Foochow

[Nupremal]

Foochow was taken by the Japanese in 1939 so should already be occupied by 1941

[Bill101]

Hi Nupremal

Thanks for this. I've just revisited all my books and looked at numerous websites, and I have the strong impression that the Japanese only occupied it briefly the first time, before they finally took it again in October 1944.

There seem to be conflicting sources, such as wikipedia which says here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzhou#History

Around 1940, the Japanese army decided to invade Fuzhou. Surrounded by hills on 3 sides, the Japanese army quickly bombed and invaded the city. Japanese planes quickly bombed the only escape route for Chinese civilians- the bridges across the neighbouring river, leaving many civilians dangerously crossing the river on foot. The Japanese soon took the city and held it until Japan's surrender in 1945.

However, not only is the above quote from wikipedia rather vague on dates (which are available in other sources) it is wrong in saying that Japan held it until they surrendered (the Chinese liberated it in May 1945) and it is also quite clear from looking at other sources that the Japanese took Foochow in October 1944. How do we explain this?

I am very interested to learn more, because if this is wrong then I will be more than happy to amend it.

[Nupremal]

well I am going by a WW II atlas - will see if I can find more.

[Nupremal]

Look at this old Time article:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,766045,00.html

[Timskorn]

Wikipedia should probably be one of the last resources used in getting facts!

I found two archived news articles, one from Time and one from NY Times. The Time article is from Sep., 1941 and confirms the Chinese recaptured Foochow. The NY Times article from Oct. of 1944 confirms the Japanese re-took the port, but what happened in-between 41 and 44? Did the Chinese really hold it for 3 years?

Time: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,766045,00.html

NY Times: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30617FD3B5C167B93C6A8178BD95F408485F9

This is a great, fairly medium-length read about the operations of the US with China in the fight against Japan during WW2. The article briefly states that Japan held all of China's coastal ports by the end of 1941. This would confirm Bill's belief that Japan may have only briefly held it in 1941 before the Chinese took it back. The other thing I've noticed is that sometimes it only says "the port" being captured, but I can't imagine that one side would hold the city, while the other the port?

http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/ww2operationaloutline.html

[Nupremal]

My guess is that as the first article said - their goal was to prevent shipments to China via that port, and by holding the port or mining/making it useless, they were at able to do that and didn't need to really bother with it otherwise. Wikipedia is NOT bad, there are in fact great articles on the whole war in china I was never able to find before.

[Bill101]

I've just been on the website of The Times of London's digital archive and it has clarified the situation.

Japan took Foochow in April 1941 but on the 3rd September 1941 the Chinese announced that they had taken it back (see The Times, Thursday, Sep 04, 1941; pg. 3; Issue 49022; col C).

An article from July 1942 clearly shows that it was still in Chinese hands in 1942. The article was called The Threat to China and said that 'Wenchow and Foochow are the only seaports still in Chinese hands' (The Times, Tuesday, Jul 14, 1942; pg. 5; Issue 49287; col C).

It was then captured by Japan for the second time in October 1944, and liberated in May 1945.