Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze (23 page)

The Chinese themselves had more ambivalent views of their own armed forces, although traditional attitudes were gradually changing because of the national crisis they found themselves in. “Good iron is not
made into nails; a good man does not enlist as a soldier,” according to an ancient Chinese proverb. In imperial times, soldiers had usually been mercenaries, and interaction between the military and surrounding society had been extremely limited. After the republic was established the men in uniform were often little better than hooligans serving local warlords, who themselves were hard to distinguish from powerful mobsters.
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Even after the outbreak of the war in 1937, some Chinese felt estranged from the military. It was not unusual to encounter the view that soldiering was a profession like any other, albeit one best suited for unruly and adventurous youngsters who could not fit into more stable occupations. “Fighting is what soldiers do. We have chosen other careers,” was a typical response even among patriotic Chinese when asked why they themselves were not in uniform. Middle-class merchants in Shanghai could even be heard complaining that the soldiers should show more professional pride in a job well done. “Why are the soldiers so lazy?” they asked, shaking their heads. “They get paid so well now, and it’s unbelievable that they still haven’t thrown out the Japanese.”
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That view was by no means universal, and the outline of a generation gap was forming in Chinese society. For the first time ever, the most accomplished of the young generation wanted to join the military. This left older Chinese dumbfounded, as they could not fathom why promising men in their prime of youth would rush to volunteer.
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However, the trend was undeniable. Literacy, a feat made harder by the need to memorize thousands of characters, was generally more widespread inside army ranks than outside. “Sure they read; in fact, there are less illiterates in the army than in the civilian population in China,” a western journalist commented.
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The cultural change that the higher educational level brought about in the armed forces is likely to have contributed to a more positive opinion in the public. “In this critical period most foreigners testify to the courtesy and kindness of Chinese soldiers with whom they have come into contact,” the
China Weekly Review
wrote. “Millions of Chinese are rallied together in enthusiastic support of their soldiers; upper-class men contribute funds, women prepare clothing and comforts for the soldiers, boys and girls give strenuous service as ‘scouts’ or collect money for the men at the front. It is ‘our army’ of which Chinese now speak; it is ‘our soldiers’ and ‘our heroes’.”
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It was already dark when Lieutenant Gong Yeti took off in his Curtis Hawk III from the airfield near Nanjing at 7:40 p.m. on September 18. The target: Shanghai. Daylight raids had long been out of the question because of enemy’s air superiority, and even night sorties were becoming riskier as the Japanese built up their anti-aircraft assets on the ground in and around the city. Despite the dangers, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this night’s raid was needed. It was to mark the anniversary of the incident in 1931 that had triggered Japan’s invasion of Manchuria. The Chinese pilots wanted to pay back just a little for all the suffering that had been brought on their people during the six long intervening years.
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The planes were to attack in four waves of six aircraft each, spaced out with one hour between them. Gong Yeti was in the first wave. Along the entire route they could see scattered fires lighting up the dark countryside 5,000 feet beneath them, and when they approached Shanghai they could clearly distinguish the objective, Hongkou district, hemmed in between the Huangpu River, Suzhou Creek and the massive waterworks building. The tracer rounds fired from the anti-aircraft guns cut thin white lines through the sky, while shells exploded around them, opening up like fiery flowers. The lead airplanes went into a dive, and Gong Yeti followed shortly afterwards. He aimed for the area where the first aircraft had already dropped their loads. As he saw the explosions from the bombs he had released, he felt intense satisfaction.

The moment he ascended from his dive, the Japanese on the ground switched on a dozen searchlights, momentarily causing him to lose his bearings. While the other planes turned east towards Pudong, he veered west and suddenly found himself alone over pitch-black countryside. On his right, he saw a village ablaze, probably Luodian, and he smiled to himself when a Japanese warship anchored in the Yangtze tried to fire at him from an impossible distance. However, just few minutes later, the lights disappeared behind him, and he suddenly had no idea if he was flying over water or land. He looked up and saw tiny lights. Those must be the other planes heading back to the base in Nanjing, he thought to himself. Seconds later, his heart sank. He had been looking at the stars, which had seemed to be moving against the canopy of clouds. He looked down and was almost certain that he had spotted the lights of the other planes. However, once more he was disappointed. Again, it was the stars, or rather,
their reflection in the rice paddies below. He felt a small pang of panic.

Finally, he noticed real light below. He flashed his own signal light three times, as arranged beforehand. Someone below replied, flashing a light three times. He really was on the way home. Minutes later he landed on his airfield, the first to return from the raid. One after the other, the rest of the pilots touched down, assembling in the mess hall and eagerly sharing their stories from the mission that had just ended. But one pilot, Li Yougan, was missing. After a long wait, the telephone rang. The call was from Shanghai. One of the Chinese aircraft had been shot down. Li Yougan had been killed. Of course, the other pilots felt sad. On the other hand, losing comrades was becoming routine, just as U.S. ace Eddie Ricken-backer had explained in his book. Anyway, they told each other, he had been given the rare honor of dying for China on this special day, exactly six years after the Japanese aggression had begun.

According to the
North China Daily News,
the series of attacks Gong Yeti participated in were “the worst air raids in [the city’s] history.” The incendiary bombs sent flames and sparks high up into the night sky in the style of “Roman candles,” the paper’s journalists reported, and shrapnel from the Japanese anti-aircraft guns caused numerous casualties in the International Settlement and the French Concession. Several businesses, ranging from the Shanghai Cotton Mill to the China Soap Co., were damaged.
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A firefighter told the paper about his experiences after he entered the blazing area in a fire engine. “We were about to turn tail for the station when an incendiary bomb burst about 60 yards away. In a flash our men were cringing against walls or diving under the engine. It was a most terrifying sight, as though the earth had opened up and squirted fire far and wide. It landed in the rear of some Chinese buildings; had it struck the road none of us could possibly have survived.”
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It was the largest Chinese air raid of the entire campaign, and it was the last one. The Second Combined Air Group of the Imperial Navy had been based at Gongda Airfield in Shanghai since it had become operational on September 10, and it was preparing to strike back. Initially, the facilities at the airfield had been poor, and the weather had turned the runway into a quagmire. Even though ground crew had worked day and night, 11 fighters had been damaged while taking off or landing during the first nine days. This had been a crucial period, and a more determined Chinese effort
to prevent the airfield from becoming of any use could have had a major impact on the battle, Japanese officers said after the war. However, Chinese aircraft had attacked only at dusk or during the night, and no damage was done to the airfield. Artillery attacks also had been used to only limited effect.
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The result was that once the airfield was ready for use, the Japanese were free to prepare for a decisive blow against the Chinese fighters sta-tioned at Nanjing. The plan was simple. Carrier bombers and sea reconnaissance planes were to approach the Chinese capital at a height of 10,000 feet, in full view of the enemy. The bombers were to release their load over Nanjing, but should not worry about accuracy. It didn’t matter what they hit, since their main role was as bait. A large number of fighters were to accompany them, but remain unseen, at 13,000 feet, ready to move into action once the Chinese fighters had been lured out by the ruse. The aim was to annihilate the Chinese fighter arm once and for all. “I wish that every member of the fighter plane units will go forth to battle, convinced of victory, and will destroy every enemy plane in sight, and display the glory of our navy to the rest of the world,” said the commander of the Second Combined Air Group when he explained the plan to his officers on September 17.
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The carefully prepared raid commenced on the morning of September 19, just hours after the Chinese air attack on Shanghai. The first Japanese wave, numbering 45 aircraft, approached Jurong Airfield near Nanjing at 9:50 a.m. As predicted, Chinese fighters were scrambled. The aircraft, 12 Curtiss Hawk IIIs and six Boeing 281s, went straight for the slow-flying bombers, and only discovered the nimble Japanese Type 96 fighters hovering above when it was too late. In the furious dogfight that followed, several of the Chinese planes were shot down. Ten minutes later, the Japanese planes were over the center of Nanjing, where more than 20 other Chinese planes were waiting for them. The Japanese fighters, joined by the reconnaissance planes, engaged them individually. Only a handful of the Chinese pilots survived the encounter and disappeared from the attackers’ view. The bombers took advantage of the absence of any enemy planes to drop their load on a military airfield nearby, destroying even more fighters. The raid was a complete success, a success that was repeated the same afternoon with another raid on Nanjing.
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Gong Yeti had watched the entire battle from the ground, as he did not get a chance to join in the fight himself. By the time he had finished his duty the previous night, he had been in a state of continuous activity for 24 hours. He had gone back to his quarters and fallen into a deep sleep. He had woken up to the sound of planes, which was not unusual, but when he stepped out of his building, he noticed the flaming red sun on the wings of the aircraft overhead and immediately realized what was going on. He watched in dazed disbelief as the more maneuverable Japanese fighters shot down one Chinese aircraft after the other. With deep dismay, he noticed that not a single Japanese plane was downed.
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The young lieutenant would not fly again during the battle for Shanghai. That day he was grounded, and the same happened the next day, when yet another major Japanese raid took place. There was no point in taking off to be shot down immediately by a much stronger foe. The Japanese air superiority in the entire Yangtze Delta region had become unassailable. There was nothing more for Gong to do. He was evacuated west along with other surviving pilots. On the morning of September 21, they boarded a steamboat heading up the Yangtze. They stood on the deck, watching the Nanjing docks disappear in the mist. “We felt dejected, thinking about the calamity awaiting the capital,” Gong wrote in his diary.
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“You’re from Hunan. You don’t fear death!” Chiang Kai-shek’s spy master Dai Li had used simple logic when ordering Shen Zui, one of his young field agents, to enter into the lion’s den in Hongkou. Dai Li had uttered the words around the time of the outbreak of hostilities in Shanghai while on a visit to the French Concession, hoping to set up an intelligence network behind Japanese lines. Shen Zui was not sure he agreed with the stereotype that every single person from his home province of Hunan in southern China, man, woman and child, was fearless and death-defying, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to contradict his superior. Dai Li was one of China’s most feared men, and for a good reason.
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He had allies in the Green Gang and did not shy away from kidnapping and torture in the interest of obtaining useful intelligence. Later in the war, foreigners would even refer to him as “China’s Himmler.”
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Shen Zui’s task was to set up a functioning espionage operation inside
Hongkou at a time when hostilities were already getting underway. He was to monitor Japanese troop movements and report back by wireless. He had to recruit people he could trust, and find credible cover identities for them. He had to scout for locations from where he and his agents could observe the enemy while being reasonably sure that they would not be detected themselves. He had to find safe apartments to spend the night, and other locations where he could store his radio. It was the kind of activity that took months to set up, and it would have been complicated even in peacetime. In the middle of a war, and under orders to deliver actionable intelligence instantly, it was a nearly impossible task.

Simply finding people to spy for him was hard. Few who had heard of the Japanese secret police, the Kempeitai, and its methods were tempted to embark on this type of adventure. Shen Zui had been forced to truly scrape the bottom of the barrel. He eventually managed to come up with the eight group members that Dai Li had requested, but only after hiring complete novices, including a peripheral acquaintance who happened to be in Shanghai to visit Shen Zui’s brother.

Shen Zui was paying for Chiang Kai-shek’s year-long obsession with the Communist threat—an obsession that had led to intelligence work against the Japanese menace being all but ignored. In fact, even after the battle of Shanghai had broken out, while the Japanese Army was moving in to conquer the city, Dai Li’s agents continued to arrest suspected Com-munists in the downtown districts, although they were slightly more discreet about it than previously, as a concession to the official propaganda declaring a united front against the Japanese aggressor.