An intensive pacification effort in the first half of the year, commanded by Major General Marcel Alessandri and designed to clear the Red River Delta and thereby deny the Viet Minh a major source of rice, had achieved considerable success—the flow of rice was cut almost in half. This was a severe problem for the DRV not merely in nutritional terms but also because rice was the medium of exchange of the Viet Minh economy. Troops were paid in rice; services and supplies were purchased with rice. Through the middle months of the year, rice rations for Giap’s forces were cut again and again.
