Why We Fight: The Battle of China
About Why We Fight: The Battle of China
The sixth Why We Fight film, directed by Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak and narrated by Anthony Veiller, was made to brief American soldiers on the war in China. It sets the Republic under Sun Yat-sen against a militarized Japan, then shows the Battle of Shanghai, the photograph known as Bloody Saturday, and footage of Nanjing that the film says a hospital worker smuggled out. It follows the move to Chongqing, the bombing there, the Burma Road built in under a year, the Yellow River flood used to stop the attack on Zhengzhou, the Flying Tigers, and the 1942 Chinese victory at Changsha. Soong Mei-ling speaks to the U.S. Congress. The film ends on a Chinese chorus singing The March of the Volunteers and on George Marshall's line that the democracies' victory requires the utter defeat of Germany and Japan.
Cast & crew
More about Why We Fight: The Battle of China
Julius Epstein and Philip Epstein wrote it. The Office of War Information produced it and the War Activities Committee of the Motion Pictures Industry distributed it. William Hornbeck edited. The opening credits play over the Army Air Force Orchestra's version of The March of the Volunteers. Australian services used the film with an added scrolling text that compared the story to what might have happened in Australia, and with harsher wording about Japan.
Themes
Background
Issued in 1944 as orientation for U.S. troops, after the Burma Road had been cut and while the Hump airlift and the Ledo Road were the routes the film presents as China's new link to the Allies.
In film history
It is the China chapter of the Why We Fight series, and the film in which Soong Mei-ling's 1943 address to Congress is played back to soldiers as an argument for the alliance.
Making
Capra and Litvak built it from newsreel and documentary footage, maps, and recorded speeches, in the same compilation method as the earlier Why We Fight films. Hornbeck cut it.
Look
Robert Flaherty is the credited cinematographer on a film assembled largely from existing footage, including material the narration says was smuggled from Nanjing.
Music
The Army Air Force Orchestra plays The March of the Volunteers under the opening credits. A Chinese chorus sings the same anthem at the close, and the Hump airlift footage is cut to the Army Air Force anthem.
Preservation
A complete copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The film cites the Tanaka Memorial for Japan's motives. Historians have discredited that document.
- It gives a Nanjing death toll of 40,000, lower than later estimates, and it barely mentions the Chinese Communists.
- The Flying Tigers are credited with 20 kills for each plane lost.
- Maps in the film split 'China Proper' from Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet, and they treat Taiwan as Japanese territory.
- Robert Flaherty is credited with cinematography.
- The Australian cut added phrases such as 'the yellow flood' and 'the little yellow men.'
- A copy is on Wikimedia Commons as Why We Fight 6, The Battle of China.ogv.
Scenes
- The film shows the Bloody Saturday photograph and then Nanjing footage it says a hospital worker carried out.
- Laborers are shown building the Burma Road in less than twelve months.
- Soong Mei-ling speaks to Congress in English and the chamber stands.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Why We Fight 6, The Battle of China.ogv)
Quotes
We in China want a better world not for ourselves alone ... but for all mankind. And we must have it.
The victory of the democracies can only be complete with the utter defeat of the war machines of Germany and Japan.
