This photo, presumably taken by the Japanese, seems to be well after the battle. The place looks empty for lack of any activity inside it. Unroofed and partly unroofed buildings also don’t show any scattered debris, shell craters, or signs of fire, any of which may have since been cleaned up. However there is no sign that the Japanese meant to reoccupy this particular site, which seems to be only a part of the larger installation. There are no matches to the following photos.
Cultivated areas surrounding the walled barracks suggest garrison gardens.
It would be interesting to match this installation against modern photography of the same area to find the site. However, its razing may predate Google Earth and there are few reference points for it in this one aerial photo.
A Taiwanese coworker translated the sign for me as “commander’s office” or “headquarters” (echelon uncertain in last
kanji).
Possible civilian newspaper correspondents at right?
Under guard, captives are apparently detailed to turn over their rifles, two per man along with collected cartridge belts and bandoliers. This is interesting for Chinese uniforms with light-colored cap bands, collar patches, and canvas{?} shoes.
The nighttime photos show the Japanese noticeably equipped in the old style, with older coats, no steel helmets, and 6.5mm Type 38 rifles. Different helmets were in use from the 1920s, but the best-known one from World War II was not yet in use until 1932, the following year? If these are all photos of Beidaying’s aftermath, why are helmets widely worn in some of them and not at all in others?
I have wondered somewhat how much if historic geography clashed with moneyed land development in modern-day China, as it has done at times in the West. Money tends to win, especially when it suborns civil government.
Could it be that in today’s China, some historical places from wartime do not speak to the people’s soul, by recalling what happened to our country and how we answered it as a nation? That’s what all such places do, whatever we argue about the reasons and details. It seems that this kind of history in China is sometimes well-kept only by local people, and, as elsewhere, it raises the question of how it is taught.
-- Alan