Transcript Doolittle Raid: Its Impact on China Don M. Tow April 17, 2012 Brookdale Community College Lincroft, NJ.

Doolittle Raid:
Its Impact on China
Don M. Tow
April 17, 2012
Brookdale Community College
Lincroft, NJ
Doolittle Raid
 Mission Impossible
 Its Impact on the U.S.
 Its Impact on China
dmt-4/17/12– 2
11/6/2015
Its Impact On China
 15 of the 16 B-25 bombers landed on the
southcentral east coast of China
• Most in Zhejiang Province
• Some in neighboring Jiangxi Province
• One landed in Vladisvostok, Soviet Union
 Running out of fuel, without homing beacons and
facing bad weather
• All 15 crews made the same decision
• They either all parachuted, or pilot remained and
crash landed the plane
dmt-4/17/12– 4
Its Impact On China (cont.)
 Rescue of American crewmen from 13 planes by local
Chinese
•
Provided shelter, food, and caring of wounds
•
Keep relocating Americans as Japanese troops were actively
looking for the Americans
•
Eventually got 64 of the 75 American crewmen transported
safely to Chongqing (1 died while bailing out)
 What about the 15 crewmen from the other 3 planes?
•
From 2 planes: 2 drowned and 8 were captured and trialed by
Japanese troops
• 3 were executed
• 1 later died while in prison under extremely poor conditions
• 4 remained in prison until they were rescued at the end of the war
•
1 plane landed in Vladivostok and all 5 men were interned in
Soviet Union
dmt-4/17/12– 5
Its Impact On China (cont.)
 Japan unleashed a reign of terror on Chinese who helped the
Americans
•
Sent a large number of army units into Zhejiang Province
•
Launched more than 600 air raids to cover the advancing army
 Committed massacre after massacre of entire villages
•
Usually indiscriminately
•
General Chiang Kai-shek wrote to Washington in one of his
cables: “These Japanese troops slaughtered every man,
woman and child in these areas -- let me repeat – these
Japanese troops slaughtered every man, woman and child in
these areas”
 Risking the lives of themselves and their villagers, local
Chinese helped the Americans from being captured
•
Zhao Xiao Bao, one of the rescuers, saw that in a nearby town,
the Japanese had already burned to death all the Chinese in
that town
dmt-4/17/12– 6
Its Impact On China (cont.)
 Reverend Charles L. Meeus, a Belgian-born missionary
living in China, wrote to his Bishop
• They threw 300 hundreds to the bottom of their wells to
drown there. They destroyed all the American missions in
the vicinity (29 out 31), they desecrated the graves of
these missionaries, they destroyed the ancestor tablets in
the various villages they went through. Cannibalism is the
only terror they spared the Chinese people of Jiangxi.”
• He estimated that the number of murdered Chinese just in
the towns he passed through to be 25,000
 The Japanese also deployed many biological and
chemical weapons of mass destruction
• Biological weapons included anthrax, glanders, bubonic
plague, and cholera
• Unit 731 in Harbin, China: World’s largest
biological/chemical weapons laboratory and factory
dmt-4/17/12– 7
Its Impact On China (cont.)
 Two American medical doctors, Professor Michael
Flanzblau and Dr. Martin Furmanski (also a medical
historian) interviewed many of the germ warfare victims.
Dr. Furmanski wrote in a paper:
• “,,,, but the massive epidemics did not begin until the
Japanese left and the Chinese returned to their
villages. Then a wide variety of diseases occurred: fevers,
diarrheas, rashes, and the first cases of rotten leg. The
mortality was terrible: many families lost at least one
member, and sometimes entire families were wiped
out. Entire villages were depopulated.”
 Japanese also experimenting with live human
captives, including cutting them open to see the
effects of various germ weapons on the inside of
their bodies
dmt-4/17/12– 8
4/17/12
Its Impact On China (cont.)
 In spite of the massive and tragic inhumane atrocities of the
biological and chemical weapons used by Japan in China
•
Top Japanese military leaders, scientists, and doctors of these
weapons centers/factories were never prosecuted
•
This sad episode of history was quickly forgotten and erased
from history
 Dr. Furmanski wrote “In a disgraceful agreement with the
Japanese biological weapons war criminals, the U.S.
offered immunity from war crimes prosecution in exchange
for the scientific data the Japanese had collected from
murdering Chinese citizens, as well as citizens of other
countries, both in their laboratories and in field
applications. The official U.S. and Japanese policy became
one of denying the existence of the Japanese biological
weapons program.”
dmt-4/17/12– 10
Its Impact On China (cont.)
 The consequence to the Chinese was about 250,000
killed in the Zhejiang area
 The American crewmen never forgot the bravery and
sacrifices of the Chinese people
• Several helpers, including Zhao Xiao Bao, were invited
to the 50th Anniversary of the Doolittle Reunion in 1992
in South Carolina
 It is especially important to recall this historic great friendship
between the American people and the Chinese people in
light of the current extremely antagonistic stand toward
China of many American politicians and the mass media
 For more information:
•
http://www.dontow.com/2012/03/the-doolittle-raidmission-impossible-and-its-impact-on-the-u-s-and-china/
dmt-4/17/12– 11