The Baby at Shanghai Railway Station

[Peter H]

H.S "Newsreel" Wong's famous photo from 1937.

From: http://images.google.com/hosted/life

"The October 14,1937 issue of Life Magazine estimated that 136 million people had seen Wong's "Chinese Baby".

[Peter H]

From Great news photos and the stories behind them John Faber page 32:

..Wong's life was threatened by the Japanese.He said " To their embarrassment,the Japanese blamed me that the picture was a fake.They put a price on my head to prove they were right".He was put under the protection of British authorities and shortly after fled with his family to Hong Kong..

From: http://www16.atwiki.jp/pipopipo555jp/m/ ... ml?guid=on

It was August 28, 1937. Retreating Chinese Nationalist Troops had left behind them a blockade across the Whampoo River in Shanghai. At two P.M. that day, the Japanese Navy was scheduled to blow it up.On the roof of the Butterfield Swires Building, which faced the Whampoo, were many correspondents and cameramen. They waites to record the bombing. By three o'clock the Japanese had not shown up. Word came through that the bombing had been postponed. The newsmen left. All but H.S."Newsreel" Wong of Hearst Metrotone News; he decided to wait a little longer.About four P.M. he heard the sound of planes. Three Japanese bombers came in low. They circled the temporary Japanese airfield and passed over Wong again. Seconds later, he felt the concussion of bomb exploding. Black smoke arose in the direction of Chinese Arsenal, two miles away.

Wong grabbed his 35mm Eyemo camera and film. He raced his car toward the arsenal. As he approached it, he realized that the railroad station had been hit."It was a horrible sight. People were still trying to get up. Dead and injured lay strewn across the tracks and platform. Limbs lay all over the place. Only my work helped me forget what I was seeing.　 I stopped to reload my camera. I notices that my shoes were soaked with blood."I walked across the railway track, and made many long scene with the burning overhead bridge in the background. Then I saw a man pick up a baby from the track, and carry him to the platform. He went back to get another badly injured child. The mother lay dead on the tracks. As I filmed this tragedy, I heard the sound of planes returning. Quickly, I shot my remaining few feet on the baby, I ran toward the child, intending to carry him to safety, but the father returned. The bombers passed overhead. No bombs were dropped.

...The film was sent by U.S. Navy ship from Shanghai to Manila, then to New York by Pan American Airlines. Two weeks later, the crying baby, sitting in the bombed South railway station in Shanghai, was seen in the Hearst newsreels and newspapers.

The pitiable sight of a lone baby on the tracks of a bombed station would be shocking in any era, and it had a profound impact on Americans. The impression that helpless China was being tormented by evil Japan soon became entrenched in the United States, generating anti-Japanese public opinion.

[Peter H]

Some right wing Japanese groups still maintain the photo was a "fake".

http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=94

The photographer is H.S. Wong, a Chinese-American, and the picture appeared in the December 21, 1937 issue of Look magazine. The man carrying the child is the likely the assistant of Wong. Wong was an employee of William Randolph Hearst (the subject of the movie, Citizen Kane), and who was famously quoted as saying “You provide the photographs, I’ll provide the war”.

Either this photo was retouched:




Or Wong moved the baby on the tracks with the agreement of the father.


Regardless,the photo still shows an injured baby that had just lost its mother.The Japanese air attack on the Shanghai South Railway Station killed an estimated 1500 civilians with only 300 survivors.

[Puska 35.M]

They arn't the same photo, in the top (without father) you see he is screaming, and his mouth is open.
On the bottom (with father) you see he is looking at the ground, and his mouth is closed.