Bloody Saturday Read online

  The Hongkew and Yangtzepoo districts were now without either functioning utilities, Municipal Police, foreign troops or SVC companies. This meant that over three thousand acres of the Settlement’s total five and a half thousand acres were effectively under Japanese Army control. The situation alarmed the Municipal Council, who were more than aware that the Settlement’s waterworks, gas and electric power stations were now unreachable behind Japanese lines. Rumours whirled that the Japanese were going to poison the city’s water supply. Also cut off north of Soochow Creek were many of the Settlement’s major wharves and godowns, as well as the Ward Road Gaol, the world’s largest prison in 1937. Most of these facilities were being guarded by stranded Sikh watchmen and some Volunteers Corps members. Manpower could be resupplied from the river, but whoever was tasked with the job would be virtual prisoners of the Japanese Army, stranded east of Hongkew.

  The French Concession was intact, with no Japanese troop presence on its soil. In addition to their no-fly zone, the French placed Annamese guards outside the various Catholic institutions in Siccawei, just beyond the western borders of Frenchtown, including the observatory, which supplied all the city’s crucial meteorological information. Both the International Settlement and Frenchtown were in effective lockdown.

  Bud Ekins was back in northern Shanghai, which was still being pounded by Japanese artillery. Early that morning, he wrote,

  The whole sky was aglow from the flames and presented a terrible picture as sulphurous clouds, driven by the wind plowed into the billowing smoke. There were occasional deep, rumbling explosions as chemicals in factories were reached by the flames.

  In the space of one night, Shanghai had gone from the legendary ‘Paris of the East’ to become a dark, frightened city of refugees. The dispossessed continued to swarm into the ten square miles of the International Settlement and the French Concession. Within a few weeks the foreign-controlled portions of Shanghai saw their population rise from one and a half to over four million – most were living in the hundred and seventy-five hastily established refugee camps across the city. Rhodes Farmer, walking the streets examining the conditions the refugees had to endure, described the cityscape, ‘For endless miles the city’s sidewalks became the bedroom of a million refugees.’ Many moved on, the wealthier and more able towards Soochow, Hangchow and Nanking; the poorer and less able walked past the sunken barricades on the river and found ferries willing to head north up the Yangtze. In a few days three hundred and fifty thousand refugees left the city on these horrendously overcrowded ships.

  Refugees leaving Shanghai from the Quai de France

  *

  An accurate count of the dead and injured from Bloody Saturday is impossible to arrive at. Early estimates were as high as five thousand, later estimates put the total at between seven hundred Shanghailanders and as many as three thousand Chinese dead. J.B. Powell, a highly reputable journalist and editor of the China Weekly Review, gave the dead at two thousand and the wounded at (at least) two and a half thousand – predominantly Chinese. A report compiled by the French Concession police put the figure at one hundred and fifty dead on Nanking Road and six hundred and seventy-five outside the Great World. But so many died in the side streets, on hospital gurneys and in their homes that a truly accurate number is impossible. Even if the lowest estimates are to be accepted, Shanghai was still the worst ever scene of civilian casualties from aerial bombing to that date.

  On Saturday 14 August 1937, Shanghai had awoken to bad weather but a peaceful day. That had been shattered at precisely 4.27 p.m. The press were quick to dub the day ‘Bloody’ or ‘Black Saturday’. Things had changed for Shanghai forever, from Bloody Saturday, as Bud Ekins wrote, ‘. . . the city’s very streets became battlegrounds’. Vanya Oakes added, ‘August 1937, saw the peace of the world annihilated, from the Far East.’

  APPENDIX OF LANDMARKS

  Since the Second World War, most of Shanghai’s streets have been renamed. A list of the streets and their current names is given below. Throughout this book I have used the Wade-Giles romanisations of Chinese provinces, districts, rivers, creeks, towns and cities. Thesewould have been in common use in 1937. I list the current pinyin romanisations below. Most of the buildings mentioned are now used for other purposes and I have listed these below too.

  Roads:

  Alcock Road Anguo Road

  Amherst Avenue Xinhua Road

  Boone Road Tanggu Road

  Brenan Road Changning Road

  Bubbling Well Road Nanjing West Road

  The Bund Zhongshan No.1 Road

  Columbia Road Panyu Road

  Connaught Road Kanding Road

  Dixwell Road Liyang Road

  Avenue Edward VII Yanan Road

  Foochow Road Fuzhou Road

  French Bund see Quai de France

  Great Western Road Yanan Road West

  Jinkee Road Dianchi Road

  Avenue Joffre Huaihai Road

  Jukong Road Zhongxing Road

  Kiukiang Road Jiujiang Road

  Markham Road Huai’an Road

  Nanking Road Nanjing Road East

  Pakhoi Road Beihai Road

  Ping Liang Road Pingliang Road

  Quai de France Zhongshan No.2

  Road East

  Range Road Wujin Road

  Scott Road Shanyang Road/

  Shande Road

  Seward Road Changzi East Road

  Shantung Road Shandong

  Middle Road

  Route Stanislas Chevalier Jianguo Road

  Szechuen Road North Sichuan Road North

  Thibet Road Xizhang Road

  Yu Yuen Road Yuyuan Road

  Yuan Ming Yuan Road Yuanmingyuan Road

  Places:

  American Club Foochow Road,

  former US Court for China

  at Shanghai building

  (now empty)

  Astor House Hotel Pujiang Hotel,

  15 Huangpu Road

  Avenue Joffre Fire Station Huaihai Road

  Fire Station

  Broadway Mansions 20 Suzhou North Road

  Cathay Cinema 870 Huaihai

  Middle Road

  Cathay Hotel Peace Hotel,

  20 Nanjing East Road

  Cathedral Boy’s School/

  Shanghai Cathedral 219 Jiujiang Road

  Central Fire Station Guangdong Road

  Civic Centre Jiangwan Stadium

  Country Hospital Huadong Hospital,

  221 Yanan West Road

  Customs House 13 Zhongshan East Road

  French Police HQ Jianguo East Road

  Great World Corner of Yanan Road

  and Xizhang Road

  Hongkew Park Lu Xun Park,

  146 Jiangwan East Road

  Jessfield Park Zhongshan Park

  St. John’s University 1575 Wanhangdu Road

  Lester Chinese Hospital Renji Hospital,

  145 Shandong

  Middle Road

  St. Luke’s Hospital Shanghai Chest

  Hospital, 241 Huaihai

  West Road

  Metropole Cinema 500 Xizhang Middle Road

  Metropole Hotel 180 Jiangxi Middle Road

  Missions Building 169 Yuanmingyuan Road

  National Bank of China Bank of China,

  23 Zhongshan East Road

  North-China Daily

  News Building AIA Insurance,

  17 Zhongshan East Road

  North Railway Station Shanghai Railway

  Museum, 200

  Tianmu East Road

  Palace Hotel Swatch Art Peace Hotel,

  23 Nanjing East Road

  Park Hotel 170 Nanjing West Road

  Polytechnic Public School Shanghai Gezhi

  High School,

  66 Guangxi North Road

  Poste Mallet Yanan East Road

  Race Club Shanghai Art Museum,

  1515 Nanjing West Rd

  Shanghai Racecourse People’s Park

  Shanghai Club Ritz Carlton Hotel,

  2 Zhongshan East Road

  East Road

  Sincere Department Store 479 Nanjing

  East Road

  Union Church 107 Suzhou

  South Road

  Districts:

  Chapei Zhabei

  Hongkew Hongkou

  Hungjao Hongqiao

  Kiangwan Jiangwen

  Lunghwa Longhua

  Paoshan Baoshan

  Pootung Pudong

  Siccawei Xujiahui

  Soochow Creek Suzhou Creek

  Wayside Tilanqiao

  Whangpoo River Huangpu River

  Woosung Wusong

  Yangtzepoo Yangshupu

  Cities and Provinces:

  Amoy Xiamen

  Canton Guangzhou

  Hangchow Hangzhou

  Kiangsu Jiangsu

  Kiangyin Jiangyin

  Nanking Nanjing

  Peking Beijing

  Tientsin Tianjin

  Tsingtao Qingdao

  Jehol No longer exists as a separate

  province in China. In 1955, Jehol was divided between Inner Mongolian and the provinces of Hebei and Liaoning.

  NOTES

  ‘the bomber will always get through’ From Baldwin’s speech to Parliament ‘A Fear for the Future’, 9th November, 1932.

  ‘not ready for war’ Claire Lee Chennault & Robert Hotz, Way of a Fighter, (New York: GP Puttnam’s & Sons, 1949), p.74.

  ‘silent as nighthawks on straw sandals’ Rhodes Farmer, Shanghai Harvest: A Diary of Three Years in the China War, (London: Museum Press, 1945), p.49-50.

  ‘concrete measures’ reported in many newspapers including ‘Japanese Cabinet Decides Concrete Measures Needed’, The Daily Messenger, 14th August, 1937.

  ‘
silhouettes loom out of the darkness’ Vanya Oakes, White Man’s Folly, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943), p.160.

  ‘little squabbles’ see Paul French, Carl Crow – A Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times, and Adventures of an American in Shanghai, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006), p.162.

  ‘an impenetrable wall’ Farmer, Shanghai Harvest, p.45.

  ‘slipped in blood’ Farmer, Shanghai Harvest, p.48.

  ‘dead centre in Asia’s first blitz’ Farmer, Shanghai Harvest, p.46.

  ‘as silent as a morgue.’ Farmer, Shanghai Harvest, p.46.

  ‘It seemed as if a giant mower’, Percy Finch, Shanghai and Beyond, (New York: Charles Scribner’s & Sons, 1953), p.255.

  ‘with his arms outstretched’ Farmer, Shanghai Harvest, p.46.

  ‘Flames from blazing cars’ ibid.

  ‘like a rag doll’, see Eric Niderost, ‘Wartime Shanghai: A Tycoon triumphs Over the Emperor’, World War II Magazine, September 2006.

  ‘sticky sweet stench’ Farmer, Shanghai Harvest, p.46.

  ‘the street lined with bleeding bodies’, ‘Americans in Shanghai Find Adventure in War’, The Waco News-Tribune, 17th August, 1937.

  ‘I saw a white woman’, John R. Morris, ‘Blood Flows in Shanghai’s Torn Streets’, The Des Moines Register, 15th August, 1937.

  ‘I could see at least fifty’, ibid

  ‘vomited into the gutter’ Farmer, Shanghai Harvest, p.47.

  ‘Any of you lose this?’ Farmer, Shanghai Harvest, p.48.

  ‘On the first floor were gaming tables’, Josef von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry, (New York: Macmillan, 1965).

  ‘windows for blocks around’, ‘Air Bombing’s Horror Told by Ex-Boro Man’, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 15th August, 1937.

  ‘looked mummified’, ibid.

  ‘crushed like egg shells’ syndicated in many newspapers including, M.C. Ford, ‘Autos Crushed Like Eggs’, The Akron Beacon Journal, 14th August, 1937.

  ‘Look for those who are breathing’ Oakes, White Man’s Folly, p.167.

  ‘A call came through’ R. Somers quoted in Harriet Sergeant, Shanghai, (London: John Murray, 1991), p.300.

  ‘Facing that slaughter house’ ibid.

  ‘crowds’, Slobodchikoff quoted in Sergeant, Shanghai, p.300.

  ‘The bastards have dropped it’ Stewart quoted in Sergeant, Shanghai, p.300.

  ‘a little shrapnel’ Emily Hahn, China To Me, (Philadelphia: The Blakiston Company, 1944), p.47.

  ‘The Japanese Navy’ reported in many newspapers including, H.R. Ekins & John R. Morris, ‘Three Americans, 1,000 Chinese Killed’, Binghamton Press, 14th August, 1937.

  ‘It was pitch dark on one side’ Farmer, Shanghai Harvest, p.49.

  ‘Against the walls’ Oakes, White Man’s Folly, p.167.

  ‘as a sincere friend’ reported in many newspapers including, ‘Bombing of Settlement’, The Guardian, 16th August, 1937.

  ‘None deplore more than we’ ibid. P86 ‘The Generalissimo had ordered’ ibid.

  ‘was stilled’ ‘Air War Rocks Shanghai’, Arizona Republic, 15th August, 1937.

  ‘So sorry’ Hahn, China To Me, p.46.

  ‘charnel house’ Hallett Abend, My Life in China: 1926-1941, (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1943), p. 254.

  ‘The whole sky was aglow’ H.R. Ekins, ‘Thousands Die in Shanghai War Chaos’, Oakland Tribune, 15th August, 1937.

  ‘For endless miles’ Farmer, Shanghai Harvest, p.50. P95 ‘the city’s very streets’, H.R. Ekins, ‘Thousands Die in Shanghai War Chaos’, Oakland Tribune, 15th August, 1937.

  ‘August 1937’, Oakes, White Man’s Folly, p.158.

  PHOTOGRAPHS

  Firemen – Virtual Shanghai

  The Age – The Age Melbourne, 16 August, 1937

  Site of the bombing – photograph by and courtesy of Peter Kengelbacher

  Bombed Palace and Cathay Hotel – photograph by and courtesy of Peter Kengelbacher

  Bomb crater near Great World – Virtual Shanghai

  Newcastle News – The Newcastle News-Journal (Wyoming), 14 August, 1937

  Refugees leaving via Garden bridge – Randall Gould

  Quai de France – Virtual Shanghai

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks to Con Slobodchikoff for confirming details about the extraordinary life and career of his father Nicolai Alexandrovich Slobodchikoff, as well as Jo Lusby, Patrizia van Daalen, Imogen Liu and Lena Petzke at Penguin China. I’d like to thank Anne Witchard for her comments on the manuscript in progress, Christian Henriot and the Virtual Shanghai Project (www.virtualshanghai.net/) for help with images and Douglas Clark for suggestions of newspaper sources. I am also grateful to the staff of the London Library as they were more than helpful during my research for this book.

  ALSO BY PAUL FRENCH

  Midnight in Peking: The Murder That

  Haunted the Last Days of Old China

  The Badlands: Decadent Playground of Old Peking

  Betrayal in Paris: How The Treaty of Versailles

  Led to China’s Long Revolution

  The Old Shanghai A-Z

  Through the Looking Glass: China’s

  Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao

  Carl Crow – A Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times,

  and Adventures of an American in Shanghai

  The conduct of the people was so indescribably frightful,

  that I felt for some time afterwards almost as if I were

  living in a city of devils.

  Charles Dickens

  Shanghai was a city of vice and violence, of opulence wildly juxtaposed to unbelievable poverty, of whirling roulette wheels and exploding shotguns and crying beggars… Shanghai had become a tawdry city of refugees and rackets.

  Vanya Oakes, White Man’s Folly (1943)

  Shanghai. A heaven built upon a hell!

  Mu Shiying, Shanghai Fox-trot (1934)

  Truly the devil pulls on all our strings.

  Baudelaire

  Introduction

  Shanghai was a prize won after victory in an opium war. A war to open a country to a drug that caused pain, waste and death in the Middle Kingdom while enriching the western nations. The foreigners claimed Shanghai as part of their victory terms. And so a strange urban aberration grew up on the banks of the Whangpoo River, close to the mouth of the Yangtze River, gateway to the vast Chinese hinterlands. The foreigners that came to build the city described Shanghai as a shining light, an example to the heathen darkness of China of the benefits of free trade and modernity. To others, the freebooting city was little more than a magnet attracting adventurers and ne’er-do-wells; a festering goiter of badness; stolen territory. Yet good, bad, or not caring either way, grow Shanghai did, from walled fishing village to the world’s fifth largest city by the 1930s – a deafening babel of tongues, a hodge-podge of administrations, home to hopeful souls from several dozen nations joined together by one simple guiding ethos: money and the getting of it. In a hundred Sunday sermons from the missionaries who hoped to bring the light to China, Shanghai was the insanity of Gotham incarnate. Shanghai became a legend; the Wild East; by the 1920s three and a half million people called the nine square miles of the International Settlement home.

  The International Settlement governed itself – not a colony like Hong Kong or Singapore, but a treaty port, a product of a most unequal treaty. The Settlement was administered by an elected Municipal Council composed of mostly foreigners – ‘Shanghailanders’ – and, later, grudgingly a few Chinese. The foreign-run Municipal Police enforced the law and, if needed, the Shanghai Volunteers would muster to reinforce the foreign troops stationed in the city to protect the Settlement. The Settlement represented fourteen foreign powers who had extracted treaty port rights from a weak Qing Dynasty China. All had their own consulates and courts within the Settlement, for within the Settlement a foreigner was not subject to Chinese justice but only to that of his own nation. This extraterritoriality meant that an American could only be called before the American Court, a Briton before the British Court and so on and so on.