D. Destroying food supplies so that they would not fall into the hands of enemy troops
Explanation:
The Colonial Experience in World War II
World War II had tragic consequences not only for the European states but also for their colonies. The war destroyed existing trade networks and disrupted regular commercial activities. These disruptions caused widespread famine in colonized countries. For example, the Japanese took rice for their military from colonial Vietnam, and consequently, as many as two million people died of starvation. One of the worst famines occurred in the Bengal Province of India, where the Japanese were fighting the British. To slow down the Japanese, the British used a scorched earth strategy, meaning that the British deliberately burned Bengali villagers' food supplies so that the enemy troops could not use them. That strategy, combined with a particularly destructive cyclone that swept through the region in 1942, was responsible for the deaths of more than three million people. Colonized people trapped in the middle between empires at war found themselves in similar conditions throughout World War II.
