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Morning Sun!
History buffs have been spending a large part of the time since 1945 gaming World War Two. It started out as board games, often made fiendishly complex in order to capture all the intricacies of...
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A Chinese Child Soldier Speaks
Huang Meng-hou, now 84 years old and a resident of Taiwan, served as a child soldier in the army of the collaborationist government headed by Wang Jingwei (or Wang Ching-wei). In his fascinating...
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The Fate of Japanese Settlers in Manchuria
Large numbers of Japanese fell into Soviet hands at the end of World War Two. This happened to both soldiers (see photo above) and civilians. This article is part of a large online project — End of...
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Macao and the British reoccupation of Hong Kong
This article is part of a large online project — End of Empire — launched by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS). The idea is simple: To describe day by day the 100 days immediately after...
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China’s Schindler
This article, by Dirk de Klein, was originally carried on his website. It is reproduced here with his kind permission. Ho Feng-Shan (born September 10, 1901 in Yiyang, Hunan; died September 28, 1997...
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‘Uninvited’ War and the Mongol Trophy
When Japan surrendered in 1945, the race was on to grab as much territory in China as possible. Participants included Nationalist China and the Soviet Union, but also, unknown to many, Mongolia. This...
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China’s War as History: A Paradox
How have western views of China’s role in World War Two changed over the past couple of decades? Recently, the Chinese website The Paper published an article on its history channel on this subject,...
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Flying ‘The Hump’
This article, about one of the many American pilots who risked their lives to keep China supplied across the ‘Hump’ air route, is written by seasoned journalist George Morris. It is reproduced with...
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What War Does to Human Hearts: Interview with Geling Yan
The Second Sino-Japanese War formed the backdrop for Chinese-born author Geling Yan’s novella 13 Flowers of War, which was adapted for the big screen as The Flowers of War. Now the legacy of the war...
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War On Display
The Armed Forces Museum in Taipei is one of the best places in the world to view objects from the Second Sino-Japanese War. Ryan Daniels recently paid the museum a visit and left with a number of...
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Childhood in Shadow of War
Margaret Blair was born in Shanghai in 1936 and spent the years from 1942 to 1945 in a Japanese internment camp. In her memoir Gudao, Lone Islet she paints a vivid picture of a childhood in the shadow...
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World War II Weekend!
From the World War Two Weekend at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, PA. The photos have kindly been provided by Ryan Daniels, a true expert on China’s long war from 1937 to 1945.
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‘Halfway Out of National Danger’: Chiang, Stalin and the Chinese Reaction to...
China’s reaction after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 may surprise many. This article is based on a presentation made by Peter Harmsen at the King’s College ‘Second World War Research...
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Strangers at the Gate
Scenes of despair unfolded as the Japanese army moved in on Shanghai in late 1937, spreading terror among the city’s three million civilians. Tens of thousands were thronging at the narrow gates...
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Chinese or Japanese? Telling Friend From Foe
In early 1945, it was obvious that the Japanese had lost the war, but it was still unclear how much longer they would hold out or where the final stages of the conflict would be fought. Various...
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Shanghai: Wicked Old ‘Paris of the Orient’
“Keenly observant”, “riveting”, ” marvellous, microscopically descriptive” — the reviewers have rained down the superlatives on Canadian non-fiction writer Taras Grescoe’s new book Shanghai Grand:...
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Reenactors in Taiwan
Reenactment seems to be growing worldwide. Along with war gaming it is one of the ways that history enthusiasts can get a physical feel for the periods that they study in the books. An added value is...
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A Date to Remember – Or Forget
September 18 is a date many Chinese want to remember, and some Japanese want to forget. On that date, in 1931, Japanese officers blew up a piece of railroad at a pretext to invade northeast China, or...
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Russians in the Service of the Japanese Emperor
Caucasians in Japanese-looking uniforms like the group in the photo to the left do not belong to the average type of World War Two imagery. In fact, the men in the picture are Russians. The background...
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German Spies in China (1)
In June 1940, German official Theodor Louis Siefken, who was working in Italy extracting Germans from East Africa amid the widening war with Great Britain, was recalled to Berlin. His masters had...
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