City of Life and Death

[YC Chen]

Can anyone identify the warship in the last pic?

[AVV]

Hello!

Can anyone identify the warship in the last pic?

She looks like Chu Tai or Chiang Yuan class Chinese gunboat.
http://www.warshipsww2.eu/lode.php?lang ... trida=1884

Best regards, Aleks

[Anas sawallha]

hi , i know it's wrong place to put my post, but i post it here because there are many Asian theater of operations experts here
please if anyone can tell me what is the name of the Japanese song or post a link of the song after the part when kadokawa shot Mrs. Jiang ?
thanks in advance

[Peter H]

From ebay,seller dixie_auctions

Nanking 1932.Second photo shows Sun Yat Sen Memorial Blvd

[Peter H]

Same source.

Nanking gates Dec 1937

Gate to Nanking which were locked Dec 7 1937 as 90 Japanese planes bombed the city

[Peter H]

Nanking captives

[Peter H]

Men of military age having their papers checked.Most likely all these men were later executed.

[Peter H]

Nanking street

[Peter H]

More...

[michael mills]

On 19 November last year, Peter H wrote this comment on a photo of three japanese soldiers covering a fallen statue with a Guomindang flag:

The Statue of Sun Yat Sen being pulled down also locks up with this

The film "City of Life and death" was shown on SBS a few days ago, so I know the scene to which PeterH was referring. The scene shows some Japanese soldiers pulling down a statue of Sun Yatsen with chains, covering it with a dirty and ragged Guomindang flag and then dragging it off and jeering at it. The aim of the scene is obviously to convey the idea that the Japanese soldiers were desecrating the memory of Sun Yatsen.

That is a false interpretation of history. It is unlikely that the Japanese soldiers would have desecrated a statue of Sun Yatsen, since that Chinese leader was actually honoured by the Japanese as someone who had been friendly to Japan and had wanted to establish a cooperative relationship between the two countries. Indeed, Sun Yatsen was pro-Japanese, regarding Japan as a model for Chinese modernisation; he lived in a Japan for a period, and even took a Japanese name, a translation of one of his Chinese names.

Furthermore, the Japanese did not dishonour the Guomindang or its flag. The official Japanese view of the fighting between Chinese and Japanese forces that broke out in 1937 was not that they were fighting the Guomindang of Sun Yatsen, but rather that they were fighting the Communists, with whom Jiang Jieshi had allied himself in 1936.

Those readers of this thread who have seen the film "Lust Caution" will know that the Guomindang flag was used by the Nanjing government of Wang Qingwei which was allied with the Japanese. That government claimed to be the true Guomindang, and the true successor to the mantle of Sun Yatsen, with Jiang Jieshi being a usurper who had seized power in the 1927 coup. There was some truth to that claim, which was aceepted by the Japanese because it suited their purposes, since Wang Qingwei had been the designated political successor to Sun Yatsen, and Jiang Jieshi had been merely the military leader.

The photo that has been misinterpreted by PeterH (or so it seems) actually shows three Japanese soldiers honouring the fallen statue of Sun Yatsen by reverently covering it with a clean and undamaged Guomindang flag, the flag created by Sun. There is nothing to show how the statue came to be lying on the ground, but there is no reason to assume that it was pulled down by the Japanese; perhaps it was knocked over in the course of the fighting.

Quite possibly this photo was indeed the source of the scene in the film which shows Japanese soldiers descrating the statue, but if so, the maker of the film has falsified history, perhaps for propaganda reasons.

[Peter H]

Jeering over another Sun Yat-sen statue

From: http://www.chinajunzheng.com/bbs/

[Peter H]

Same source.

Nanking walls?

[Peter H]

Same source again.

[Peter H]

From: http://net-archives.main.jp/

Preliminary bombing

[Peter H]

From ebay,seller vgcard99