Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze (7 page)

E
ARLY ON
A
UGUST 14, THE 66-YEAR-OLD
C
HRISTIAN MISSIONARY
Frank Rawlinson had gone to his office at the Mission Building, behind the British Consulate General, as was his wont on Saturdays.
¹
It was only a quarter mile from the Japanese cruiser
Izumo,
the Third Fleet’s flagship anchored in the Huangpu River in front of the Japanese Consulate. This made his workplace one of the most dangerous spots in Shanghai. The
Izumo
had assisted the Japanese marines inland with its heavy artillery—especially its four eight-inch guns and 14 six-inch guns—and had made itself an obvious target for Chinese attack.

Shortly before 11:00 a.m., five Chinese planes emerged over the rooftops, heading for the river and the Japanese vessels.
²
The aircraft released their bombs, but all missed, and several of them exploding in the wharfs, pulverizing buildings and sending shrapnel cascading through the air. The guns of the Japanese battleships responded with a massive barrage, further endangering those unfortunate enough to live or work in the area, as shell fragments whirled towards the ground with deadly abandon. At 11:20 a.m. yet another Chinese air raid took place. This time it was carried out by three planes, and again the
Izumo
was the direct target.
³

When it was time for lunch, Rawlinson drove to his home in the French Concession. He passed the Garden Bridge over Suzhou Creek,
a stream that cut through Shanghai and was the end station for much of the city’s sewage. Mercifully sheltered from its foul smell inside his car, he picked a route along the Bund, the landmark waterfront area, navigating through unusually thick crowds. They were mostly refugees from the Chinese districts, seeking a sanctuary from the hostilities north of the creek. Rawlinson knew well that Shanghai was a city that could change its appearance overnight under the influence of great political events. After all, it had been his home for 35 years, ever since he had arrived as a young missionary. China had still been an empire back then, and he had become infatuated with its ancient culture. He had even adopted a Chinese name, Yue Lingsheng. Gradually, he had become a respected member of the foreign establishment. Among his many titles were editor of the periodical
The Chinese Recorder
and co-founder of the Shanghai American School. China was his destiny.

As he approached old age, he had witnessed how his beloved China was coming apart under the iron heel of aggressive Japanese imperialism. “I do not like war. I think it is un-Christian,” he had written in a letter to acquaintances in the United States less than two weeks earlier. “Yet I don’t know what else China can do but resist Japan unless she wants to become practically a Japanese colony.”
⁴
However, after many years of patiently biding its time, China was finally fighting back, and as a result, on this Saturday, the nation’s most prosperous city was being exposed to modern war at its most lethal.

Under normal circumstances, Rawlinson would have returned to his office in the afternoon for quiet work, but the intense fighting along the Huangpu River made it advisable to depart from the routine of more peaceful days. Instead, he spent some hours at home, before going out to fetch the evening newspaper shortly before 4:00 p.m. He made it a small family outing. He got into his car with his wife Florence and his 13-year-old daughter Jean. It was not a long trip, and on the way back, he drove his vehicle along Avenue Edward VII on the border between the International Settlement and the French Concession. It was packed with people.

Huangpu was several hundred yards away, but even so the sky above them was filled with smoke puffs from anti-aircraft guns showing that the battle over the
Izumo
had continued into the afternoon. Rawlinson, always a keen observer of life around him, eagerly took in the scenes passing by
outside the car window while still trying to steer his vehicle through the mass of automobiles, bicycles and pedestrians jamming the street. As the car approached the Great World Amusement Center, a Chinese theater where rice was being distributed to war refugees, the mob outside became even denser. Driving and watching was by that point downright hazardous with the very real possibility that someone might get hurt. Florence Rawl-inson urged her husband to stop the car. You’ll get a better view from outside, she told him.

The moment Rawlinson stepped out of the car there was a flash of light and then a deafening explosion. After long seconds of stunned silence, Florence Rawlinson peeped apprehensively out of the car window and felt her heart sink when she saw her husband lying on his back, sprawled across the curb. She stumbled hurriedly out of the car and took his lifeless head in her arms. In dazed shock she noticed a large hole in the left part of his chest. Blood was gushing out in a thick stream. Jean had also got out and was standing nearby, watching in quiet disbelief.

Around them, people were getting up and trying to find their bearings, moving around with the groggy aimlessness of sleepwalkers. Large pieces of debris covered the asphalt. Some of the debris was brick and concrete, broken and distorted. Other debris was human and too horrible to look at. Several automobiles had burst into flames. Down the street a cloud of thick smoke enveloped the spot where the Great World Amusement Center had been. Chaos had struck the heart of Shanghai, and amid it all, Rawl-inson died. He was one of four U.S. citizens who lost their lives in Shanghai on the same day, within minutes of each other. Together, they had become the first American casualties of World War II.

————————

Hundreds of civilians were killed when a series of stray bombs dropped by Chinese Air Force aircraft exploded in densely packed areas on what was almost instantly described as “Black Saturday” or “Bloody Saturday.” By the time the tragedies happened, the battle of Shanghai had already entered its second day. Since Friday, August 13, the city’s residents had been listening to rifle fire and machine gun salvoes, interrupted by the occasional muffled boom of artillery. Even the most optimistic souls could no longer brush events off as just isolated incidents. It was war. The frontline that
emerged roughly followed the northern boundary of the International Set-tlement, stretching for about eight miles from the North Railway Station via Hongkou and Yangshupu to the Huangpu River, with a salient extending from the settlement north to Hongkou Park in the Chinese part of Shanghai.

Friday the 13th had indeed lived up to its reputation and been an unhappy day. The first shot in what was to become a three-month battle was fired in the middle of the morning. Members of the Japanese marines, who had put on civilian clothes and posed as thugs—boisterous
ronin—
had turned up at barricades manned by the Peace Preservation Corps at the northern edge of Yangshupu at about 9:15 a.m. They proceeded to provoke the Chinese guards with loud taunts and jeers. When the Chinese let off a warning shot into the air, the Japanese fired back, aiming to kill. The Chinese responded in kind, and a deadly exchange followed. From that point on, the situation could no longer be reined in. This, at least, is the version of events given by the head of the Peace Preservation Corps to an interviewer many decades after the war was over.
⁵

Other Chinese officers, including Zhang Zhizhong, said that the battle of Shanghai started with a clash on the western edge of “Little Tokyo,” near the Commercial Press, a building only recently reconstructed after having been destroyed during the 1932 battle. Sporadic shooting dragged on for 20 minutes before petering out. Mayor Yu promptly issued a statement to the Associated Press and Reuters blaming the Japanese for having fired first. The Japanese maintained that they had been targeted by a Chinese machine gunner hidden inside the Commercial Press building before returning fire themselves.
⁶
The truth about who started the battle, and where and when it started, will probably forever remain obscured in claims and counterclaims.
⁷

No matter the exact circumstances under which the battle erupted on August 13, it had quickly become unstoppable. As the day progressed, nervous small-scale activity continued throughout the northern part of Shanghai. Chinese commanders dispatched patrols to make probing attacks, hoping to find weak points in the Japanese defenses and to push them back wherever possible,
⁸
while their Japanese counterparts rushed to occupy key positions outside their main line of defense, so as to be in a more advantageous position once their adversary launched a larger offen
sive. The small bands of soldiers from both sides moved along narrow alleys to minimize the risk of detection,
⁹
but whenever they chanced upon each other, the results were deadly.

In the western sector of the frontline, where the Chinese Army’s newly arrived 88th Infantry Division was preparing its positions, the center of activity was the headquarters of the Japanese marines near Hongkou Park. It was a virtual fortress, with its massive four-story structure protected from air and artillery bombardment by a double roof of reinforced concrete. The building, which had a large inner courtyard, took up two city blocks, enabling it to hold thousands of troops at a time. Highly visible, it constituted both a real military threat and a symbol of Japan’s presence in Shanghai. The Chinese were in no doubt about what they had to do. They had to wipe it out.

The main link between the marine headquarters and the Japanese section of the International Settlement further south was Sichuan North Road. It became the scene of hectic activity from the first day of battle. Japanese armored cars and motorcycle patrols with machine guns mounted on the sidecars sped up and down the otherwise deserted street, while trench mortars positioned along the pavement lobbed grenades into Zhabei to the west. As columns of smoke rose to the sky from the buildings in the Chinese district, Japanese officers, squeezing into a narrow conning tower on top of the marine headquarters, watched the results of the bombardment through field glasses. Reports that Chinese snipers had positioned themselves in the upper floors of buildings along the road prompted Japanese squads commanded by sword-wielding officers to carry out door-to-door searches. Suspects were unceremoniously dragged away to an uncertain fate. Not a single civilian was to be seen in the area. Everyone kept indoors, behind closed windows and pulled curtains.
¹⁰

On the afternoon of August 13, the Eight Character Bridge
¹¹
west of the marine headquarters became the scene of one of the battle’s first major engagements. The bridge was just 60 feet long, spanning a minor creek. However, in spite of its modest size it was considered by both sides to have significant tactical importance. The Chinese commanders saw it as a main route of advance into the Hongkou area and they believed that if the bridge ended up in Japanese hands, it would become like a “piece of bone stuck in the throat.”
¹²

At about noon, Major Yi Jin, a battalion commander of the 88th Infantry Division, led a couple of hundred men of his battalion from the area around the North Railway Station towards Eight Character Bridge. When the soldiers reached their objective at about 3:00 p.m., they spotted a small Japanese unit which had just arrived across the creek and was setting up defensive positions. The Chinese opened fire and managed to take possession of the bridge. In turn, the Japanese launched a brief artillery bombardment that resulted in several Chinese casualties. Shots rang out near the bridge on and off until 9:00 p.m. when a precarious silence descended over the area.
¹³

Further to the east, in the 87th Infantry Division’s sector, the day was also filled with frantic maneuvering, interrupted by sometimes lengthy bursts of violence. Chinese reconnaissance parties infiltrated into areas held by the enemy and made it all the way to the Japanese Golf Club near the Huangpu River, where they started shooting at the workers busy preparing the makeshift airfield. At the first volleys from the Chinese snipers, clouds of dust filled the air, and the workers hastily ran for cover. Japanese soldiers posted in the club house immediately returned fire, ruining the aim of the snipers.
¹⁴

After about an hour, two Japanese vessels moored in the Huangpu River, the destroyer
Kuri
and the gunboat
Seta,
were called on to assist the Japanese marines facing the 87th Infantry Division on land. Four-and six-inch shells screamed across the sky, exploding in the Chinese districts to the north. Shanghai University was also shelled as the Japanese troops on land believed it to have been occupied by Chinese soldiers. Eventually, the last remaining staff members, two Americans, were forced to flee the campus.
¹⁵
The naval artillery had come to the rescue of hard-pressed infantry on shore in a scene that would be repeated over and over again in the coming days and weeks.