On 3 September, China held a mammoth military parade displaying its armed might to commemorate the 80th anniversary of its victory over Japanese aggressors in 1945.
The Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong and the Nationalists (Kuomintang) led by Chiang Kai-shek were involved in a life-and-death struggle against the Japanese in mainland China from 1931 to 1945. Other nations, chiefly the US, the Western colonial powers and their colonies, indirectly helped China by fighting Japanese expansionism in the rest of Asia.
Historical records say that the Japanese occupation forces were exceptionally cruel to the Chinese in mainland China.
“The Japanese military’s brutal tactics, including mass killings, bombings, and the use of chemical weapons, contributed to the high death toll among Chinese civilians. The infamous Nanjing Massacre, in which an estimated 300,000 Chinese were killed in a matter of weeks, is just one example of the atrocities committed by the Japanese during the war,” according to the website Discover China.
In 2015, the “Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Research Society” released a report estimating that 20 million Chinese were killed during the conflict.
China did receive valuable aid in material and men from the US and the European-ruled colonies in Asia such as India from 1942 onwards, but the bulk of the fighting in China had to be done by the armies of the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang, with equipment inferior to the ones used by the Japanese.
Indians’ Role
Indians in Assam and Burma played a critical role in laying communication lines linking India, Burma and China. They, along with Burmese and Chinese labourers and American and Chinese engineers, cut through treacherous terrain to ensure a steady stream of supplies to beleaguered China.
Assam and Bengal in India provided airfields for American and Chinese transport aircraft which were ferrying men and material to and from China over high mountains, often in treacherous weather.
A five-member Indian medical mission under Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis, sponsored by the Indian National Congress, was in the battlefields of China tending to both Chinese soldiers and civilians.
The Hump – Airlifting over Mountains
In May 1942, when the Japanese cut off the “Burma Road”, which was a vital link between India and China via Burma, the British and the Americans decided to airlift supplies to China from Assam and Calcutta. An American volunteer group, which called itself the “Flying Tigers”, took up the challenge of airlifting men and supplies over mountains between 16,000 and 24,000 ft high. The mission was called “The Hump” because of the heights the aircraft had to scale. Their destination was Kunming in China, 800 km away.
On their return journey the aircraft had on board Chinese who were to be trained as pilots and technical staff by officers of the British and American air forces stationed in bases in eastern India.
Between June 1942 and September 1945, the “Flying Tigers” had airlifted 650,000 tons of goods from India to China. The Chinese Airways brought 33,417 personnel to India for training.
“The Hump” was billed as the biggest airlift in the history of World War II. But the cost in men and material was heavy. A total of 514 Flying Tiger planes either crashed or were shot down, and 1,500 pilots were killed.
Construction of the Burma Road
By 1939, when the Sino-Japanese war was getting intense in China, the British and the Nationalist government in China had built a road between Lashio in Burma and Wanding in Yunnan in China to carry supplies. But in October 1940, the Japanese bombed the road, making it unusable.
In February 1942, the Chinese Nationalist government suggested the building of another road from Ledo in Assam (India) to Tengchong and Longling in Yunnan (China) and thence to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. But soon, the advancing Japanese army captured these towns, and by May 1942, the Burma Road had been cut off.
Although by June 1942 airlifting had begun from eastern India to Kunming, it was thought that it would be more sensible to take goods by road rather than air.
Gen. Joseph Stilwell, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Burma, decided to build a road from Ledo in Assam to Myitkyina in Burma that would be extended further later. Stilwell marshalled thousands of American and Chinese engineers and a labour force of over 12,000 Indians and Burmese to cut through thick jungle and lay road across mountains and rivers. The road, which eventually ended in Kunming, was 1,732 km long and was opened to traffic in January 1945. This road carried 50,000 tons of military material between January and August 1945. To honour Gen. Stilwell, the head of the Nationalist Chinese government, Chiang Kai-shek, named it “Stilwell Road”.
Death Toll
While building these roads, many workers and engineers died of malaria, snakebites and landslides in the tropical jungle during the monsoon especially, while others were killed in Japanese bombing raids.
It is impossible to provide a precise number for how many workers died, as comprehensive records were not kept, especially for the vast number of Indian and Asian labourers. However, historians estimate that between 25,000 and 40,000 workers, and possibly more, lost their lives. The death toll is often described with the grim statistic of approximately one life lost for every mile of road built.
The original Burma Road (1937–1938) was built primarily by 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese labourers, many of whom were women, children, and the elderly, recruited from across China. They worked with minimal tools—mostly picks, shovels, and baskets—in incredibly difficult terrain of mountains and jungles. Many died of malaria, dysentery, and cholera. Workers were underfed and worked until collapse. Frequent landslides, rockfalls, and construction accidents claimed more lives. Estimates of Chinese deaths ranged from 10,000 to 25,000.
The Ledo Road (also known as the “Stilwell Road”) and reopening the Burma Road (1942–1945) used a massive force including American Army engineers (primarily from Afro-American regiments) and over 35,000 local labourers from India and Burma. The main killers were malaria, scrub typhus, and other tropical diseases. Tigers, snakes, and other wildlife added to the toll. The unrelenting rain caused landslides, washed away sections of the road, and led to drowning.
The US Army recorded 1,133 American deaths (mostly from disease) during the construction of the Ledo Road. However, this number does not include the thousands of local labourers whose deaths were not meticulously documented. Estimates for local workers on the Ledo Road range from several thousand to over 15,000.
The widely accepted historical estimate is that the overall construction of the Burma Road and Ledo Road complex cost the lives of between 25,000 and 40,000 people.
Indian Medical Mission
Indian doctor Dwarkanath Shantaram Kotnis from Sholapur in Maharashtra travelled to China in 1938 as part of an Indian medical mission during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 to 1945). His heroic and selfless efforts to save wounded and sick Chinese soldiers won the praise of the Chinese, including Mao Zedong, the Communist icon.
It was at the request of a Chinese Communist leader, Zhu De, that the Indian National Congress, under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, sent a five-member team of doctors to China to show solidarity with the Chinese in their fight against Japanese fascist aggression.
The team comprised M. Attal, M. Cholkar, Debesh Mukherjee, B.K. Basu and D. Kotnis. Dr Kotnis fell in love and married a Chinese nurse who worked with him. All members of the Indian mission returned to India except Kotnis. Dr Kotnis lived in China for four years and died there of epilepsy at the young age of 32.
“The army has lost a helping hand, the nation a friend. Let us always bear in mind his international spirit,” China’s foremost communist leader and revolutionary hero, Mao Zedong, said in a tribute.
Stamps bearing his picture have been printed and there is a memorial to him in Hebei province. Dr Kotnis was chosen as one of the “top 10 foreigners” in a 2009 internet poll on China’s foreign friends in a century. In India, Dr Kotnis was the subject of a 1946 Hindi film Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani starring V. Shantaram and Jayashree.