Hanoi, the capital of French Indo-china (now Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) fell t the Japanese on December 7, 1941, the same day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese melted the Annamese copper and brass cash coins in circulation in order to use their metal in the war effort. The cash coins were valued at 1/5 to 1/6 of a cent and were widely used for small transactions. To replace them, the Osaka mint in Japan struck a zinc 1/4 cent coin for French Indo-China in 1942.
