- 6 months ago
"The Battle of China" (1944) is the sixth film in Frank Capra’s "Why We Fight" series, illustrating Japan’s occupation of China during World War II.
It features Madame Chiang Kai-Shek’s address to Congress, the Nanking atrocities, the 2,000-mile migration, and the Flying Tigers led by Claire Chennault.
This documentary is in the **public domain** in the United States and is available for educational, historical, and entertainment purposes.
Source: National Archives
Disclaimer: This video is a public domain work in the United States. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company or trademark holder. All content depicted is used under public domain laws for educational or historical purposes only.
It features Madame Chiang Kai-Shek’s address to Congress, the Nanking atrocities, the 2,000-mile migration, and the Flying Tigers led by Claire Chennault.
This documentary is in the **public domain** in the United States and is available for educational, historical, and entertainment purposes.
Source: National Archives
Disclaimer: This video is a public domain work in the United States. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company or trademark holder. All content depicted is used under public domain laws for educational or historical purposes only.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00:00The End
00:00:30This is the Battle of China.
00:01:00This is the great city of Shanghai on a September day in 1937.
00:01:11This is the fearful beginning of a new kind of war.
00:01:17This is the first mass bombing from the air of the helpless civilian population.
00:01:22Why?
00:01:30Why are these innocent Chinese men, women, children to die beneath the hail of Japanese bombs?
00:01:37To find the answer to this question, we must first understand something about China and Japan.
00:01:44And to understand China, three facts must never be forgotten.
00:01:49China is history.
00:01:50China is land.
00:01:59China is people.
00:02:00Chinese history goes back for more than 4,000 years.
00:02:07That's a long time.
00:02:10It was only 168 years ago that Washington crossed the Delaware.
00:02:14Only 452 years have passed since Columbus discovered America.
00:02:23It's 1,500 years since the world saw the fall of the ancient Roman Empire.
00:02:273,400 years have gone by since Moses received the Ten Commandments.
00:02:353,700 years have passed since the pyramids were built.
00:02:38But more than 4,000 years ago, the Chinese Empire was already in existence.
00:02:46And more important, so was the Chinese civilization.
00:02:50A civilization of art and learning and peace.
00:02:55Yes, China is history.
00:02:59And China is also land.
00:03:01More land than the entire continent of Europe.
00:03:04A third larger than the United States.
00:03:06And rich in raw material.
00:03:11This vast area consists of China proper and four outer provinces.
00:03:16To the north is Manchuria.
00:03:19Huge and desolate.
00:03:21But abounding in raw material.
00:03:25Next to Manchuria are Mongolia and Xinjiang.
00:03:30Here lies the Gobi Desert.
00:03:33A vast plateau twice the size of Texas.
00:03:37Inhabited by nomad tribes.
00:03:39Who lead their camel caravans back and forth over ancient trade routes.
00:03:45To the west is Tibet.
00:03:48The icy roof of the world.
00:03:50Its borders encompassing the eastern end of the Himalayan mountains.
00:03:55The mystery land that few have entered.
00:03:57And from these vast mountains of the west rise the three great rivers, which are China's lifeblood.
00:04:06The northernmost of these is the Huanghou, the Yellow River, often known as China's sorrow because of its frequent flooding.
00:04:12Far to the south flows the Siqiang, the Pearl River, which enters the sea past the great ports of Canton and Hong Kong.
00:04:20But the greatest river of all is the one that flows between, the Yangtze, winding for 3,000 miles through the heart of China, bringing fertility to the good earth and bearing upon its broad waters half the commerce of China.
00:04:37Yes, China is land, next to Russia, the largest country in the world.
00:04:44But most important, China is people.
00:04:48450 million of them.
00:04:49If the whole population of China were to walk past you, four abreast, there would never be an end to the procession.
00:05:15For new Chinese would be born and would grow up before the last man could pass by.
00:05:22Of every five persons on the face of the earth, one is a Chinese.
00:05:28And since one-fifth of all the human beings in the world are Chinese, we should know what sort of people they are.
00:05:35Well, in all their 4,000 years of continuous history, they have never waged a war of conquest.
00:05:41They're that sort of people.
00:05:42They developed the art of printing from movable type.
00:05:48They invented the mariner's compass, without which no ocean could be crossed.
00:05:53They were among the first astronomers.
00:05:56And their observations of the stars and planets made possible the accurate measuring and recording of time.
00:06:02They are that sort of people.
00:06:03And why do we call our dishes China?
00:06:07Because the Chinese invented the art of making porcelain.
00:06:11And as we all know, they invented gunpowder.
00:06:14Not as a weapon of war.
00:06:15But to celebrate their holidays and religious festivals.
00:06:25And it was one of China's great philosophers who, 500 years before the birth of Christ, gave mankind these words.
00:06:31What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
00:06:36They are that sort of people, enriching the world in which we live.
00:06:42Yes, China is incredibly old, incredibly big, incredibly popular.
00:06:49Yet it was until recently a land with which few of us concerned ourselves.
00:06:53But now a great change has taken place.
00:07:00China is now our fighting ally.
00:07:03Or more accurately, we are China.
00:07:05But China has been fighting our enemy, Japan, for seven long years.
00:07:12Why is this?
00:07:14Why have the Chinese, who in all their 4,000 years of history have never waged an aggressive war,
00:07:20been forced to fight?
00:07:21To fight and die by the millions.
00:07:25Because China is land.
00:07:27Four million square miles of them.
00:07:30And because China is people.
00:07:32450 million of them.
00:07:35And because Japan had a plan to use them both.
00:07:39That plan was finally stated in the Tanaka Memorial.
00:07:43A blueprint for world conquest.
00:07:45Formulated in 1927 by Baron Gishi Tanaka, the Japanese foreign minister.
00:07:51In order to conquer the world, we must first conquer China.
00:07:56Here was their mad dream.
00:07:58Phase 1, the conquest of Manchuria for raw material.
00:08:02Phase 2, the absorption of China for manpower.
00:08:05Peace by peace.
00:08:07So as not to arouse the rest of the world.
00:08:10Phase 3, a triumphant sweep to the south to seize the riches of the Indies.
00:08:15Phase 4, the eastward move to crush the United States.
00:08:21One fact was obvious.
00:08:24China was to be the giant back on which Japan would ride to world conquest.
00:08:28Just as Russia was to be enslaved for German use.
00:08:31But how was it possible for Japan, only one-twentieth the size of China, and with only one-sixth its population, to think of conquering China, much less the world?
00:08:45There were two main reasons for this.
00:08:48In the first place, modern China, in spite of its age-old history, was like the broken pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
00:08:55Each piece controlled by a different ruler, each with his own private army.
00:09:00In modern terms, China was a country, but not yet a nation.
00:09:05While Japan was a united, well-knit, highly regimented military dictatorship.
00:09:13The second reason lies in the uses each country made of our Western civilization.
00:09:18Let's see what China took.
00:09:22You will notice that this is a very old piece of film.
00:09:25Actually, it is more than 30 years old, and it shows a very great man by the name of Sun Yat-sen.
00:09:33In 1911, this man fathered a people's revolution, which brought to an end China's ancient imperial government,
00:09:40and began its new era as a modern republic.
00:09:43Winning for himself in Chinese history, a secure place as George Washington has in ours.
00:09:48And he and his followers chose for the cornerstone of their new republic Chinese words that echoed those of another believer in democracy.
00:09:59Government of the people, by the people, for the people.
00:10:03And to make these principles become reality, they built more schools and colleges.
00:10:10They established scholarships so that their young men and women could go forth to the universities of America and Europe,
00:10:16and bring back to their own country other Western ideas.
00:10:21And this new generation returned to China with new techniques of industry.
00:10:27Architecture.
00:10:29Science.
00:10:31Medicine.
00:10:31They built more hospitals to free their people from the blight of disease.
00:10:37They introduced compulsory education.
00:10:41They laid down as a central two of the four freedoms for which we fight today.
00:10:46Freedom of expression.
00:10:48And freedom of religion.
00:10:49In 1925, Sun Yat-sen died.
00:10:54But his disciples, led by Chiang Kai-shek, carried on his monumental work.
00:11:00Their aim?
00:11:01The unification and modernization of China.
00:11:05Chinese industry was old-fashioned and inefficient.
00:11:08Transportation was slow and inadequate.
00:11:11But now railroads began to link the great seaports and river harbors with the inland cities.
00:11:16A network of highways began to stretch beyond the railroad line, into the deep interior.
00:11:24After leaving them untouched for centuries, China was beginning to use her vast store of raw material.
00:11:37And soon the tools and machines of the new factories were delivering the goods and products for China's new economy.
00:11:45For the Chinese believed in using the best of Western civilization for the progress of their country.
00:11:52And while they were building this new nation, just a day and a half by steamer across the Yellow Sea lay Japan.
00:12:00Here, the god-emperor and its fanatic warlords were using this same Western civilization for one purpose and only once.
00:12:11To create one of the world's most powerful war machines.
00:12:16Their aim?
00:12:17The absorption of China.
00:12:19And the fulfillment of the Tamaka Memorial.
00:12:21For years, Japan had deliberately copied military weapons and industrial techniques discovered in other countries.
00:12:40For years, Japan, under the pretext of lacking raw materials for industry, had been buying in every corner of the world materials not only to build this war machine,
00:12:53but materials which could be stored to feed it in the war of conquest they were planning.
00:12:57For years, while other nations were trying to outlaw war by reducing armaments,
00:13:05Japan was feverishly and secretly building a modern army,
00:13:09a modern naval,
00:13:11a modern air force,
00:13:13to strike its infamous blow at the civilized world.
00:13:16And we all now know about the islands in the Pacific that Japan fortified in violation of all international treaties.
00:13:25These were the reasons why it was possible for Japan,
00:13:29only one-twentieth the size of China,
00:13:31and only one-sixth the population of China,
00:13:34to think of conquering China as the first step to world conquest.
00:13:38And, as you have seen,
00:13:41in 1931, they embarked on phase one,
00:13:45the occupation of Manchuria.
00:13:49The small bonfire that the Japanese lit in Manchuria
00:13:52was to grow and spread with uncontrollable fury
00:13:56until the entire world was aflame.
00:14:08Phase one of the Tanaka plan was completed,
00:14:12and exactly as planned.
00:14:14The Japs had been confident that this first and sudden land grab could be accomplished
00:14:18without their becoming involved in a major war.
00:14:22And they were right.
00:14:23The unification of China was still too remote for the Chinese of the South
00:14:27to care what happened to their kinsmen in the North.
00:14:32Using the step-by-step technique,
00:14:35a few months later,
00:14:36the Japs took a track at Shanghai.
00:14:37The Chinese resistance was so great,
00:14:45they hastily called that deal off.
00:14:48Waited another year,
00:14:49and then struck in the North again,
00:14:52carving the province of Yehole out of China proper.
00:14:55This, too, they got away with.
00:14:58The world criticized,
00:15:00the Chinese protested,
00:15:03but still the Japs got what they wanted,
00:15:05another piece of China.
00:15:07And without a war on their hands.
00:15:10And to rule over Manchuria and Yehole,
00:15:13the Japs then set up a puppet government under their stooge,
00:15:17Henry Puyi,
00:15:18the Chinese quizzling prince.
00:15:20But the leaders of New China remembered that in other centuries,
00:15:24other barbarians had invaded their country.
00:15:27The evidence still stood in the Great Wall built by their ancestors more than 2,000 years earlier and stretching for 1,400 miles across mountain and desert to protect themselves from the barbarians of the North.
00:15:41Of the Great Wall, it has been said that it is the only work of man which would be visible from the moon.
00:15:51But the Chinese knew that modern barbarians can't be stopped by a wall, however strong or high.
00:15:58They can't even be stopped by people, unless the people are united.
00:16:05And by 1937, the unification of China was making such progress, the Japs got worried.
00:16:17The one weapon they could not permit China was unity.
00:16:21They would strike again before China could become a nation.
00:16:24This time, it'd be a big bite.
00:16:28Five more northern provinces out of the heart of China.
00:16:32At the United States Embassy in China's military attache for a number of years was Colonel William Mayer.
00:16:38Let him tell you what happened.
00:16:40First thing the Japs did was prepare their usual fake alibi.
00:16:44This time, it wasn't a damaged railway truck, as it had been in Manchuria in 1931.
00:16:50A Jap soldier had disappeared.
00:16:52Obviously, he'd been kidnapped by the incident Chinese.
00:16:55Once more, Japan's honor had been insulted.
00:16:58Once more, the insult must be avenged.
00:17:01So, on the night of July 7, 1937, at the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking,
00:17:07the Jap war machine struck.
00:17:17Within the space of a few weeks, the invaders were in control of Tinsen and Feiping.
00:17:21It looked as if the Japs were going to have another walkover.
00:17:28Now the Japs sat back to digest and organize this new conquest.
00:17:34The peace-loving Japanese didn't want a war, if they could get their land grabs without one.
00:17:41But this time, they were in for a rude surprise.
00:17:43This time, instead of protesting or negotiating, the Chinese struck back.
00:17:52I'm not in the north, but it's Shanghai, where the Japs least expected it.
00:18:00To understand the fighting that followed, we must know something about the city of Shanghai itself.
00:18:13Situated near the mouth of the Yangtze River, it is the biggest city in China.
00:18:21As the largest seaport in the Far East, it dominated the commerce and foreign trade of China.
00:18:26And through its great docks and channels, passed most of the wealth of the Ori.
00:18:32In Shanghai, truly the East met the West.
00:18:35And within this city of three and a half million Chinese, was another city, the foreign settlement.
00:18:51Made up of the French concession and the well-known international settlement.
00:18:55There, the various powers, including Great Britain, the United States, and Japan,
00:19:02had stationed detachments of troops, Japanese, British, French, and our own United States Marines.
00:19:12To assist the police of the Shanghai Municipal Council in the preservation of peace and order.
00:19:18And to protect the boundaries of the international settlement.
00:19:21These detachments were limited in size.
00:19:23But the Japs, secretly and in violation of all treaty agreements,
00:19:28had increased their garrison so that when fighting started on the border of their concession in August of 1937,
00:19:36they thought they were fully prepared for any eventuality.
00:19:53The force of the Chinese counterattack almost drove the Japs into the Wangpu River.
00:20:02Backed up by the heavy guns of their warships, however,
00:20:05the Japs managed to hold out until reinforcements arrived.
00:20:09Jap landings were then made in the vicinity of the Wusong Fort.
00:20:12And in Luho and Lo Tian on the Yangtze River, north of Shanghai.
00:20:19The Chinese drew back to positions five or ten miles inland,
00:20:23where they could secure some protection from the heavy Jap naval gunfire.
00:20:27At the same time, the invaders succeeded in making a surprise landing some 20 miles to the south of Shanghai.
00:20:48Put two divisions ashore and pushed rapidly north to outflank the city.
00:20:54The Chinese position was thus made untenable,
00:21:08and a withdrawal was ordered to the west and to the south toward Nanking and Hangzhou.
00:21:13But only about half of the Chinese army that had fought in Shanghai was left to withdraw.
00:21:19Meanwhile, enraged at the very idea of anyone resisting the imperial Japanese might,
00:21:27the Japs took their vengeance upon the civilian population of the city.
00:21:31A city without guns or planes to defend itself.
00:21:35And deliberately slaughtered thousands from the air.
00:21:49And then the Germans were for the last one at the time,
00:21:51didn't take a toll going on with no responsibility?
00:21:52And the soldiers had tofully take a toll go on.
00:21:53The other soldiers had to beي
00:21:59So I was like, I'm all just going to cry,
00:22:01but I thought, I knew what I was saying.
00:22:04Bye bye!
00:22:06Bye bye!
00:22:06Bye bye!
00:22:06Bye bye!
00:22:07Bye bye!
00:22:08Bye bye bye!
00:22:09Bye bye!
00:22:10Bye bye bye!
00:22:12Bye bye bye!
00:22:14Bye bye bye!
00:22:15Bye bye bye!
00:22:19For some, there was refuge inside the international settlement, where Japan was afraid to bomb
00:22:31the property and people of the foreign powers, just yet.
00:22:49But there was not room for all, and for each who found safety inside, there were thousands
00:22:56huddled beyond the gates, standing helpless and undefended against the Jap attacks.
00:23:02There was no escape for these surging and panic-stricken people.
00:23:07They could only scurry through the narrow streets, pushing and packing themselves into
00:23:13the center of the city, to be trapped and buried alive in the collapse of bombs and
00:23:19burning buildings.
00:23:49Thus, the Japanese introduced the world to a new kind of war.
00:23:56Thus, the Japanese introduced the world to a new kind of war.
00:24:03A war of deliberate terrorization, of deliberate mass murder, of deliberate frightfulness.
00:24:10The Japanese introduced the world to a new kind of war.
00:24:17A war of deliberate terrorization, of deliberate mass murder, of deliberate frightfulness.
00:24:31When the campaign was over, the Japs occupied the entire peninsula east of Shanghai.
00:24:48Reorganizing rapidly, they then launched a coordinated drive on Nanking.
00:24:53One column pushed along the railroad, while another swung further to the south.
00:24:58This column then split and continued its drive, hoping to cut off any possible retreat of the
00:25:03Chinese armies defending Nanking.
00:25:06It was here, in the Yangtze, that the blood-crazed Japs attacked an American gunboat.
00:25:13The USS Tenai, despite its distinctive markings.
00:25:17The ship was bombed and sunk with the loss of American lives.
00:25:30The first American warship to go to the bottom in this war.
00:25:34But officially, at least, this was a mistake, and the Japanese government apologized.
00:25:39Meantime, at Nanking, the Chinese army valiantly defended their city, which was the capital of the Chinese Republic.
00:26:09THE END
00:26:10The 1980s
00:26:11The Nate
00:26:12LAPT
00:26:14The Major
00:26:15The banyak
00:26:16The large
00:26:17The部分
00:26:18The Major
00:26:20The emp previous
00:26:21The more
00:26:36But again, Japanese power was too great.
00:26:51And after a battle lasting but a few days, the city fell to the invaders.
00:27:06In their occupation of Nanking, the Japs again outdid themselves in barbarism.
00:27:14The helpless populace was trapped by the city walls and did not flee.
00:27:21The Japanese soldiers went berserk.
00:27:24They raped and tortured.
00:27:27They killed and butchered.
00:27:36In one of the bloodiest massacres of recorded history, they murdered 40,000 men, women, children.
00:28:06But those who lived might better have died.
00:28:21For the horror of their twisted and torn bodies was worse than death.
00:28:26These scenes were photographed by an American missionary
00:28:29and smuggled out of China after the rape of Nanking.
00:28:33This nightmare of cruelty was all the more horrible
00:28:44because it was deliberately planned by the Japanese high command
00:28:48to tear the heart out of the Chinese people once and forever.
00:28:54And then it happened.
00:29:04That which Sun Yat-sen had dreamed of.
00:29:07That which Chiang Kai-shek had toiled for.
00:29:10That which is stronger than stone walls.
00:29:13And at last...
00:29:15The will to resist.
00:29:18In their last bloody blow, the Japanese had accomplished what 4,000 years had failed to bring into being.
00:29:40A united China.
00:29:42An arouse China.
00:29:44China.
00:30:14But the Chinese knew that the will to resist was not by itself enough.
00:30:24They knew that China must develop the power to resist also.
00:30:28And this cannot be created in an instant.
00:30:31So they, too, made a plan.
00:30:34And it was this.
00:30:34They would slowly yield territory, piece by piece, while they developed the power and built the weapons to rid the land of its invaders.
00:30:45The industrial strength of China must be moved to the west, beyond the mountains, beyond the railroad lines, beyond the lines of communication.
00:30:55There, safe from enemy attacks, they might produce the rifles and guns that China so tragically needed.
00:31:02Thus, China would trade space for time.
00:31:06Space for time.
00:31:08Blow up the roads.
00:31:14Space for time.
00:31:17Scorch the earth.
00:31:25Space for time.
00:31:27Blow up the factory building.
00:31:28Leave nothing for the invaders.
00:31:37And then the people rose and moved.
00:31:41Riding, walking, crawling.
00:31:4330 million of them, spontaneously driven by an epic impulse, rose and made their way westward.
00:32:04The earth teeming with them, moving westward on a trek that stretched through 2,000 miles of roadless wilderness.
00:32:15Thus, the world witnessed one of the most amazing spectacles in human history.
00:32:20The greatest mass migration ever recorded.
00:32:22Whatever could be abuse and could be moved, the Chinese took with them on a Homeric journey.
00:32:31Their libraries, their schools, their hospitals, all dismantled and carted away.
00:32:38The machinery from over 1,000 factories, weighing over 300 million pounds, was moved away in trucks and oxcars and on their backs, 2,000 miles away, 2,000 miles westward.
00:32:55Wherever they could, they gathered along the few remaining railroads, waiting, hoping for some chance to ride part of the way toward their westward goal.
00:33:06And when they attacked the last train with the last ounce of humanity and machinery, the tracks themselves were taken up, rail by rail, tie by tie, to be transported westward, to leave nothing for the enemy.
00:33:25Every river pointing westward was heavy laden.
00:33:43Every sand path, every barge, was pressed into service, weighted down to the water's edge with the precious tools for new China.
00:33:55Nothing could stop them, not even the rivers that narrowed into mountain gorges, westward with their modes of machinery more precious than gold.
00:34:09If you see weeds, think we can do things during thealaia.
00:34:11If you see weeds and Jumpy more flowers, we'll be able to bring the bait, I think we can do basic props on our minds and lactate because we can do basic part of thestoffar.
00:34:16Rights and hide can are made up on our own presence.
00:34:19Everything must be served in Christ, the sun, and Almost wenig may Shay, but there is no way to form the water's edge.
00:34:21To be touched upon the moon,
00:34:27Finally building Villar, what does veux Sec意思 and to build into тебя?
00:34:30CHOIR SINGS
00:35:00The progress was measured by the miles, by feet, by inches.
00:35:18The trail they broke was moistened every step of the way by their sweat.
00:35:22Where there were no trains, no boats, no ox carts,
00:35:26there were still willing hands and willing feet
00:35:29and straining backs.
00:35:32Thirty million people moving west.
00:35:35Westward from the invaders.
00:35:37Westward from slavery and death.
00:35:40Westward to freedom.
00:35:41Westward to freedom.
00:35:45Westward of life.
00:35:54Westward fromasser.
00:35:57Westward from Melissa biceps.
00:36:02Now in the free mountain lands of the West, ancient cities sprang into fresh and modern life.
00:36:28Chief of them all was the new capital of free China, Chongqing.
00:36:35Here on the cliffs high above the Yangtze River, the Chinese had re-established their government.
00:36:41They knew, however, that the people of the city would not be safe from Jap air raids.
00:36:46The memories of Shanghai were fresh in their minds.
00:36:49And in the sandstone cliff on which the city is built, thousands of workmen rushed the construction of enormous caves
00:36:56for shelters for the people and for the pitifully few machines, more important than life.
00:37:04To the Japs, Chongqing became the heart of the Chinese nation they were determined to conquer.
00:37:09Destroy Chongqing and they would break the spirit of new China.
00:37:14If they couldn't reach the city by land, they would send their bombers to blast it from the face of the earth.
00:37:32They were all weak.
00:37:35They would feel the Lord about them all over there.
00:37:37Everything is way out MAROLD.
00:37:39See John.
00:37:40They were weak with some of these earth that is capable of entering them into the desert sky.
00:37:44That is mahometrey.
00:37:45They would bend their arteries later.
00:37:47I didn't father, UC to the Sea in the river which forced posses up to stream them.
00:37:50They are sort bunlar, as they believed, but they prophecy will not are too close to the communities.
00:37:51Against these Japanese armadas, slow and obsolete Chinese planes made a suicidal attempt to
00:38:14defend Chungking.
00:38:21Chungking.
00:38:51Chungking.
00:38:53Chungking.
00:38:54Chungking.
00:38:55Chungking.
00:38:56THE END
00:39:26THE END
00:39:56THE END
00:40:04But neither Japanese planes nor Japanese bombs could destroy the life of the city.
00:40:10But not only the people, but the factories had gone underground.
00:40:14Where the vital machines could operate by day and by night, safe from bombs and shrapnel.
00:40:21This time the Chinese had anticipated their enemy.
00:40:35In spite of bombs and fire and destruction, this time the Chinese stood fast.
00:40:41The flaming Chungking became the symbol of their indestructible spirit.
00:40:58And now the call to arms sounded throughout New China.
00:41:15And from the vast interior, China's millions answered the call.
00:41:19They came from the south and from the north.
00:41:28From the east and from the west to form a people's army.
00:41:34With a new faith in their hearts, men and women left their homes and farms to fight for something bigger now than each man's home.
00:41:46And each man's farm.
00:41:47And each man's life.
00:41:49They were fighting for New China.
00:41:51New soldiers, awkward and unskilled, like all new soldiers.
00:42:09But they toughened and trained.
00:42:11They learned the discipline and order of drill.
00:42:29They knew they must strike and strike hard.
00:42:34They learned to kill.
00:42:36The youth of China also came forward.
00:42:42Training to care for the sick and the wounded.
00:42:45Girls joined their husbands, brothers and sweethearts in uniform.
00:42:49Santa!
00:42:56And to the aid of China came volunteers from other lands.
00:43:00Men who pledged themselves to fight against tyranny and oppression no matter where.
00:43:04Americans, like the legendary Colonel Chennault and his Flying Tiger.
00:43:10Who, with their few American planes, were knocking down enemy planes of a fantastic ratio of 20 nips to one of their own.
00:43:20The Japs had hoped to ride to world conquest on the back of the giant Chinese workhorse.
00:43:26Phase two of the Tanaka plan called for breaking the horse to their will.
00:43:30But the great patient horse refused to be broken.
00:43:34The enraged Japs saw their whole plan of conquest bogging down.
00:43:41So they set out to drain the giant's strength by cutting the arteries through which flowed China's lifeblood of supply.
00:43:48They penetrated along the river.
00:43:51Railroads destroyed by the Chinese were rebuilt with slave labor.
00:43:55As the Japanese moved inland to secure control of key rail lines and important communications.
00:44:02And China's supply lines from the outside world were cut off by Jap warships blockading the coast.
00:44:09The Japanese strategy was the isolation of China.
00:44:12Port after port was occupied.
00:44:14This meant China was being cut off from supplies she couldn't manufacture for herself.
00:44:21Supplies she was getting from her western friends.
00:44:25Without oil, gas, guns, and planes, China was doomed.
00:44:30With the whole of the Chinese coast in the hands of the Japs, there would only be two routes over which to bring the vitally necessary material.
00:44:38From Indochina, a narrow-gauge railway ran inland from the sea to Kunming, connecting with a truck road that went to Chongqing.
00:44:47But its capacity was limited.
00:44:50And then there was the old trail of the camel caravans from Russia across the Gobi Desert, which could bring in even less.
00:44:56Not only did these routes provide too little for China's needs, but they were too near Jap territory to be safe.
00:45:03There was only one other possibility.
00:45:06In Burma was a railroad that ran from the port of Rangoon to Lashio.
00:45:10Separating it from the truck road at Kunming were hundreds of miles of high mountains and deep river gorges.
00:45:16If this stretch of tortuous mountain trails could be replaced by a modern highway, where now only pack trains could pick their plodding way, China would have a practical supply route to Burma and the sea.
00:45:33Several internationally known firms of engineers were called in to do the job.
00:45:38They said the work might be completed in 67 years, if China could supply them with the most modern machinery.
00:45:44But China didn't have the modern machinery, nor did she have the six or seven years.
00:45:50So she began building the road with her bare hands.
00:45:53By thousands, by tens of thousands, by hundreds of thousands, they toiled at the back-breaking task of carving this desperately needed supply chain.
00:46:23And the skyline out of the reluctant mountain.
00:46:25The skyline out of the
00:46:53And out of their toil and their sweat, they created the Burma Road, not in six or seven
00:47:01years, but in less than 12 months, a monument for the new spirit, for the new China.
00:47:08As soon as it was completed, the road went into immediate service.
00:47:12By thousands, the truck shuttled back and forth between its terminals, climbing to nearly
00:47:2610,000 feet, around hairpin curves, along the edges of sheer precipices, where passing
00:47:35crux had barely one foot of clearance, and the blood plasma of new supplies flowed steadily
00:47:44over China's lifeline to the sea, protected by Colonel Chenault's incredible flying tigers.
00:47:51The Chinese sacrifice cannot be measured only in miracles of construction.
00:47:56It must be counted, too, in the tragedy of destruction.
00:47:59For while still the Burma Road was being built, the invading Jap armies had fanned out, and
00:48:05straddled fully two-thirds of the railroad lines of the country.
00:48:09In the summer of 1938, they set out to capture the remaining one-third, starting with the
00:48:15vital railroad junction at Changchow.
00:48:18Changchow is situated on the banks of the Yellow River, China's sorrow.
00:48:23Originally, the river flowed from Changchow's southeast to the Yellow Sea.
00:48:28But nearly a century ago, a great flood abruptly changed its course, swinging it far to the north.
00:48:35For generation upon generation, as the spring floods rushed down to the sea, thousands of
00:48:42Chinese worked on the dikes to hold the river in its new course, protecting their homes and
00:48:47their crops.
00:48:47Now, as the Japs advanced on Changchow, the Chinese blew up the southern dike of the Yellow
00:48:58River, thus loosing a flood between themselves and the Japs.
00:49:05Once more, the river flowed in its old course, forming a barrier which to this day has prevented
00:49:18the Japs from entrenching himself in this area.
00:49:25Thus, once more, with no thought of the human sacrifice of the material cost, the Chinese
00:49:32traded space for time.
00:49:34And the Chinese had still other tricks to pull from their patched and faded sleeves.
00:49:44You will notice that this map of Japs conquest doesn't look like the military maps you have seen in the
00:49:49previous film.
00:49:50By all military standards, it should have looked like this, which is the way the Japs wanted it to look.
00:49:56But the Japanese were learning that the occupation of Chinese cities and control of Chinese rivers
00:50:04and railroads still was far from meaning with subjugation of China.
00:50:09For the Chinese had formed themselves into guerrilla bands, trained to harass the Jap forces.
00:50:16These guerrillas were mostly farmers who had stayed behind on the land when the great migration
00:50:21to the west took place.
00:50:22Peaceful farmers one day, deadly fighters the next, they made an unpredictable and uncontrollable enemy.
00:50:49The Japs held the lines of communication.
00:50:52But in the pockets thus formed, these unconquerable guerrillas constantly sniped at the Jap invaders.
00:50:59When the Japs tried to annihilate them, they disappeared, only to reappear in another pocket.
00:51:05Attacking with speed and surprise, they ambushed enemy patrols.
00:51:30The Japanese were fighting more than the Chinese people.
00:51:45They were fighting the Chinese land.
00:51:48The great distances, the rivers, the floods, the swamps and marshes.
00:51:54These two were enemies that defied the Jap war machine.
00:51:58The giant back Japan intended to ride to world conquest was proving to be a bucking bronco.
00:52:06Phase two of the Tanaka plan had bogged down in what the Japs still referred to as the China incident.
00:52:12This left them in a fateful quandary.
00:52:15Phase two of the Tanaka plan was still incomplete.
00:52:19But phase three and phase four could no longer be delayed.
00:52:23In Russia, the overwhelming German offensive was taxing Russia's military capacity to the limit.
00:52:30Removing any Japanese fear of Russian interference.
00:52:33Britain, after the sledgehammer blows of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, was left groggy and militarily almost exhausted.
00:52:43Her navy scattered across the seas, guarding her lifeline of supplies.
00:52:49But here in America, we were finally awakening to our danger and taking steps to protect ourselves.
00:52:55We had appropriated funds for the construction of a two-ocean navy.
00:53:00And our army was rapidly expanding.
00:53:04If the ultimate objectives of the Tanaka plan were to be achieved, now was the moment to strike.
00:53:11Now, when Russia was otherwise occupied.
00:53:14Now, before Britain could recuperate.
00:53:17Now, before we could gather too much strength.
00:53:20So the Japs made a fateful decision.
00:53:23They would embark on phase three and phase four.
00:53:27The conquest of the Indies in the United States.
00:53:30Without waiting to complete phase two.
00:53:32The conquest of China.
00:53:34Thus, to paralyze American power in the Pacific.
00:53:38Without warning.
00:53:40As they have always struck, they struck again.
00:53:52According to all the rules, China's position should now be greatly improved.
00:53:58For in her war with Japan, China now had fighting allies.
00:54:02Ourselves, the British, the Dutch.
00:54:06But it didn't work that way for China.
00:54:10For in those tragic early months of 1942, when we sustained defeat after defeat at the hands of our common enemy.
00:54:18China endured the worst setback of all.
00:54:28Out of our defeats, China lost the Burma Road.
00:54:32But still, China's courage never faltered.
00:54:39Her determination never weakened.
00:54:42And in the history of those long and tragic months of black defeat in 1942,
00:54:47one bright page stands forth.
00:54:50A page written by our Chinese allies.
00:54:54Here is the city of Changsha.
00:54:56The Japs wanted it for two reasons.
00:54:59It was in the center of the Chinese rice bowl.
00:55:02And it was also an important railway junction.
00:55:05Twice before they had tried to take it.
00:55:07And twice before they had been thrown back.
00:55:10Massing a large striking force near Yocho.
00:55:13On Christmas Eve 1941, the Japs started southward toward Changsha in three columns.
00:55:20At three points during the drive south, the Chinese forces put up token resistance.
00:55:24But instead of withdrawing toward Changsha, they withdrew east into the mountainous flank.
00:55:32By New Year's Eve, the Japs had surrounded the city.
00:55:35They quickly pierced the outer defenses and attacked the inner defenses from four directions.
00:55:40In spite of fierce resistance, the Japs were certain that the fall of Changsha was only a matter of hours.
00:55:46What they didn't know was that they had walked into a well-baited trap.
00:55:49For the Chinese forces, which had withdrawn into the hills, now swept down on the Japs supply line and cut them to ribbons.
00:55:59The Japs forces attacking the city soon ran out of food and ammunition and began a withdrawal.
00:56:05Whereupon, the Chinese launched a counteroffensive and pushed the Japanese back where they had come from.
00:56:11The Japs column was forced to run the gauntlet of continuous attack by the pursuing Chinese forces.
00:56:22The Battle of Changsha was amazing.
00:56:52Magnificent victories for the people of China.
00:56:55The people who wouldn't surrender.
00:56:58The people determined to fight for their freedom, their good earth.
00:57:02The people who can't be beaten.
00:57:05And as 1944 dawns, there is another and greater story being written.
00:57:10From the Aleutians to the South Pacific, we are on the offensive.
00:57:21In the jungles of New Guinea, in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands.
00:57:25On the shores of New Britain, on the broad Pacific waters, Japan faces the daily expanding power of the nations she attacked.
00:57:38And in India, Americans, British and Chinese forces are gathering strength under Lord Mountbatten for the liberation of China.
00:58:01But China's war is our war.
00:58:03And now her millions belong not only to United China, but also to the United Nations.
00:58:10Leader of our American forces is General Stilwell, who has the unique honor of being the chief of staff of all the Chinese expeditionary armies.
00:58:18Division after division of picked Chinese troops are being flown in our planes from China to India, where they are armed and equipped with the most modern American weapons.
00:58:31Trained and hardened to spearhead the coming drive against Japan.
00:58:35Through enemy-held territory in northern Burma, the new Lido Road is being pushed.
00:58:43Over mountains, through jungle and swamp, from India to China, to connect with the old Burma Road.
00:58:51In the jungle on either side, American and Chinese patrols protect the road and strike at the jack.
00:58:57There are supplies and ammunition brought in by planes and parachutes.
00:59:12From fields in India, an air transport command plane takes off every six minutes, loaded with artillery, jeeps, ammunition, men and supplies for the armies of China.
00:59:26Over this Burma skyway, over this hump of mountains 16,000 feet high, more tonnage is being flown into China than was ever trucked in over the old Burma Road.
00:59:40And in the skies over China, Japan faces new opposition.
00:59:44Young Chinese, many of them trained on the fields of Arizona, New Mexico, California, fly and fight beside their American comrades.
00:59:59The fighters and bombers of the Chinese airport, and those of General Chenault's 14th Air Force, today fly far and wide over China.
01:00:08Hitting enemy concentrations, smashing their sea lanes along the China coast.
01:00:17The same people that moved a nation 2,000 miles, that built the Burma Road, are building airfields out of stone, mud, and patient pile of hands.
01:00:39Today, though still cut off by land and sea from the rest of the world, Chinese armies and Chinese guerrillas still stand firm against the Jap war machine.
01:01:04The oldest and the youngest of the world's great nations, together with the British Commonwealth, fight side by side in the struggle that is as old as China herself.
01:01:21The struggle of freedom against slavery.
01:01:24Civilization against barbarism.
01:01:27Good against evil.
01:01:29Upon their victory depends the future of mankind.
01:01:32We, in China, like you, want a better world.
01:01:39Not for ourselves alone, but for all mankind.
01:01:44And we must have it.
01:02:02We, in China, like you, want a better world.
01:02:11We, in China, like you, want a better world.
01:02:16We, in China, like you, want a better world.
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