| Workers from the Chinese Red Cross Medical Relief Corps and civilian volunteer stretcher bearers move victims of Japanese aerial bombing to hospital in Chongqing. Defense Corps personnel are visible to the left. Notice the white armband on the man on the right, a member of the Joint Rescue Committee. Different colors or characters on the armband denoted if they were Fire Protection (red), Medical/Rescue (white), or Public Order/Police (yellow/blue). Carl (May 20, 1907 – August 16, 2004) and Shelley Mydans (May 20, 1915 – March 7, 2002) called Chungking (today Chongqing) “A great jagged sandstone blouder rising out of the steamy mist of the Yangtze. In the dips between the sharp rock pinnacles were patches of houses, bomb craters, ruins.” As Chongqing earned capital status and became China’s political and military hub during the Anti-Japanese War, the city became Japan’s primary target. Extending from February 1938 to August 1943, Japan’s campaign saw more than 9,500 aircraft drop approximately 21,500 bombs on the inland capital. According to incomplete statistics, a total of 268 air raids were conducted against Chongqing, involving anywhere from a few dozen to over a 150 bombers per raid. These bombings were probably aimed at cowing the Chinese government, or as part of the planned but never executed Sichuan invasion. According to internal reports compiled by the Chinese government immediately after the war, the Japanese air raids destroyed approximately 17,000 homes, injuring 14,000 residents, and killing 11,889 people. In addition to this human toll, Japan’s bombardment of the city caused deprivation, disruption, and property losses of a magnitude that will likely never be known fully. The air raids of May 3-4, 1939, represented a turning point for the city, mainly because they shattered people’s belief that Chongqing was somehow immune to attack. Though government officials had been preparing for such an eventuality, the reality of mass aerial bombardment was not fully comprehended until major sections of the city were set ablaze, buildings were reduced to rubble, and large numbers of the population were deprived of their homes and livelihoods. The devastating air attacks of May 3-4 spurred the government to redouble its efforts and build roughly 800 more shelters, leading to a sevenfold increase in capacity by the end of the year. This trend continued for the next several years: 1,400 shelters for 370,000 were erected in 1941; another 1,600 shelters for 420,000 in 1942; by 1944, the shelters accommodated 450,000 people. The unremitting bombing kept the city on constant alert, giving little respite to residents and forcing authorities to maintain round-the-clock vigilance. The raids of 1940-1941 tended to follow this pattern, and it was not unusual for Chongqing’s residents to be subjected to sustained bombardment by as many as 200 or more aircraft for many hours. Japan’s use of incendiary bombs against Chongqing proved highly effective in maximizing damage to the city’s physical environment: if actual bombardment did not lay immediate waste to the area, then the ensuing fires most certainly did. Chiang Kai-shek gave a speech on May 16, 1939, entitled “Bombing of Civilians and Open Towns,” that recognized the plight of Chongqing residents. “Since the recent massacres from the air at Chungking, they have gone about their work as usual and have shown the same calm and steady courage. Such sterling qualities of character will render futile the nefarious schemes of the enemy. In addition, the Government has been working night and day to devise efficient and permanent measures for safeguarding the people against danger from the air. These measures are better and better each day, so that when raids occur in the future, they will cost the enemy dearly without accomplishing his main objective of terrorizing our people.” On the night of June 5, 1941, large numbers of people had crowded into the air-raid tunnel shelter serving a busy downtown section in the central district of Jiaochangkou. After more than 3 hours of continuous bombardment, crowded conditions and inadequate ventilation eventually combined to provoke mass panic. In the ensuing pandemonium to escape the tunnel, countless occupants were suffocated, crushed, or trampled to death. While the official government report counted 992 people dead and 151 people hospitalized for serious injuries, eyewitnesses contradicted these figures and claimed death tolls as high as 10,000. Although the actual tally may never be known for certain, the tragedy exposed a more problematic aspect of the government’s air defense initiatives: namely, that despite the implementation of elaborate air raid procedures since mid-1939, such plans could not always fully account for — or preclude — the practical problems that arose from crowding people into shelters for extended periods under extreme stress. Circumstances quite apart from Chongqing’s air defenses —but nonetheless closely affiliated — also served to frustrate Japan’s objectives. For all of the havoc that Japan’s air raids caused, they were never able to cut off the wartime capital from the outside world, nor were they successful at interdicting China’s supply and communication lines. Throughout the war, Chiang Kai-shek and Kuomintang officials, private individuals, and foreign visitors could travel to and from Chongqing. From the wartime capital, it was possible to fly directly to Hong Kong and Rangoon before 1941, and from there, 1 could secure air passage to the United States. After these cities fell to Japanese forces, Kunming and Lanzhou served as the air transfer points. Correspondingly, the conflict as a whole disrupted the supply chains for basic commodities. While Japan’s air campaign undoubtedly contributed to this state of affairs, it did not cause a wholesale breakdown of the flow of goods and foodstuffs to the city. This was largely because the Chinese government tended to view wartime shortages as a separate and distinct management problem and instituted specific measures to address them, including establishing a rationing system and forbidding war profiteering. The Japanese high command’s assumption that concentrated air bombardment would destabilize the Chinese establishment accounted neither for China’s continuing defiance nor for the thoroughgoing measures adopted by the Nationalist government to counter air attacks. Thus, the expected result of Japan’s aerial campaign — China suing for peace — did not materialize. The “Great Bombing of Chongqing” represented a crucial juncture in the Sino-Japanese conflict, 1 that underscored both the expansive dimensions of the war as well as its destructive capacity. For many, air bombardment was not only a new and unfamiliar experience but also 1 that gave the war an unexpected immediacy. In this respect, it was not difficult for Chongqing’s residents to imagine themselves as active participants in the war, on par with soldiers on the front lines. Indeed, far from breaking the will of the people, the air raids contributed to a heightened sense of shared purpose and hardship between the state and society in the wartime capital, a sense conducive to building a unified consensus to resist Japanese aggression. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1572.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.38 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 4462 x 3120 |
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| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | June 5, 1941 |
| Location | |
| City | Chongqing |
| State or Province | Chongqing |
| Country | China |
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| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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