WWII-Chang

Tewen Chang
By: Mike Murowchick

The Japanese army invades the Jiangxi Province in 1938

Japan Seeks Pacific Empire

During the 1930’s militaristic leaders took control of the Japanese government and had total power. This new government wanted to solve the nation’s economic problems caused by the Great Depression by building a Pacific empire. This empire would provide raw materials and space that Japan lacked for its expanding population. In 1931, the Japanese army began this quest for Pacific domination by annexing Manchuria, a region in northeastern China, eventually leading to a war between the two countries that would engulf all of Asia for nearly a decade.

Grandfather’s Background

My grandfather, Tewen Chang, was a young physician who participated in the Chinese war against Japan. When I interviewed him in November and December 2005, he told me many details of his youth and of his war experiences. He was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China in 1920. His father, a high school teacher, made sure that Tewen and his four siblings were well-educated. Tewen attended Nanchang Second High School, which was ranked fourth in the country in terms of college-bound graduates. In 1937, after his sophomore year of high school, the Japanese attacked the Chinese at Marco Polo Bridge (also known as the Battle of Lugou Bridge), outside of Beiping (Beijing). Many people believed that this incident was an excuse for the Japanese to launch a full-scale invasion of China. Officials in Nanchang, like most cities in China, believed that an all-out war with Japan was imminent, so Tewen and his high school classmates underwent mandatory military training.

My grandfather in 1937, his first year of high school

This map views the Japanese invaders as worms that are digging into China

Chongqing Becomes Wartime Capital

The Nationalist (also known as the Kuomintang, or KMT) government had its capital in Nanjing. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the Japanese swept into eastern China, seizing Nanjing in late 1937. The Nationalists succeeded in escaping to Chongqing (Chunking), Sichuan Province, moving their entire government—staff, military, universities, libraries, and laboratories—to the safety of southwest China. Chongqing became the “wartime capital” of China from 1938 to 1945.

After graduating from high school in 1939, my grandfather attended National Central University (Zhongyang Daxue), which had been relocated from Nanjing to Chongqing. He enrolled for two years of college and four years of medical school. Because the move to Chongqing was carefully planned, the National Central University campus, just outside of the city, was fully equipped and staffed, unlike most of the other national universities that were forced to hastily relocate.

Air Raid Shelters in Chongqing

Since the KMT government, under the rule of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, was located in Chongqing, Japanese bombers attacked the city after 1938 with wave after wave of destructive force. My grandfather, who was at National Central University at the time, told me that every day they would see formations of Japanese bombers flying overhead to attack the capital. In Chongqing, the government had dug air raid shelters into the hilly landscape of the city. As soon as the daily bombing began, the citizens would flee to the safety of the shelters. Tewen told me that the Chinese developed a very effective early-warning system: Chinese spies in Hankow, about 400 miles east of Chongqing, secretly telephoned the KMT in Chongqing as the Japanese planes took off, allowing the Chinese about three hours notice. This allowed the citizens to safely retreat to the shelters. In spite of this, over 12,000 Chinese were killed in Chongqing during these raids.

Japanese bombings in Chongqing in 1940

Grandfather Joins Youth Expeditionary Army

When he graduated from medical school in 1945, my grandfather and his fellow students, as well as many well-educated volunteers, were formed into the newly-created Youth Expeditionary Army (YEA), The YEA, composed of ten divisions of 10,000 soldiers each, was the first Chinese army in its history that was fully educated. My grandfather was commissioned as a Captain, serving under Chiang Ching-kuo, the Generalissimo’s son (Ching-kuo would later become the President of the Republic of China in Taiwan). He was required to go through three months of standard military training before being deployed to Qijiang, Sichuan Province, as a captain in the Second Division of the Youth Expeditionary Army. His division remained in Qijiang, located about 300 miles from the battlefront, as reserves until the end of the war in 1945. While stationed in Qijiang, the YEA took care of soldiers returning from the front lines. They also interacted with the many American soldiers in the area who were involved in the Burma Road transport program that brought badly needed supplies from Burma to Chongqing. My grandfather told me that they would shout out, “Hi Joe!” to the passing Americans.

My grandfather and some of his division in 1945

This map shows what nations were in control of different areas in Asia. In this map, the land conquered by the Japanese by 1942 is shaded gray.

Interesting War Story

My grandfather told me an interesting story about Japanese spies in China from when he was stationed in Qijiang. Because the spies spoke Chinese and their appearance could not be differentiated from the typical Chinese person, they often succeeded in going unnoticed. My grandfather said that in traditional Japanese culture, people spent most of the time squatting or sitting down, causing their bone and muscle structure to change. He, as well as many other members of the Chinese army, believed that they could identify a Japanese spy just by the way they ran. So if someone was suspected of being a spy, that person would be asked to run to see if they ran like a Chinese person or a Japanese person.

When the Japanese finally surrendered on August 15, 1945, my grandfather’s division in Qijiang would have been the first in line to enter the fighting. Had the war lasted longer, they surely would have seen action. He said that “everyone was overjoyed that the war was finally over.” He only joined the war because it was something that had to be done and everybody else was joining. Everybody did their part in fighting the Japanese invaders.

With the war over, he was able to return to Nanchang in 1947 and then enrolled in a medical residency at National Central University Hospital in Nanjing until 1949. He then traveled by boat to Hong Kong and then to Tianjin, where he got his visa to traveled to the United States to do his medical internship. He has lived in the United States ever since.

Conclusion

I enjoyed interviewing my grandfather for this project. I learned all about his experiences in the war and now I understand what the war was like from China’s point of view, although I would still like to learn more about the war between China and Japan. My grandmother also has interesting stories from her personal experiences in China during the war that could be of interest to me and I could look into them in the future.

This map shows all of the cities that my grandfather was in during the war

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Chang, Tewen. Interviewed by Mike Murowchick. 11-30-05 and 12-27-05.

White, Theodore and Annalee Jacoby. Thunder Out of China. New York: William Sloane Associates
    Inc. 1946.

Secondary Sources

"China Map 1941." http://www.history.sandiego.edu/cdr2/WW2Pics2/81931.jpg. 11-30-05. Time
    magazine, 10-23-1944.

"The Worms Bore In." http://www.history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Pics4/58659.jpg. 12-29-05.

Tuchman, Barbara W. Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-45. New York:
    Co. 1970.