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Close Up, In Focus: Four films on China before and during World War IINov 19, 2010
By Donald M. Bishop
Periscope Film continues to make available valuable old films with this DVD of four documentaries about China before and during World War II. Three have been "hard to find." Here are short summaries of all four:
CHINA CRISIS
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"China Crisis" is the best documentary on air operations in the China-Burma-India theater, and indeed it is one of the best documentary films to come out of World War II. Few films match this one in showing courage and the terrible costs of war.
The official Army Air Forces film of the Fourteenth Air Force in China, "China Crisis" shows the movement of supplies from India to China (first by rail and barge and then by air "over the Hump") -- the Flying Tigers in their P-40s, B-24s and B-25s -- strikes on the shipping lanes running from Japan to the southwest -- and Japan's 1944 Great East China "Ichigo" offensive. (The "crisis" in the title.)
Few will fail to be moved by the scenes of Chinese refugees fleeing the Japanese advance -- and by the American aircraft protecting the refugee columns. The scene of an American pilot, trapped in his crashed and burning fighter, dramatically personalized the cost of war and the burden of decision, for there had been insufficient tonnage available to carry firefighting equipment over the Himalayas.
The footage in the film was shot by thirteen young Army combat cameramen assigned to General Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force. Three hundred hours of footage resulted in a film less than one hour long. The lead photographer and film's guiding hand was the legendary Harold "Hal" Geer, who himself flew 86 missions. "China Crisis" was put together to be shown during the 8th War Bond campaign of 1946. Of course, the war ended in 1945, so the film was seen by only a few Americans at the time, and old VHS copies have been hard to find.
THE STILWELL ROAD
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One of the finest Army documentaries made during World War II, "Stilwell Road" actually covers far more than the building of the Ledo Road across northern Burma. Using the metaphor of Burma as the land bridge to China, it provides a visual history of operations in India, Burma, and China. It shows:
-- the building of the original Burma Road by the Republic of China in the late 1930s
-- General Joseph Stilwell's retreat through the jungles of Burma
-- the organization of the air route to supply China
-- the training of Chinese troops by the U.S. Army in Ramgarh, India
-- the gathering of allied forces (American, Chinese, British, Commonwealth, Indian Army, Burmese irregulars, and troops from Britain's African colonies) in India for the campaign in Burma
-- the "Burma Surgeon," American Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Seagrave with his Burmese nurses and medics
-- behind-the-lines operations by the Chindits under General Orde Wingate
-- the Air Commandos
-- the offensives by American, Chinese, British, and Indian Army troops, especially the battles to take Myitkyina.
And it shows the building of the Ledo Road over 26 difficult months by U.S. Army engineers under Brigadier General Lewis Pick. The dramatic scenes -- terrain, jungles, pack mules, bulldozers, pontoon bridges, air supply -- were mostly shot by U.S. Army combat cameramen. The movie culminates with the travel of the first convoy from Assam to Kunming in China's Yunnan province, with the new full route (the new Ledo Road and the improved Burma Road) named for General Stilwell.
There are many stirring scenes. This viewer's favorite shows Air Force Colonel Philip Cochran speaking to his transport and glider pilots before they took off on the dangerous mission to insert troops into central Burma. Many died in the mission.
Narrating the film was a Hollywood star who had, in the 1930s, joined the California National Guard as a cavalryman. Originally a "weekend warrior," he was called to active duty after the attack on Pearl Harbor and given a commission in the Army Air Forces. Because his eyesight was bad, the doctors ruled he should be assigned in the United States in the training command. He became commander of the Air Force film unit in Hollywood. The narrator was Captain Ronald Reagan.
CHINA OUR WESTERN FRONT
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This previously hard-to-find film, apparently made in 1942 for the Office of War Information, aimed to show China as an American ally deserving assistance during World War II. A speech by William C. Bullitt delivers the main message: China is fighting our battles and "to help China is to help ourselves ... China is our own Western Front."
The visuals in the film portray China's industrialization, education, and resistance to the Japanese. Chiang Kai-Shek and the Soong sisters are prominently featured. Some of the footage will be familiar because it was used in other wartime productions; some will be fresh to many viewers. The film's central section on China is bookended by OWI-style discussions of the United States.
The film's spoken narrative provides grist for many discussions. An initial look back at pre-war American views of Japan seems to repeat many racial stereotypes (the Japanese are "wily, cunning, with a national code of elastic conscience," and mere copiers of Western technology) but then judges that these attitudes ("smug confidence and complacent pride") ill prepared Americans to face Japan's aggression. The view that the Republic of China drew its inspiration from the United States ("the pattern for Free China was 'made in USA'") is forced, and the film's view of China under Chiang Kai-Shek is rosy. Thus "China Our Western Front" largely tracks the view of China later expressed in "The Battle of China," the sixth film in Lieutenant Colonel Frank Capra's famous "Why We Fight" series. The narrative invites historical papers.
MANCHUKUO THE NEW EMPIRE
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The Periscope Film disk includes a "Japanese propaganda film," apparently made in the late 1930s. "Manchukuo The New Empire" includes fascinating footage of China's northeast under Japanese control, including urban scenes of "Kirin" (Jilin), "Dairen" (Dalian), Harbin, "Mukden" (Shenyang), Changchun, Port Arthur, Yingkou, and Ansan. The cameras caught interesting scenes of industrial production, agriculture (especially soybeans), forests and floating the logs to the sawmills, railroad yards, and open pit mining.
These interesting scenes are accompanied, however, by a blandly read narrative that is quite astonishing. According to the film, economic development in Manchuria was set in motion by the end of the Russo-Japanese war (the visual is a map that is remarkably uninformative) and the railroads (ownership never specified), which brought progress to "the natives."
The narrator makes fun of the sound of Changchun, which sounds like "the business end of a freight train." A locomotive is armored due to "tribes of bandits." There's no mention of Japanese imperial control, the Puppet Emperor, or Japanese migration and colonization. There are two smooth references to "the present strife in the Far East" and "this conflict," meaning opposition to Japanese conquest and the first phases of World War II in the Pacific, when the camera shows only peaceful scenes.
Those interested in the urban development of major cities in China's northeast will find an interesting visual record. Those who study theories of economic development and transition can deconstruct the film's economic narrative. Comparing the effects of Japanese rule in Manchuria, Korea, and Taiwan is a growing field of scholarship; historians and economists familiar with China's three northeastern provinces can judge who was profiting from the factories and mines shown in the film, the Chinese or the Japanese, and who was being educated in the schools. And those who study "propaganda" have a new "case study" in this film.
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