Today I dump some pics of an often very overlooked part of the 2nd world war from western perspectives, the 2nd sino-japanese war.
Just as many soldiers fought and died between these
2 countries alone, as did ALL NATIONALITIES ON THE WESTERN FRONT. To overlook China's contribution to the war effort is a severe detriment to the history of the pacific campaign.
I also always like to point out Nazi Germany's extremely close relation to china just prior to ww2. Just how close was China at the time to becomming an Axis ally? Extremely close. German interests and industry were huge in building China at the time, Chiang Kai-Sheks son was a panzer commander in the Whermacht, a huge portion of his army was german equipped and german trained. These would be the bulk of the elite Chinese divisions fighting the Japanese around main cities such as Shanghai. The Communists never took a headlong fight against the japanese, having neither the strength nor equipment to do so, and also using the sly tactic of letting the nationalists to sap their strength against the japanese first before attacking them themselves. Only recently has the communist party started to acknowledge China's liberation was mostly in part due to nationalist forces, as opposed to their former altered history view that it was the communists that beat the Japanese. Either way post war China was a doomed country, as they had either the fascist supporting Chiang Kai-shek or the ultra communist Mao.
Wiki has an excellent overview of this that extremely few westerners know about:
Note the pics of Hitlerjugend training in China!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-German_cooperation_until_1941
You can tell communist vs nationalist forces by equipment. Nationalist forces are well equipped and armed with german era uniforms and weaponry. The communists were ad hoc, scrounging whatever they could get their hands on.
Despite being outclassed overall by the japanese, mainly due to lack of any heavy weaponry or tanks, there are many instances of amazing heroics. One of my favorites is the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Sihang_Warehouse
During the battle of Shanghai, this man led a defence of a warehouse with under 450 men against an entire division of elite japanese including tanks and won.
This guy is having a rough time. Appears to be a communist fighter due to equipment.
The Japanese destroyed entire cities and villages.
Next 3 photos are nationalist forces
Communist forces.
Looks almost like vietnam doesn't it?
From the back, you couldn't tell if they were germans or chinese.
Note the DAODAO swords. There are recorded instances of actual Daodao vs Katana fights in the early days of the war.
I got to pass by and see from the outside the main airfield where the flying tigers were based out of. Unfortunately I didn't get to go inside. The place is now a national museum.
I have had the "Joy" of travelling these roads on the China side leading to Burma. They are rough, bumpy, windy and 8hours on one made me want to vomit all over the place.
The horrors of war.
