The Chongqing Great Tunnel Suffocation Massacre was witnessed first-hand

On June 5, 1941, 20 Japanese aircraft attacked Chongqing by night, causing more than 1,000 casualties, which was the "suffocation tragedy of the big tunnel" that shocked China and foreign countries that year. This article is excerpted from Xie Zaosheng's personal experience. The Chongqing Great Tunnel Suffocation Massacre was witnessed first-hand

Xie Zaosheng

The Chongqing Great Tunnel Suffocation Massacre occurred on June 5, 1941.

The excavation of the large tunnel was not for air defense. In 1936, I was working as the director of the office in Chongqing Xingying, and there was a group leader in the camp at that time, named Xie Guanyi, who was an American student. He envied the big cities in Europe and the United States, all of which had underground transportation equipment. He felt that Chongqing was a mountain city, the roads on the streets were rough, the traffic was inconvenient, the underground was hard stone, and the tunnels were dug, as a traffic road, it did not feel difficult. Coinciding with the National Anti-Smoking Committee, there are 500,000 yuan in taxes, and the traffic camp is dissolved. He wanted to use this money for the construction of underground transportation in Chongqing, and suggested to Gu Zhutong, director of the Chongqing camp. Gu Zhutong agreed, and discussed the design with Zuo Yingshi, the engineering commissioner of the command battalion, Peng Xianwei, deputy director of the Highway Supervision Office of xingying, together with Li Hongkun, mayor of Chongqing, and Zhao Ziying, secretary general of the municipal government. The plan was set, but unexpectedly, the money released by the anti-smoking committee was temporarily given a note by Chiang Kai-shek and moved it for the construction of the Sichuan-Shaanxi Highway, and the matter was abandoned.

However, local people in Chongqing still feel that the construction of underground transportation is a very good thing, and they are willing to raise their own funds and work together. After consultation, it was decided to dig two tunnels, which were first built in sections by Linjiangmen, Fuzichi, Lime City, Baoan Road, and Daliangzi. When it was not too long, the local government raised funds, but also felt difficult, and the matter was suspended.

When the anti-Japanese war broke out, the Japanese planes came to bomb Chongqing, and the citizens were suffering from nowhere to hide, so they turned this unfinished tunnel into an air raid shelter. This is the tunneling and the transformation of the tunnel into an air raid shelter.

The reason for the suffocation is that the people responsible for air defense are not responsible, and regard the lives of the people of the whole city as a child's play, without estimating how many people the big tunnel can accommodate. On the night of June 5, several batches of enemy planes took turns to attack Chongqing. It was very hot at that time, and there were many people in the big tunnel. There is no ventilation in the cave, and the air is not circulating. After each batch of enemy planes left, they did not grasp the time, hung up a rest signal, and made the people in the cave go out to change the air slightly. It lasted for several o'clock in a row, and it took so long that it turned into suffocation and death.

After the suffocation tragedy, Liu Zhi panicked. Before dawn, the trucks of the garrison headquarters were hurriedly dispatched to transport the people who had suffocated to the Chaotianmen River Dam. The intention is to think that these people, lacking air in the cave, suffocate, transport to a place where the air is fresh, or can be resurrected. The garrison command sent some troops to carry the dead bodies. These people who went to carry first searched for gold and silver belongings on the dead bodies, and some of them made a fortune. They dragged the dead bodies out of the cave doors, some of them not dead, some of them dragged to death, some of them were dragged off their hands and feet, some of them were still dying, they were not out of breath, and during transportation, they were crushed to death because they were piled up on trucks.

Transported to the Chaotianmen River Dam, sure enough, some people have to be resurrected because of the fresh air, I once accompanied He Guoguang to the river dam to inspect, saw a person surnamed Cao, in the river dam Su came alive.

People who were resurrected in the river dam, because of their own clothes, or the boxes they carried with them, were taken away, and they felt that they had no way to live when they went home, and most of them cried loudly, and the dead bodies of the river dam were full of corpses, and the cries were thunderous, and the miserable sound was unbearable to see and hear.

How many people died in the suffocation massacre? The puppet government was secretive and never announced. But some of the people who took refuge in the great tunnel that time were all dead, and some were a few people who died in one family, and the number was indeed quite large. The vast majority of the dead were urban workers, the poor, the landlords and the bourgeoisie. The landlord bourgeoisie, with its own very comfortable holes, will never come to such unmanaged holes.

At that time, I was staying at No. 2 Zhonglie Ancestral Hall in Huifu, close to the Lime City Grand Tunnel. Every time there was an alarm, one of my co-workers, named Zhu Gengtao, always went to the lime city tunnel to take shelter. After that tragedy, he had to survive. According to what he knew from his experience, he told me that in the cave, when he was in danger, at first he only felt that his mind was stuffy, sweating, gradually becoming weak, breathing difficult, as if he felt that his body was immersed in hot water, the temperature of the ground was particularly high, and he grabbed it with his hands to the ground, as if he had grabbed a very hot thing; when he saw people approaching left and right, they unconsciously tore their clothes and pants, as if they were insane, and there was a helpless pain in their hearts. He sat on a box, opened his mouth, sucked on the stone wall of the bomb shelter with his lips, and prolonged his life from his nostrils to avoid death. When the alarm was lifted, I saw people approaching left and right, and many of them died.

On June 6, Chiang Kai-shek summoned Liu Zhi, Wu Guozhen, and He Guoguang. Chiang Kai-shek asked: How many people died? Liu Zhi and He Guoguang were dazed and did not know what was right, and Du Wu Guozhen calmly rushed out of his mouth, answering with specific numerical words, saying: Thousands, hundreds, and dozens. Chiang Kai-shek nodded, as if to indicate that Wu Guozhen was stronger than Liu Zhi and He Guoguang, and after coming out, He Guoguang asked Wu Guozhen: Is there any basis for the number of your reply? Wu Guozhen said that there is no basis, I know his (referring to Chiang Kai-shek)'s temperament, if he does not reply to a specific number, he will not be happy, I replied to the number, whether it is true or false, how did he know? He Guoguang smiled and said: You are really smart, you can really cope with things. This incident was told to me by He Guoguang himself.

After the tragic incident, public opinion in Chongqing was in an uproar, and the citizens unanimously demanded that Liu Zhi be punished. Forced by Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Kai-shek dismissed Liu Zhi from his post as air defense commander and made he commander of chongqing air defense. This serious incident ended like the end of Si.