Battle of Shanghai

After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Japan, seeking to force the National Government to submit, spread the fighting to China's economic center, Shanghai. On 9 August 1937 a Japanese officer who forced his way with troops into the cordon around Shanghai's Hongqiao Airport was shot dead by Chinese guards, and Japan used this as a pretext to send large reinforcements to Shanghai. On 13 August Japanese forces attacked and the Battle of Shanghai began. Chinese troops resisted, committing over 700,000 men in all, while Japan raised its force to over 200,000. The Chinese air force also fought bravely, shooting down Japanese aircraft in the air battle over Jianqiao on 14 August, a day later designated “Air Force Day”. With backward equipment, Chinese troops fought the Japanese to the death with flesh and blood. At the end of October they were ordered to withdraw, and Xie Jinyuan led over four hundred officers and men (known as the “Eight Hundred Heroes”) in holding the Sihang Warehouse on the north bank of Suzhou Creek to cover the main force's retreat, fighting alone for four days and nights; the girl scout Yang Huimin risked her life to bring them a national flag, raising the morale of soldiers and civilians nationwide. In early November Japanese troops landed at Jinshanwei on Hangzhou Bay and threatened the Chinese rear, and the Chinese were forced to withdraw along the whole front; Shanghai fell on 12 November. The three-month battle was one of the largest and most brutal of the war. It shattered Japan's arrogant plan to “conquer China in three months”, bought time to relocate factories, schools and offices from Shanghai and the coast to the interior, and showed the Chinese nation's united determination to resist to the end.