Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze

by Harmsen, Peter

  43. Chennault, Claire Lee. Way of a Fighter. New York NY: C. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1949, pp. 40–41. This was more than an empty threat. Chiang had previously had subordinates executed, even for failures for which they could not reasonably be blamed. See, e.g. Taylor, p. 71.

  44. Chennault, pp. 37, 40.

  45. Gong Yeti. Kangzhan feixing riji [A Flight Diary of the War of Resistance]. Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe, 2011, p. 115.

  46. Gong, p. 111.

  47. Gong 117.

  48. Taylor, p. 147.

  49. Barnhart, p. 92.

  50. Forman, Harrison. Horizon Hunter. New York: Robert M. McBride, 1940, p. 207.

  51. Zhang Fakui, pp. 454–455.

  52. Yang Ji. Huzhan mihua [Secret Talk on the Shanghai Battle]. Liming shuj u, 1938, p37.

  53. Zhang Zhizhong. Huiyilu [Memoirs]. Beijing: Wenhua chubanshe, 2007, p. 72.

  54. Zhang Suwo. Huiyi fuqin Zhang Zhizhong [Remembering My Father Zhang Zhizhong]. Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe, 2012, p. 85.

  55. Zhang Suwo, p. 86.

  56. Willens, Liliane. Stateless in Shanghai. Hong Kong: Earnshaw Books, 2010, p. 97.

  57. North China Herald, July 14, 1937.

  58. North China Herald, July 21, 1937.

  59. Farmer, Rhodes. Shanghai Harvest: A Diary of Three Years in the China War. London: Museum Press, 1945, p. 37.

  60. Alcott, Carroll. My War with Japan. New York: Henry Holt, 1943, p. 236.

  61. North China Herald, July 28 and Aug 4, 1937.

  62. Powell, John B. My Twenty-Five Years in China. New York: Macmillan, 1945, p. 293.

  63. Ristaino, Marcia R. The Jacquinot Safe Zone: Wartime Refugees in Shanghai. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008, p. 45.

  64. North China Herald, August 18, 1937.

  65. Farmer, p. 37.

  66. North China Herald, August 18, 1937.

  67. Kageyama Koichiro. “Oyama jihen no hitotsu kosatsu—dai niji Shanhai jihen no dokasen no shinso to gunreibu ni ateta eikyo” [“A reconsideration of the Oyama incident: the facts about the trigger of the second Shanghai incident and the impact it had on the Naval General Staff”]. Gunji shigaku, vol. 32, no. 3, December 1996.

  68. Zhang Fakui, p. 456.

  69. Shi Shuo. “Bayaosan Songhu Kanghang jilue” [“Clever stratagems adopted during the 813 Songhu battle”], in Bayaosan Songhu Kangzhan: Yuan Guomindang jiangling Kangri Zhanzheng qinliji [ The August 13 Songhu Battle: Personal Recollections from the War of Resistance against Japan by Former Nationalist Commanders]. Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi cubanshe, 1987, p. 91. This priceless collection of memoirs by key commanders is cited hereafter as BSK.

  70. Zhongguo dier lishi dang’an guan, Kangri zhanzheng zhengmian zhanchang[The Frontal Battleground in the Anti-Japanese War]. Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2005, vol. 1, p. 329.

  71. Zhongguo dier lishi dang’an guan, vol. 1, p. 330.

  72. NCDN, August 12, 1937.

  73. Morley, James William. The China Quagmire: Japan’s Expansion on the Asian Continent 1933–1941. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983, p. 265.

  74. Barnhart, p. 92.

  75. Spunt, Georges. A Place in Time. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968, p. 353.

  76. Zhang Fakui, p. 457. Zhang goes on to tell the interviewer that “I cannot say this in my ‘Reminiscences of the War of Resistance’ [memoirs serialized in the Taiwanese magazine Lianhe Pinglun from January 1962 to January 1963] because we claim that ours was a ‘War of Resistance’.”

  77. Zhongguo dier lishi dang’an guan, p. 335. Zhang Zhizhong’s eagerness to fight the battle may have helped give rise to the sensational claim that he was in fact a Communist mole deliberately triggering a war between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and the Japanese. In particular, according to this version of history, Zhang was allegedly the mastermind behind the shooting at Hongqiao Aerodrome. The motive was supposedly to weaken Chiang and set the stage for a Communist revolution. See, Chang, Jung et al. Mao: The Unknown Story. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005, pp. 208–209. The best that can be said about this story is that it would be interesting if it were true. However, it is supported by no available evidence whatsoever. See also, Benton, Gregor et al. “The Portrayal of Opportunism, Betrayal and Manipulation in Mao’s Rise to Power,” in The China Journal, no. 55, January 2006, pp. 106–107.

  78. Zhang Zhizhong, p. 72.

  79. Zhang Zhizhong, p. 75.

  80. Chen Yiding. “Yangshupu Yunzaobin zhandou” [“Battle of Yangshupu and Yun-zaobin”], in BSK, p. 111 .

  81. Zhang Zhizhong, p. 75.

  82. Bruce, George C. Shanghai’s Undeclared War. Shanghai: Mercury Press, 1937, p. 10.

  83. Zhongguo dier lishi dang’an guan, p. 340.

  84. Sun Yuanliang. Yiwan guangnian zhong deyi shun [An Instant in a Trillion Light Years]. Taipei: Shiying chubanshe, 2002, p. 205. See also, Zhang Boting. “Songhu huizhan jiyao” [“Summary of the Songhu Battle”], in BSK, p. 132. The decision by the 88th and possibly also the 87th Division to move further than their orders dictated was widely recognized by observers at the time. See, Cao Juren. Woyu wo deshijie [My World and I]. Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2011, p. 595.

  85. Zhang Fakui, p. 484.

  86. Liu Jingchi, “Songhu Jingbei Silingbu jianwen” [“Account of Songhu Garrison Command”], BSK, p. 3.

  87. Zhongguo dier lishi dang’an guan, p. 341.

  88. NCDN, August 13, 1937.

  89. NCDN, August 13, 1937.

  90. Yang Ji p. 4.

  91. NCDN, August 14, 1937.

  92. NCDN, August 13, 1937.

  93. Morley, p. 266.

  CHAPTER TWO: “BLACK SATURDAY”

  1. The account of Rawlinson’s activities on August 14 is based mainly on Frances Rawlinson’s testimony, written within 24 hours of the events, reproduced in toto in Rawlinson, John Lang. Rawlinson, the Recorder and China’s Revolution: A Topical Biography of Frank Joseph Rawlinson 1871–1937. Notre Dame, IN: Cross Cultural Publications, 1990, p. 1. Other details have been added from a report published by the police in the French Concession: Rapport sur la catastrophe du 14 Aout 1937. Shanghai: Services de Police, 1937 and from History of Air Operations in the First Phase of the China Incident (from July to November 1937). Tokyo: Liquidation Department of the Second Demobilization Bureau, 1951, also known as Japanese Monograph No. 166. The latter is the part of a series of nearly 200 monographs compiled by the U.S. military in Japan after the war that were based on surviving records and the recollections of former Japanese officers.

  2. Rapport sur la catastrophe, p. 2; Japanese Monograph No. 166, p. 18.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Rawlinson, p. 756.

  5. Zhang Boting with Li Dongfang. “Bayaosan Songhu Huizhan Huiyi’ [“Reminiscences of the 813 Songhu Battle”], in Zhuanji Wenxue, vol. 41, no. 2, 1982, p. 19., quoting Ji Zhangjian, the former head of the corps. If the story is true, it is a distinct possibility that the ronin were not marines in disguise, but the real thing, given the close cooperation between military and ronin elsewhere.

  6. NCDN, August 14, 1937, and Political Strategy Prior to the Outbreak of War. Tokyo: Military History Section Headquarters, 1952, also known as Japanese Monograph No. 144, p. 29. Zhang Zhizhong claimed in a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek sent on the same day that Japanese soldiers had fired at civilians first, before regular Chinese soldiers opened up retaliatory fire. (See, Zhongguo dier lishi dang’an guan, vol. 1, p. 409.) Given the severe numerical inferiority of the Japanese, it is unlikely that they would deliberately invite attack with such a rash course of action. According to the Japanese correspondent Hayashi Fusao, who visited the Shanghai front some time afterwards, the Japanese commanders were, of course, painfully aware that they were outnumbered and took great care not to provoke the Chinese. See, Long, Jeff E. “The Japanese Literati and ‘the China Incident’: Hayashi Fusao Reporting the Battle of Shanghai,” in Sino-Japanese Studies, vol. 15, 2003, p. 32.

  7. Similar disagreement reigns o
ver the start of hostilities in 1932. See, Jordan, pp. 42–43.

  8. DSBS, p. 9.

  9. Bruce, p. 10.

  10. NCDN, August 14, 1937.

  11. The bridge derived its name from traditional Chinese astrology, according to which a person’s fate can be predicted from eight characters imbued with special significance.

  12. Zhang Boting, pp. 132–133.

  13. Zhang Boting with Li Dongfang, pp. 18–19. The account, heavily annotated by Li, is based partly on testimony made in the early 1980s by Wu Qiujian, Major Yi’s regimental commander, who was then living in Los Angeles. See also, Zhongguo dier lishi dang’an guan, vol. 1, p. 410, and Zhang Boting, pp. 132–133. In nearly all Chinese accounts, the skirmish at the Eight Character Bridge is taken as the “official” start of the war. However, this is a somewhat arbitrary choice, as fighting in Shanghai actually began in the morning.

  14. Hsu Long-hsuen and Chang Ming-kai. History of the Sino-Japanese war (1937–1945). Taipei: Chung Wu Publishers, 1972, p. 203; NCDN, August 14, 1937.

  15. DSBS, p. 9; NCDN, August 14, 1937.

  16. Prussia, assisted by a shifting alliance of smaller German-speaking powers, carried out three successful wars in the third quarter of the 19th century, against Den-mark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870–1871). Although the formation of the German Empire in 1871 was the result of complex and multi-faceted processes, it can be argued that the three conflicts had been instrumental in creating a sense of common purpose among the politically divided Germans. This at least was how, prior to 1945, many educated Germans looked at their own history.

  17. Lee, Bradford A. Britain and the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1939: A Study in the Dilemmas of British Decline. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1973, p. 35.

  18. Teitler et al., p. 92.

  19. Shi Shuo, p. 102.

  20. DSBS, p. 10

  21. Li Junsan, p. 69.

  22. Sun Yuanliang, p. 211. Sun misremembers the date of Huang’s death. See, Zhongguo dier lishi dang’an guan, vol. 1, p. 411.

  23. Yuan Ying et al., Koushu Songhu kangzhan [An Oral History of the Songhu Battle], vol. 1, Shanghai: Shanghai Songhu Kangzhan Jinianguan, 2007, p. 98.

  24. Xiao Yiping et al., vol. 2, p. 81.

  25. Zhang Zhizhong, p. 76.

  26. Chennault, p. 42.

  27. Fenby, p. 103.

  28. Feng Yuxiang. Wo suo renshi de Jiang Jieshi [The Chiang Kai-shek That I Knew]. Taipei: Jieyou chubanshe, 2007, p. 75.

  29. Ge Yunlong. “Feng Yuxiang churen disan zhanqu silingzhangguan jianwen” [“An account of Feng Yuxiang’s service as commander of the Third War Zone”], in BSK, p. 10.

  30. Yang Ji pp. 37–38.

  31. Feng Yuxiang, pp. 75–76.

  32. Spunt, p. 354.

  33. DSBS, p. 9; NCDN, August 14, 1937.

  34. Verhage, William. “The Bombing of Shanghai,” in Sigma Phi Epsilon Journal, vol. 35 (1937), no. 2, p. 110.

  35. Farmer, p. 42.

  36. Shi Shuo, p. 92.

  37. Japanese Monograph No. 166, p. 20.

  38. Oliver, Frank. Special Undeclared War. London: Jonathan Cape, 1939, p. 137.

  39. Rawlinson, p. 7.

  40. Farmer, pp. 45–46.

  41. Verhage, pp. 112–113. The description of the scene in Nanjing Road after the blasts is based on a number of sources, including Finch, Percy. Shanghai and Beyond. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953, pp. 255–256; Farmer pp. 44–49; Spunt pp. 357–360; and NCDN, August 15, 1937.

  42. Finch, pp. 255–256.

  43. Spunt, p. 360.

  44. Rapport sur la catastrophe, Annexe X4.

  45. Shanghai Sunday Times, August 15, 1937.

  46. Powell, p. 301.

  47. Rapport sur la catastrophe, p. 5.

  48. Powell, p. 301.

  49. Teitler, pp. 93–95. Dutch spy de Fremery later toured the site in front of the Great World. He had previously been involved in the development of ordinance, and wanted to know what could have caused so many people to die. The result of his investigation was that only a minority had fallen victim to the splinters, and that most had been killed by the gas pressure. He concluded, with cold professionalism, that “thin-walled bombs with as big as possible a payload are to be recommended.”

  50. Farmer, p. 47.

  51. Forman, p. 199.

  52. Verhage, p. 114; Reischauer, Edwin O. My Life between Japan and America. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1986, p. 62.

  53. Farmer, p. 48.

  54. Alcott, pp. 238–239.

  55. Rapport sur la catastrophe, p. 17.

  56. Chennault, pp. 34–35.

  57. Chennault, p. 44.

  58. Chennault, pp. 44–45.

  59. Chennault, pp. 45–46.

  60. Chennault, p. 45.

  61. Powell, pp. 300–301.

  62. Bruce, pp. 17–18.

  63. Powell, pp. 303–304; Teitler, p. 96.

  64. Morley, p. 454.

  65. Japanese Monograph No. 166, pp. 17–18.

  66. Peattie, Mark R. Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909–1941. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2002, pp. 106–107.

  67. The First Combined Air Group comprised the navy’s two first land-based bomber groups, the Kisarazu Air Group and the Kanoya Air Group.

  68. Peattie, pp. 104, 106.

  69. Some historians have argued that Japan studiously avoided referring to “the China incident” as a war, as that could have triggered an end to American supplies of vital materials under the U.S. Neutrality Act, which prohibited trade with belligerent nations. However, implementing the U.S. Neutrality Act would have hurt China considerably more than Japan. See, Barnhart, pp. 119–121.

  70. Bix, p. 323.

  71. Abend, p. 270.

  72. Yamamoto Masahiro. Nanjing: Anatomy of an Atrocity. Westport CT: Praeger, 2000, pp. 40–41.

  73. Yoshida Hiroshi. Tenno no guntai to Nankin jiken. Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1998, p. 71.

  74. Yamamoto, p. 69.

  CHAPTER THREE: FLESH AGAINST STEEL

  1. Quoted from Long, p. 36.

  2. Quoted from Long, p. 36.

  3. Farmer, pp. 56–57.

  4. Farmer, p. 59.

  5. Farmer, pp. 57–58; Long p. 32.

  6. NCDN, August 25, 1937.

  7. Guo Rugui et al. Zhongguo Kangri Zhanzheng zhengmian zhanchang zuozhan ji [The War of Resistance against Japan: An Account of Frontline Battles]. Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2005, p. 534.

  8. Japanese Monograph No. 166, p. 26.

  9. Riben haijun zai Zhongguo zuozhan [ The Japanese Navy’s War in China]. Tianjin: Tianjin shi zhengxia bianyi weiyuanhui, 1991, p. 205.

  10. Jiang Zhongzheng (Chiang Kai-shek) (ed.). Kangrizhanshi: Songhu huizhan [The History of the War of Resistance against Japan: The Songhu Battle]. Taipei: Guo-fangbu shizhengju, 1962, vol. 3, pp. 267–268.

  11. Jiang Zhongzheng (ed.), vol. 3, pp. 267–268. Zhang Boting, the chief of staff of the 88th Division, directly attributes the plan for the operation to the German advisor assigned to the division, but does not name him (Zhang Boting, pp. 135–136). However, Hsin Ta-mo identifies the German advisor assigned to the 88th Division during the battle of Shanghai as Colonel Hans Vetter (Hsin TaMo. A Review of German Military Advisors’ Work in China, paper delivered at Conference on Chiang Kai-shek and Modern China in Taipei, October 1986, pp. 16, 23).

  12. DSBS, p. 10.

  13. Zhang Fakui, p. 457.

  14. Jiang Zhongzheng, p. 268.

  15. Chen Yiding, p. 112.

  16. Jiang Zhongzheng (ed.), vol. 3, p. 268.

  17. DSBS, p. 10.

  18. DSBS, p. 10.

  19. Bruce, p. 15.

  20. Zhang Fakui, p. 462.

  21. Guo Rugui et al., pp. 535–536.

  22. Chen Yiding, p. 112.

  23. Zhang Fakui, p. 462.

  24. Yuan Ying et al., vol. 1, p. 123.

  25. Liang, 1978, p. 93.

  26. It was not unprecedente
d for Germans and Japanese to be facing each other in battle. The two nations clashed in a brief campaign over the port of Qingdao in northern China in 1914.

  27. Liang Hsi-huey. Foreign Tributes to Chiang Kai-shek: The Case of Alexander von Falkenhausen, paper delivered at Conference on Chiang Kai-shek and Modern China in Taipei, October 1986, p. 12.

  28. Abandoning the extraterritoriality meant, for example, that German citizens committing crimes inside the foreign areas of Shanghai could be put before a Chinese judge.

  29. Liang, 1986, p. 10.

  30. Kirby, William. Germany and Republican China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984, p. 151.

  31. Mohr, E.G. Sino-German Relations in the Period of Chiang Kai-shek, paper delivered at Conference on Chiang Kai-shek and Modern China in Taipei, October 1986, p. 12.

  32. 32. Martin, Bernd. “The Role of German Military Advisors on the Chinese Defense Efforts against the Japanese 1937–1938,” in Pong, David (ed.). Resisting Japan: Mobilizing for War in Modern China. Norwalk CT: EastBridge, 2008, p. 68.

  33. Mohr, p. 12.

  34. Mohr, p. 13.

  35. Liang, 1986, p.11.

  36. Liang, 1986, p. 10.

  37. Mohr, pp. 13–14.

  38. Mohr, p. 13.

  39. Mohr, p. 14.

  40. Zhang Fakui, p. 477. The dislike appears to have been mutual. The performance of Zhang’s units on the Pudong side is repeatedly criticized in DSBS, the after-action report written by German officers upon their return home.

  41. Liang, 1986, p. 9.

  42. Liang, 1986, p. 11.

  43. Liang, 1986, pp. 12–13.

  44. Liang, 1986, p. 12. Falkenhausen’s disappointment with the Chinese reluctance to enter Shanghai’s foreign areas shines through in the language of the report issued later for the German High Command.

  45. Mohr, p. 18.

  46. NCDN, August 19, 1937.

  47. NCDN, August 15, 1937.

  48. NCDN, August 24, 1937.

  49. Bruce, p. 12.

  50. Bruce, p. 13.

  51. “Weekly Intelligence Summary,” August 23, 1937. War Office 5595/9/10.

  52. Bruce, p. 14.

  53. NCDN, August 19, 1937.

  54. North China Herald, August 18, 1937.

  55. “Two Women Are Beheaded For Treason in Shanghai,” Associated Press, August 30, 1937.

  56. “Shanghai Mobs Kill Suspected Water Poisoners,” Associated Press, August 18, 1937.