During the entire War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the brutal Japanese army invading China created countless inhuman tragedies on the land of China, and the "Chongqing Bombing" was the longest air military operation of the Japanese army in these massacres.
According to incomplete statistics, between February 18, 1938 and August 23, 1943, Japan bombed Chongqing indiscriminately 218 times, dispatched more than 9,000 sorties of aircraft, dropped more than 11,500 bombs, and killed more than 10,000 Chinese and destroyed 17,600 houses.
The most prosperous downtown of Chongqing has also been hit by Japanese aircraft, and it can be said that in the past five years, the sky in Chongqing has been "gray".
What is "indiscriminate bombing", as the name suggests
The bombing was destroyed both military and civilian, and this theory was first destroyed by the Commander of the Japanese Third Fleet on September 19, 1937
Hasegawa Kiyoshi proposed and used it to bomb Nanjing. As the Japanese Navy pioneered indiscriminate bombing, the Japanese Army followed suit.
The Law on the Use of Aviation Forces was adopted and clearly defined in article 103 thereof
"The implementation of a strategic attack belongs to the sabotage of the central organs of the political, economic, industrial and other central organs in the key areas, and it is important to directly attack the citizens, causing great terror to the people and thwarting their will." ”
After the outbreak of the European War, the Luftwaffe also followed the example of the Japanese army against the British
Coventry region
Indiscriminate bombing was carried out, and the practice of Germany and Japan daring to explicitly stipulate that air raids could be carried out directly at civilians and residents' streets in war also completely broke through the bottom line of war ethics.
On August 30, 1940, because Chiang Kai-shek's whereabouts were learned by the Japanese army, in order to be able to completely destroy the command center of the Chinese War of Resistance, a Japanese major general decided to personally lead a team to raid Chiang Kai-shek's official residence, and with the drop of the bomb, the area around the Huangshan official residence was suddenly plunged into a sea of fire, and two guards died on the spot, but fortunately Chiang Kai-shek and other senior generals of the Nationalist army who came to the meeting hid in the air raid shelter in time, which was spared, and the Japanese major general who led the team to sneak attack was the Japanese major general
Saburo Tsuto
。 This person was from the army, first studied artillery, and later because he came into contact with the aircraft on the eve of the Battle of Rehe, he inspected the battlefield on the way, and then urgently revised the battle plan according to the situation of the battlefield, and successfully occupied Chengde, the capital of Rehe, in a short period of time. After the battle,
Saburo Endo decided, after seeing the huge role played by the aircraft
Change the attributes of the army section and join the Army Aviation.
After the outbreak of the Nomenkan War, as
Deputy Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army
Saburo Endo
Strongly advocating that the Soviet Union should not be blindly fought, he was blamed by his colleagues for being afraid of the Soviet Union, and then he was relegated to the Aviation Flight School to teach, if it were not for the lack of manpower in the implementation of the 101 Air Combat Plan, I am afraid that he would have to stay in the flight school for the rest of his life. At first, Saburo Endo was in favor of "indiscriminate bombing," but after he personally flew through Chongqing and failed in a surprise attack on Chiang Kai-shek, he questioned the "effect of strategic bombing" and even went directly to the chief of the operations section of the General Staff Headquarters
Hattori Shōshiro gave his opinion,
He clearly pointed out that "the effect of the bombing reported in the past has been exaggerated, and the judgment that Chongqing is in ruins is really wrong, but according to the facts I have observed with my own eyes, Chongqing has developed around it", and frankly admitted that "it is absolutely impossible to bring Chongqing to its knees by indiscriminate bombing alone." ”
In early October 1941, in response to the Ninth Theater of Operations, Chen Cheng personally led 15 divisions to attack Yichang, which was only defended by two-thirds of the Japanese 13th Division. In the face of Chen Cheng's counterattack, he was in charge of Yichang
On the one hand of Hidetaro Uchiyama of defense
Instruct his subordinates to burn important documents, on the one hand
Saburo Endo's
The Third Flying Regiment called for help, and received a telegram for help
Saburo Endo was also personally at the first time
Carrying a heavy machine gun and a light bomber, he rushed to Yichang to meet With Uchiyama at his headquarters. At the meeting, Hidetaro Uchiyama told
"Now Yichang has no soldiers to dispatch, even the wounded soldiers in the hospital, as long as they can take up arms, they must rush to the front line again." ”
After listening to Hidetaro Uchiyama's report, Saburo Endo flew again
Jingmen Airport looked for the commander of the 39th Division
Shoshiro Sumita
He called for help, and his Third Flying Regiment was also urgently transferred to Yichang to participate in the battle, responsible for containing Chen Cheng's daytime operations in the air.
On the 11th of the same month, when Chen Cheng was preparing to launch another attack, the sky suddenly began to pour heavily, although this heavy rain prevented the aircraft of the Third Flying Regiment from joining the battlefield, but it also greatly affected the Nationalist generals responsible for the attack, and at this time, the reinforcements of the Japanese troops were gradually approaching, and Chen Cheng had to order the attack to stop and the whole army to retreat. After the outbreak of the Pacific Theater, Saburo Endo's Third Flying Regiment was sent south together to participate
He fought in Malaysia, Singapore, Java and other places, and was promoted to the post of commander of the General Directorate of Aviation Ordnance with the rank of lieutenant general. At the end of World War II, I had a premonition that the end of Japan was approaching
Saburo Endo
Opposing the plan of a decisive battle of 100 million jade fragments, advocating peace with the United States, and the previously put forward the "theory that the Chongqing bombing is useless", he was cursed by almost everyone in the general staff headquarters, and even some people wanted to "hack him to death with one knife". After the surrender of Japan,
Saburo Endo was staying
"Lay down its arms, naked Japan does not have to fear any country in the world, and abandons its arms, not to win the war, but to protect all living things on the earth."
These two testimonials were later suspected as war criminals
Inside Sugamo Prison
Locked up for a year.
After the war, due to the influence of the Russian literary hero Tolstoy and the Indian pacifist Gandhi,
Saburo Endo is not only positive
Participating in the Sino-Japanese friendly anti-war movement even criticized the fallacies of those Who Rearmament Theorists of Japanese Armament
"The Japanese army had 10,000 fighters and failed to win the war, but what about the current Self-Defense Forces buying 100 or 200 new fighters from the United States?"
In 1956,
Applying to visit China, he personally handed over his saber to Chairman Mao and apologized for his actions in the war of aggression against China.
Saburo Endo in the form of a book
Wrote his own memoirs, called "The Fifteen Years' War between Japan and China and Me",
In the book, he not only reveals the fact that Ishii Shiro's Unit 731 experimented with living people, but also reflected on the crimes of himself and his army in the war against China.
After the memoir was published,
Unsurprisingly, Saburo Endo was cursed again by the old Japanese soldiers, and even his friends chose to break off relations with him and called him ""
Red General",
Only Hidetaro Uchiyama, who had saved his life in the Battle of Yichang, was trying to do his best
Defend him.
confront
The hatred of the right-wingers and the belief of Saburo Endo have never changed, but they have also established the Sino-Japanese Friendship Military Association, devoting the rest of his life to peace and anti-war activities.