bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Andrea Chen

Throughout the summer of 1945, Yang Yuxiang awaited orders for the decisive campaign of the second world war - the invasion of Japan.
The 19-year-old, who had already been training a year for the mission, believed it would be a one-way trip.
"We were told to bring only one uniform … but we were thrilled to finally get the chance to devote ourselves to the country," he said.
Yang was one of several hundred teenage students from Yunnan province who volunteered to join the Nationalist troops in 1944. They had been sent to India where US troops taught them to drive. Some succumbed to malaria and typhoid. Others survived and returned to Yunnan the following year to prepare for what they believed would be the final engagement of the war.
On the evening of August 15, 1945, as the young soldiers rested at a temple in Kunming , fireworks and searchlights lit up the sky.
Japan had surrendered.
Two American atomic bombs had ended the war earlier than the Nationalist government expected, leaving their months-long training in vain.
"I couldn't sleep that night. I felt so frustrated," said Yang, now a snowy-haired 89-year-old. "The Japanese killed so many people in my hometown Baoshan but I had no chance to take revenge," he said.
From the time Japanese and Nationalist troops first exchanged fire at Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing in the summer of 1937, more than 14 million Chinese had been recruited or conscripted into military service, according to a Nationalist government record. More than 1.4 million did not return.
Stories of such low-ranking soldiers like Yang have never been featured in history textbooks or commemorative films. They are the unsung men and women of the resistance.
"Our achievements were not outstanding, but we made the effort [to resist the Japanese invasion]," said 91-year-old Fang Guohong, from the same veteran association in Kunming as Yang.
Fang volunteered to fight with the Nationalists in 1940, following his cousin who graduated from military school.
"Our teachers taught us that good young people should join the army," he said. "We were compelled by a sense of commitment - a calling - that we could not let our country perish."
He was assigned to the 3rd Army as a signaller, sending messages from the Nationalist troops to the Communist guerillas in Jiangxi province. The signallers often travelled to and from the battlefields alone, and were usually the first to encounter the Japanese troops.
"Another signaller and I once saw a group of soldiers who seemed to be in Japanese uniforms rushing to our camp. He was older and more courageous than me - I stood behind him when he stood up to check out their position," Fang said. "The Japanese fired and he was shot dead right in front of me."
Fang said he remains haunted by memories of the suffering during the Japanese invasion.
"Bodies of civilians were piled up along the road as we retreated from Hengyang [in Hunan province] to Guiyang [in Guizhou ]. It was heart-wrenching."
Unlike Fang and Yang, Zhang Tiliu, 89, was conscripted into the army. He was apprenticed to a shipowner in the river port of Meishan , Sichuan when the war broke out.
Officials from the conscription department rounded up all the young men on the boat, and sent the 15-year-old Zhang to Yunnan province.
He fought in most of the major engagements in Yunnan, the first province that Nationalist troops regained from the Japanese - at the cost of more than 24,000 casualties.
"Of course I was scared when I was first sent to the frontline. I had no idea gun shots could be that loud, like firecrackers," he said.
As soon as Japan surrendered, he ran away from the army, hoping to be reunited with his parents in Sichuan.
Little did he know then that he was only to visit their graves seven decades later.
"I didn't have enough money to travel home from Yunnan. So I stayed. I sold salt, groceries, and then farmed for years," he said. "Life was really tough, especially after the liberation when farmland became collective property."
Zhang's war service earned him no medals or a position in the PLA, just a bullet scar on his forehead.
"I think it's ugly," said the 89-year-old as he took off his cap to show the raised bump. "So I always wear a cap in public."


Why is a South Korean fringe group backing Japan’s position on WWII ‘comfort women’?

Will Japan’s Kishida be the man with the Midas touch in Unesco gold mine row with South Korea?

Brutality and hardships of Japanese internment camp brought to life in British national’s diary

Mystery of 11 Chinese tortured in Japan unearthed in forgotten WWII document trove

70th anniversary of Japan's WW2 surrender

Forgotten by the textbooks: Unsung Chinese heroes of the second world war whose stories have never been told 

A sculpture park in Yunnan remembers the sacrifices made.

News

China

Diplomacy