and frequency of such reports across disparate locations were too significant to disregard. White highlighted the grim reality in Henan, where desperation had driven people to consume human flesh, though it was unclear how much of these accounts were based in fact and how much were mere gruesome legends.
Toll and Aftermath
Estimates of the famine’s death toll vary considerably among historians: some, such as Anthony Garnaut, put the figure at well under one million, closer to 700,000, while others, including Lloyd Eastman, have estimated two to three million deaths from starvation, broadly in line with the range cited above. White and his colleague Annalee Jacoby later recounted the famine, along with their wider criticism of Nationalist governance, in their best-selling 1946 book Thunder Out of China. The disaster eased once the spring wheat harvest of 1943 came in, though Henan would face further catastrophic famine conditions again during the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–1961.
Great China famine images
Sources
http://tuku.military.china.com
topic: famine,famine in history,famine in China,China famine
Post Author
Those are amazing and tragic photographs reminding me that these things may again happen on a massive scale.
Why do you think these things might happen again on a massive scale?
Heart wrenching photos..