Doolittle Raid: Its Impact on China

Don M. Tow

April 17, 2012

Brookdale Community College

Lincroft, NJ

dmt-4/17/12– 2

Mission Impossible

Doolittle Raid

Its Impact on the U.S.

Its Impact on China

04/19/23

dmt-4/17/12– 4

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

Its Impact On China

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– 5

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)

Its Impact On China (cont.)

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– 6

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

Its Impact On China (cont.)

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– 7

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

Its Impact On China (cont.)

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– 8

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.”

Its Impact On China (cont.)

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

4/17/12

dmt-4/17/12– 10

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

Its Impact On China (cont.)

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– 11

The consequence to the Chinese was about 250,000

killed in the Zhejiang area

Its Impact On China (cont.)

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-raid-

mission-impossible-and-its-impact-on-the-u-s-and-china/