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Short filmTranscript
00:00:00© BF-WATCH TV 2021
00:00:30© BF-WATCH TV 2021
00:00:35© BF-WATCH TV 2021
00:00:58This is the Battle of China.
00:01:01This, the great city of Shanghai on a September day in 1937.
00:01:09This, the fearful beginning of a new kind of war.
00:01:15This, the first mass bombing from the air of a helpless civilian population.
00:01:21Why?
00:01:23Why are these innocent Chinese men, women, children
00:01:26to die beneath the hail of Japanese bombs?
00:01:30To find the answer to this question,
00:01:32we must first understand something about China and Japan.
00:01:37And to understand China, three facts must never be forgotten.
00:01:42China, the great city of Shanghai on a September day in 1937.
00:01:47Three facts must never be forgotten.
00:01:50China is history.
00:01:55China is land.
00:02:00China is people.
00:02:04Chinese history goes back for more than 4,000 years.
00:02:08That's a long time.
00:02:11It was only 168 years ago that Washington crossed the Delaware.
00:02:17Only 452 years have passed since Columbus discovered America.
00:02:24It's 1,500 years since the world saw the fall of the ancient Roman Empire.
00:02:303,400 years have gone by since Moses received the Ten Commandments.
00:02:363,700 years have passed since the pyramids were built.
00:02:41But more than 4,000 years ago, the Chinese Empire was already in existence.
00:02:46And more important, so was the Chinese civilization,
00:02:49a civilization of art and learning and peace.
00:02:55Yes, China is history.
00:02:59And China is also land.
00:03:01More land than the entire continent of Europe.
00:03:04A third larger than the United States.
00:03:07And rich in raw material.
00:03:10This vast area consists of China proper and four outer provinces.
00:03:15To the north is Manchuria.
00:03:18Huge and desolate, but abounding in raw material.
00:03:24Next to Manchuria are Mongolia and Sinkiang.
00:03:29Here lies the Gobi Desert,
00:03:32a vast plateau twice the size of Texas,
00:03:35inhabited by nomad tribes.
00:03:37Inhabited by nomad tribes,
00:03:39who lead their camel caravans back and forth over ancient trade routes.
00:03:45To the west is Tibet.
00:03:48The icy roof of the world.
00:03:50Its borders encompassing the eastern end of the Himalayan mountains.
00:03:55The mystery land that few have entered.
00:04:00And from these vast mountains of the west rise the three great rivers,
00:04:04which are China's lifeblood.
00:04:06The northernmost of these is the Huanghou, the Yellow River,
00:04:10often known as China's sorrow because of its frequent flooding.
00:04:14Far to the south flows the Sinkiang, the Pearl River,
00:04:17which enters the sea past the great ports of Canton and Hong Kong.
00:04:22But the greatest river of all is the one that flows between,
00:04:25the Yangtze,
00:04:27winding for 3,000 miles through the heart of China,
00:04:31bringing fertility to the good earth
00:04:34and bearing upon its broad waters half the commerce of China.
00:04:38Yes, China is land,
00:04:40next to Russia, the largest country in the world.
00:04:44But most important, China is people,
00:04:48450 million of them.
00:05:04If the whole population of China were to walk past you,
00:05:07or abreast,
00:05:09there would never be an end to the procession,
00:05:11for new Chinese would be born and would grow up
00:05:14before the last man could pass by.
00:05:18Of every five persons on the face of the earth,
00:05:21one is a Chinese.
00:05:24And since one-fifth of all the human beings in the world are Chinese,
00:05:28we should know what sort of people they are.
00:05:30Well, in all their 4,000 years of continuous history,
00:05:33they have never waged a war of conquest.
00:05:36They're that sort of people.
00:05:39They developed the art of printing for movable type.
00:05:43They invented the mariner's compass,
00:05:45without which no ocean could be crossed.
00:05:48They were among the first astronomers,
00:05:50and their observations of the stars and planets
00:05:53made possible the accuracy of their observations.
00:05:56And their observations of the stars and planets
00:05:58made possible the accurate measuring and recording of time.
00:06:02They are that sort of people.
00:06:05And why do we call our dishes China?
00:06:07Because the Chinese invented the art of making porcelain.
00:06:11And, as we all know, they invented gunpowder,
00:06:14not as a weapon of war,
00:06:19but to celebrate their holidays and religious festivals.
00:06:23And it was one of China's great philosophers
00:06:26who, 500 years before the birth of Christ,
00:06:29gave mankind these words,
00:06:31what you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
00:06:36They are that sort of people,
00:06:38enriching the world in which we live.
00:06:41Yes, China is incredibly old,
00:06:44incredibly big, incredibly popular.
00:06:48Yet it was, until recently,
00:06:50a land with which few of us concerned ourselves.
00:06:53But now a great change has taken place.
00:07:00China is now our fighting ally,
00:07:02or, more accurately, we are China.
00:07:05But China has been fighting our enemy, Japan,
00:07:08for seven long years.
00:07:12Why is this?
00:07:14Why have the Chinese,
00:07:16when all their 4,000 years of history
00:07:18have never waged an aggressive war,
00:07:20been forced to fight,
00:07:22to fight and die by the millions?
00:07:25Because China is land,
00:07:274 million square miles of it.
00:07:30And because China is people,
00:07:32450 million of them.
00:07:35And because Japan had a plan to use them both.
00:07:39That plan was finally stated in the Tanaka Memorial,
00:07:43a blueprint for world conquest,
00:07:45formulated in 1927 by Baron Gishi Tanaka,
00:07:49the Japanese foreign minister.
00:07:52In order to conquer the world,
00:07:54we must first conquer China.
00:07:56Here was their mad dream.
00:07:58Phase one, the conquest of Manchuria for raw material.
00:08:02Phase two, the absorption of China for manpower,
00:08:05piece by piece,
00:08:07so as not to arouse the rest of the world.
00:08:10Phase three, a triumphant sweep to the south
00:08:13to seize the riches of the Indies.
00:08:16Phase four, the eastward move to crush the United States.
00:08:21One fact was obvious.
00:08:24China was to be the giant back
00:08:26on which Japan would ride to world conquest,
00:08:29just as Russia was to be enslaved for German use.
00:08:33But how was it possible for Japan,
00:08:36only 1 20th the size of China,
00:08:39and with only 1 6th its population,
00:08:42to think of conquering China, much less the world?
00:08:46There were two main reasons for this.
00:08:49In the first place, modern China,
00:08:51in spite of its age-old history,
00:08:53was like the broken pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,
00:08:56each piece controlled by a different ruler,
00:08:59each with his own private army.
00:09:01In modern terms, China was a country,
00:09:04but not yet a nation,
00:09:06while Japan was a united, well-knit,
00:09:10military dictatorship.
00:09:12The second reason lies in the uses
00:09:15each country made of our Western civilization.
00:09:18Let's see what China took.
00:09:21You will notice that this is a very old piece of film.
00:09:25Actually, it is more than 30 years old,
00:09:28and it shows a very great man by the name of Sun Yat-sen.
00:09:32In 1911, this man fathered a people's revolution,
00:09:36which brought to an end China's ancient imperial government
00:09:40and began its new era as a modern republic.
00:09:43Winning for himself in Chinese history
00:09:46is secure a place as George Washington has in ours.
00:09:49And he and his followers chose for the cornerstone
00:09:52of their new republic Chinese words
00:09:55that echoed those of another believer in democracy.
00:09:58Government of the people, by the people, for the people.
00:10:03And to make these principles become reality,
00:10:06they built more schools and colleges.
00:10:09They established scholarships so that their young men and women
00:10:13could go forth to the universities of America and Europe
00:10:16and bring back to their own country other Western ideas.
00:10:20And this new generation returned to China
00:10:24with new techniques of industry,
00:10:27architecture, science, medicine,
00:10:32They built more hospitals to free their people
00:10:35from the blight of disease.
00:10:37They introduced compulsory education.
00:10:40They laid down as essential two of the four freedoms
00:10:44for which we fight today,
00:10:46freedom of expression and freedom of religion.
00:10:51In 1925, Sun Yat-sen died,
00:10:54but his disciples, led by Chiang Kai-shek,
00:10:57carried on his monumental work.
00:11:00Their aim, the unification and modernization of China.
00:11:05Chinese industry was old-fashioned and inefficient.
00:11:08Transportation was slow and inadequate.
00:11:11But now railroads began to link the great seaports
00:11:14and river harbors with the inland city.
00:11:17A network of highways began to stretch beyond the railroad line
00:11:21into the deep interior.
00:11:24After leaving them untouched for centuries,
00:11:26China was beginning to use her vast store of raw material.
00:11:37And soon the tools and machines of the new factories
00:11:41were delivering the goods and products for China's new economy.
00:11:45For the Chinese believed in using the best of Western civilization
00:11:49for the progress of their country.
00:11:52And while they were building this new nation,
00:11:55just a day and a half by steamer across the Yellow Sea lay Japan.
00:12:03Here the God Emperor and his fanatic warlords
00:12:06were using this same Western civilization
00:12:09for one purpose and only one,
00:12:11to create one of the world's most powerful war machines.
00:12:15Their aim, the absorption of China
00:12:19and the fulfillment of the Tanaka Memorial.
00:12:25The Tanaka Memorial
00:12:35For years Japan had deliberately copied military weapons
00:12:38and industrial techniques discovered in other countries.
00:12:42For years Japan, under the pretext of lacking raw materials for industry,
00:12:47had been buying in every corner of the world
00:12:50materials not only to build this war machine,
00:12:53but materials which could be stored to feed it
00:12:56in the war of conquest they were planning.
00:12:59For years, while other nations were trying to outlaw war
00:13:03by reducing armaments,
00:13:05Japan was feverishly and secretly building a modern army,
00:13:09a modern navy, a modern air force,
00:13:13to strike its infamous blow at the civilized world.
00:13:17And we all now know about the islands in the Pacific
00:13:21that Japan fortified in violation of all international treaties.
00:13:25These were the reasons why it was possible for Japan,
00:13:29only one twentieth the size of China
00:13:32and only one sixth the population of China,
00:13:35to think of conquering China as the first step to world conquest.
00:13:40And as you have seen, in 1931 they embarked on phase one,
00:13:45the occupation of Manchuria.
00:13:49The small bonfire that the Japanese lit in Manchuria
00:13:53was to grow and spread with uncontrollable fury
00:13:56until the entire world was aflame.
00:14:09Phase one of the Tanaka plan was completed,
00:14:12and exactly as planned.
00:14:14The Japs had been confident that this first and sudden land grab
00:14:18could be accomplished without their becoming involved in a major war.
00:14:22And they were right.
00:14:24The unification of China was still too remote for the Chinese of the south
00:14:28to care what happened to their kinsmen in the north.
00:14:32Using the step-by-step technique,
00:14:35a few months later the Japs took a crack at Shanghai.
00:14:39The Chinese resistance was so great they hastily called that deal off,
00:14:44waited another year, and then struck in the north again,
00:14:48carving the province of Yehou out of China proper.
00:14:51This too they got away with.
00:14:54The world criticized, the Chinese protested,
00:14:59but still the Japs got what they wanted,
00:15:02another piece of China.
00:15:05And without a war on their hands.
00:15:08And to rule over Manchuria and Yehou,
00:15:11the Japs then set up a puppet government under their stooge,
00:15:14Henry Puyi, the Chinese Quizzling Prince.
00:15:18But the leaders of new China remembered that in other centuries
00:15:22other barbarians had invaded their country.
00:15:25The evidence still stood in the Great Wall,
00:15:28built by their ancestors more than 2,000 years earlier.
00:15:32And stretching for 1,400 miles across mountain and desert
00:15:36to protect themselves from the barbarians of the north.
00:15:44Of the Great Wall it has been said that it is the only work of man
00:15:48which would be visible from the moon.
00:15:51But the Chinese knew that modern barbarians can't be stopped by a wall,
00:15:55however strong or high.
00:15:58They can't even be stopped by people,
00:16:01unless the people are united.
00:16:08And by 1937, the unification of China was making such progress
00:16:12the Japs got worried.
00:16:15The one weapon they could not permit China was unity.
00:16:19They would strike again before China could become a nation.
00:16:23This time it would be a big fight.
00:16:26Five more northern provinces out of the heart of China.
00:16:30At the United States Embassy in China,
00:16:33as military attache for a number of years,
00:16:36was Colonel William Mayer.
00:16:39Let him tell you what happened.
00:16:42First thing the Japs did was prepare their usual fake alibis.
00:16:45This time it wasn't a damaged railway track,
00:16:48as it had been in Manchuria in 1931.
00:16:51A Jap soldier had disappeared,
00:16:55Once more Japan's honor had been insulted.
00:16:58Once more the insult must be avenged.
00:17:01So, on the night of July 7th, 1937,
00:17:04at the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking,
00:17:07the Jap war machine struck.
00:17:17Within the space of a few weeks,
00:17:20the invaders were in control of Tien Sin and Bei Ping.
00:17:23It looked as if the Japs were going to have another walkover.
00:17:31Now the Japs sat back to digest and organize this new conquest.
00:17:35The peace-loving Japanese didn't want a war
00:17:38if they could get their land grabs without one.
00:17:41But this time they were in for a rude surprise.
00:17:48This time, instead of protesting or negotiating,
00:17:51the Chinese struck back.
00:17:56And not in the north, but at Shanghai,
00:17:59where the Japs least expected it.
00:18:09To understand the fighting that followed,
00:18:12we must know something about the city of Shanghai itself.
00:18:15Situated near the mouth of the Yangtze River,
00:18:18it is the biggest city in China.
00:18:21As the largest seaport in the Far East,
00:18:24it dominated the commerce and foreign trade of China.
00:18:27And through its great docks and channels
00:18:30passed most of the wealth of the Orient.
00:18:33In Shanghai, truly the East met the West.
00:18:43And within this city of three and a half million Chinese
00:18:47was another city, the foreign settlement,
00:18:50made up of the French concession
00:18:53and the well-known international settlement.
00:18:56There the various powers, including Great Britain,
00:18:59the United States, and Japan,
00:19:02had stationed detachments of troops,
00:19:05Japanese, British, French,
00:19:09and our own United States Marines,
00:19:12to assist the police of the Shanghai Municipal Council
00:19:15in the preservation of peace and order
00:19:18and to protect the boundaries of the international settlement.
00:19:21These detachments were limited in size,
00:19:24but the Japs secretly and in violation of all treaty agreements
00:19:27had increased their garrisons
00:19:30so that when fighting started on the border of their concession
00:19:33in August of 1937,
00:19:36they thought they were fully prepared for any eventuality.
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00:19:57The force of the Chinese counterattack
00:20:00almost drove the Japs into the Wangpu River.
00:20:03Backed up by the heavy guns of their warships, however,
00:20:06the Japs managed to hold out until reinforcements arrived.
00:20:09Jap landings were then made in the vicinity of the Wusong Fort
00:20:13and in Luhou and Lotian on the Yangtze River,
00:20:16north of Shanghai.
00:20:19The Chinese drew back to positions five or ten miles inland
00:20:22where they could secure some protection
00:20:25from the heavy Jap naval gunfire.
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00:20:43At the same time, the invaders succeeded in making a surprise landing
00:20:46some 20 miles to the south of Shanghai,
00:20:49put two divisions ashore,
00:20:52and pushed rapidly north to outflank the city.
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00:21:04The Chinese position was thus made untenable
00:21:07and a withdrawal was ordered to the west and to the south
00:21:11toward Nanking and Hangzhou.
00:21:14But only about half of the Chinese army that had fought in Shanghai
00:21:17was left to withdraw.
00:21:20Meanwhile, enraged at the very idea
00:21:23of anyone resisting the imperial Japanese might,
00:21:26the Japs took their vengeance upon the civilian population of the city,
00:21:30a city without guns or planes to defend itself,
00:21:34and deliberately slaughtered thousands from the air.
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00:22:00For some, there was refuge inside the international settlement, where Japan and the United States
00:22:29were at war.
00:22:30Japan was afraid to bomb the property and people of the foreign powers, just yet.
00:22:44But there was not room for all.
00:22:53For each who found safety inside, there were thousands huddled beyond the gates, standing
00:22:59helpless and undefended against the Jap attacks.
00:23:02There was no escape for these surging and panic-stricken people.
00:23:07They could only scurry through the narrow streets, pushing and packing themselves into
00:23:13the center of the city, to be trapped and buried alive in the collapse of bombed and
00:23:49Thus, the Japanese introduced the world to a new kind of war.
00:24:19A war of deliberate terrorization, of deliberate mass murder, of deliberate frightfulness.
00:24:43When the campaign was over, the Japs occupied the entire peninsula east of Shanghai.
00:24:48Reorganizing rapidly, they then launched a coordinated drive on Nanking.
00:24:53One column pushed along the railroad, while another swung further to the south.
00:24:58This column then split and continued its drive, hoping to cut off any possible retreat of
00:25:03the Chinese army defending Nanking.
00:25:07It was here, in the Yangtze, that the blood-crazed Japs attacked an American gunboat.
00:25:13The USS Kanai, despite its distinctive markings.
00:25:26The ship was bombed and sunk with the loss of American lives.
00:25:31The first American warship to go to the bottom in this war.
00:25:35But officially, at least, this was a mistake, and the Japanese government apologized.
00:25:40In the meantime, at Nanking, the Chinese army valiantly defended their city, which was the
00:25:46capital of the Chinese Republic.
00:26:41But again, Japanese power was too great, and after a battle lasting but a few days, the
00:26:54city fell to the invaders.
00:26:57In their occupation of Nanking, the Japs again outdid themselves in barbarism.
00:27:15The helpless populace was trapped by the city walls, and could not flee.
00:27:22The Japanese soldiers went berserk.
00:27:24They raped and tortured.
00:27:27They killed and butchered.
00:27:42In one of the bloodiest massacres of recorded history, they murdered 40,000 men, women,
00:27:49children.
00:27:50But those who lived might better have died than those who lived.
00:28:19For the horror of their twisted and torn bodies was worse than death.
00:28:26These scenes were photographed by an American missionary and smuggled out of China after the
00:28:31rape of Nanking.
00:28:41This nightmare of cruelty was all the more horrible, because it was deliberately planned by
00:28:46the Japanese high command to tear the heart out of the Chinese people once and forever.
00:29:02And then it happened.
00:29:04That which Sun Yat-sen had dreamed of, that which Chiang Kai-shek had toiled for, that
00:29:11which is stronger than stone walls, and at last the will to resist.
00:29:35In their last bloody blow, the Japanese had accomplished what 4,000 years had failed to
00:29:39bring into being, a united China, an aroused China.
00:30:10But the Chinese knew that the will to resist was not by itself enough.
00:30:24They knew that China must develop the power to resist also.
00:30:28And this cannot be created in an instant.
00:30:31So they too made a plan.
00:30:33And it was this.
00:30:34They would slowly yield territory, piece by piece, while they developed the power and
00:30:40built the weapons to rid the land of its invaders.
00:30:44The industrial strength of China must be moved to the west, beyond the mountains, beyond
00:30:49the railroad lines, beyond the lines of communication.
00:30:54There, safe from enemy attacks, they might produce the rifles and guns that China so
00:30:59tragically needed.
00:31:01Thus, China would trade space for time.
00:31:06Space for time.
00:31:08Blow up the roads.
00:31:15Space for time.
00:31:17Scorch the earth.
00:31:25Space for time.
00:31:26Blow up the factory buildings.
00:31:32Leave nothing for the invaders.
00:31:38And then the people rose and moved, riding, walking, crawling.
00:31:58Thirty million of them, spontaneously driven by an epic impulse, rose and made their way
00:32:03westward.
00:32:07The earth teeming with them, moving westward on a trek that stretched through 2,000 miles
00:32:12of roadless wilderness.
00:32:14Thus the world witnessed one of the most amazing spectacles in human history, the greatest
00:32:20mass migration ever recorded.
00:32:24Whatever could be of use and could be moved, the Chinese took with them on a Homeric journey.
00:32:31Their libraries, their schools, their hospitals, all dismantled and carted away.
00:32:39The machinery from over 1,000 factories, weighing over 300 million pounds, was moved away in
00:32:46trucks and oxcarts and on their backs.
00:32:512,000 miles away.
00:32:532,000 miles westward.
00:32:56Wherever they could, they gathered along the few remaining railroads, waiting, hoping for
00:33:01some chance to ride part of the way toward their westward goal.
00:33:06And when they had packed the last train with the last ounce of humanity and machinery,
00:33:11the tracks themselves were taken up, rail by rail, tie by tie, to be transported westward,
00:33:19to leave nothing for the enemy.
00:33:39Every river pointing westward was heavy laden.
00:33:43Every sandpan, every barge was pressed into service, weighted down to the water's edge
00:33:48with the precious tools for new China.
00:33:59Nothing could stop them, not even the rivers that narrowed into mountain gorges, westward
00:34:05with their loads of machinery more precious than gold.
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00:42:03New soldiers, awkward and unskilled, like all new soldiers.
00:42:08But they toughened and trained.
00:42:26They learned the discipline and order of drill.
00:42:29They knew they must strike and strike hard.
00:42:34They learned to kill.
00:42:38The youth of China also came forward, training to care for the sick and the wounded.
00:42:45Girls joined their husbands, brothers, and sweethearts in uniform.
00:42:49Sam, help!
00:42:52And to the aid of China came volunteers from other lands,
00:42:56men who pledged themselves to fight against tyranny and oppression no matter where.
00:43:02Americans, like the legendary Colonel Chennault and his flying tigers,
00:43:07who, with their few American planes,
00:43:09were knocking down enemy planes with a fantastic ratio of 20 nips to one of their own.
00:43:15The Japs that hoped to ride to world conquest on the back of the giant Chinese workhorse
00:43:19faced two of the Tanaka clan called for breaking the horse to their will.
00:43:24But the great patient horse refused to be broken.
00:43:30The enraged Japs saw their whole plan of conquest bogging down.
00:43:35So they set out to drain the giant's strength by cutting the arteries through which flows the blood.
00:43:41They penetrated along the river.
00:43:43Railroads destroyed by the Chinese were rebuilt with slave labor
00:43:47as the Japanese moved inland to secure control of key rail lines and important communications.
00:43:54And China's supply lines from the outside world were cut off by Jap warships blockading the coast.
00:44:01The Japanese strategy was the isolation of China.
00:44:04This meant China was being cut off from supplies she couldn't manufacture for herself.
00:44:09Supplies she was getting from her Western friends.
00:44:12Without oil, gas, guns, and planes, China was doomed.
00:44:18With the whole of the Chinese coast in the hands of the Japs,
00:44:21there would only be two ways for China to survive.
00:44:25The first was to take over the Chinese territory.
00:44:28China was doomed.
00:44:30With the whole of the Chinese coast in the hands of the Japs,
00:44:33there would only be two routes over which to bring the vitally necessary material.
00:44:38From Indochina, a narrow-gauge railway ran inland from the sea to Kunming,
00:44:43connecting with a truck road that went to Chongqing.
00:44:46But its capacity was limited.
00:44:49And then there was the old trail of the camel caravans from Russia across the Gobi Desert,
00:44:53which could bring in even less.
00:44:55Not only did these routes provide too little for China's needs,
00:44:59but they were too near Jap territory to be safe.
00:45:02There was only one other possibility.
00:45:04In Burma was a railroad that ran from the port of Rangoon to Lashio.
00:45:09Separating it from the truck road at Kunming
00:45:12were hundreds of miles of high mountains and deep river gorges.
00:45:17If this stretch of tortuous mountain trails could be replaced by a modern highway,
00:45:22where now only packed trains could pick their plodding way,
00:45:25China would have a practical supply route to Burma from the sea.
00:45:31Several internationally known firms of engineers were called in to do the job.
00:45:36They said the work might be completed in six or seven years
00:45:40if China could supply them with the most modern machinery.
00:45:43But China didn't have the modern machinery,
00:45:46nor did she have the six or seven years.
00:45:49So she began building the road with her bare hands.
00:46:12By thousands, by tens of thousands, by hundreds of thousands,
00:46:17they toiled at the back-breaking task
00:46:19of carving this desperately needed supply line out of the reluctant mountains.
00:46:47And out of their toil and their sweat, they created the Burma Road.
00:46:59Not in six or seven years, but in less than 12 months.
00:47:03A monument to the new spirit of the new China.
00:47:07As soon as it was completed, the road went into immediate service.
00:47:18By thousands, the truck shuttled back and forth between its terminals,
00:47:24climbing to nearly 10,000 feet,
00:47:27around hairpin curves,
00:47:30along the edges of sheer precipices,
00:47:33where passing trucks had barely one foot of clearance.
00:47:39The blood plasma of new supplies flowed steadily over China's lifeline to the sea,
00:47:45protected by Colonel Chennault's incredible Flying Tigers.
00:47:49But Chinese sacrifice cannot be measured only in miracles of construction.
00:47:54It must be counted, too, in the tragedy of destruction.
00:47:58For while still the Burma Road was being built,
00:48:01the invading Jap armies had fanned out
00:48:04and straddled fully two-thirds of the railroad lines of the country.
00:48:08In the summer of 1938, they set out to capture the remaining one-third,
00:48:13starting with the vital railroad junction at Chengqiao.
00:48:17Chengqiao is situated on the banks of the Yellow River, China's sorrow.
00:48:22Originally, the river flowed from Chengqiao southeastward to the Yellow Sea.
00:48:27But nearly a century ago, a great flood abruptly changed its course,
00:48:32swinging it far to the north.
00:48:35For generation upon generation, as the spring floods rushed down to the sea,
00:48:40thousands of Chinese worked on the dikes to hold the river in its new course,
00:48:45protecting their homes and their crops.
00:48:52Now, as the Japs advanced on Chengqiao,
00:48:55the Chinese blew up the southern dike of the Yellow River,
00:49:01thus loosing a flood between themselves and the Japs.
00:49:11Once more, the river flowed in its old course,
00:49:14forming a barrier which, to this day,
00:49:17has prevented the Jap from entrenching himself in this area.
00:49:24Thus, once more, with no thought of the human sacrifice and the material cost,
00:49:30the Chinese traded space for time.
00:49:35And the Chinese had still other tricks to pull from their patched and faded sleeves.
00:49:40You will notice that this map of Jap conquest
00:49:43doesn't look like the military maps you have seen in the previous film.
00:49:47By all military standards, it should have looked like this,
00:49:50which is the way the Japs wanted it to look.
00:49:53But the Japanese were learning that the occupation of Chinese cities
00:49:58and control of Chinese rivers and railroads
00:50:01still was far from meaning the subjugation of China.
00:50:05So the Chinese had formed themselves into guerrilla bands,
00:50:08trained to harass the Jap forces.
00:50:11These guerrillas were mostly farmers who had stayed behind on the land
00:50:15when the great migration to the west took place.
00:50:18Peaceful farmers one day, deadly fighters the next.
00:50:22They made an unpredictable and uncontrollable enemy.
00:50:27The Japs held the lines of communication, but in the pockets thus formed,
00:50:32these unconquerable guerrillas constantly changed the course of war.
00:50:39The Japanese were trying to keep up with the Japanese.
00:50:43The Japanese were trying to keep up with the Japanese.
00:50:47The Japanese were trying to keep up with the Japanese.
00:50:51but in the pockets thus formed, these unconquerable gorillas constantly sniped at the Jap invaders.
00:50:59When the Japs tried to annihilate them, they disappeared, only to reappear in another pocket.
00:51:21Attacking with speed and surprise, they ambushed enemy patrols.
00:51:41The Japanese were fighting more than the Chinese people. They were fighting the Chinese land,
00:51:48the great distances, the rivers, the floods, the swamps and marshes.
00:51:54These too were enemies that defied the Jap war machine.
00:51:58The giant back Japan intended to ride to world conquest was proving to be a bucking bronco.
00:52:05Phase two of the Tanaka plan had bogged down in what the Japs still referred to as the China
00:52:11incident. This left them in a fateful quandary. Phase two of the Tanaka plan was still incomplete,
00:52:19but phase three and phase four could no longer be delayed. In Russia, the overwhelming German
00:52:26offensive was taxing Russia's military capacity to the limit, removing any Japanese fear of Russian
00:52:32interference. Britain, after the sledgehammer blows of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain,
00:52:38was left groggy and militarily almost exhausted. Her navy scattered across the sea, guarding her
00:52:46lifeline of supplies. But here in America, we were finally awakening to our danger
00:52:52and taking steps to protect ourselves. We had appropriated funds for the construction
00:52:57of a two-ocean navy, and our army was rapidly expanding.
00:53:02If the ultimate objectives of the Tanaka plan were to be achieved, now was the moment to strike,
00:53:10now when Russia was otherwise occupied, now before Britain could recuperate,
00:53:16now before we could gather too much strength. So the Japs made a fateful decision. They would
00:53:23embark on phase three and phase four, the conquest of the Indies in the United States, without waiting
00:53:30to complete phase two, the conquest of China, thus to paralyze American power in the Pacific.
00:53:38Without warning, as they have always struck, they struck again.
00:53:53According to all the rules, China's position should now be greatly improved.
00:53:58For interwar with Japan, China now had fighting allies,
00:54:02ourselves, the British, the Dutch. But it didn't work that way for China.
00:54:10For in those tragic early months of 1942,
00:54:13when we sustained defeat after defeat at the hands of our common enemy,
00:54:18China endured the worst setback of all. Out of our defeats, China lost the Burma Road.
00:54:36But still, China's courage never faltered. Her determination never weakened.
00:54:41And in the history of those long and tragic months of black defeat in 1942,
00:54:47one bright page stands forth, a page written by our Chinese allies.
00:54:53Here is the city of Changsha. The Japs wanted it for two reasons. It was in the center of the
00:55:00Chinese rice bowl, and it was also an important railway junction. Twice before they had tried
00:55:06to take it, and twice before they had been thrown back. Massing a large striking force near Youzhou
00:55:13on Christmas Eve 1941, the Japs started southward toward Changsha in three columns.
00:55:19At three points during the drive south, the Chinese forces put up token resistance.
00:55:25But instead of withdrawing toward Changsha, they withdrew east into the mountainous flank.
00:55:31By New Year's Eve, the Japs had surrounded the city. They quickly pierced the outer defenses
00:55:36and attacked the inner defenses from four directions. In spite of fierce resistance,
00:55:41the Japs were certain that the fall of Changsha was only a matter of hours.
00:55:45What they didn't know was that they had walked into a well-baited trap,
00:55:49for the Chinese forces, which had withdrawn into the hills, now swept down on the Japs' supply line
00:55:56and cut them to ribbons. The Jap forces attacking the city soon ran out of food and ammunition
00:56:03and began a withdrawal, whereupon the Chinese launched a counteroffensive
00:56:08and pushed the Japanese back where they had come from.
00:56:16The Jap column was forced to run the gauntlet,
00:56:18continuous attack by the pursuing Chinese forces.
00:56:38The battle of Changsha was a magnificent victory for the people of China,
00:56:55the people who wouldn't surrender, the people determined to fight for their freedom,
00:57:00their good earth, the people who can't be beaten.
00:57:04And as 1944 dawns, there is another and greater story being written.
00:57:14From the Aleutians to the South Pacific, we are on the offensive.
00:57:20In the jungles of New Guinea, in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands,
00:57:24on the shores of New Britain, on the broad Pacific waters,
00:57:29Japan faces the daily expanding power of the nations she attacked.
00:57:45And in India, Americans, British and Chinese forces are gathering strength under Lord
00:57:58Mountbatten for the liberation of China. For China's war is our war, and now her
00:58:04millions belong not only to united China, but also to the United Nations.
00:58:10Leader of our American forces is General Stillwell, who has the unique honor of being
00:58:14the chief of staff of all the Chinese expeditionary army. Division after division
00:58:20of thick Chinese troops are being flown in our planes from China to India,
00:58:25where they are armed and equipped with the most modern American weapons.
00:58:31Trained and hardened to spearhead the coming drive against Japan.
00:58:35Through enemy held territory in northern Burma, the new Lido Road is being pushed
00:58:41over mountains through jungle and swamp from India to China to connect with the old Burma Road.
00:58:51In the jungle on either side, American and Chinese patrols
00:58:54protect the road and strike at the jack.
00:59:01Their supplies and ammunition brought in by plane and parachute.
00:59:11From fields in India, an air transport command plane takes off every six minutes,
00:59:17loaded with artillery, jeeps, ammunition, men and supplies for the armies of China.
00:59:26Over this Burma skyway, over this hump of mountains 16,000 feet high,
00:59:32more tonnage is being flown into China than was ever trucked in over the old Burma Road.
00:59:38And in the skies over China, Japan faces new opposition.
00:59:46Young Chinese, many of them trained on the fields of Arizona, New Mexico, California,
00:59:54fly and fight beside their American comrades.
00:59:57The fighters and bombers of the Chinese Air Force and those of General Chenault's 14th Air Force
01:00:03today fly far and wide over China,
01:00:11hitting enemy concentrations, smashing their sea lanes along the China coast.
01:00:27The same people that moved a nation 2,000 miles,
01:00:30that built the Burma Road, are building airfields out of stone, mud, and patient, tireless hands.
01:00:52Today, though still cut off by land and sea from the rest of the world,
01:00:57Chinese armies and Chinese guerrillas still stand firm against the Jap war machine.
01:01:10The oldest and the youngest of the world's great nations, together with the British Commonwealth,
01:01:15fight side by side in the struggle that is as old as China herself,
01:01:20the struggle of freedom against slavery, civilization against barbarism.
01:01:26Good against evil. Upon their victory depends the future of mankind.
01:01:33We in China, like you, want a better world, not for ourselves alone, but for all mankind.
01:01:43And we must have it.