Where Did WW2 Really Begin?

When did World War II begin? That should be an easy question to answer. Americans would say December 7th, 1941, the day the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. For Europeans, it was September 1st, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. But in China, people will give you a different date, August 13th, 1937. That day, after a century of humiliation and six years of repeated incidents initiated by the Japanese military, China at last stood up. This act of defiance took place in Shanghai, the most international city in Asia. It was front page news around the world. Today, the story is largely forgotten, except in China. The Battle of Shanghai has been described as the last battle of World War I and the first battle of World War II. It was a warning to the world, a warning that was ignored, and the place where the destiny of modern China was set in motion as well. Still at its heart, this is a story of shattered lives and enduring dreams. For four long years, the people of China would stand alone against Japanese militarism. Everyone knows when World War II ended, but it all began in Shanghai, 1937. Shanghai is one of the most modern cities in the world, a global center of finance and trade. But there was another side to Shanghai, a place of neighborhoods and families, small businesses and street life. These communities date back decades. In fact, if you look carefully, the buildings themselves sometimes tell the story of a time when Shanghai was a very different place. Shanghai in the 1930s was the best known city in Asia, a city celebrated around the world. The Shanghai of the 1930s was a city living in the past, present and future. It was a Paris of the East to some, a place of unspeakable poverty to others. They were really able to live lives of luxury that they could never have afforded back home. Try and imagine a modern Western city dropped down into the middle of China. While Shanghai's residents were overwhelmingly Chinese, foreigners largely controlled the city's economy. The British, the Americans, the French, the Japanese, all of whom used the threat of military force to maintain their privileged positions. Foreigners controlled the very heart of Shanghai, areas called the French Concession and the International Settlement. Built along the banks of the Longpu River, a group of Art Deco buildings, collectively known as the Bund, represented the power and wealth of the city, just as they still do today. One section of central Shanghai was known as Little Tokyo, given the large number of Japanese residents and businesses. That included large textile mills that employed hundreds of Chinese workers. The Imperial Japanese Navy also had a significant presence, ostensibly to defend Japanese civilians and economic interests. Vast fortunes were made in Shanghai, but little of that wealth found its way to typical Chinese families, something those who grew up there remember vividly. They collect all the dead bodies from the poor people because very cold and they were died because it was too cold. They collect them. Every day, six o'clock in the morning, I saw it with my own eyes. And I saw it also with my own eyes that quite a lot, not very few people on the street try to sell their children. And just write a note, who can help my kids? Who wants my kids? Foreign children didn't fully understand the circumstances in which they lived. They just knew it was amazing. Patricia Silver is the daughter of a prominent American physician. It was a great life. It really was. I mean, talk about being spoiled. Oh, we were spoiled rotten in every way you could think of. Lots of wonderful restaurants, all sorts of things to do. It's always something interesting going on. I mean, the British had flower shows and their exhibits of various kinds. And we children, I had an older sister who was two and a half years old and we got dragged to everything. Polo matches in the summer and racing and you name it, we did it. It was wonderful. Lillian Willans and her family were part of a community of stateless Russian Jews, welcome to live in Shanghai, but unable to leave. She and her parents lived in the French Concession, an area that decades later still has a special, even romantic quality. Well, the French Concession was the residential section of Shanghai. And it was very much like a French little small city out there. The stores were actually Russian owned stores. People spoke Russian in the streets, or you spoke English. And the Chinese spoke to us in pidgin English. The language in Shanghai was British English. As I always mentioned that language always follows trade. The French Sport Club was at the center of the social scene in 1930s Shanghai. Members and guests live the good life as did most expats, but all that would soon change. Japan over the course of six decades had begun to reinvent itself as a modern technological society. The Japanese wondered why China hadn't done the same. They concluded China needed a tutor. Japan. Starting in 1931, Japanese military forces began to systematically occupy an ever-growing portion of northern China. The Imperial Japanese Army set up a series of what the Chinese call puppet governments, seemingly run by locals, but in fact controlled by the Japanese military. In 1932, the Imperial Japanese Navy established an ongoing military presence in Shanghai. Thousands of naval infantrymen would be permanently stationed there. Largely ill-prepared and plagued by political and personal rivalries, there was little that the Chinese government led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek from the eastern city of Nanjing could do. The central government in Tokyo could not control what the Imperial Japanese Army did in China. 1889 Meiji Constitution specified that the emperor was the commander of the army and navy and Japanese constitutional scholars interpreted this to mean that the military was free to assist the emperor in making military decisions. That freed them from any civilian control and gave them the right to bypass any civilian cabinet up to and including the prime minister. Chiang Kai-shek led the KMT, or Chinese Nationalist Party. The KMT controlled China's central government. Mao Zedong led the Communist Party of China. These two rival forces had formed a united front, laying the foundation for China's national resistance to Japan's military occupation. One reason he goes for Shanghai rather than North China, because the focus of Japanese effort is in North China. They don't have any business. They really don't want to be fighting in Shanghai. It doesn't fit their strategy. Japan is mostly worried about the Soviet Union. After the Marco Polo Bridge incident, they sent troops west, far west, to Thailand and so on, trying to encircle the Soviet forces in Manchuria and create threats that way. So the weight of the Japanese effort is in North China. That means that in Shanghai there's going to be less resistance. There was another reason why Chiang Kai-shek wanted to confront the Japanese military in Shanghai. There was the presence of newspaper and radio correspondence from around the world. This meant that it would take place in front of a global audience who would see that Chinese soldiers could and would fight. By early August 1937, thousands of Chinese troops were preparing to travel to Shanghai. Well-trained and well-equipped, they were the cream of the Nationalist Army. The helmets and uniforms of the best Nationalist units looked remarkably like those of the German Army. That's because they were trained by German military advisors. Much of the modern equipment used in China's munition factories came from Germany, too. Tens of thousands of Chinese refugees tried to flee to the presumed safety of the British administered section of the international settlement and to the French concession. But there wasn't room for everyone. On August 9, 1937, the car of a Japanese naval officer was riddled with bullets, killing the officer and his driver. Soon, Japanese naval infantry began to reinforce their strong points and field positions in Shanghai. Events reenacted in a Japanese propaganda film produced by the famous Toho Motion Picture Studio. On Friday, August 13, skirmishes broke out between Chinese and Japanese forces. General Zhang Zhejiang was a senior commander of the Chinese forces in Shanghai. or even a clear idea of what they had started when they used military force in northern China. There was no plan for a protracted war with China. China for the Japanese military in 1937 was an afterthought. It was a strategic rear area. They knew they'd have to do something about it if they went after the Soviets in Manchuria. But insofar as detailed plans, especially for Shanghai, there really weren't any. In the West, the date Friday the 13th is said to attract bad luck. It certainly did on Friday, August 13, 1937. Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians, all from HistoryHit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Download the app now to explore everything, from the wonders of ancient Pompeii and the mystery of the Princes in the Tower, to the life of Anne Boleyn and D-Day. Sign up via the link in the description. The ensuing combat was bloodier and deadlier than either side ever imagined. In the first few hours, some of China's finest troops were cut down by Japanese machine gun and artillery fire. It was a story that would be repeated again and again in the Battle of Shanghai. Chinese flesh fighting Japanese steel. General Zhang Zhejiang later explained, our initial plans were to take advantage of the Japanese weak points and advance, not to conquer strong points. But the enemy blocked every street, and they were using armored cars as mobile strong points. So, in the end, we had to attack every target. Japanese naval vessels were soon shelling Shanghai's Chinese neighborhoods, especially an area then called Chapei, with little regard for civilian casualties. To young Lillian Willans, it was a terrible surprise. We were playing, and suddenly we realized we heard the bombing going on. And, of course, after school, we heard what was happening. And I don't think we took it seriously. But later on, I heard about the bombing, and we climbed to the 10th floor of our buildings, because nothing was higher than 10th floor. We could see the smoke from Chapei. And it became just like a party for many of the people around there, watching the fight, the smoke coming from Shanghai, not realizing that people could have been killed. Frank Rawlinson loved China, too. He arrived there as a missionary and was on the board of the prestigious Shanghai American School, an American-style prep school operating in the middle of the city on the brink of becoming a battlefield. I do not like war, Rawlinson wrote. I think it is unchristian. Yet I don't know what else China can do to resist Japan unless she wants to become practically a Japanese colony. Thousands of foreigners, especially teachers and health professionals, came to China in the 1920s and 1930s to help its people. With fighting now underway in Shanghai, Sun Mei-ling, the wife of Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, appealed to a retired U.S. Army aviator named Claire Lee Chennault to devise a counterattack by China's fledgling air force. That attack would go terribly wrong. On Saturday afternoon, August 14, 1937, masses of people fleeing Japanese gunfire jammed the streets of Shanghai. Frank Rawlinson and his family were driving through the French concession when they encountered a large crowd near an entertainment complex called the Great World Entertainment Center. He stepped out of his car to see what was going on. Overhead, Chinese aircraft appeared. All day long, they had been bombing Japanese targets on the ground, as well as Japanese naval vessels in the Huangpu River. They were part of the retaliatory mission designed by Claire Chennault. But for whatever reason, virtually all the bombs missed their targets. Instead, they hit fashionable areas like the and the palace hotels on the Shanghai waterfront, as well as the Great World Entertainment Center in the French concession, where food was being distributed to Chinese refugees. Frank Rawlinson died in his wife's arms. Three other Americans died that day as well. They were the first U.S. civilians to die in what would become World War II. It was estimated that more than 800 Chinese civilians were also killed that day in what would now likely be called a tragic, friendly fire incident. When it came to air power, the Japanese military enjoyed significant advantages. Its carrier-based fighters and bombers, in addition to land-based aircraft, far outnumbered the still infant Chinese Air Force. We lived about a half a mile from the railroad, and the Japanese were periodically trying to bomb the railroad. So as a child, I can remember that awful sound of a plane diving. Nowadays, they just drop it, but in those days, they dove in. And we had a porch in our house on the third floor. We used to have tea in the afternoon. And one time, this plane was coming and dive bombing, and my governess said, come on, we've got to go inside. But I was dragging my feet, and I looked up, and here I could see the pilot in the plane. He dropped the bombs on the railroad. It was all part of an era in which brutality was regularly on display, leading up to the eventual occupation of the international settlement by Japanese troops four years later. Lillian Willen's cousin, Ronald Morris, never forgot. There was a lot of slaughter. My cousin Mike and I, we were scared to death. We saw a lot of bad. We saw a lot of hunger. We saw the Chinese wrapped around a tree and the bark off the tree, you know. They were being bayoneted, children being bayoneted. Yeah, it was pretty bad. Imperial Japanese Navy bombers from as far away as Taiwan and Japan itself pounded not just Shanghai, but targets as far away as China's capital, Nanjing, 185 miles to the west. These trans-oceanic bombing missions were a first and offered a of the long-range missions the United States would later use to decimate Japan itself. The fact that Shanghai was home to radio and print reporters, as well as photographers and newsreel cameramen from around the world, meant that Japan's war on China received international coverage. For the first time, thanks to so-called newsreel films, it was possible for movie audiences to actually see battles happening. Yet Japan still refused to acknowledge what was really happening, calling the events in Shanghai yet another incident. A telegram to the American State Department and the Japanese foreign ministry assured that there would be no disruption of American maritime trade to and from China, as no war exists. Thousands of Imperial Japanese Army troops were dispatched by military leaders in Tokyo to support the naval infantry already fighting in Shanghai. They also provided the tools of war, some of which had four legs. Lieutenant General Matsui Iwane, who had been called out of retirement, was placed in command. A significant number of the new troops were reservists, also brought out of retirement. The problem was the regulars are 18 to 20 years old, they're tough young kids, they're single, there are no responsibilities. That's one thing. The reservists are older, they're in their mid-20s, someone into their early 30s, depending. They're married men, they have wives, they have children, they have jobs, they have responsibilities. And let's face it, they're not as well trained. Matsui Iwane cautioned his commanders about what they might well encounter when they arrived. Watch out for Chinese soldiers disguised as civilians. You have to be careful with the water and farm products you requisition. Make sure they are not poisoned by the Chinese. In other words, Japanese troops had his permission to regard any and all Chinese as possible combatants or saboteurs and should act accordingly. On August 23rd, Japanese forces made two amphibious landings north of Shanghai. It was from there that the fresh troops began a long, exhausting journey through marshes and farmland. Their progress was often slowed by a seemingly endless number of creeks and canals. They also encountered strong Chinese resistance. By now, the Battle of Shanghai could in some ways be called the last battle of World War I. Well-trained and well-equipped Chinese forces were prepared to meet the oncoming onslaught from the Japanese. And for the Japanese, what this meant was deadly results. Some of them would even afterwards give the Battle of Shanghai the name the German War. Here the Japanese apparently had no idea of either the nature, the strength, or the depth of these fortifications. You can read some of the accounts of Japanese veterans and they're talking about moving forward against the village and they're taking heavy losses and can't figure it out. They finally break into the village and discover, really, it's not a village, it's a series of pillboxes constructed by the Germans. And the Germans trained and equipped the Chinese to fight exactly that kind of a battle. The Battle of Shanghai might also be called the first battle of World War II. At the same time, a little bit closer to the central areas of Shanghai, strategies and tactics were put into practice that were the basis of stunning Soviet victories over Nazi Germany, for example at Stalingrad in 1943. For better or worse, this was really the birth of modern urban warfare. It would be, you could say, it would be the template for World War II in Europe. Troops battled street to street, block to block, house to house. Walls were smashed so that soldiers could move building to building unobserved. All later reenacted for Japanese propaganda films, sometimes by the troops who had fought in the original battles. What to the untrained eye was simply rubble, in fact, proved to be the perfect cover for snipers and machine gun squads. Remarkably, not far away, life in the foreign enclaves continued somewhat close to normal, even as fighting raged. Although accommodations certainly had to be made and common sense precautions taken. Some foreigners felt immune to all that was going on. Others decided it was time to leave. Wives and children had the top priority, with American and European warships assigned the task of evacuating them. Several thousand left Shanghai this way, but their departure wasn't always easy. The cruiser USS Augusta was taking civilian refugees on board in late August 1937 when a shell struck the ship. Eighteen American sailors were hit by artillery fire. One, Seaman First Class Freddie John Foggo of Raceland, Louisiana, was killed. An investigation later concluded he had been killed by a Japanese shell. His funeral was front page news in American newspapers. Then he was forgotten. Only decades later it was realized that Freddie John Foggo was likely the first American serviceman to be killed in the struggle that eventually became World War II. Still, at least in China and in Chinese communities around the world, the courage of the Chinese troops fighting in Shanghai prompted a new sense of pride. So after he led the troops into Shanghai, at that time, China's morale was high. The anti-Japanese movement in China had already been mobilized. The public and the public's ideas were to unite and fight Japan to the end. But the Chinese forces were at a continuing disadvantage. Early in the conflict, General Zhang Zhejiang had sent a secret cable to Chiang Kai-shek. These days, the Japanese planes are very active. They bomb all day without interruption. During the day, our troops are pinned down. The enemy's planes pose a great threat to us. On August 26, 1937, Japanese aircraft flew 16 individual missions. On August 27, they flew 29. The following day, they flew 68. Armored vehicles were another example of the overwhelming advantage enjoyed by the Japanese. The Japanese forces were suffering, too, a fact acknowledged even in propaganda films and newsreels. The ashes of thousands of dead Japanese soldiers were transported back to their homeland and families. Companies that should have been, say, 200 men were down to 30 men. Their officers were all dead, and most of the NCOs were killed or wounded. Corporals were leading companies. As one reporter described it, it was bloodthirstiness in the streets. What he described was, if you can imagine it, a street in working-class neighborhoods of Tokyo, blue-collar workers. And walking down the street, you'd see death notices pinned to the doors of homes along the street, and just all of these fluttering death notices. It was very clear what was going on. And he said, you know, the emotion was so passionate, it verged on just bloodthirstiness. From the Chinese perspective, the time for negotiation and compromise was long past as well. There is so much damage all around China. So many people have died. The sacrifices are so huge. The anger is so huge that no politician could have gotten away with saying, oh, well, let's just accept the Japanese occupation of Beijing and Tianjin and leave it at that. Told they would enjoy a quick, easy victory in China, Japanese soldiers soon discovered otherwise. They took out their frustration on Chinese civilians. Maybara Hisashi, a 30-year-old reservist in a mortar unit, was typical. You Chinese made our brothers die in this terrible way. We'll make you pay. It's because of you that we've come to fight and suffer. You wanted this war? It's your fault. In Japan, as wooden boxes carrying the ashes of dead soldiers were brought home from China, virtually no one talked about peace. Instead, the talk was of revenge. In China, compromise was unthinkable as well. Chiang Kai-shek saw victory in terms of holding territory. In North China, communist-led forces took a different approach, fighting a guerrilla war against the Japanese. Employing techniques Mao Zedong would later term mobile warfare. Mao's guerrilla warfare is not just, you know, small units taking on, sort of having potshots at Japanese policemen and installations. No, no, it's much more sophisticated. It is going into the rear of the Japanese, building up these base areas with new government, new laws, sometimes new currencies, sustaining a Red Army, Eighth Route Army, as it's called at this time, that can operate outside of the base, but also local guerrilla forces, local militia, and sort of middle-level units that can operate throughout that base area. It was a preview of the tactics that communist forces would repeatedly utilize against the Japanese, and a decade later, against the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese Civil War. General Matsui Iwane, the senior officer overseeing Japanese military activities in the Shanghai region, proved to be a rigid, ineffective, and overconfident commander. What happens is, of course, he sends, he commits troops in a frontal assault against fortifications, they are bloodied, they suffer terrible losses, and the high command commits more troops. His tactics don't change. He still keeps hammering against these fortifications, and shows no inclination to change tactics. The common threat is they blame the soldiers for not having enough Japanese spirit to crush the Chinese. Chinese leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek demonstrated the opposite problem. He was conflicted and uncertain, writing in his diary, should we mass our troops and fight in Shanghai, or should we withdraw inland and gather strength for protracted resistance? One thing Chiang was certain of, however, was the need for a change in leadership. He took personal command of his armies, relieving General Zhang Zhejiang of his duties as commander of the 9th Army Group. Facing overwhelming pressure from the Japanese forces, in late October, a general withdrawal was ordered of all Chinese troops north of what was then called Suzhou Creek. The creek, actually more a river in places, which runs through western Shanghai, was the last natural barrier between the Japanese infantry and the very heart of the city. For symbolic reasons, Chiang Kai-shek remained determined to hold onto a portion, however small, of central Shanghai, north of the Suzhou Creek. The Sihan Warehouse is where the Chinese troops would make their stand. Today, the building is a museum honoring the 400 men who held off a veritable army. Those soldiers are known in China as the 800 heroes, the result of misinformation sent out by the commander of the force, who wanted to keep secret how few men were actually defending the building. Located directly adjacent to the international settlement, foreign diplomats and reporters would witness for themselves the courage and resolve of Chinese soldiers. The commander chosen, Lieutenant Colonel Chieh Jin-yuan, understood that he and his men were embarking on what seemed to be a suicide mission. Once again, the Battle of Shanghai was in the headlines around the world. And once again, the world offered little more than sympathy. The 800 heroes had been fighting off superior Japanese forces over and over again, but at last they were allowed to withdraw. On November the 1st, in ones and twos, they ran across a railway bridge through withering machine gun fire to the safety of the international settlement. There, they abandoned their weapons, and then they surrendered to British troops and were sent to an internment camp, since Britain was a neutral party in the conflict. Crowds of Shanghainese gathered to cheer the soldiers of the 88th Division, as they were driven away, following a moral, if not a strategic, victory. Meanwhile, Shanghai's refugee crisis continued to worsen, as tens of thousands of people sought shelter. Their misery was compounded by a cholera epidemic. Catholic priest Robert Jacono de Vissage had earlier suggested the establishment of what he called a safety zone, a place near his church where Chinese civilians could find shelter from the conflict raging around them. By early November 1937, the Japanese Consul General, as well as military commanders, approved the idea. It immediately became home to an estimated 100,000 refugees. It was also a model for the protection of civilians in other urban battles. Father Jacono proudly told visitors, the Japanese have not gained entry here, and the only flags that fly over this place are the French flag and the standard of the Red Cross. However, appearing in Japanese propaganda films was part of the price that Father Jacono paid to protect the people of Shanghai. It is thanks to the Japanese authorities and to the Japanese army that we have been able to do something that will be also repeated in the whole world. With at least a portion of Shanghai's civilian population now protected, it was an opportune moment for Chinese forces to withdraw. But once again, Chiang Kai-shek couldn't decide. Changing conditions on the ground made the decision for him. The Japanese, needing to force a decision, then launched a second amphibious operation to the south of Shanghai, in what is Hangzhou Bay, which is not well protected. The Nationalist Intelligence doesn't expect this to happen. What then threatens, actually, and what creates panic on the Nationalist side, is that all Nationalist troops in Shanghai would be surrounded by Japanese forces. They all would be trapped and would be destroyed. So then there's panic and Nationalist forces break back. They break through before they become trapped in that encirclement. And they do break out, despite great losses and, of course, enormous amount of chaos. Shanghai was doomed. Chiang Kai-shek wrote in his diary that not defending Hangzhou Bay was our biggest strategic mistake. November 9th saw Chinese forces finally begin to withdraw from Shanghai, moving west towards the city of Suzhou. But soon, the retreat became a rout. Uncertain leadership, along with the inability to counter Japan's complete dominance of the air, would lead to panic. On November 11th, 1937, Shanghai's mayor declared the city lost. The following year, Chiang Kai-shek noted in his diary, while we were exhausted, I reinforced Shanghai and stuck to resistance. We were totally defeated. It was my fault. With the end of combat, an uneasy calm descended over Shanghai. Amateur filmmakers explored the now quiet battlefields. They found the discarded tools of war and a grim tableau of dead soldiers, their decomposing bodies lying where they fell. Lillian Willen's father, an insurance salesman, drove to the Chapei area of Shanghai to assess the damage. He took his daughter with him. When we went there, I was shocked to see buildings broken. Everything was broken down, shattered, and people in the streets. So, there was a little store, and I saw a gleaming white bicycle. And I told my father, I'm going to take it. He said, absolutely not. Someone, it owned someone by someone, and the person could have been killed. And I think then I realized what death meant. I was 10 years old. Nanjing, China's capital city, was now the target. No one seemed to notice that the Imperial Japanese Army had failed to fulfill its primary mission in Shanghai, to destroy China's armies, and with it, China's will to fight, a mistake that would be repeated again and again for the next eight years. The Japanese could never quite pull off their decisive victory. They tried in North China. They thought they could clean it up really quickly. And indeed, they scored military victory after military victory and got nothing in exchange except more territory, which they couldn't possibly occupy because it was so vast. The advance towards Nanjing was even more brutal than what had just taken place in Shanghai. Author and historian Peter Harmsen reads from the diary of one Japanese soldier. We'd take all the men behind the houses and kill them with bayonets and knives. Then we'd lock up the women and children in a single house and rape them at night. I didn't do that myself, but I think the other soldiers did quite a bit of raping. Then before we left the next morning, we'd kill all the women and children, and to top it off, we'd set fire to the houses so that even if anyone came back, they wouldn't have a place to live. The Japanese military was imposing a strategy that would later be termed kill all, burn all, loot all. I don't think that the Japanese enlisted soldier became a rapacious villain independently. I think officers looked the other way or, in some cases, encouraged that kind of conduct because they felt, well, it releases pressure and provides an outlet for them. They were burning so much that some officers said, well, look, we're here for the winter, we need the shelter, so stop it. And it stopped. I think when they were told that when they were ordered to do things, they did it. And when they were allowed to do things, they did them as well. Confusing and contradictory orders from Chiang Kai-shek contributed to an ineffective defense of Nanjing. On December 13th, the capital of the Republic of China officially fell. The Japanese troops occupying the city went on a rampage of rape and murder that lasted weeks. American educator Minnie Vautrin witnessed it all at Jinling Women's College. She wrote in her diary, there probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today. Thirty girls were taken from language school last night. And today I have heard scores of heartbreaking stories of girls who were taken from their homes last night. One of the girls was 12 years old. Food, bedding, and money had been taken from people. I suspect every house in the city has been opened again and yet again and robbed. Tonight a truck passed in which there were eight or ten girls. And as it passed, they called out, Zhu Ming, Zhu Ming, save our lives. As many as 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed. Yet to this day, some Japanese historians claim that what became known worldwide as the Rape of Nanjing either never happened or was far less severe than reported. Still, Americans wanted no part of a war in China or anywhere else. Isolationism, an overwhelming belief in America first, summed up the attitudes of many in the United States. Another war, not for me. This time America should keep out and I know I will. And all our efforts should be made to keep out of the fight. The United States actually reduced military aid to China after the fall of Nanjing. China would have to fend for itself. For four long years, China stood alone. Then. We interrupt this broadcast bringing this important bulletin from the United States. Last, Washington. The White House denounces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. British, American, Australian and Dutch citizens, like the children who attended the Shanghai American School, were now enemy nationals. Eventually, entire families were sent to brutal civilian prison camps. And there were times there I've seen different people being slapped around by the Japanese for whatever, I don't know the reasons. And I know my mom was slapped around a couple three times here in the hallway. Japs would take a body count. And I remember my mom didn't wake me up to stand in line for the body count. Jap went in there and just grabbed me and hauled me out of bed. My mom tried to intercept and they knocked her around. Still, as badly as foreigners were treated, the Chinese fared far, far worse. The story of what were euphemistically called comfort women, women forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese military, is a vivid example of the brutality of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. Government-sanctioned brothels were established for use by Japanese soldiers and sailors. Following America's entry into the war against Japan, the United States supplied China with hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid. But most of it did not arrive until late 1944 and 1945. No American ground units were ever sent to fight in China. And some of the American trained and equipped Chinese units were sent to help liberate Burma, a British colony. By August 1945, an estimated one million Japanese troops were stationed in China. If China had surrendered, many of those troops would likely have been sent to places like Iwo Jima and Okinawa. How many more Americans would have died if not for the sacrifices made by their Chinese counterparts? For the Japanese military, the end came suddenly, unexpectedly, total. Now it was the Japanese who were the prisoners and the allies who held a victory parade in Shanghai. American military personnel were there in abundance. China's other wartime allies were honored, too. Many foreigners believed Shanghai would return to what they thought was normal. But the world had changed. I always see my own eyes, the military ships from America and Britain down on the river of Huangpu, Huangpu, and on the street of the navies and the MPs. I said, so ask me why the Japanese have left us? And why you come here? What for? Understand me? Ask me why? Because I said, this is our fatherland. This is my own land. We do not need other help. The war provided the Communist Party of China with the opportunity to not only build a powerful army, but also introduce a new consciousness, a different vision of what it meant to live, work, and be Chinese. A new China was being born, one that had little need for foreigners, Japanese, European, or American. It would be decades before foreigners would once again play a role in China's economy or find a place in the life of Shanghai. The lives of the leading figures in the Battle of Shanghai were forever changed, just as China was. In 1945, Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of a fractured, devastated country. The Chinese Civil War was again underway. Eventually, the defeated nationalists fled to the island province of Taiwan. Chiang would live out his life in what was the last holdout of the Republic of China. He died there in 1975. Matsui Iwane was arrested, charged, and tried for war crimes. In particular, the bloody revenge his troops imposed on Nanjing. Found guilty, he was sentenced to death. Matsui Iwane was executed in 1948. Hsieh Jin Yuan, the commander of the 800 heroes, became an internee in the officially neutral British-run international settlement. Assassins believed to be working for the Japanese military murdered him there. Minnie Votrin is revered in China for her heroism during the rape of Nanjing. But she never recovered from her experiences. Distraught and depressed, she committed suicide in 1941. Chiang would continue to serve as a general in Chiang Kai-shek's army. He was one of the few nationalist generals who did not flee to Taiwan. In the 1950s, he served as vice chairman of the People's Republic of China's National Defense Commission and was a member of the National People's Congress. He died in 1969. Claire Lee Chennault, the architect of the plan that saw Chinese aircraft mistakenly drop their bombs on innocent civilians in 1937, would find redemption as the commander of the American volunteer group, better known as the Flying Tigers. While the unit was considered a part of the Chinese military, it was secretly funded by the United States government in order to circumvent America's strict neutrality laws. That fiction was discarded after Pearl Harbor. In early 1942, the AVG provided virtually the only good news coming out of East Asia. America was transfixed by the Flying Tigers. An estimated 20,000 Jewish refugees made their way from Europe to Shanghai, escaping near certain death in the Holocaust. Shanghai's Jewish Refugee Museum tells the story of their flight and survival, as well as that of Shanghai's other Jewish communities. Following the war, many made their way to Israel. Others, like Lillianne Willans, were eventually allowed to enter the United States. She went on to teach French at prestigious American universities. She is also an author and a lecturer. When she returned to China years later, she found a country utterly transformed. I was quite taken aback when I finally decided to go there. There were no more beggars. There was no poverty in the streets. They made me poorly dressed. That was 1990, if I have to calculate the date. And I was quite amazed because when I left China, there was nothing, absolutely poverty, beggars, no industry, nothing. And then when I went back repeatedly, I was taken aback completely. A hundred-story building, the highest I had ever seen was 20 stories in Shanghai. Still, it would be a mistake to dismiss old Shanghai as simply a place of foreign exploitation. There certainly were times of sharing, compassion, and even love. The bond between foreign children and their Chinese Ama, or nurse, was strong. Yet war would sweep all of those relationships aside. The Battle of Shanghai really shaped, and continues to shape, Chinese attitudes and beliefs. It marked the first time that many people in China felt an allegiance to a Chinese nation-state, as opposed to a region, or a province, or a city. It also offers a lesson on how, from a Chinese perspective, other countries may speak out on behalf of China, in support of China, but they won't necessarily act. At the same time, the battle reinforced territorial sovereignty as the foundation that all other policies are built on. Shanghai today is once again prosperous. Even the casual observer can recognize the signs of growing affluence. The city is helping to set the pace as China pivots to a more consumer-driven economy. In fact, the city and its people are more successful than ever before, but with important differences. Today, Shanghai is a Chinese city run by the Chinese. Foreigners once more flock to Shanghai. In fact, there are so many, an entire industry has emerged to meet their needs. But now, the balance of power is different. Many work for Chinese companies, under a system described as socialism with Chinese characteristics, for a new era. None of this would have been possible without the events that took place in Shanghai, 1937.