Martyr in China

Chapter 5. The War

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Grandmother in China under the shadow of the Cross, during the time of war

The war aggravated the misery. A senseless, inhuman and evil war. A foreign country, taking advantage of its superior strength, planned to take illegal possession of another country.  Japan had already given warning of its imperialistic ambitions in 1931 when it had occupied Manchuria, a region belonging to Western China; a puppet government had been set up to give some appearance of legality to their actions. Using Manchuria as a base, the Japanese launched sporadic attacks on other areas of Northern China.

Japan’s aggressive intentions became even more obvious towards the end of 1936. The warning signs of impending war were already in the air in Juzhou; Fr. Botton, aware that the Chinese government was recruiting soldiers, knew that war was just around the corner. In a letter dated March 1, 1936, he wrote: “They even want to take my cook away. First it was the volunteer soldiers taken from the ranks of delinquents or hungry people…Now that they want to fight with the Japanese, they force every village to give a certain number of soldiers”.

In fact, Chang Kaishek had sent 450,000 men to the zone of Peking to ward off an eventual attack. The Japanese had about 200,000 well-armed soldiers in the area and they had many armed tanks and aircraft at their disposal.

On July 7, 1937, using as an excuse a shooting between soldiers on the border, the Japanese moved their troops closer to Peking and the rest of China. It was this “Lukuchao incident” that marked the beginning of the Second World War.

In the West, we consider the invasion of Poland by Germany in September 1939 as the beginning of World War Two, but the apocalypse had already begun in the East with the invasion of China, which was followed by the conquest of the entire Pacific zone.

They even want to take my cook away. First it was the volunteer soldiers taken from the ranks of delinquents or hungry people... Now that they want to fight with the Japanese, they force every village to give a certain number of soldiers.
Fr. John Botton

Like its counterpart in the West, the war in the East did not stop at damage inflicted on the fighting troops: it also wreaked havoc among the civilian population, and destroyed cities and villages through indiscriminate bombing and exterminating numerous helpless people. Perhaps nothing similar had ever been seen since the times of Genghis Khan and Tamerlano.

Japan invaded and the city was conquered on August 8. Thereafter, with a war strategy that had been studied down to the minimum details and backed up with modern powerful war instruments, the Japanese army advanced in three columns: one went west to Datong in the Shanxi, the second moved south towards Paoting and a third also headed south to Tsinan. The Japanese army met with strong resistance in Paoting and, when the city finally fell, it was ravaged by a seven day long looting spree at the hands of 30,000 exasperated and furious soldiers. The same scenes were repeated in all the conquered cities: when the Japanese took over, they killed, raped, destroyed and set everything on fire. Terror invaded China and the desperate civilians fled from the cities.

About the same time as their advance north, the Japanese disembarked 80,000 men on the Jianxu coast with the intention of conquering Shangai and then moving on towards Nanching. After a battle of more than two months, Shangai fell and the city was looted (October 13, 1937).

Towards the end of the year, the Japanese descended from Datong and fell upon the Shanxi until they conquered the capital Taiyuan and reached the left bank of the Yellow River. On 10 December, Nanching, in the eastern region, had fallen into enemy hands after a desperate resistance by the Chinese forces. The sacking of Nanching ended with the massacre of 300,000 people and with acts of cruelty that can only be imagined with great difficulty.

Further north, the Japanese had begun the invasion of the Shantung, but the retreating Chinese armies burned everything in sight to deprive the enemy of every form of sustenance.

Despite the heroic resistance of the Chinese troops, who were well trained and disciplined by years of internal war, the year 1938 saw the Japanese advance progressively towards the south, from Tsinan to Xuzhou where the greatest number of troops engaged in battle: the Chinese had sent 21 divisions, but Xuzhou fell nonetheless on May 10, 1938.

The victory at Xuzhou paved the way to Henan, along the Lunghai that connects Xuzhou to Zhengzhou, Luoyang in Henan, and Sian in the Shanxi. The bombing of the most important cities that the advancing troops would be passing through began at the beginning of the year. On February 14, the first bombs fell on Zhengzhou and the town was thrown into confusion; on March 9, a second heavier bombing took place. One bomb fell within the confines of the mission compound, killing two children and injuring 11 adults.

At dawn on May 13, another swarm of airplanes dropped its deadly cargo on the town. The bishop and the missionaries had just finished celebrating the Eucharist in the Cathedral when the sirens began to wail, and they managed to find shelter just in time: six or seven bombs hit the Cathedral and demolished the roof and the walls. When the bishop and the missionaries left their refuge, they found the cathedral in a heap of ruins: in just a few minutes, the work of 30 years had been destroyed. Luckily, there had been no casualties among the Fathers and the personnel of the mission.

The bombing signaled the arrival of the armored divisions. The evacuation of Zhengzhou, which had already begun at the beginning of the year, now continued at an increased pace: the state offices, the town hospital and other public works were moved to localities up in the mountains. The mission hospital alone remained in the town to attend to any emergencies.

The enemy troops were expected any time and fear among the people intensified; in June, instead, an endless procession of hungry, tired and terrified refugees poured into Zhengzhou, fleeing from the disaster of biblical proportions that had befallen the population that inhabited the countryside on the south of the Yellow River: in an attempt to halt the advance of the Japanese, Chang Kaishek had destroyed the banks of the Yellow River (which was six or seven kilometers wide) at Huayuankou (24 kilometers north of Zhenzghou), and millions of tons of water had poured over the surrounding plains, submerging 300,000 people (June 27, 1938). About 11,000,000 people were left homeless and they formed an immense crowd of unhappy people who were looking for safety on ground that had not been flooded.

The mission thus filled up with refugees and the hospital was bursting with sick and wounded people. The Fathers and the personnel worked day and night to achieve the impossible.

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