Produced in 1937 and released in both silent and sound versions for the home market by Castle Films, WAR IN CHINA shows the 1937 Japanese assault on Shanghai. At the time the newsreel was produced the United States was strictly neutral and thus the newsreel tended to look more closely at the civilian victims of the conflict and the horror of war than did later Castle releases. The newsreel highlights some of the many Japanese atrocities including the bombing of the Cathay Hotel (8:00) and the indiscriminate bombing of the city by Japanese aircraft (6:00). At 3:55 the work of British, American and other troops to rescue Westerners from the International Settlement (4:00).
During the Japanese onslaught, the terrifying might of the Japanese Army was revealed. Japan was far more superior in air power and number of combat troops and General Chiang Kai-shek’s forces were helpless to stop the Japanese forces from bombing, shelling and then finally occupying the city. The enormous civilian loss of life is obvious in these images, including wreckage in front of the famed Cathay Hotel from an explosion on August 14, 1937.
The film includes footage of the foreign fleets, including both U.S. Navy and Royal Navy warships, that were anchored off of Shanghai, and shows Westerners and members of the “Shanghai Colony” (including a German representative whose hat bears a swastika) helping civilians escape the chaos.
The Battle of Shanghai was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) of the Empire of Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the entire war, described as “Stalingrad on the Yangtze”.
Since 1931, there had been ongoing armed conflicts between China and Japan without an official declaration of war. These conflicts finally escalated in July 1937, when the Marco Polo Bridge Incident triggered the full invasion from Japan. Dogged Chinese resistance at Shanghai was aimed at stalling the rapid Japanese advance, giving much needed time for the Chinese government to move vital industries to the interior, while at the same time attempting to bring sympathetic Western powers to China’s side. During the fierce three-month battle, Chinese and Japanese troops fought in downtown Shanghai, in the outlying towns, and on the beaches of the Yangtze River and Hangzhou Bay, where the Japanese had made amphibious landings.
The Chinese soldiers had to rely primarily on small-caliber weapons in their defense of Shanghai, against an overwhelming Japanese onslaught of air, naval, and armored striking power. In the end, Shanghai fell, and China lost a significant portion of its best troops, while also failing to elicit any international intervention. The resistance of Chinese forces, however, shocked the Japanese,[clarification needed] who had been indoctrinated with notions of cultural and martial superiority, and dramatically demoralized the Imperial Japanese Army.
The battle can be divided into three stages, and eventually involved nearly one million troops. The first stage lasted from August 13 to August 22, 1937, during which the NRA attempted to eradicate Japanese troop presence in downtown Shanghai. The second stage lasted from August 23 to October 26, 1937, during which the Japanese launched amphibious landings on the Jiangsu coast and the two armies fought a Stalingrad-type house-to-house battle, with the Japanese attempting to gain control of the city and the surrounding regions. The last stage, ranging from October 27 to the end of November 1937, involved the retreat of the Chinese army in the face of Japanese flanking maneuvers, and the ensuing combat on the road to China’s capital, Nanjing.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
