The Battle Of China Full Movies
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Short filmTranscript
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00:00:56 This is the Battle of China.
00:01:00 [Music]
00:01:04 This is the great city of Shanghai on a September day in 1937.
00:01:08 [Music]
00:01:12 This is the fearful beginning of a new kind of war.
00:01:16 [Explosion]
00:01:18 This is the first mass bombing from the air of a helpless civilian population.
00:01:22 [Explosion]
00:01:28 Why?
00:01:30 Why are these innocent Chinese men, women, children to die beneath the hail of Japanese bombs?
00:01:37 To find the answer to this question, we must first understand something about China and Japan.
00:01:44 And to understand China, three facts must never be forgotten.
00:01:49 China is history.
00:01:55 China is land.
00:01:59 China is people.
00:02:04 Chinese history goes back for more than 4,000 years. That's a long time.
00:02:10 It was only 168 years ago that Washington crossed the Delaware.
00:02:17 Only 452 years have passed since Columbus discovered America.
00:02:23 It's 1,500 years since the world saw the fall of the ancient Roman Empire.
00:02:29 3,400 years have gone by since Moses received the Ten Commandments.
00:02:35 3,700 years have passed since the pyramids were built.
00:02:40 But more than 4,000 years ago, the Chinese Empire was already in existence.
00:02:46 And more important, so was the Chinese civilization, a civilization of art and learning and peace.
00:02:55 Yes, China is history.
00:02:59 And China is also land, more land than the entire continent of Europe.
00:03:04 A third larger than the United States and rich in raw material.
00:03:12 This vast area consists of China proper and four outer provinces.
00:03:16 To the north is Manchuria, huge and desolate, but abounding in raw material.
00:03:26 Next to Manchuria are Mongolia and Xinjiang.
00:03:30 Here lies the Gobi Desert, a vast plateau twice the size of Texas,
00:03:36 inhabited by nomad tribes who lead their camel caravans back and forth over ancient trade routes.
00:03:45 To the west is Tibet, the icy roof of the world,
00:03:50 its borders encompassing the eastern end of the Himalayan mountains,
00:03:55 the mystery land that few have entered.
00:04:00 And from these vast mountains of the west rise the three great rivers which are China's lifeblood.
00:04:06 The northernmost of these is the Huanghou, the Yellow River,
00:04:09 often known as China's sorrow because of its frequent flooding.
00:04:13 Far to the south flows the Sikyang, the Pearl River,
00:04:17 which enters the sea past the great ports of Canton and Hong Kong.
00:04:21 But the greatest river of all is the one that flows between, the Yangtze,
00:04:27 winding for 3,000 miles through the heart of China,
00:04:31 bringing fertility to the good earth and bearing upon its broad waters half the commerce of China.
00:04:38 Yes, China is land, next to Russia, the largest country in the world.
00:04:44 But most important, China is people, 450 million of them.
00:04:51 [Singing]
00:05:09 If the whole population of China were to walk past you, four abreast,
00:05:13 there would never be an end to the procession,
00:05:16 for new Chinese would be born and would grow up before the last man could pass by.
00:05:23 Of every five persons on the face of the earth, one is a Chinese.
00:05:28 And since one-fifth of all the human beings in the world are Chinese,
00:05:32 we should know what sort of people they are.
00:05:35 Well, in all their 4,000 years of continuous history, they have never waged a war of conquest.
00:05:41 They're that sort of people.
00:05:44 They developed the art of printing from movable type.
00:05:48 They invented the mariner's compass, without which no ocean could be crossed.
00:05:53 They were among the first astronomers,
00:05:56 and their observations of the stars and planets made possible the accurate measuring and recording of time.
00:06:02 They are that sort of people.
00:06:05 And why do we call our dishes China?
00:06:07 Because the Chinese invented the art of making porcelain.
00:06:11 And as we all know, they invented gunpowder, not as a weapon of war,
00:06:19 but to celebrate their holidays and religious festivals.
00:06:25 It was one of China's great philosophers who, 500 years before the birth of Christ,
00:06:30 gave mankind these words, "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."
00:06:37 They are that sort of people, enriching the world in which we live.
00:06:42 Yes, China is incredibly old, incredibly big, incredibly popular.
00:06:49 Yet it was until recently a land with which few of us concerned ourselves.
00:06:54 But now a great change has taken place.
00:07:00 China is now our fighting ally, or more accurately, we are China.
00:07:05 But China has been fighting our enemy, Japan, for seven long years.
00:07:13 Why is this?
00:07:14 Why have the Chinese, who in all their 4,000 years of history have never waged an aggressive war,
00:07:20 been forced to fight, to fight and die by the millions?
00:07:25 Because China is land, 4 million square miles of it.
00:07:30 And because China is people, 450 million of them.
00:07:35 And because Japan had a plan to use them both.
00:07:39 That plan was finally stated in the Tanaka Memorial, a blueprint for world conquest,
00:07:45 formulated in 1927 by Baron Gishi Tanaka, the Japanese foreign minister.
00:07:51 In order to conquer the world, we must first conquer China.
00:07:56 Here was their mad dream.
00:07:58 Phase one, the conquest of Manchuria for raw material.
00:08:02 Phase two, the absorption of China for manpower, piece by piece, so as not to arouse the rest of the world.
00:08:10 Phase three, a triumphant sweep to the south to seize the riches of the Indies.
00:08:16 Phase four, the eastward move to crush the United States.
00:08:22 One fact was obvious.
00:08:24 China was to be the giant back on which Japan would ride to world conquest,
00:08:29 just as Russia was to be enslaved for German use.
00:08:34 But how was it possible for Japan, only one twentieth the size of China,
00:08:39 and with only one sixth its population, to think of conquering China, much less the world?
00:08:45 There were two main reasons for this.
00:08:48 In the first place, modern China, in spite of its age-old history,
00:08:52 was like the broken pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,
00:08:55 each piece controlled by a different ruler, each with his own private army.
00:09:00 In modern terms, China was a country, but not yet a nation.
00:09:05 While Japan was a united, well-knit, highly regimented military dictatorship.
00:09:12 The second reason lies in the uses each country made of our Western civilization.
00:09:18 Let's see what China took.
00:09:21 You will notice that this is a very old piece of film.
00:09:25 Actually, it is more than thirty years old, and it shows a very great man by the name of Sun Yat-sen.
00:09:32 In 1911, this man fathered a people's revolution,
00:09:36 which brought to an end China's ancient imperial government,
00:09:39 and began its new era as a modern republic.
00:09:43 Winning for himself in Chinese history is as secure a place as George Washington has in ours.
00:09:49 And he and his followers chose for the cornerstone of their new republic,
00:09:53 Chinese words that echoed those of another believer in democracy.
00:09:58 Government of the people, by the people, for the people.
00:10:03 And to make these principles become reality, they built more schools and colleges.
00:10:10 They established scholarships so that their young men and women could go forth to the universities of America and Europe,
00:10:16 and bring back to their own country other Western ideas.
00:10:21 And this new generation returned to China with new techniques of industry.
00:10:27 Architecture. Science. Medicine.
00:10:32 They built more hospitals to free their people from the blight of disease.
00:10:37 They introduced compulsory education.
00:10:40 They laid down as essential two of the four freedoms for which we fight today.
00:10:45 Freedom of expression and freedom of religion.
00:10:51 In 1925 Sun Yat-sen died, but his disciples, led by Chiang Kai-shek, carried on his monumental work.
00:11:00 Their aim? The unification and modernization of China.
00:11:04 Chinese industry was old-fashioned and inefficient.
00:11:08 Transportation was slow and inadequate.
00:11:11 But now railroads began to link the great seaports and river harbors with the inland city.
00:11:17 A network of highways began to stretch beyond the railroad line into the deep interior.
00:11:24 After leaving them untouched for centuries, China was beginning to use her vast store of raw material.
00:11:30 [Music]
00:11:38 And soon the tools and machines of the new factories were delivering the goods and products for China's new economy.
00:11:45 For the Chinese believed in using the best of Western civilization for the progress of their country.
00:11:52 And while they were building this new nation, just a day and a half by steamer across the Yellow Sea lay Japan.
00:12:00 [Music]
00:12:03 Here the god emperor and his fanatic warlords were using this same Western civilization for one purpose and only one.
00:12:11 To create one of the world's most powerful war machines.
00:12:15 Their aim? The absorption of China and the fulfillment of the Tanaka Memorial.
00:12:21 [Music]
00:12:34 For years Japan had deliberately copied military weapons and industrial techniques discovered in other countries.
00:12:41 For 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,
00:12:52 but materials which could be stored to feed it in the war of conquest they were planning.
00:12:57 For years, while other nations were trying to outlaw war by reducing armament, Japan was feverishly and secretly building a modern army,
00:13:08 a modern navy, a modern air force to strike its infamous blow at the civilized world.
00:13:16 And we all now know about the islands in the Pacific that Japan fortified in violation of all international treaties.
00:13:24 These were the reasons why it was possible for Japan, only one twentieth the size of China and only one sixth the population of China,
00:13:33 to think of conquering China as the first step to world conquest.
00:13:38 And as you have seen, in 1931 they embarked on phase one, the occupation of Manchuria.
00:13:46 The small bonfires that the Japanese lit in Manchuria was to grow and spread with uncontrollable fury until the entire world was aflame.
00:13:58 [Music]
00:14:09 Phase one of the Tanaka plan was completed, and exactly as planned.
00:14:13 The Japs had been confident that this first and sudden land grab could be accomplished without their becoming involved in a major war.
00:14:20 And they were right.
00:14:22 The unification of China was still too remote for the Chinese of the south to care what happened to their kinsmen in the north.
00:14:30 Using the step-by-step technique, a few months later the Japs took a crack at Shanghai.
00:14:37 [Music]
00:14:43 The Chinese resistance was so great they hastily called that deal off, waited another year, and then struck in the north again,
00:14:51 carving the province of Yehou out of China proper.
00:14:55 This too they got away with.
00:14:58 The world criticized, the Chinese protested, but still the Japs got what they wanted,
00:15:05 another piece of China, and without a war on their hands.
00:15:10 And to rule over Manchuria and Yehou, the Japs then set up a puppet government under their stooge, Henry Puyi, the Chinese Quizzling Prince.
00:15:21 But the leaders of new China remembered that in other centuries other barbarians had invaded their country.
00:15:28 The evidence still stood in the Great Wall, built by their ancestors more than 2,000 years earlier,
00:15:35 and stretching for 1,400 miles across mountain and desert to protect themselves from the barbarians of the north.
00:15:46 Of the Great Wall, it has been said that it is the only work of man which would be visible from the moon.
00:15:52 But the Chinese knew that modern barbarians can't be stopped by a wall, however strong or high.
00:16:00 They can't even be stopped by people, unless the people are united.
00:16:10 And by 1937, the unification of China was making such progress the Japs got worried.
00:16:17 The one weapon they could not permit China was unity. They would strike again before China could become a nation.
00:16:25 This time it would be a big bite, five more northern provinces out of the heart of China.
00:16:32 At the United States Embassy in China as military attache for a number of years was Colonel William Mayer.
00:16:38 Let him tell you what happened.
00:16:40 The first thing the Japs did was prepare their usual fake alibis.
00:16:44 This time it wasn't a damaged railway track as it had been in Manchuria in 1931.
00:16:49 A Jap soldier had disappeared, obviously he'd been kidnapped by the insolent Chinese.
00:16:55 Once more Japan's honor had been insulted. Once more the insult must be avenged.
00:17:00 So, on the night of July 7, 1937, at the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking, the Jap war machine struck.
00:17:08 [Explosion]
00:17:17 Within the space of a few weeks, the invaders were in control of Tien Tsin and Peking.
00:17:22 It looked as if the Japs were going to have another walkover.
00:17:26 [Shouting]
00:17:30 Now the Japs sat back to digest and organize this new conquest.
00:17:35 The peace-loving Japanese didn't want a war if they could get their land grabs without one.
00:17:41 But this time they were in for a rude surprise.
00:17:44 [Explosion]
00:17:47 This time instead of protesting or negotiating, the Chinese struck back.
00:17:53 [Shouting]
00:17:56 And not in the north, but at Shanghai where the Japs least expected it.
00:18:01 [Explosion]
00:18:09 To understand the fighting that followed, we must know something about the city of Shanghai itself.
00:18:15 Situated near the mouth of the Yangtze River, it is the biggest city in China.
00:18:22 As the largest seaport in the Far East, it dominated the commerce and foreign trade of China.
00:18:28 Through its great docks and channels passed most of the wealth of the Orient.
00:18:33 In Shanghai, truly the East met the West.
00:18:36 [Ship's horn]
00:18:38 [Music]
00:18:44 And within this city of three and a half million Chinese was another city, the foreign settlement.
00:18:51 Made up of the French concession and the well-known international settlement.
00:18:56 There the various powers, including Great Britain, the United States, and Japan,
00:19:02 had stationed detachments of troops, Japanese, British, French, and our own United States Marines,
00:19:12 to assist the police of the Shanghai Municipal Council in the preservation of peace and order,
00:19:18 and to protect the boundaries of the international settlement.
00:19:21 These detachments were limited in size, but the Japs secretly, and in violation of all treaty agreements,
00:19:28 had increased their garrison so that when fighting started on the border of their concession in August of 1937,
00:19:35 they thought they were fully prepared for any eventuality.
00:19:39 [Music]
00:19:57 The force of the Chinese counterattack almost drove the Japs into the Wangpu River.
00:20:02 Backed up by the heavy guns of their warships, however, the Japs managed to hold out until reinforcements arrived.
00:20:09 Jap landings were then made in the vicinity of the Wusong Fort,
00:20:13 and in Luhou and Lotian on the Yangtze River north of Shanghai.
00:20:19 The Chinese drew back to positions five or ten miles inland,
00:20:23 where they could secure some protection from the heavy Jap naval gunfire.
00:20:27 [Gunfire]
00:20:42 At the same time, the invaders succeeded in making a surprise landing some 20 miles to the south of Shanghai,
00:20:49 put two divisions ashore, and pushed rapidly north to outflank the city.
00:20:55 [Music]
00:21:05 The Chinese position was thus made untenable,
00:21:08 and a withdrawal was ordered to the west and to the south toward Nanking and Hangzhou.
00:21:14 But only about half of the Chinese army that had fought at Shanghai was left to withdraw.
00:21:21 Meanwhile, enraged at the very idea of anyone resisting the imperial Japanese might,
00:21:27 the Japs took their vengeance upon the civilian population of the city,
00:21:31 a city without guns or planes to defend itself,
00:21:35 and deliberately slaughtered thousands from the air.
00:21:38 [Music]
00:21:42 [Explosion]
00:21:50 [Music]
00:21:53 [Explosion]
00:22:04 [Explosion]
00:22:15 [Music]
00:22:25 For some, there was refuge inside the international settlement,
00:22:29 where Japan was afraid to bomb the property and people of the foreign powers.
00:22:33 Just yet.
00:22:35 [Music]
00:22:50 There was not room for all.
00:22:53 For each who found safety inside, there were thousands huddled beyond the gates,
00:22:58 standing helpless and undefended against the Jap attacks.
00:23:03 There was no escape for these surging and panic-stricken people.
00:23:09 They could only scurry through the narrow streets,
00:23:11 pushing and packing themselves into the center of the city,
00:23:15 to be trapped and buried alive in the collapse of bombed and burning buildings.
00:23:20 [Music]
00:23:36 [Explosion]
00:23:39 [Music]
00:23:52 [Music]
00:24:09 Thus, the Japanese introduced the world to a new kind of war.
00:24:13 [Music]
00:24:21 A war of deliberate terrorization,
00:24:24 of deliberate mass murder,
00:24:26 of deliberate frightfulness.
00:24:29 [Music]
00:24:43 When the campaign was over, the Japs occupied the entire peninsula east of Shanghai.
00:24:48 Reorganizing rapidly, they then launched a coordinated drive on Nanking.
00:24:53 One column pushed along the railroad, while another swung further to the south.
00:24:58 This column then split and continued its drive,
00:25:01 hoping to cut off any possible retreat of the Chinese army defending Nanking.
00:25:07 It was here in the Yangtze that the blood-crazed Japs attacked an American gunboat,
00:25:13 the USS Canai, despite its distinctive markings.
00:25:18 [Explosion]
00:25:26 The ship was bombed and sunk with the loss of American lives.
00:25:30 The first American warship to go to the bottom in this war.
00:25:34 But officially, at least, this was a mistake, and the Japanese government apologized.
00:25:40 Meantime, at Nanking, the Chinese army valiantly defended their city,
00:25:45 which was the capital of the Chinese Republic.
00:25:48 [Explosion]
00:26:10 [Music]
00:26:20 [Explosion]
00:26:49 But again, Japanese power was too great,
00:26:52 and after a battle lasting but a few days, the city fell to the invaders.
00:26:56 [Shouting]
00:27:09 In their occupation of Nanking, the Japs again outdid themselves in barbarism.
00:27:15 The helpless populace was trapped by the city walls and could not flee.
00:27:22 The Japanese soldiers went berserk.
00:27:25 They raped and tortured.
00:27:28 They killed and butchered.
00:27:34 [Gunshots]
00:27:37 [Shouting]
00:27:38 [Gunshot]
00:27:42 In one of the bloodiest massacres of recorded history,
00:27:45 they murdered 40,000 men, women, children.
00:27:50 [Music]
00:28:19 Those who lived might better have died,
00:28:22 for the horror of their twisted and torn bodies was worse than death.
00:28:27 These scenes were photographed by an American missionary
00:28:30 and smuggled out of China after the rape of Nanking.
00:28:42 This nightmare of cruelty was all the more horrible
00:28:45 because it was deliberately planned by the Japanese high command
00:28:49 to tear the heart out of the Chinese people once and forever.
00:29:03 And then it happened.
00:29:05 That which Sun Yat-sen had dreamed of,
00:29:08 that which Chiang Kai-shek had toiled for,
00:29:11 that which is stronger than stone walls,
00:29:16 the will to resist.
00:29:35 In their last bloody blow,
00:29:37 the Japanese had accomplished what 4,000 years had failed to bring into being,
00:29:42 a united China, an aroused China.
00:29:46 [Chinese]
00:30:15 [Chinese]
00:30:20 But the Chinese knew that the will to resist was not by itself enough.
00:30:24 They knew that China must develop the power to resist also,
00:30:28 and this cannot be created in an instant.
00:30:31 So they too made a plan, and it was this.
00:30:35 They would slowly yield territory, piece by piece,
00:30:39 while they developed the power and built the weapons
00:30:42 to rid the land of its invaders.
00:30:45 The industrial strength of China must be moved to the west,
00:30:48 beyond the mountain, beyond the railroad line,
00:30:51 beyond the lines of communication.
00:30:54 There, safe from enemy attacks,
00:30:57 they might produce the rifles and guns that China so tragically needed.
00:31:02 Thus, China would trade space for time.
00:31:06 Space for time.
00:31:08 Blow up the roads.
00:31:12 Space for time.
00:31:18 Scorch the earth.
00:31:21 Space for time.
00:31:27 Blow up the factory buildings.
00:31:30 Leave nothing for the invaders.
00:31:37 And then the people rose and moved,
00:31:40 riding, walking, crawling.
00:31:44 Thirty million of them spontaneously driven by an epic impulse
00:32:02 rose and made their way westward.
00:32:06 The earth teeming with them,
00:32:09 moving westward on a trek that stretched through 2,000 miles of roadless wilderness.
00:32:15 Thus the world witnessed one of the most amazing spectacles in human history,
00:32:20 the greatest mass migration ever recorded.
00:32:24 Whatever could be of use and could be moved,
00:32:27 the Chinese took with them on a Homeric journey.
00:32:31 Their libraries, their schools, their hospitals,
00:32:35 all dismantled and carted away.
00:32:39 The machinery from over a thousand factories,
00:32:42 weighing over 300 million pounds,
00:32:45 was moved away in trucks and oxcarts and on their backs.
00:32:50 2,000 miles away, 2,000 miles westward.
00:32:55 Wherever they could, they gathered along the few remaining railroads,
00:33:00 waiting, hoping for some chance to ride part of the way toward their westward goal.
00:33:06 And when they had packed the last train with the last ounce of humanity and machinery,
00:33:11 the tracks themselves were taken up, rail by rail, tie by tie,
00:33:17 to be transported westward, to leave nothing for the enemy.
00:33:22 [Music]
00:33:39 Every river pointing westward was heavy laden.
00:33:43 Every sandpan, every barge was pressed into service,
00:33:48 and they made it down to the water's edge with the precious tools for new China.
00:33:53 [Music]
00:34:00 Nothing could stop them, not even the rivers that narrowed into mountain gorges,
00:34:06 westward with their loads of machinery more precious than gold.
00:34:10 [Music]
00:34:20 [Singing]
00:34:30 [Music]
00:34:40 [Singing]
00:34:50 [Music]
00:35:00 [Singing]
00:35:12 Progress was measured by the miles, by feet, by inches.
00:35:18 The trail they broke was moistened every step of the way by their sweat.
00:35:22 Where there were no trains, no boats, no ox carts,
00:35:26 there were still willing hands and willing feet and straining backs.
00:35:31 Thirty million people moving westward, westward from the invaders,
00:35:36 westward from slavery and death, westward to freedom.
00:35:42 [Music]
00:36:02 [Singing]
00:36:20 Now in the free mountain lands of the west,
00:36:25 ancient cities sprang into fresh and modern life.
00:36:29 Chief of them all was the new capital of free China, Chongqing.
00:36:35 Here on the cliffs high above the Yangtze River,
00:36:38 the Chinese had reestablished their government.
00:36:42 They knew, however, that the people of the city would not be safe from Jap air raids.
00:36:46 The memories of Shanghai were fresh in their minds,
00:36:50 and in the sandstone cliff on which the city is built,
00:36:53 thousands of workmen rushed the construction of enormous caves as shelters for the people
00:36:58 and for the pitifully few machines more important than life.
00:37:05 To the Japs, Chongqing became the heart of the Chinese nation they were determined to conquer.
00:37:10 Destroy Chongqing and they would break the spirit of new China.
00:37:15 [Speaking Chinese]
00:37:27 If they couldn't reach the city by land,
00:37:29 they would send their bombers to blast it from the face of the earth.
00:37:33 [Explosions]
00:37:59 [Explosions]
00:38:08 Against these Japanese armadas, slow and obsolete Chinese planes made a suicidal attempt to defend Chongqing.
00:38:16 [Explosions]
00:38:45 [Explosions]
00:39:11 [Music]
00:39:34 [Explosions]
00:39:49 [Explosions]
00:40:05 But neither Japanese planes nor Japanese bombs could destroy the life of the city.
00:40:10 But not only the people, but the factories had gone underground,
00:40:15 where the vital machines could operate by day and by night, safe from bombs and shrapnel.
00:40:21 [Music]
00:40:31 This time the Chinese had anticipated their enemy.
00:40:35 In spite of bombs and fire and destruction, this time the Chinese stood fast.
00:40:41 [Music]
00:40:53 Flaming Chongqing became the symbol of their indestructible spirit.
00:40:58 [Music]
00:41:09 And now the call to arms sounded throughout new China.
00:41:14 And from the vast interior, China's millions answered the call.
00:41:19 [Music]
00:41:24 They came from the south and from the north, from the east and from the west, the form of people's army.
00:41:34 [Music]
00:41:37 With a new faith in their hearts, men and women left their homes and farms
00:41:42 to fight for something bigger now than each man's home, than each man's farm, than each man's life.
00:41:48 They were fighting for new China.
00:41:51 [Music]
00:41:57 [Chinese]
00:42:03 New soldiers, awkward and unskilled, like all new soldiers, but they toughened and trained.
00:42:10 [Chinese]
00:42:25 They learned the discipline and order of drill.
00:42:29 They knew they must strike and strike hard.
00:42:34 They learned to kill.
00:42:38 The youth of China also came forward, training to care for the sick and the wounded.
00:42:45 Girls joined their husbands, brothers, and sweethearts in uniform.
00:42:49 [Chinese]
00:42:56 And to the aid of China came volunteers from other lands,
00:43:00 men who pledged themselves to fight against tyranny and oppression no matter where.
00:43:05 Americans like the legendary Colonel Chennault and his flying Tigers,
00:43:10 who with their few American planes were knocking down enemy planes
00:43:15 at the fantastic ratio of 20 nips to one of their own.
00:43:21 The Japs that hoped to ride to world conquest on the back of the giant Chinese workhorse
00:43:26 faced two of the Tanaka clan called for breaking the horse to their will.
00:43:30 But the great patient horse refused to be broken.
00:43:36 The enraged Japs saw their whole plan of conquest bogging down.
00:43:41 So they set out to drain the giant's strength by cutting the arteries
00:43:45 through which flowed China's lifeblood of supply.
00:43:48 They penetrated along the river.
00:43:51 Railroads destroyed by the Chinese were rebuilt with slave labor
00:43:55 as the Japanese moved inland to secure control of key rail lines and important communications.
00:44:02 And China's supply lines from the outside world were cut off by Jap warships blockading the coast.
00:44:08 The Japanese strategy was the isolation of China.
00:44:12 Port after port was occupied.
00:44:16 This meant China was being cut off from supplies she couldn't manufacture for herself,
00:44:21 supplies she was getting from her Western friends.
00:44:24 Without oil, gas, guns, and planes, China was doomed.
00:44:30 With the whole of the Chinese coast in the hands of the Japs,
00:44:33 there would only be two routes over which to bring the vitally necessary material.
00:44:38 From Indochina, a narrow gauge railway ran inland from the sea to Kunming,
00:44:43 connecting with a truck road that went to Chongqing.
00:44:46 But its capacity was limited.
00:44:49 And then there was the old trail of the camel caravans from Russia across the Gobi Desert,
00:44:54 which could bring in even less.
00:44:56 Not only did these routes provide too little for China's needs,
00:44:59 but they were too near Jap territory to be safe.
00:45:02 There was only one other possibility.
00:45:05 In Burma was a railroad that ran from the port of Rangoon to Lashio.
00:45:09 Separating it from the truck road at Kunming were hundreds of miles of high mountains and deep river gorges.
00:45:17 If this stretch of tortuous mountain trails could be replaced by a modern highway,
00:45:22 where now only packed trains could pick their plodding way,
00:45:26 China would have a practical supply route to Burma from the sea.
00:45:32 Several internationally known firms of engineers were called in to do the job.
00:45:37 They said the work might be completed in six or seven years,
00:45:40 if China could supply them with the most modern machinery.
00:45:44 But China didn't have the modern machinery, nor did she have the six or seven years.
00:45:49 So she began building the road with her bare hands.
00:45:53 [Music]
00:46:12 By thousands, by tens of thousands, by hundreds of thousands,
00:46:17 they toiled at the backbreaking task of carving this desperately needed supply line out of the reluctant mountains.
00:46:25 [Music]
00:46:54 And out of their toil and their sweat, they created the Burma Road.
00:46:59 Not in six or seven years, but in less than 12 months.
00:47:03 A monument for the new spirit of the new China.
00:47:07 As soon as it was completed, the road went into immediate service.
00:47:12 [Music]
00:47:18 By thousands, the truck shuttled back and forth between its terminals.
00:47:23 Climbing to nearly 10,000 feet, around hairpin curves,
00:47:30 along the edges of sheer precipices where passing trucks had barely one foot of clearance.
00:47:37 [Music]
00:47:40 And the blood plasma of new supplies flowed steadily over China's lifeline to the sea,
00:47:45 protected by Colonel Chennault's incredible flying Tigers.
00:47:50 But Chinese sacrifice cannot be measured only in miracles of construction.
00:47:55 It must be counted too in the tragedy of destruction.
00:47:59 For while still the Burma Road was being built,
00:48:02 the invading Jap armies had fanned out and straddled fully two-thirds of the railroad lines of the country.
00:48:08 In the summer of 1938, they set out to capture the remaining one-third,
00:48:13 starting with the vital railroad junction at Chengchow.
00:48:17 Chengchow is situated on the banks of the Yellow River, China's sorrow.
00:48:22 Originally, the river flowed from Chengchow southeastward to the Yellow Sea.
00:48:27 But nearly a century ago, a great flood abruptly changed its course, swinging it far to the north.
00:48:35 For generation upon generation, as the spring floods rushed down to the sea,
00:48:40 thousands of Chinese worked on the dikes to hold the river in its new course,
00:48:45 protecting their homes and their crops.
00:48:52 Now, as the Japs advanced on Chengchow, the Chinese blew up the southern dike of the Yellow River,
00:49:01 thus loosing a flood between themselves and the Japs.
00:49:11 Once more, the river flowed in its old course, forming a barrier which to this day
00:49:17 has prevented the Jap from entrenching himself in this area.
00:49:24 Thus, once more, with no thought of the human sacrifice of the material cost,
00:49:30 the Chinese traded space for time.
00:49:38 And the Chinese had still other tricks to pull from their patched and faded sleeves.
00:49:44 You will notice that this map of Jap conquest doesn't look like the military maps you have seen in the previous film.
00:49:50 By all military standards, it should have looked like this, which is the way the Japs wanted it to look.
00:49:57 But the Japanese were learning that the occupation of Chinese cities
00:50:01 and control of Chinese rivers and railroads still was far from meaning the subjugation of China.
00:50:09 So the Chinese had formed themselves into guerrilla bands, trained to harass the Jap forces.
00:50:15 These guerrillas were mostly farmers who had stayed behind on the land
00:50:19 when the great migration to the west took place.
00:50:22 Peaceful farmers one day, deadly fighters the next.
00:50:27 They made an unpredictable and uncontrollable enemy.
00:50:49 The Japs held the lines of communication.
00:50:52 In the pockets thus formed, these unconquerable guerrillas constantly sniped at the Jap invaders.
00:50:59 When the Japs tried to annihilate them, they disappeared, only to reappear in another pocket.
00:51:16 [Shouting]
00:51:25 Attacking with speed and surprise, they ambushed enemy patrols.
00:51:42 The Japanese were fighting more than the Chinese people.
00:51:46 They were fighting the Chinese land, the great distances, the rivers, the flood, the swamps and marshes.
00:51:55 These too were enemies that defied the Jap war machine.
00:51:59 The giant back Japan intended to ride to world conquest was proving to be a bucking bronco.
00:52:06 Phase two of the Tanaka plan had bogged down in what the Japs still referred to as the China incident.
00:52:13 This left them in a fateful quandary.
00:52:16 Phase two of the Tanaka plan was still incomplete, but phase three and phase four could no longer be delayed.
00:52:24 In Russia, the overwhelming German offensive was taxing Russia's military capacity to the limit,
00:52:30 removing any Japanese fear of Russian interference.
00:52:34 Britain, after the sledgehammer blows of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, was left groggy and militarily almost exhausted.
00:52:42 Her navy stuttered across the sea, guarding her lifeline of supplies.
00:52:48 But here in America, we were finally awakening to our danger and taking steps to protect ourselves.
00:52:55 We had appropriated funds for the construction of a two-ocean navy, and our army was rapidly expanding.
00:53:04 If the ultimate objectives of the Tanaka plan were to be achieved, now was the moment to strike.
00:53:10 Now, when Russia was otherwise occupied.
00:53:13 Now, before Britain could recuperate.
00:53:16 Now, before we could gather too much strength.
00:53:20 So the Japs made a fateful decision.
00:53:23 They would embark on phase three and phase four, the conquest of the Indies in the United States,
00:53:29 without waiting to complete phase two, the conquest of China.
00:53:34 Thus, to paralyze American power in the Pacific.
00:53:38 Without warning, as they have always struck, they struck again.
00:53:43 [Explosions]
00:53:53 According to all the rules, China's position should now be greatly improved.
00:53:58 For in her war with Japan, China now had fighting allies.
00:54:02 Ourselves, the British, the Dutch.
00:54:05 But it didn't work that way for China.
00:54:08 [Explosions]
00:54:10 For in those tragic early months of 1942, when we sustained defeat after defeat at the hands of our common enemy.
00:54:18 [Explosions]
00:54:25 China endured the worst setback of all.
00:54:28 Out of our defeats, China lost the Burma Road.
00:54:32 [Explosions]
00:54:36 But still, China's courage never faltered.
00:54:39 Its determination never weakened.
00:54:42 And in the history of those long and tragic months of black defeat in 1942,
00:54:47 one bright page stands forth.
00:54:50 A page written by our Chinese allies.
00:54:54 Here is the city of Changsha.
00:54:56 The Japs wanted it for two reasons.
00:54:59 It was in the center of the Chinese rice bowl, and it was also an important railway junction.
00:55:05 Twice before they had tried to take it, and twice before they had been thrown back.
00:55:10 Massing a large striking force near Youqiu, on Christmas Eve 1941,
00:55:16 the Japs started southward toward Changsha in three columns.
00:55:20 At three points during the drive south, the Chinese forces put up token resistance.
00:55:25 But instead of withdrawing toward Changsha, they withdrew east into the mountainous plains.
00:55:32 By New Year's Eve, the Japs had surrounded the city.
00:55:35 They quickly pierced the outer defenses and attacked the inner defenses from four directions.
00:55:40 In spite of fierce resistance, the Japs were certain that the fall of Changsha was only a matter of hours.
00:55:46 What they didn't know was that they had walked into a well-baited trap.
00:55:50 For the Chinese forces which had withdrawn into the hills,
00:55:53 now swept down on the Japs' supply line and cut them to ribbons.
00:55:59 The Japs' forces attacking the city soon ran out of food and ammunition and began a withdrawal.
00:56:05 Whereupon the Chinese launched a counteroffensive and pushed the Japanese back where they had come from.
00:56:11 [explosions]
00:56:17 The Jap column was forced to run the gauntlet of continuous attack by the pursuing Chinese forces.
00:56:23 [explosions]
00:56:51 The fall of Changsha was a magnificent victory for the people of China,
00:56:55 the people who wouldn't surrender, the people determined to fight for their freedom,
00:57:00 their good earth, the people who can't be beaten.
00:57:05 And as 1944 dawns, there is another and greater story being written.
00:57:10 [explosions]
00:57:14 From the Aleutians to the South Pacific, we are on the offensive.
00:57:18 [explosions]
00:57:21 In the jungles of New Guinea, in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands,
00:57:25 [explosions]
00:57:29 on the shores of New Britain, on the broad Pacific waters,
00:57:33 Japan faces the daily expanding power of the nations she attacked.
00:57:38 [explosions]
00:57:52 And in India, American, British, and Chinese forces are gathering strength under Lord Mao
00:57:58 for the liberation of China.
00:58:00 For China's war is our war.
00:58:03 And now her millions belong not only to United China, but also to the United Nations.
00:58:10 Leader of our American forces is General Stillwell,
00:58:13 who has the unique honor of being the chief of staff of all the Chinese expeditionary army.
00:58:18 Division after division of thick Chinese troops are being flown in our planes from China to India,
00:58:25 where they are armed and equipped with the most modern American weapons.
00:58:29 [explosions]
00:58:31 Trained and hardened, the spearhead the coming drive against Japan.
00:58:36 Through enemy-held territory in northern Burma, the new Lido Road is being pushed.
00:58:41 [explosions]
00:58:43 Over mountains, through jungle and swamp, from India to China,
00:58:48 to connect with the old Burma Road.
00:58:51 In the jungle on either side, American and Chinese patrols protect the road and strike at the jack.
00:58:58 [explosions]
00:59:02 Their supplies and ammunition brought in by plane and parachute.
00:59:06 [music]
00:59:12 From fields in India, an air transport command plane takes off every six minutes,
00:59:17 loaded with artillery, jeeps, ammunition, men and supplies for the armies of China.
00:59:27 Over this Burma skyway, over this hump of mountains 16,000 feet high,
00:59:33 more tonnage is being flown into China than was ever trucked in over the old Burma Road.
00:59:40 And in the skies over China, Japan faces new opposition.
00:59:44 [explosions]
00:59:48 Young Chinese, many of them trained on the fields of Arizona, New Mexico, California,
00:59:55 fly and fight beside their American comrades.
00:59:59 The fighters and bombers of the Chinese Air Force and those of General Chennault's 14th Air Force
01:00:05 today fly far and wide over China.
01:00:08 [aircraft engine]
01:00:12 Hitting enemy concentrations, smashing their sea lanes along the China coast.
01:00:17 [explosions]
01:00:27 The same people that moved a nation 2,000 miles, that built the Burma Road,
01:00:32 are building airfields out of stone, mud, and patient pile of sand.
01:00:39 [music]
01:00:52 Today, though still cut off by land and sea from the rest of the world,
01:00:57 Chinese armies and Chinese guerrillas still stand firm against the Jap war machine.
01:01:04 [explosions]
01:01:10 The oldest and the youngest of the world's great nations, together with the British Commonwealth,
01:01:15 fight side by side in the struggle that is as old as China herself.
01:01:20 The struggle of freedom against slavery, civilization against barbarism, good against evil.
01:01:28 Upon their victory depends the future of mankind.
01:01:33 We in China, like you, want a better world.
01:01:38 Not for ourselves alone, but for all mankind.
01:01:43 And we must have it.
01:01:46 [applause]
01:01:49 [music]
01:02:04 [chanting]
01:02:24 [silence]