Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze

by Harmsen, Peter

  After this brief brush with power, Liliane returned to Shanghai with her parents. It was a city subtly transformed by rumors of war. On the surface, an appearance of peaceful normalcy prevailed with even the Japanese behaving as if nothing had changed, and engaging in friendly competition with representatives of the other foreign powers in the city. The visiting baseball team of Tokyo’s Meiji University inflicted a resounding defeat on a team of Shanghai-based American marines.57 On France’s Bastille Day, July 14, the armored Japanese cruiser Izumo, moored in the Huangpu River, joined the flagship of the French fleet in offering up a searchlight display.58 Everyone was complaining about the unbearable heat and worrying about the upcoming typhoon seasons. It was almost as if the weather was the main concern.

  Still, underneath it all was a constant lingering tension fueled by contradictory military and diplomatic news. Unfounded reports in the local press about great Chinese victories on the northern front often caused patriotic crowds to set off fireworks.59 However, the mood could change overnight. Carroll Alcott, a correspondent for the Associated Press, developed an ability to gauge public sentiment by looking out of his window every morning. If thousands of civilians were heading towards the supposed safety of the International Settlements, “then the men on the floors of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the gold bar market were talking war.”60 People in Shanghai had learned a lesson from the hostilities five years earlier. They realized that it was vital to escape the combat zone before fighting broke out. Once the first shot had been fired, it would be too late. They also knew that Zhabei was the area to avoid.

  There were a few scares. On the evening of July 24, a Japanese sailor was reported missing, setting off a frantic search throughout the city. Grim-faced Japanese soldiers with steel helmets and fixed bayonets deployed in the streets, checking rickshaws and vehicles. Obvious parallels were drawn between this event and the Marco Polo Bridge incident, where the temporary loss of one Japanese soldier had set the entire north of China ablaze. It did not take long for large numbers of residents to leave Zhabei, pushing their most precious belongings in wheelbarrows or carrying them in bundles over their shoulders. The panic subsided almost as quickly as it had erupted, and four days later, after most Chinese families had returned to their homes, it emerged that, very much like at Marco Polo Bridge, the sailor had gone AWOL after a visit to a local brothel.61

  Despite the unsettling political news, Shanghai remained first and foremost a place where business was done and fortunes were made. As war approached, residents with investments to protect thought up ingenious ways to see their assets through the coming storms. One ship owner carried out a paper transfer of his company to a German firm, equipping each of his vessels with a swastika flag and a token German captain who did nothing but show up occasionally on the bridge in full uniform. The Chinese entrepreneur figured that the Japanese Army would not seize any ship sailing under the flag of Nazi Germany, a powerful nation that had recently shown signs of wanting to improve relations with Japan. His deception worked. As his steamers plied their Yangtze routes, suspicious Japanese Navy officers monitored them through their binoculars, obviously believing something was not right, but they were not stopped.62

  Everyone felt the war coming, regardless of nationality and occupation. In the French Concession, Father Robert Jacquinot de Besange, a Jesuit priest, was watching events with a sense of foreboding. Very much a practical man—he had lost his right arm in a failed chemical experiment at the concession’s Aurora University—he was widely recognized as a champion of the disadvantaged. He had been in Shanghai in 1932 and knew from personal experience about the suffering that modern war in urban areas brought to the civilian population. He feared that the suffering was about to start all over again and his dark premonitions found expression in a poem:

  God, please renew our hope!

  The Future is Yours alone: the shadow

  Is spreading more thickly this evening,

  Make it a little less dark for us.63

  ————————

  At 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, August 10, a motley group of officers left the Japanese Consulate on the banks of the Huangpu River. Some were easily recognizable as Chinese officers with their peaked caps, others were Japanese with colonial-style pith helmets; a large number were in western suits, making it harder to determine their nationality. All were members of a hastily composed Sino-Japanese joint investigation team charged with quickly wrapping up the case of the shooting at the Hongqiao Aerodrome the night before. They knew that they would have to reach agreement fast, or risk losing control of events. On both sides there were people, whether in uniform or not, who were spoiling for a fight, and this incident could be all the pretext they needed.

  As they drove to the airport, they passed armed guards of the Chinese Peace Preservation Corps standing at sandbag barricades that had not been there just a few hours earlier. Once at Hongqiao, they paced up and down the scene of the incident under a blazing sun, seeking to agree on what had happened. It was all but impossible. The evidence did not add up to a coherent narrative both sides could accept. The Japanese were not convinced there had been a shoot-out at all. Oyama, the officer who had been in the car, had left his pistol at the marine headquarters in Hongkou and had been unarmed the night before. Whoever shot and killed the man in the Chinese uniform, it could not have been him, they maintained.64

  At 6:00 p.m. the investigators returned to the city. Foreign correspondents eager for information knew exactly who to look for. Shanghai Mayor Yu Hongjun, less than two weeks in the job, had already become a darling with the western journalists. Little, sharp-witted and English-speaking, he was the city’s cosmopolitan face to the outside world.65 That evening, uncharacteristically, he had nothing for the reporters, apart from a plea addressed not only to the Japanese, but also the Chinese. “Both sides should maintain a calm [demeanor] so that the situation may not be aggravated,” he said.66 Thirty-nine-year-old Yu was in a difficult situation. He was responsible for millions of civilians, and he was prepared to go to great lengths to prevent open war—greater lengths than any of his foreign sympathizers were aware of at the time.

  Mayor Yu was in fact at the center of an elaborate act of deception that almost succeeded. It is unlikely that the world will ever know exactly what happened at Hongqiao Aerodrome on the night of August 9. However, nearly eight decades later, the balance of the available evidence suggests that the two Japanese soldiers were lured into a Chinese ambush.67 Zhang Fakui, the commander of the Chinese right wing, attributed the act to members of the 88th Division, led by General Sun Yuanliang. “A small group of Sun Yuanliang’s men disguised themselves as members of the Peace Preservation Corps,” Zhang Fakui said years later, when he was an old man. “On August 9, 1937 they caught two Japanese servicemen on the road near the Hongqiao military aerodrome. They accused the two of forcing their way into the aerodrome. A clash took place. The Japanese were killed.”68

  This left their superiors with a delicate problem. Two dead Japanese were hard to explain away. Mayor Yu, who must have been informed about the predicament by members of the military, consulted with Tong Yuan-liang, who was chief of staff of the Songhu Garrison Command, a unit set up after the 1932 fighting. They agreed on a quick and cynical measure to make it look as if the Chinese guards had fired in self-defense. On their orders, soldiers marched a Chinese death convict to the gate of the airport, dressed him in the uniform of the paramilitary guards, and shot him dead.69 It was a desperate ruse, and it might just have worked, if it were not for all the questions raised by the way the Chinese body looked. The Japanese did not believe the story, and the whole plan was falling apart. What little mutual trust was left was evaporating fast. Rather than preventing a showdown, if anything the cover-up was hastening the descent into war.

  Late on August 10, Yu sent a secret cable to Nanjing, warning that the Japanese had stated ominously they would not allow the two deaths at the airport to have been in vain.70 The fol
lowing day, the Japanese Consul General Okamoto Suemasa paid the mayor a visit, demanding the complete withdrawal of the Peace Preservation Corps from the Shanghai area, as well as the dismantlement of all fortifications erected by members of the corps.71 It was almost impossible for the Chinese to acquiesce, since from their point of view, it appeared that the Japanese wanted to render Shanghai defenseless at the same time as they strengthened their own presence in the city.

  The Chinese suspected that Japan was preparing reinforcements following its launch on August 11 of what the North China Daily News called “one of the most imposing displays of naval might” in Shanghai’s history. Twenty vessels, including cruisers and destroyers, sailed up the Huangpu River and moored at wharfs close to “Little Tokyo.” Japanese marines in olive-green uniforms marched ashore down gangplanks, while women from the local Japanese community, dressed in kimonos, bowed with delighted smiles to the flags of the Rising Sun which were hanging proudly from the sterns of the battleships.72

  In fact, Japan had planned to dispatch additional troops to Shanghai even before the shooting at Hongqiao Aerodrome. They had deemed it necessary in order to bolster the meager contingent of 2,500 marines posted permanently in the city. More troops were required to aid in the task of protecting Japanese nationals who were being hastily evacuated from the big cities along the Yangtze River.73 These were defensive maneuvers, and the Japanese military seemed to shy away from opening a second front in Shanghai, for the exact same reasons that the Chinese favored an extension of hostilities to the area. Japanese troops would be diverted away from the strategically crucial north and the Soviet threat looming across China’s border and they would be sucked into fighting in a claustrophobic urban environment where their technological superiority, especially in tanks and planes, would have less impact.

  While officers of the Japanese Navy believed it was becoming harder by the day to prevent the war from spreading to Shanghai, they wanted to give diplomacy a last chance. The Japanese Army, meanwhile, was more than eager to wage war in the north of China, but in the Shanghai area it showed little of that belligerence. If worse came to worst, the Army favored pulling all Japanese nationals out of Shanghai. When in the end it agreed to draw up plans for dispatching an expeditionary force to the city, it did so only reluctantly and in order to escape charges that it was shirking its responsibilities.74 “Why on earth would the Japanese even consider fighting in Shanghai?” Sascha Spunt, the son of Shanghai’s wealthiest cotton merchant asked an acquaintance, a Chinese general. The general grinned as he replied: “They don’t.”75

  “Japan had no wish to fight at Shanghai . . . It should be simple to see that we took the initiative,” said General Zhang Fakui, the commander of the Chinese right wing at Shanghai told his post-war interviewers.76 Taking the initiative and opening a new front was not, however, a rash decision, and it was implemented with deliberate caution. The political leaders, fearing to move too fast, had to constantly keep their military officers on a tight leash, lest their yearning to see Japanese blood got the better of them and the situation at the frontline spun out of control. Zhang Zhizhong, the commander of the left wing, was one of the top brass longing for a quick showdown with Japan. Still, by the end of July he was waiting impatiently with his troops in the Suzhou area west of Shanghai, wondering if a unique chance was being squandered. On July 30, he cabled Nanjing for permission to strike first. If Japan were allowed to launch an attack at Shanghai, he argued, he would have to waste precious time moving his troops from their current position more than 50 miles west of the city.77 Nanjing replied with a promise that his wish would be granted, but urged patience for now: “We should indeed seize the initiative over the enemy, but we must wait until the right opportunity arises. Await further orders.”78

  That opportunity came on August 11, with the Japanese show of force in the Huangpu River, and the Japanese demand, made in public, for the withdrawal of China’s paramilitary police. Japan had exposed itself sufficiently as the aggressor in the minds of the domestic and overseas public, making it safe for China to act. At 9:00 p.m. on that day, Zhang Zhizhong received orders from Nanjing to move his troops to the vicinity of Shang-hai.79 He obeyed the order with lightning speed, taking advantage of the extensive transportation network in the Shanghai area. The soldiers of the 87th Division mounted 300 trucks, which had been prepared in advance.80 Meanwhile, civilian passengers aboard trains where unceremoniously ordered off to make room for the 88th Division, which boarded the carriages and headed for Shanghai. Altogether, more than 20,000 motivated and well-equipped men were heading into battle.

  On the morning of Thursday, August 12, residents near Shanghai’s North Train Station, also know as the Zhabei Station, just a few blocks away from “Little Tokyo,” woke up to an unusual sight: thousands of soldiers dressed in the Chinese Nationalists’ khaki colors, with German-style helmets and stick grenades swung across their chests. “Where do you come from?” the Shanghai citizens asked. “How did you get here so fast?”81 A foreign correspondent visiting the troops reported back that he had sensed an unmistakable “air of tense expectancy,” as the soldiers, smart-looking by Chinese standards, took up positions behind barricades and emplacements built the night before.82 They were soldiers of the 88th Division, arguably the best trained and equipped unit in the entire Chinese Army. They had been in Shanghai in 1932 and now they were back, determined to put up a better show than last time.

  In fact, they were not supposed to have moved so close to the Japanese lines. Prior to the departure from Suzhou, Zhang Zhizhong had issued detailed orders to each individual unit under his command, including specific instructions for the 88th Division to go by train and deploy in a line from the town of Zhenru to Dachang village, both located a couple of miles west of Shanghai. Only later, the division was to continue towards a line that stretched from Zhabei district to the town of Jiangwan, placing it closer to the city boundaries.83 However, the 88th Division was the same unit that allegedly orchestrated the Hongqiao incident. Its soldiers were gung-ho. They were in Shanghai to fight. Sun Yuanliang, the division’s commander, confirmed in his memoirs that his orders were to get off the train at Zhenru. “However, based on the situation there,” he wrote, “I made the decision single-handedly to continue straight to Zhabei train station.”84 Sun Yuanliang could afford a bit of initiative. He had been one of Chiang Kai-shek’s favorite students known as the “thirteen guardians of the heir apparent.”85

  Zhang Zhizhong was belligerence personified, but he was faced with even more pugnacious officers down the ranks. On the morning of August 12, he was approached by Liu Jingchi, chief of operations at the Songhu Garrison Command. The battle of 1932, Liu argued, had gone badly for the Chinese because they had hesitated and not struck first. This time ought to be different, and Zhang should order an all-out assault on the Japanese positions that same evening, he said. Zhang countered that he had clear and unmistakable orders from Chiang Kai-shek to let the Japanese shoot first, for the sake of China’s image in the world. “That’s easy,” retorted Liu. “Once all the units are deployed and ready for attack, we just change some people to mufti and send them in to fire a few shots. We attack, and at the same time, we report back that the enemy’s offensive has begun.” Zhang Zhizhong did not like the idea. “We can’t go behind our leader’s back like that,” he said.86

  Zhang Zhizhong’s position was not an enviable one. Forced to rein in eager and capable officers, he was acting against his own personal desires. Eventually, he decided to seek a free hand to act as he saw fit. In a secret cable to Nanjing, he requested permission to launch an all-out attack on the Japanese positions in Shanghai the following day, Friday, August 13. This was a one-off opportunity to exploit momentum already created with the movement of the troops, he argued. Wait much longer, and torpor would set in. He suggested a coordinated assault that also involved the Chinese Air Force. The reply from Chiang Kai-shek was as short as it was unwavering: “Await further orders.”87 />
  Even as Chiang’s troops were pouring into Shanghai, Chinese and Japanese officials continued talking. Ostensibly this was in the hope of reaching a last-minute solution, but in reality it was a show. Both sides wanted to be able to claim the moral high ground in the battle that now seemed inevitable. They knew that whoever openly declared a decision to abandon negotiations would automatically be seen as the aggressive party. During talks at the Shanghai Municipal Council, Japanese Consul General Okamoto argued that if China had really wanted peace, it would have withdrawn troops to a point where clashes could be avoided. Mayor Yu responded by pointing out the growing numbers of Japanese forces in the city. “Under such circumstances, China must adopt such measures as necessary for self-defense,” he said.88

  In the streets outside, Shanghai was reduced to chaos. The appearance of entire divisions of Chinese troops overnight had been welcomed by the city’s residents, but it had also convinced them that this was no false alarm as was the case with the incident of the missing sailor a few weeks earlier. This time was for real. Thousands of families left their homes, especially those in Zhabei. Some hoped to gain entry into the International Settlement, others headed straight for the countryside. It was the largest exodus in Shanghai’s history, bigger even than the one triggered by the fighting in 1932.89