Battle of Changde

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Kim Sung
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#31

Post by Kim Sung » 06 Jan 2007, 08:55

How about opening a new thread on the claim of Japanese germ warfare in the battle of Nomonhan?

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=113885

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#32

Post by Kim Sung » 06 Jan 2007, 08:58

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050707_1.htm
When I got home and started to read it, I realized that this was going to be hard work. This is about Japanese airplanes dropping bubonic plague bacteria on the unsuspecting Chinese population before the launching of the military offensive against Changde, a key transportation hub to the wartime Chinese capital of Chongqing. Unfortunately, there aren't many good pictures of bubonic plague bacteria, which would be invisible to the human eye. There are just pages and pages of photographs of documents on the casualty reports as well as interviews and photographs of survivors today. There are also long descriptions of the painstaking work of the committee to discover the truth of what happened at Changde and obtained a confirmation of 7,643 verifiable deaths with names and particulars (and the true number may have been significantly higher). There is also a description of their attempt to file for compensation in Japanese court -- they received zero in money, but the court accepted their claim that the infamous Japanese Unit 731 did participate in biological warfare against Changde and other places in China. Here is the translation of the relevant section of the court decision:

(a) On 4 November 1941, Japanese military aircraft of Unit 731 flew over Changde and dropped cotton, grains and other goods along with plague-infected fleas right in the center of the town.

(b) The first patient came down with bubonic plague on 11 November, and in the roughly two months after the first outbreak, the primary outbreak killed eight people in the area of the town (according to an epidemiological report at the time). However, after a two-month lull, a second outbreak came in March 1942, and a total of 34 people in the town area perished (according to the aforementioned report). The primary outbreak was likely caused by direction transmission, through bites by plague-infected fleas that had been dropped from the military aircraft. The secondary outbreak was believed to have been caused by indirect transmission; it likely started first in rodents which carried the plague throughout the winter then proceeded during the active spring period to infect humans via fleas infected by the rodents.

(c) Beginning in March 1942, the plague in the area of Changde proceeded to spread to farming villages, with many deaths reported in various areas. The number of deaths from the Changde plague reached 7,643, according to the Changde germ warfare victims investigation committee, although the scope of the investigation was extremely broad.


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asiaticus
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#33

Post by asiaticus » 06 Jan 2007, 09:06

"...documentary evidence proves conclusively that BW and CW was employed on a large scale"

Uh, what document sources? A few newspaper reports in the 1980's and 1990's? Seems pretty flimsy evidence.

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Peter H
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#34

Post by Peter H » 06 Jan 2007, 09:54

Kim Sung wrote:http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050707_1.htm
When I got home and started to read it, I realized that this was going to be hard work. This is about Japanese airplanes dropping bubonic plague bacteria on the unsuspecting Chinese population before the launching of the military offensive against Changde, a key transportation hub to the wartime Chinese capital of Chongqing. Unfortunately, there aren't many good pictures of bubonic plague bacteria, which would be invisible to the human eye. There are just pages and pages of photographs of documents on the casualty reports as well as interviews and photographs of survivors today. There are also long descriptions of the painstaking work of the committee to discover the truth of what happened at Changde and obtained a confirmation of 7,643 verifiable deaths with names and particulars (and the true number may have been significantly higher). There is also a description of their attempt to file for compensation in Japanese court -- they received zero in money, but the court accepted their claim that the infamous Japanese Unit 731 did participate in biological warfare against Changde and other places in China. Here is the translation of the relevant section of the court decision:

(a) On 4 November 1941, Japanese military aircraft of Unit 731 flew over Changde and dropped cotton, grains and other goods along with plague-infected fleas right in the center of the town.

(b) The first patient came down with bubonic plague on 11 November, and in the roughly two months after the first outbreak, the primary outbreak killed eight people in the area of the town (according to an epidemiological report at the time). However, after a two-month lull, a second outbreak came in March 1942, and a total of 34 people in the town area perished (according to the aforementioned report). The primary outbreak was likely caused by direction transmission, through bites by plague-infected fleas that had been dropped from the military aircraft. The secondary outbreak was believed to have been caused by indirect transmission; it likely started first in rodents which carried the plague throughout the winter then proceeded during the active spring period to infect humans via fleas infected by the rodents.

(c) Beginning in March 1942, the plague in the area of Changde proceeded to spread to farming villages, with many deaths reported in various areas. The number of deaths from the Changde plague reached 7,643, according to the Changde germ warfare victims investigation committee, although the scope of the investigation was extremely broad.
That's my point--no connection with the events of November 1943.

Sheldon Harris' Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932 - 1945 mentions nothing about Changde in 1943.

Changde seems the CW/BW spin centre of China.A conference there in December 2002 came up with the unsupported claim of 580,000 Chinese dead from CW/BW in WW2.

Ningbo is another case in point.The Chinese claim 2,100 dead.The leading scholar of Unit 731 in Japan, Professor Keiichi Tsuneishi,"is skeptical of such numbers. Tsuneishi, who has led the efforts in Japan to uncover atrocities by Unit 731, says that the attack on Ningbo killed about 100 people and that there is no evidence for huge outbreaks of disease set off by field trials".

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Peter H
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#35

Post by Peter H » 06 Jan 2007, 10:24

I'm still after the crucial impact of Chennault's flyboys in this battle.

The Cairo Conference, occurring at the same time as the battle,may have influenced the determined Chinese stand as well.Chiang was pushing for influence and needed scores on the board.

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Re: Battle of Changde

#36

Post by sjchan » 06 Sep 2009, 17:19

Just came across your question by chance (I know it's been a while). Basically the Allied air force was beginning to make its presence felt during this campaign (air drop of supplies to the encircled garrison, attacking Japanese supplies and challenging Japanese air superiority). However the Japanese still managed to mount effective air support of their ground troops and inflict heavy losses on the Chinese defenders.

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Peter H
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Re: Battle of Changde

#37

Post by Peter H » 23 Oct 2009, 14:22

I think these are Japanese photos of the Changde fighting
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changde2.jpg
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Peter H
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Re: Battle of Changde

#38

Post by Peter H » 23 Oct 2009, 14:23

More...

Second photo as translated by Sjchan ---"Brutal and Indiscriminate Bombings by American Planes"
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Re: Battle of Changde

#39

Post by sjchan » 30 Oct 2009, 08:04

Hi Peter - How could you tell these pictures were taken at Changde - do they have Japanese captions or something?

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Peter H
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Re: Battle of Changde

#40

Post by Peter H » 30 Oct 2009, 10:41

I can't be 100% sure but they are around that time.More a hunch,an urban battle in China highlighted,from that time.

Changde is 常德? Would this also be the same in Japanese?

Or is this now modern simplified Chinese?

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Re: Battle of Changde

#41

Post by sjchan » 31 Oct 2009, 18:45

Changde is 常德, it's the same in Japanese, traditional and simplified Chinese.

Make2010
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Re: Battle of Changde

#42

Post by Make2010 » 21 Feb 2010, 22:13

Kim Sung wrote:Chinese heroes of the battle

Image
Can anyone identify who those two heroes are?

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Re: Battle of Changde

#43

Post by Edward Chen » 01 Mar 2010, 08:10

Make2010 wrote:Can anyone identify who those two heroes are?

On the left is MGEN Sun Ming-chin [孙明瑾 Sun Mingjin (1905-1943)], CO Reserve 10th Division from 10th Corps, KIA Dec 1 1943 at Taipingqiao, Changde in Hunan Province. Posthumously promoted to LTG.

On the right is MGEN Peng Shih-liang [彭士量 Peng Shiliang (1905-1943)], CO Provisional 5th Division from 73rd Corps, KIA Nov 15, 1943 at Shimen, Changde in Hunan Province. Posthumously promoted to LTG.

http://bbs.cyol.com/viewthread.php?tid=155290

Hope this helps,

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Re: Battle of Changde

#44

Post by Make2010 » 09 Mar 2010, 04:15

Thank you. Much appreciated.

I was planning on visiting the museum later this year; can anyone tell me who has visited the museum how ‘accurate’ its appraisal of the Nationalists is? Does it blur the heroic contribution of the NRA in Changde and does the Maoist narrative (of demonising the Nationalists) still linger? I have read some literature from an academic from the local university on CAJ and it was for the most part very complimentary to the Nationalists in Changde, praising their patriotism and heroism in anti-Japanese resistance.

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The Battle of Changde

#45

Post by Kim Sung » 10 Mar 2010, 02:22

Make2010 wrote:Thank you. Much appreciated.

I was planning on visiting the museum later this year; can anyone tell me who has visited the museum how ‘accurate’ its appraisal of the Nationalists is? Does it blur the heroic contribution of the NRA in Changde and does the Maoist narrative (of demonising the Nationalists) still linger? I have read some literature from an academic from the local university on CAJ and it was for the most part very complimentary to the Nationalists in Changde, praising their patriotism and heroism in anti-Japanese resistance.
As you see in my posts in this thread, I visited the Changde Museum in December 2006. It was a brief stay for 20 minutes, so I didn't have time enough to take a close look at photos and explanations exhibited at the museum. So I clicked the shutter of my camera in haste. As we know, the Nationalists' roles in the Anti-Japanese War have been largely ignored by the communist government while the Communists' roles have been exaggerated. My impression is that, with the tide of gradual democratization, communist China is now matured to look back at their past correctly and began to admit patriotism and sacrifices of the Nationalist soldiers in the fact that they fought anyway for China against the Japanese invasion.

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