1 Piastre Saigon; Japanese Internment Camp

These notes were produced by the French colonial administration in Saigon to supply an internment camp population cut off from normal currency after the Japanese coup of March 9, 1945 — the *coup de force* that dismantled French administrative control across Indochina overnight. French civilians and military personnel found themselves interned by the Japanese in the final months of the Pacific War, and the camp scrip existed to manage internal transactions within that confined system.

The printing circumstances were improvised. Japanese surrender came in August 1945, and the scrip's useful life was measured in weeks.