Bombings of the Bund, August 1937

[Uncle Fritz]

In august 1937 amateur chinese pilots dropped bombs on crowded streets of International Settlement: The Bund and Nanking Road. Some later claimed that this was done on order of generalissimus Chiang to bring western powers into the sino-japan conflict. This was the first time so many westerners were killed ever on chinese soil - and by a chinese hand so it had to worsen relations of KMT with western countries? I wonder also if someone has actual photos of the incidents.

[Jerry Asher]

Hi Uncle Fritz:
Photo's a plenty --don't forget this is Shanghai international settlement--I suspect total of number of new services represented is among highest in world at that time. Something like number of services that now congregate in Jerusalem to follow the mid east.

I reject the idea that these are amateur pilots. They held their own against the IJN air service for several months of active combat. No country goes to its citizens and says well we want to plan for 180 days of sustained warfare, and nobody can afford it. The CAF was a professional outfit. Note recently in Libyan campaign of 2011that NATO ordinance was drained quickly.

2nd: their effort in August 1937 was no worse than the IJN bombing of January 1932 that gutted the Commercial Press and "Oriental Library" and for the same reason--really borderline flying conditions.

3rd: Deaths are not of Westerners' but of Chinese, including refugees.

4th: virtualShanghai project has excellent maps
5th: I find nothing nefarious in Jiang's wanting to use western countries to assist in the resistance to Japan. AND no evidence at all that this is a deliberate ploy. NOTE in comparison to 1932 the Chinese are the attackers, not the defenders.

[1305923991]

the japanese airforce attacked refugees Frequently in shanghai,they're cruel and ferocious，and until today ,the japanese government still does not admit doing these Atrocities.

[YC Chen]

Hi Uncle Fritz:
The incident you mentioned is the so-called "大世界炸弹案"(the accidential bombing of "Dashijie") in 1937. It was conducted by a Northrop Gamma 2EC light bomber with 2x800 pound bombs, piloted by Zhu Hongxin(祝鸿信) and the bombardier was Lei Tianjuan(雷天眷, he was a former mechant ship student at Woosung martime college, he joined the CAF after his college was destroyed by Japanese bombs in 1932. He later took part in the famous "leaflet bombing" of Japan), and they were on a mission to bomb Japanese warships but they didn't find Japanese ships. On the returning journey one bomb accidentially near Dashijie and caused many casualties.
I have seen at least three theories concerning why the bomb was dropped:
1, It was a mistake of the bombardier Lei Tianjuan;
2, The bomb rack was hit by Japanese anti-aircraft fire and was damaged. This was the official explaination of KMT government.
3, The most fantastic theory is that Lei dropped the bomb deliberately because he wanted to bomb the "foreign devils" in Shanghai . I personally don't believe this theory.

The casualties, as mentioned by Jerry Asher, were mostly Chinese.

Dont forget the causal and large scale bombing of Shanghai conducted by Japanese planes caused far more damage to both Chinese and foreigners as shown in 1305923991's photos(But you should never use dirty words).

[1305923991]

Hi Uncle Fritz:
The incident you mentioned is the so-called "大世界炸弹案"(the accidential bombing of "Dashijie") in 1937. It was conducted by a Northrop Gamma 2EC light bomber with 2x800 pound bombs, piloted by Zhu Hongxin(祝鸿信) and the bombardier was Lei Tianjuan(雷天眷, he was a former mechant ship student at Woosung martime college, he joined the CAF after his college was destroyed by Japanese bombs in 1932. He later took part in the famous "leaflet bombing" of Japan), and they were on a mission to bomb Japanese warships but they didn't find Japanese ships. On the returning journey one bomb accidentially near Dashijie and caused many casualties.
I have seen at least three theories concerning why the bomb was dropped:
1, It was a mistake of the bombardier Lei Tianjuan;
2, The bomb rack was hit by Japanese anti-aircraft fire and was damaged. This was the official explaination of KMT government.
3, The most fantastic theory is that Lei dropped the bomb deliberately because he wanted to bomb the "foreign devils" in Shanghai . I personally don't believe this theory.

The casualties, as mentioned by Jerry Asher, were mostly Chinese.

Dont forget the causal and large scale bombing of Shanghai conducted by Japanese planes caused far more damage to both Chinese and foreigners as shown in 1305923991's photos(But you should never use dirty words).

I'm sorry, but as a chinese people,I really dislike some japanese governments' behaviors,so......
by the way, are you a chinese in Nanking too?T'm very happy to see a chinese here,,,

[YC Chen]

Of course I am a Chinese ...

[David Thompson]

1305923991 -- Please give sources for your photographs. Our rules require it.

[1305923991]

1305923991 -- Please give sources for your photographs. Our rules require it.

http://tuku.news.china.com/history/html ... 800_1.html
http://image.baidu.com/i?tn=baiduimage& ... 5%D5%C6%AC

[alexWong]

1305923991
There are a lot of Chinese readers, scholars here, most of us here are not residing in PRC which is not a good place to do serious historical research...
I am too a Chinese.

[zoboe]

1305923991
There are a lot of Chinese readers, scholars here, most of us here are not residing in PRC which is not a good place to do serious historical research...
I am too a Chinese.

Please show your evidence of your opinion on "PRC not a good place to do serious historical research", better first-hand long-term residing experience in PRC

As a PRC resident, in the recent 5 years I often buy military-history books from Taiwan and Hongkong, from Japan, from Europe and North America, without any interference.

The PRC government has endorsed the systematic publication of many pre-1949 ROC files. Please note these are official files, including many Civil War troop reports of KMT side. People can buy these books without limitation, and can borrow these books as long as the library has the collection.

As for the official libraries, at least the Shanghai Library, Tsinghua University Library and Peking University Library, as I have often visited, have quite many Taiwan books as well, open to readers as ordinary mainland Chinese books.

Some international forums e.g. network54 are not easy to visit, but there is some "over-the-wall" software in common use, as a basic tool for "serious researchers" after international references.

[David Thompson]

Two off-topic posts from 1305923991 were removed by this moderator - DT.

[Håkan Gustavsson]

Hello,

Interesting topic!
However, something feels strange about this 14 August-incident and the accompaning photos. I've seen reports of thousands of dead and wounded after this incident and the images above seems to verify this (even if some of them doesn't seems to come from this incident). But thousands of dead seems a little to much for one 800 lb bomb?!
Was the thousands of dead and wounded a summary of all civilian casualties in August 1937 or were there several Chinese aicraft bombing the town by mistake on this date?

Virtual Shanghai have some interesting images at: http://www.virtualshanghai.net/Referenc ... itory?ID=9

Any additional info on this subject would be most welcome!

Best wishes/Håkan

[Takao]

I curious about the bomb load, as the load often given for the Northrop 2E bomber is only 1,100 pounds(500kg). It might be possible to overload the bomber, but at a cost to it's aerial performance & combat range.

[Håkan Gustavsson]

Thanks Takao - that was my next question!
The bomb load is also strange!

/Håkan

[dreamk]

The bomb was 750lbs overall, containing 285lbs of TNT, Overall length 68" (body 32" tail unit 36") Diameter 18".
It was a Chinese produced version of the Italian 250kg (in reality 286 kg = 630lbs ) demolition bomb, with some notable differences:
The bomb was slightly shorter than the Italian model (68" instead of 74", nose fuze included) the tail was in aluminium alloy but the body was reinforced steel, while the diameter and overall shape were identical.
It was much heavier than its Italian model (750lbs instead of 630 lbs), so has to increase its penetration capacity, something logical if the weapon was designed as an anti-ship weapon, while the explosive content was similar (285lbs vs 265lbs in the Italian original).
The fuzes (nose and tail) were the regular Italian fuzes used on this type of bomb (nose type A, tail type O3).
I'll try to upload a detailed drawing of this bomb, found in the National Archives among the diplomatic documents on the incident.