Sunday, December 3, 2006

   I am officially awesome.
You guys need to listen to this week's podcast on theO's front page. The podcasters feel my comments are awesome and read two of mine. And one likes my picture. It's a double podcast so it's like, twenty minutes long. But you just need to get through the first ten minutes of it anyway . . . . . I'm officially awesome now. I've introduced the usage of "dick" into the podcasts . . . and then they were wheezing and stuff afterwards. I'm very proud now.

Ahh . . . . . life is good.


So hey, it's December now, huh? I need to start getting my Christmas lists together, especially for my far away peoples! I've got a good part of it ready and just need to actually work on them . . . but yeah, yay!

As for what else I'm gonna do at the site this Christmas? Umm . . . . . I've been playing around with one idea in particular. I've wanted to do a Christmas themed thing of these for a while, so hopefully I can get on the ball soon enough to do it.

For those who've been around long enough, I'll give you three letters that will hopefully mean something to you:

C. F. N.


You all have a good one, now. And listen to the podcast!
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Thursday, November 30, 2006

   Another quick update . . . probably . . . maybe . . . . . .
Neglecting my blog again. But, I've got far away people reading it right this minute, so let's see if I can finish this before she leaves . . . from work? I dunno, what time is it in Australia if it's 10:20pm in Vancouver?

Hello there, Miss Linda! [waves]


So what have I been up to . . . . . I finished the long campaign in "Medieval 2: Total War", so we'll see if I can ease off on playing that now. This shall give me more time to watch DVDs, I guess . . .

It's still snowing a fair bit and it's gonna keep snowing. I am having fun drifting around empty corners, though . . . oh, and Superstore is out of ice melt, so don't bother asking about that. But yeah, it's pretty. Colder than what we're used to around here, but it's pretty.


In other news (I love cutting away with that), my grandmother took notes for making hakama and is gonna make me some! She actually seems pretty excited about it, since she's never made 'em before in all her years of making clothes for people . . . so hopefully I get 'em before the Peacemaker cosplay group figures out when we'll do our winter photo shoot - yeah, we're planning one of those . . . should be good.


And now for other things that have come up while my grandmother's been in town:

-My grandmother has an incredible sweet tooth. Adds a lot of honey to tea and stuff (she's made me a few ultra-sweet cups of tea so far). She also loves honey, since it's good for you.

-When she goes back to China and Hong Kong, apparently she always goes to McDonald's for breakfast; seems they have sit-down toilets there and she can't be bothered to squat. Funny.

-She thinks I have Japanese-looking eyes.

-She also thinks I look like Tony Leung, the movie star.

-I'm Bill Pardy. This has nothing to do with my grandmother.

-She understands my Chinglish fluently; this is good, as I often forget certain words now and then (though it got better while she was here and I was forced to speak Chinese).

-Regarding cosplay stuff, I showed her the kimono I made. She said to me that I was actually really good and to not think bad about my own skills; later, she then said to my mother that my work was "ugly". So I'm good, but my work sucks. She still feels I could do this as a trade or something, though . . . . . I disagree, but yeah.


If more funny stuff happens, I'll tell ya. 'Til then, then!
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Sunday, November 26, 2006

   No one saw this coming . . .
It snowed today.

He uses the tentacles to impregnate people, by the way.



. . . . . I'm Bill Pardy.
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Saturday, November 25, 2006

   Y'know what's a good movie?
"Slither". It's one of those movies you see on the shelf and go, "oh god, this can't be serious . . ." It looks bad, it sounds bad . . . it can only be really bad.

But y'know what? That's kinda what they were going for. So everyone had fun making it. So it's a very fun movie to watch. And hey, you can never go wrong with a tentacle alien. And Nathan Fillion stars in it.

So to recap: fun, Nathan Fillion, tentacles.


I also watched the last 9 hours of Season 3 of "The Dead Zone" the other day. Man, you can spot a lot of Vancouver in that season . . . heh, you can also spot local Vancouver voice actor talent in it, too - Keith Miller has a small screen role in an episode! I was amused by that. Can't wait to find the episode where my brother's best friend got the back of his head blown off in the later seasons . . .




. . . . . I'm Bill Pardy.
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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

   Gaming Front update . . .
The pope hates me. So does the Holy Roman Empire (which, incidentally, is neither especially holy, Roman, or very imperial per se). I've got an uneasy peace going with England and Portugal (yeah, Portugal's in the game), and Egypt and the holy land are being squished by crusaders as we speak . . . they'll probably come back and kick our asses, though.
Oh yeah, and Inquisitors keep convicting my family members of heresy and they keep burning them. Freakin' inquisitors . . .

In other news, the "Trogdor" song is in Guitar Hero 2. This instantly makes the game about five million times cooler than anything else right now.


So what's important over here that I should know about but don't yet?
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Friday, November 17, 2006

   In case anyone was wondering . . . . .
The Dead Zone, season 3.
Avatar, season 1.
Lois & Clark, season 4 (SUCH a great show!).

Final Fantasy XII.
Medieval II: Total War.
Guitar Heroes 2.

Extra shifts at work.
Graveyard shift at work.
Dumb blue promotional uniform at work.



In case anyone's been wondering where I've been, is all.
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Sunday, November 12, 2006

One last post before I switch back to forest colours . . .
It's a day after the fact, but this song has been making its rounds this year across the country. It's called "Soldier", by Shawn Hlookoff of Vancouver, BC. I like to think he gets straight to the point about Remembrance Day:

You don't remember the war, you remember the people who fought in it.



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Saturday, November 11, 2006

Liberation of the Netherlands, March-May 1945; Remembrance Day Reflections
Those of you who have known me for a while know I have a peculiar fondness for the Dutch. Technically it's mostly because of one particular one, but as it turns out it was also in my blood and heritage all along . . . my articles for this year's Remembrance Day conclude with the bond formed between Canada and the Netherlands in the Second World War.

The Netherlands declared itself to be neutral at the start of the Second World War, much as it had in the previous World War. Politics played less of a role in the German Blitzkrieg this time around, and all the neutrality in the world would not let them ignore a country that both flanked the Maginot Line of the French forces and served as a massive coastal point of entry for potential British landings . . . in May of 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands and rolled up the unprepared Dutch forces after one week of fighting and heavy losses both military and civilian. Any chance for quick liberation was also dashed with the Allied evacuation from the mainland at Dunkirk and the surrender of France.

During this time, Dutch men were sent to German factories to work, Jewish Dutch were rounded up and taken away to whichever fate was in store for them at their ultimate destinations, and starvation slowly became a greater problem as the war dragged on and food embargoes were set (partially in retaliation for the failed Operation Market Garden) . . .

Prior to all of this, the Dutch Royal Family was under some scrutiny. Princess Juliana's marriage to the German-born Prince Bernhard was criticised and many people were mistrustful of the new member of the royal family - it also didn't help that Hitler himself had commented that the marriage was "an alliance" between the two countries. Nevertheless, during the war the Prince proved his loyalties, serving as both a pilot and a liason officer for the Allies. Queen Wilhelmina, meanwhile, took her family to Britain and formed a government in exile there. Her daughter, Princess Juliana, went further with her children, fleeing to Canada and living in the capital of Ottawa for the rest of the war . . . . .

Fast forward into the final two years of the war. The Allies opened up the western front with the invasion of Normandy in June of 1944. As they pressed inwards, they still needed a huge amount of supplies coming in from Britain and North America; it was the First Canadian Army's job to clear the coastal ports and allow access to those supplies.

Fighting along the northwestern coast of Europe, the First Canadian Army pushed through France and into Belgium. Luckily for the Allies, the British had already captured Antwerp before winter came, which meant that one of the world's largest ports were now under Allied control . . . nevertheless, Germany still controlled the northern waters, so that port could not be used until the Allies cleared out all the surrounding land of the Scheldt River. And, though it took until the end of November to completely gain control of the river, the Canadians persevered and the path to Antwerp was clear.

In the final year of the war, the Allies crossed the Rhine into Holland in late March. Finally free of the natural defense of the river, the Canadians continued their task of clearing naval ports and supply routes. In this case, it was to open northern supplies to Arnhem . . . and in doing so, clear the Germans out of The Netherlands.

The war was in the Allies' favour, the Germans were falling back . . . and perhaps most promising of all for the Canadian Army, the Canadians were fighting together for the first time in a long time. By this point in the war, the First Canadian Corps in Italy were transferred to Northwestern Europe; both corps were fighting side by side. As a single entity, they pressed in for weeks; Germans in the west of the country were pushed back into Germany, and those in the northeast were pushed into the sea.

They paused the advance in April briefly due to concern for the civilians in the west. The waters in that area of the country were held back by dykes, and if the Germans felt the need to give themselves more defensive measures, they could release the dykes and flood the countryside . . . by the end of the month the Canadians were able to negotiate a truce to allow relief supplies into the country. This ended the "Hunger Winter" that had savaged the Dutch people since September of the previous year. The Canadians continued their press through The Netherlands . . .

On May 5th, the German Colonel General surrendered his remaining 117,000 troops to the Canadian Lieutenant General in charge of the First Canadian Corps; after 8 months of fighting and 7,600 Canadian losses, the Second Battle of The Netherlands was over.

On one hand, it should be quite easy to say how grateful the Dutch people were for their liberation by the Canadians. Hands waved, voices cheered, lips kissed . . . people gave thanks. On the other, the gratitude felt goes far beyond just the thanks and the cheers. The Canadian military freed their country. The Canadian capital sheltered members of the royal family; Princess Juliana, who endeared herself to her host city, even gave birth to her 3rd child in Ottawa! Canadian Parliament even passed legislation to temporarily turn Juliana's hospital rooms into Dutch ground - this was done so the newly-born Princess Margriet would have full Dutch citizenship and be in the royal line of succession (a dual nationality from being born on Canadian soil would negate her chance for that).

For all the things Canada had done for them, but most specifically for giving Princess Juliana and her family safe haven during the war, the Dutch Royal Family sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa in thanks. The next year Princess (and later Queen) Juliana sent a further 20,000 bulbs requesting that they be used to decorate the hospital at which her daughter was born; she also promised an annual gift of 10,000 tulip bulbs as a sign of that ongoing thanks and friendship now shared between the two nations.

Sixty years later, the tulips still come to my country every year as part of the annual Tulip Festival of Ottawa. From what I understand, it is also now the largest tulip festival in the world. In 1967, Queen Juliana returned to Ottawa and visited the festival; in 1995 Princess Margriet returned to her birthtown and officially opened that year's Tulip Festival (subtitled "The Friendship That Flowered), the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands. Man . . . . . it's times like this I wish I knew more about these things earlier in life . . . in any case, there you have it: proof that there are some people who will DEFINITELY never forget the sacrifices made.


(Cheers for both the Liberation of Holland and VE Day)


(Tulips on Parliament Hill in Ottawa)


-------------------------------------------


It's currently 11:45pm on the 10th as I type this, just thinking back to all this stuff like I always do at this time of year. Heh . . . and what am I thinking about this time around? I'm actually thinking a bit about work. You see, I usually work on Saturdays, from 1pm until 10pm. I've worked this shift for a long time. It's just funny that this time around, Remembrance Day falls on a Saturday. Remembrance Day is usually a stat. holiday meaning no work, no school . . . I mean, I'm part-time so it doesn't matter anyway, but still. So when we're all thinking silently about the men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom many of us have today - and we will ALL, be thinking about them today - I'm also going to be getting ready for work, for the bright blue promotional shirt they'll have us all wearing, and for the nine hours that I could probably spend better elsewhere.

I don't think I'm gonna catch any Remembrance Day ceremonies this year. Maybe I'll catch bits of the televised one from the monument in Ottawa, but that's probably it. But y'know, I'm sure it'll be enough.

When I first posted the news that I was gearing up for this week of posts, one member commented that she felt Remembrance Day was getting too commercial. While I don't quite agree with her point (commercial = spending but mostly making money, and I don't think poppy donations exactly count), her basic concern comes through. We do have a fair bit of parade and showmanship going on. We have children's choirs, pipe bands . . . there's definitely a lot of pageantry.

Y'know what, though? While a lot of it is symbolic for our past, it's also a show for a handful of people who are still around back from when it happened. I'm sure the veterans all think it's a bit of a show too, but hey, why hold that away from them? They know it's all a show too . . . but they also know that deep down it all still means the same thing: we remember what they had to do for us, and we will continue to remember.


I suppose in that sense, I'm pulling out my own sort of colourful pageantry with my week's worth of Remembrance Day posts. I won't lie, I'm always really happy when I see a good chunk of comments sitting under one of these entries because even though I'm more or less just trying to entertain everyone with an interesting story about one thing or another, I'm still getting a message through with 'em. It's kind of the same reason people have such a fascination with war films - they're about serious times, about real events, but they still amaze us with the drama and the action. I'm kinda like that, I guess . . . I can still see the drama and action before they make the movie, and until that movie comes out (or as the case may be with a few of these, until we go out and rent the old versions of these movies) I wanna get people prepped a little bit.

One guy has told me that he got his sister reading my posts, and that she's been enjoying them a lot. With that in mind, I'm sure that means that there are more readers than there are commentors . . . and I really do hope that's the case. Frankly, I don't much like the idea of the other alternative.


Look, I know a lot of people around here hate reading long posts (though apparently anything that takes more than two minutes to go through is considered long these days). Some people won't be able to see the beginning and end on the same amount of screen and call it off right then and there. It doesn't matter how relevant or captivating the words may or may not be; if the block of text goes down too far, they'll never find out in the first place.

And that's the real shame of Remembrance Day. People who can't be bothered to read for five minutes straight; people who can't wake up before 11am because it's going to be a Saturday; people who don't see beyond the day off from work.

You know what they say, history repeats itself . . . . . right now we all have soldiers fighting overseas in one fight or another, be it Afghanistan, Iraq, or where have you. At least for the cases of Canada and the US, we both have populations who want the troops back home . . . going by what I know of other returning soldiers from unpopular wars, I really hope we give those guys some respect when they land, whenever that may be. 'cause no one's gonna dedicate a day to them when it's over, believe me . . . . . I also know that some myOers are already in the military, have been in the military, or have family who are or have been in the military. Who knows, with half a million members, there's bound to be a fair amount who will go on to join the military at one point in their lives or another. Worse yet, there could be a major conflict, a home crisis and a draft, and then a whole lot of us would be joining up . . .

Yeah, one day it could be us boarding the plane to fight overseas. If it was you yourself, no matter how unpopular the war was, no matter how far away from home you had to be, no matter how little the war itself affected the daily lives of you or your loved ones . . . if you went over there and had to fight, would you want your sacrifices to be forgotten?
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Friday, November 10, 2006

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team
Two years ago I wrote an article about Japanese internment in the US and Canada after a slight influence by theO's own Gail "Panda" Shimura Brightbill, in which "enemy aliens" were forced from their homes and relocated to camps beyond the duration of the war.
Last year I wrote about Chinese-Canadian spies, who were second-rate citizens in a democratic country who despite prejudice and bigotry still strongly desired to volunteer for the very same country that despised them.

This year, I write about enemy aliens whose families were forced from their homes, relocated to camps for and beyond the duration of the war . . . and they still strongly desired to volunteer for the very same country that despised them. This year, I discuss the United States 442nd Regimental Combat Team: an American infantry unit comprised solely of Japanese-American soldiers, largely second-generation (nisei).

The story of Japanese-American soldiers begins, interestingly enough, in Hawaii. Hawaii's Japanese population at the time was so large that internment simply was not realistic. Nevertheless, all Japanese-American military units were still disbanded. The General in charge of the units in Hawaii had other thoughts, however, and kept 1,300 Japanese-American soldiers in the National Guard; those not of those 1,300 petitioned to help the war effort and became part of a military construction crew. In any case, military higher-ups were concerned about where Japanese-American loyalties would lie if Japan invaded Hawaii . . . the "Hawaiian Provisional Battalion" was sent to Camp McCoy in Wisconsin - far away from the Pacific coast.

The Provisional Battalion turned out to be (for lack of a more sophisticated term) friggin' hardcore during their training sessions. On February 1st, 1943 - about half a year after they were first sent to Camp McCoy - the US army reversed its decision to ban Japanese-Americans from military service . . . this eventually led to the formation of the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team, a unit of 3000 Japanese-Americans from Hawaii alone and 800 from the mainland. Keep in mind that they had substantially more volunteers than that 3,800 odd force - over 12,000 volunteered from Hawaii alone!

It wasn't exactly easy to get them all together, though . . . again, concerned about loyalties, potential 442nders were given a "loyalty questionnaire" which asked them to answer questions along the lines of "Are you willing to serve the US Army no matter where it orders you to go?" or "do you swear allegiance to the USA and forswear any allegiance to the Empire of Japan?" A lot of people didn't answer yes to these . . . and if that wasn't enough to deter people, there was an early tension between the Hawaiians and the Mainlanders . . . . . this all ended quickly after the troops were given visitation rights to their interned families . . . . .


Though they were forbidden to fight in the Pacific Theater save in special cases as translators or spies, the 442nd proved to be a remarkable unit. They fought in North Africa, Monte Cassino, Anzio, and Rome. After Italy, they fought in Southern France and eventually helped push into Germany itself in the later years of the war. This was not without its own price, of course . . . the unit had a definite reputation that could be described in its two main nicknames: the "Go For Broke" Regiment", and the "Purple Heart Battalion".

For those of you not in the know, a Purple Heart is an American Military decoration a soldier gets if he or she is wounded in combat. In the case of the 442nd, the unit of 3,000 or so men collected 9,486 Purple Hearts! This unit bled hard in the war, and even while bleeding many still insisted on returning to the battlefront. Going by American statistics, the unit had a casualty rate of 93% - that's 93% of the total unit killed, missing, or wounded.

Some would make the connection that perhaps the high casualty rate meant they were bad soldiers who got hurt/killed too often. But then one learns that the 442nd RCT is also the most highly decorated US military unit in the history of the country! The deeds and bravery of the unit earned 7 separate Presidential Citations (5 within the same month), while the soldiers earned about 18,000 different decorations alone: 1 Medal of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, 1 Distinguished Service Medal, 560 Silver Stars, 22 Legion of Merit Awards, 15 Soldier's Medals, an incredible 4,000 Bronze Stars . . . and of course, the 9,486 Purple Hearts.

And yet that was still not enough. When the war was over and the 442nd came home, America still despised them; veterans got no recognition for the sacrifices they made, and their families were still interned. Though, it wasn't like the military itself was especially kind to them either . . . . . many people believe that despite the decorations its soldiers received, they still did not receive all they should have for their valour; racism and prejudice kept many soldiers from being fairly decorated for their actions.

In fact, in June 2000, twenty (maybe twenty-one) members of the unit had their decorations upgraded to Medals of Honor - the highest decoration possible in the US military. It was many years after the fact, but this sort of recognition - be it posthumous or not - was finally made.


As the saying went, "they believed in America when America no longer believde in them." Despite all the injustice at home, they still fought for their homes; many, including the son of one of Gail's family friends, never got to return home. This is the kind of stuff we need to remember. In trying times, sometimes the ones you'd least expect stand up to that test against all reason . . . and y'know, we owe it to them to never forget.

To finish up, I want you guys to read the (posthumous) Medal of Honor Citation given for Pfc. Sadao Munemori in 1945 for what he did . . . and remember, he was the one Japanese-American who DID win the Medal of Honor despite all the prejudice against them during the war . . . this is the kind of heroism it took to break that kind of barrier:

"He fought with great gallantry and intrepidity near Seravezza, Italy. When his unit was pinned down by grazing fire from the enemy's strong mountain defense and command of the squad devolved on him with the wounding of its regular leader, he made frontal, one-man attacks through direct fire and knocked out two machineguns with grenades. Withdrawing under murderous fire and showers of grenades from other enemy emplacements, he had nearly reached a shell crater occupied by two of his men when an unexploded grenade bounced on his helmet and rolled toward his helpless comrades. He arose into the withering fire, dived for the missile and smothered its blast with his body. By his swift, supremely heroic action Pfc. Munemori saved two of his men at the cost of his own life and did much to clear the path for his company's victorious advance."


(442nd RCT hiking in France)


(442nd RCT Color Guard)
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Thursday, November 9, 2006

Battle of Shanghai, August - November 1937
There's times when the futility of war doesn't matter to people. Even when they know they will lose a fight, they will still fight it. Call it pride, call it courage, call it hubris . . . . . even when you look at the larger of a picture of a situation, any simple explanation automatically gets complicated as well. The next historical moment I present has a lot of all of this, and whether my family's background has anything to do with it or not, well . . . I was very glad to have done a little research on this subject.


The Second Sino-Japanese War which went on to become part of the larger Second World War in 1941 officially started with "serious" warfare in 1937. For years prior to that, though, China and Japan had several battles downplayed and referred to as "incidents" among other things. These incidents included the annexation of Manchuria, territories around the Great Wall, Beijing (which I have written about before) . . . Japan was occupying China one piece at a time. No one was declaring all-out war, though; Japan didn't want to get drawn into World War II proper (and in turn have to fight Russia or the other western powers), and China didn't want to lose the supplies and resources it was getting from foreign aid protected by neutrality. Nevertheless, the two nations played their cat and mouse game; the Chinese trained "police officers" in military strategies, while the Japanese had "reinforced" factories and warehouses in Shanghai from past trading ventures. The two powers just barely skirting around the issue, and killing each other when opportunity presented itself . . . y'know, covered in pretext and stuff.

So how about this pretext: called the "Oyama Incident", a Japanese lieutenant tried to illegally enter a Shanghai airport and was shot and killed. Well, the Japanese government apologised for the incident (it WAS an illegal intrusion), but still demanded that the Chinese defenses and forces around Shanghai come down because of it - after all, the shooting of a Japanese officer was an embarassment and a humiliation. I think it goes without saying that China wasn't especially keen on this idea - they had been fighting the Japanese in Northern China for a long time already, be it official war or not.

Shanghai was already considered by the world to be THE Chinese city in China, where anything going in or coming out passed through. There were other factors as well: Shanghai was China's largest industrial city, and all the machinery needed to be pulled further into the interior. It was also a port that looked right out towards the Japanese navy in the sea to the east. See, at this point the Sino-Japanese conflict had been a mostly North to South fight, with the Japanese moving southwards from Northern China. If the Japanese fought south and went PAST Shanghai, Shanghai would be cut off without a fight and anyone in it would either be forced into the sea or lost in the city. Space for time . . . the Chinese forced a fight in and around China's most important city . . .

On August 13th, the two armies clashed in Shanghai's dense downtown areas. China's best trained fighters - trained by the German army, ironically enough (they even wore the same style of helmet!) - held the ground the best and headed the attacks of several Japanese positions in an attempt to drive them into the sea. The next day, the Chinese airforce started dropping its bombs on Japanese positions. Heavy Japanese defenses and a lack of Chinese heavy weapons to counter these defenses meant a heavy, heavy toll on the Chinese. To compensate, the Chinese would often fight "around" a target and cut it off, doing this successfully many times; the Japanese had technology like armoured tanks to compensate for that. By the end of this "first phase" of The Battle of Shanghai, all of China's best troops were wiped out. On August 22nd alone, the Chinese 36th Division lost 90 officers and 1000 troops.

August 23nd marked the beginning of the "second phase" of the battle, when Japanese troops from the sea landed amphibiously on the beaches along Shanghai and spread the battlefront from just inside downtown Shanghai to more of the city and outlying areas. Landing in waves after fierce shore bombardment (when Chinese soldiers, armed with light weapons, died by the battalion), they took the outlying villages quickly. Oftentimes they would take it in the day and Chinese counter-attacks would take it back. Ultimately, the Japanese controlled the shores. Fighting like this continued for two weeks until the Japanese surrounded the vital village of Baoshan which was defended by one remaining Chinese battalion with orders to "fight to the death" - they followed their orders to the letter, save for one man who survived. By September 6th, Baoshan fell, and a similar commitment to holding Shanghai continued for the next three months . . .

And that's how the next three months of Shanghai went. The Japanese would attack, the Chinese would defend with stubborness and inevitable futility. The town of Luodian was nicknamed "the grinding mill of flesh and blood"; the town of Dachang was smashed to rubble. After 75 days straight of holding several positions, the Chinese knew they had no way of holding the city any longer and began pulling out their troops . . . well, almost all of them . . . . . some stayed behind so that it could be said that China was still battling for control of Shanghai. True, they still needed time to pull the heavy industry out of Shanghai and westward, but there was another reason . . .

Here's where the politics gets complicated . . . now, the Chinese Army . . . . . it was not modern, it was barely professional, and it didn't have much of anything that it didn't copy or receive from other countries. China knew that its only real chance to beat Japan was to receive western aid. To do that, they had to prove that Japan was worth fighting against - more specifically, they had to prove that China was worth saving. In this sense, the dogged insistence to drag out the fight in Shanghai was China's way to shout out to the world that it wasn't defenseless, or that it wasn't going to lie down while the Rising Sun Flag flew over them. As they fought, the Nine-Power Treaty conference was taking place in Brussels to determine what the west should do for China . . .

The "third phase" started October 27th, and was basically the end for Shanghai. The Chinese were bled dry, low on supplies and ammuntion, and the Japanese were landing more and more troops. They had to pull back to the Wufu line, which was the last stand of sorts before coming to Nanjing, China's capital . . . . . when they arrived at Wufu, however, the beaten forces found most defensive positions had already been abandoned and boarded up - they could not defend the line even if they tried. On November 26th, the Chinese forces officially surrendered; Shanghai had fallen and Nanjing was wide-open for six weeks of utter, unquestionable hell . . . . .


China was in bad shape. Her best troops were already wiped out, her landmark city had been captured, and it was likely to continue in this fashion. Western aid would still not even begin to come until after December 7th, 1941 when America and the other western powers officially declared war on Japan. Japan, meanwhile, continued steaming through the top of mainland China and began its push inwards . . .

There is no question, this was a Japanese victory and an utter Chinese defeat. Though they started out with strength in numbers, they had poor equipment with which to arm those numbers . . . of an original strength off 600,000 men, Shanghai alone took out 200,000 or more. Japanese strength started at half that number and was reduced by 70,000. These, of course, do not count the tens of thousands of civilian deaths during the Japanese bombing campaigns earlier in the battle.

So why fight this battle at all if it was doomed from the start? Again, it was space for time; they needed to relocate the Chinese industrial engine. They also needed to switch the direction of the fighting from north-south to east-west; an eastern attacker meant the defenders could still retreat westward if they had to instead of just being cut off. Perhaps most importantly, though, it unified the Chinese people somewhat. Only a few years before the Japanese started their "incidents", the Chinese were fighting civil wars amongst themselves. This battle marked a point when warlords and major governments finally started getting their act together. This was a resolve China had to gain now if they were going to survive the next 8 bloody years of war . . .

The Japanese boasted that they would take Shanghai in 3 days, and China in 3 months. China made them fight for the city for over 3 months . . . . . as horrible as war is, it's hard to say that all that loss of life in Shanghai was for nothing.


(Chinese machinegun nest in Shanghai)


(Japanese artillery set up in downtown Shanghai)
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