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Tonghua incident

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The Tonghua incident occurred on February 3, 1946 in southern Jilin.

Background

Tonghua, being the local transport hub, had a large refugees flux in 1945. First instance of violence (a Shosankoku incident) was reported 13 August 1945, when the train filled will civilian Japanese refugees was stopped at an elevated track near the tunnel entrance and the Japanese women were gang-raped by the locals after the train security guards were killed. The train was a by-catch to Chinese guerilla intercepting the preceding evacuation train of the family of the last Chinese Emperor (Puyi), most notably Empress Wanrong. The incident featured children being killed by throwing out of windows, over 100 Japanese women committing suicide by jumping from the cliff, and mob shooting anybody who tried to escape. The rest of passengers were rescued when the battalion of the Imperial Japanese Army, alerted by the single escaped girl, has arrived the next morning. Many of the survivors of the Shosankoku incident would become the inhabitants of the Tonghua refugee camp and will also later be victims of the Tonghua Incident.

By surrender of Japan the local refugee camp was filled by 17,000 Japanese locals and over 100,000 Japanese civilians fleeing from the other regions of China. The city was initially surrendered to the Red Army but nominally controlled by the Democratic North-East Army. Although according to Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance the support of Communist Party of China in Soviet-dominated areas was forbidden, the Democratic North-East Army was a de facto affiliate of the communist Eighth Route Army.

The tensions ran high first in late August 1945, when groups of Soviet soldiers repeatedly raided Tonghua Girl`s High School, raping, abducting and killing both students and teachers. At least one shootout with teacher possessing a concealed pistol was also reported, leading to additional raids. Participation of the male teachers in the rapes was also reported.

The gang rapes, even in broad daylight on the streets, has happened, and at least one Soviet officer was shot dead while trying to stop his fellow soldiers. Japanese refugees responded mainly by shaving the women`s head bald, applying dirt and grease to the skin, and wearing a storage bags instead of normal clothes.

In September 1946, a general withdrawal of the Soviet occupation forces was in progress. As the Communist Party of China was seeking to control region to undermine Kuomintang positions, a lot of killing was underway, with approximately 70,000 persons killed across Manchuria by March 1946. One of the organizations helping the Communist Party of China to dismantle existing civilian infrastructure (both the residual Japanese and Kuomintang) was the Ri Koko detachment staffed by mostly ethnic Koreans, many being the former members of the Imperial Japanese Army. That detachment was known for a particularly lousy discipline, especially compared to the regular Communist Party of China units.

22 September 1945, the Communist Party of China-affiliated forces have evicted Kuomintang forces from the Tonghua. 2 November 1945, the Communist Party of China positions in the city were consolidated enough so a red flag was raised over the headquarters.

In the early November 1945, all property of people of Japanese ancestry was confiscated, and all Japanese males aged between 15 and 60 were forced to labour teams. From the 17 November 1945, Chinese Communist forces were raiding arbitrarily Japanese homes in search of weapons, and drafting everybody to labour teams, regardless of gender or age. Forced eviction of Japanese people from their dwelling has also started.

From 10 December 1945, some of the former Japanese soldiers were recruited in the newly created aircraft squadron of the Communist Party of China to help Chinese to master the captured Japanese airplanes. It was the part of Ruse de guerre intended to transmit a false image of the Kuomintang still in control of the city with the help of the former personnel of Kwantung Army. It should be noted what large-scale collaboration of Japanese units with Communist Party of China in the aftermath of the surrender of Japan was not uncommon, most notable being 47th division.

On 23 December 1945, a public event popularizing a collaboration between Communist Party of China and Japanese was held.

5 January 1946, Tanehiko Fujita, a Japanese spokesperson in Tonghua refugee camp, was called by Communist Party of China and requested to give out Japanese armament caches. He would be arrested later, 15 January 1946.

10 January 1946, the Tonghua branch of the "Japanese People`s Liberation Army" was disbanded, 140 Japanese arrested, among the persistent rumors concerning a wide scale rebellion by the Kwantung Army.

21 January 1946, further arrests and detentions of Japanese in the aftermath of the murders of high-ranking Japanese civilian leader.

The Japanese rebellion

2 February 1946, a phone call from Mitsushige Maeda was received by the Communist Party of China office in Tonghua regarding the planned rebellion in a refugee camp. A wave of arrests, interrogation with torture, and executions followed immediately. In particular, all Japanese arrested 10 January 1946 were immediately shot. The Ri Koko Korean detachment acted with the particular cruelty.

At midnight on 3 February 1946, the Japanese rebellion started according to the agreement with the Kuomintang. Although it was initially planned to get help from the Kuomintang forces in Shenyang, the radio message postponing the rebellion was not received due to equipment failure. As a result, several hundred Japanese attackers, armed mostly with shovels and clubs, with a small number of swords or rifles, were mowed down by machine gun fire from ambush positions, both inside and outside the Communist Party of China headquarters. The rebellion on the airfield was thwarted before even starting. Therefore, out of three rebel attacks, only the attack aimed to take control of Empress Wanrong apartments in the Public Security building succeeded.

The Public Security building was soon surrounded by Communist Party of China reinforcements and shelled. The Japanese rebels, lacking heavy weapons, then surrendered.

Aftermath of the rebellion

At the morning 3 February 1946, all Japanese males 16-years old or older, and suspected females, frequently wearing only pajamas, were forced out of refugee camp, chained and forced to march 15 km at the minus 20 degrees weather. Anybody falling from exhaustion or wounds was shot dead.

About 3,000 Japanese men and women were packed in the old warehouses, packing 5 persons per square meter. A lot of them went berserk because of the lack of oxygen, but anybody climbing a window was shot. Soon the flooring has turned into the pool of blood, and people continue to die still standing. Even corpses would not fall because of extreme crowding. About 2,000 civilians who did not fit into warehouses were plainly shot nearby.

After 5 days of confinement, the survivors were let to walk out, only to be beaten to death by guards belonging to Ri Koko detachment. The Communist Party of China also have carried a rapid interrogation and torture. The persons deemed related to the rebellion were lined up right on the site and shot. Also, many of the Japanese women were either raped by Ri Koko detachment members or committed suicide, before or after rapes.

The Sun Keng-hsiao, a Kuomintang-appointed governor of the region, was publicly flogged to death by the Communist Party of China together with the Japanese rebellion leaders. The Tanehiko Fujita, the nominal Japanese leader in Tonghua, have died 15 March 1946 in prison due to pneumonia.

Subsequent events

Kuomintang has captured Tonghua in late 1946 and held a memorial service to the victims of the rebellion. The city was lost again to the Communist Party of China in 1947.

Bibliography

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See also

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