Chinese and Western Accounts of Events October 27 Chinese Preparation In the morning of October 27, the various companies of the 524th Regiment 1st Battalion were trickling in from
Zhabei, under orders from Xie Jinyuan. The effort was difficult, as some units in the battalion had begun moving west with the bulk of the Chinese Army. Visibility was compromised by the heavy presence of smoke and fire, as much of the Zhabei district had been
set on fire by the retreating Chinese units. Through the efforts of several messengers, most of the men were rallied from the retreating mass of soldiers. By 9 a.m. the last remaining forces in the Battalion had turned up at the warehouse, a force of just over 400 men and officers. That these men had volunteered for the defense was later noted by Chiang Kai-shek as exemplary soldierly conduct.
Opening skirmishes At 5:05 AM, the Imperial Japanese Navy's Shanghai
Special Naval Landing Force (Shanghai SNLF) ordered their forces to launch a general assault on Zhabei. A Chinese platoon positioned in the advance outposts began sniping at Japanese patrols around that time, and over the next two hours, the Chinese platoon began a fighting retreat back to the warehouse perimeter. At 7:30 AM, Yang Ruifu received word from his guard force of the Japanese advance towards their position east of the North Station at Han Bridge. Yang ordered his men to not retreat without orders and resist with all their might. 45 minutes later, he was notified the station had fallen into Japanese hands. Domei reported that at 9:20 AM, Haji and Sano's forces began their advance into the Zhabei Pocket to sweep out remaining resistance from Chinese forces. The Japanese then attacked the Bank of Communications to the immediate west of the warehouse. Hundreds of Japanese marines were seen assaulting the street fortifications surrounding the warehouse, using "trench mortars" on several occasions to clear the area. However, upon attempting to secure some abandoned fortifications, several Japanese soldiers stumbled into a
trap: the Chinese defenders, having preemptively rigged a bunker with grenades and a mortar round, "pulled the grenade rope," killing another five Japanese soldiers in the ensuing explosions. Chinese defenders continued developing
defenses by sealing the warehouse's doors, windows and entry points, as well as constructing makeshift dummy positions on the perimeter to draw Japanese fire and waste ammunition.
Japanese marines received reinforcements and began attempts to break into the warehouse around soon after, targeting the warehouse from North Suzhou Road. They were soon met with intense fire from the Chinese. The Japanese, numbering some fifty strong, began advancing on the warehouse under the cover of
steel shields slotted for rifle fire. A group of Chinese reconnaissance troops, led by platoon leader Yin Qiucheng (尹求成), exchanged fire with the attacking formations near the Wuzhen Bridge, killing four Japanese soldiers according to a journalist watching across the river. According to one foreign eye-witness quoted in the Shanghai-based
North China Herald, the Japanese began attempting to break their way into the Sihang Warehouse around 10 AM. From the south bank of the Suzhou Creek in the International Settlement, another reporter observed the Naval Landing Forces—armed with machine-guns, rifles, hand-grenades, some Chinese swords, and steel shields—advance east along the Suzhou Creek and take over an abandoned Chinese redoubt west of the warehouse on Wuzhen Road (鳥鎮路) at 11:15 AM. The Japanese increased their firepower on the building, and managed to push the Chinese from their frontline sandbag positions with hand grenades back to their secondary lines. As the battle continued, 3rd Company Captain Shi Meihao was shot in the face but continued to command the defense until he was hit in the leg. Eventually, the Chinese were forced to abandon the outer wall, and barricaded themselves inside the warehouse itself. When the Japanese attempted to follow them to the edge of the warehouse, they were attacked by hand grenades thrown by Chinese soldiers positioned on the upper floors, forcing them to take cover in a blind spot at the south-west of the warehouse. Noticing them, a dozen Chinese soldiers climbed onto the roof and hurled mortar rounds and grenades down at the Japanese, killing seven and wounding between twenty and thirty. The survivors were then driven away when a Chinese machine gunner began to shoot at them from one of the warehouse windows. As the battle continued, crowds of spectators began to amass on the other side of the 60-yard
Suzhou Creek, reportedly cheering every time a Japanese soldier was killed. . The proximity enabled many Western and Chinese civilians to watch the battle from a short distance. At one point during the battle, foreign correspondents witnessed a group of Japanese soldiers slowly approaching the warehouse through the rubble, taking 50 minutes to cover 50 yards. However, the Chinese defenders, who had been watching the Japanese approach from hidden vantage points the entire time, rained hand grenades down on the group the moment they were close enough. After the dust had settled, survivors were finished off with rifles, and several Japanese who rushed forward to rescue their wounded were killed too. In a letter Colonel Xie wrote to his superior 88th Division Commander Sun Yuanliang, his defenders had killed around eighty Japanese soldiers in the attacks on October 27. In a top-secret report on the
China Incident from the Japanese Navy restricted to high-ranking officers, a total of three Naval Landing Force troops were recorded as seriously wounded and 24 more injured during the takeover of Zhabei on October 27. The strength of the battalion was estimated at 500 men from the 88th Division, with around 150 having barricaded themselves in the warehouse itself. Authorities within the International Settlement repeatedly attempted to persuade the defenders to lay down their weapons and surrender in the Settlement, but the defenders stated they were "determined to die for China." While on the roof with Colonel Xie Jinyuan and a group of sentries, they spotted a group of Japanese soldiers walking on the Suzhou Road along the
Suzhou Creek, which according to Yang Ruifu was about 1 km (1,100
yd) away. Xie ordered a sentry to give him his rifle and then fired on the group; one of them promptly fell dead.
Second assault on Sihang Warehouse At 3 p.m., the Japanese mounted a second assault on the warehouse, bombarding the building with five artillery pieces and machine gun fire from the Bank of Communications rooftop. The Chinese retaliated with machine gun fire of their own and showered hand grenades onto Japanese soldiers attempting to approach the warehouse, which was reported on by the English newspaper
North China Daily News. Japanese troops made repeated efforts to capture the warehouse, but were beaten back each time by the Chinese after brief exchanges of fire. The Japanese, outnumbering the Chinese defenders and repeatedly screaming "
Banzai," then deployed
trench mortars. Several fires broke out across the battlefield, with Chinese soldiers shooting back with
rifles and
Mauser pistols. Both sides suffered casualties in the intense firefight. The combat was witnessed by thousands of Chinese and foreigners who had gathered across the Suzhou Creek, who relayed enemy assembly locations and operations to the defenders using large blackboards. Witnesses described the armament of the attacking Japanese Naval Landing Forces as machine-guns, rifles, hand-grenades, a few captured Chinese broadswords, and steel shields. As the fighting continued, the crowds watching the battle across the Creek were forced to relocate to the rooftops of nearby buildings after machine gun bullets began to land in the Settlement. After two hours, the Japanese gave up the assault, but cut off water and electricity to the warehouse, forcing the Chinese to institute rationing. The defenders also collected their urine in large barrels to extinguish any potential fires.
Supply situation and the "800 Heroes" The defenders inside the warehouse contacted the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, whose telephone number was provided by Girl Guide
Yang Huimin. Yang Huimin had previously delivered a request for food, ammunition and
lubricant on behalf of the defenders to the Chamber, but had been unsuccessful. Xie requested that Shanghai
Mayor Yui supply his men with 500 lb. salt, 500 lb. sugar, and 50,000 Chinese biscuits. By the evening of October 28, Chinese civilians inside the Settlement had organized a large collection of food, clothing, medicine and other supplies via the Shanghai
Chamber of Commerce. In total, more than ten truckloads of aid were donated by Shanghai's citizens, including fruit, bread, cigarettes, newspapers and mail. The supplies were then ferried across the New Lese Bridge under the cover of darkness and unloaded next to the warehouse. The defenders were also facing a problem in the growing number of wounded soldiers, who were unable to receive adequate medical treatment whilst stranded in the warehouse. Through an established phone link, the Chinese organized their transfer across the nearby Lese Bridge into the International Settlement, where they would be transported to hospitals in the Chinese part of Shanghai. As medics began to evacuate ten of the most severely wounded soldiers, Major Yang Ruifu ordered that the men not disclose their actual numbers, and give the original battalion strength of 800 soldiers if asked so as to not "embolden the Japanese." British
Royal Welsh Fusiliers positioned on the southern bank of the creek provided assistance to the evacuation efforts. Soon after the evacuation, Shanghai newspapers announced soon after that 800 soldiers were defending the warehouse, including the
Central News Agency. As word spread about the fighting near Sihang Warehouse, international newspapers began to report on the battalion's defense, including the
New York Times,
The Guardian, and the
Sydney Morning Herald. As they had the previous night, no Chinese soldiers were permitted to sleep and were instead ordered to continue repairing the defenses. She reported her observations to the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, whose leaders decided to give her a large Republic of China flag to deliver to the defenders. posing with the
ROC flag.Yang Huimin wrapped the flag around her body underneath her scout uniform, before returning to the British bunker around evening. Upon sensing a brief opening, Yang snuck past the British sentries patrolling the bank and rushed across the bridge to the warehouse under cover of darkness. Regiment-sized Chinese units did not carry army or national flags during the war, so when Yang Huimin delivered the flag to the warehouse, Xie Jinyuan personally accepted the flag as the highest-ranking officer present. When Yang Huimin asked for the soldiers' plans, she was told "defend to the death." Yang Huimin then asked for a list of all the soldiers' names to announce to the entire country. Taking Xie's advice, Yang Huimin returned to the opposite bank of the Suzhou Creek by swimming underwater to avoid detection.
October 29 Raising the Flag At 6 a.m. on the morning of October 29, the Chinese defenders raised the flag, measuring four meters (13 ft) wide, on the roof of Sihang Warehouse. Since the defenders did not possess a flagpole, they had improvised a makeshift pole made from two
bamboo culms tied together. Only a small group of soldiers attended the
flag-raising ceremony, including several
buglers and orderlies. Upon noticing the flag, a crowd of roughly thirty thousand people, consisting of both Chinese and foreigners, gathered across the river. The flag measured larger than any of the Japanese flags in the area and reportedly flew higher than the Japanese-held buildings in the vicinity. American reporter Keane Arundel who witnessed the event compared the situation to
the Alamo, and described the scene as "a symbol of China's heroic resolution to accept annihilation than Japanese conquest. To Shanghai's Americans it recalled Texas' historic Alamo,
where Americans died in 1836 rather than yield to Mexico." Crowds continued to gather to watch the event unfold and some were observed carrying food for the defenders. One Chinese observer, a 31-year old Shanghai City Government employee, was mistaken for a Japanese spy because of his Manchurian accent and
lynched by a mob before authorities could rescue him. The Japanese attacked at 2 p.m. with concentrated fire from numerous artillery pieces, and shelled the warehouse for more than an hour. However, the Chinese defenders were protected by the ten-foot-thick walls and only suffered a few wounded soldiers. Historian Eric Niderost wrote that the Japanese then attacked the warehouse from three directions with hundreds of infantry and support from five
Type 94 Te-Ke tankettes, which Yang Ruifu observed advancing down the road. The Japanese intensified their efforts to captured the warehouse, peppering the building with bullets and
rifle-grenade fire while reinforcing their machine gun positions on North Suzhou Road. The Japanese shelled the warehouse with a barrage of four rounds from their field guns around 3 p.m. Yang Ruifu makes no reference to such an event or the Japanese assaulting with ladders in his account of the fighting on the 29th. At 4 p.m. one Japanese soldier rushed into the open and fired a number of shots into the corner of the warehouse, causing the defenders to take cover "with lightning speed." Although wounded from the returning Chinese fire, the Japanese attacker escaped.
Suicide Attack Some Chinese sources report that during the height of the battle when a group of Japanese soldiers had attempted to plant explosives at the base of the West Wall and breach it, a 21-year old Chinese private named Chen Shusheng (陳樹生)
strapped live grenades to himself and dove off the building into the Japanese squad, allegedly killing twenty Japanese soldiers in a
suicide attack. Chen Shusheng's attack is absent from Yang Ruifu's memoirs, which only makes note of his soldiers throwing grenades and firing mortars from the rooftop. Chen Desong also makes no mention of the suicide bombing, only mentioning the throwing of grenades. However in Li Chunlin's "Recalling the 'Isolated Soldiers of Sihang' in Shanghai," there was indeed a Chen Shusheng who carried out a suicide bombing against the Japanese army. Historian Stephen Robinson argues that account's accuracy was plausible, noting that the Chinese had used suicide attacks many times before during the Battle of Shanghai, such as the case of a soldier in the 36th Division destroying a Japanese tank with an explosive belt, killing himself in the process.
Evening attacks At around 3 p.m., two Japanese pinnaces carrying some 30 marines attempted to flank the warehouse from the river, but were stopped by a makeshift boom fashioned out of Chinese
junks at the Zhejiang (North Chekiang) Road Bridge. The Japanese claimed that they were heading up the creek to assist the Shanghai Fire Brigade, but were suspected by the British to attack on the Sihang Warehouse. British troops in the Settlement refused to move the boom due to the violation of the British Settlement sector, and escorted the Japanese sailors back at 4:30 p.m. According to a letter written by Xie Jinyuan to
Soong Mei-Ling, the Chinese defenders had been harassed constantly by Japanese snipers, and Chinese casualties were rising after the Japanese began bombarding the warehouse with heavy artillery. Ricocheting shells and shrapnel caused a number of casualties among the defenders, with the warehouse walls inside showing signs of a potential
collapse under the Japanese artillery. Later that day on October 30, a Japanese naval officer announced at a press conference that the Japanese had made every effort to persuade the Chinese troops to surrender, but "all overtures tendered in a spirit of humanitarianism had been disregarded." Another Japanese military spokesman declared that "
They must be destroyed," and another officer similarly stated "We will never let them escape alive." Rear Admiral Tadao Honda, a Japanese naval attaché, declared at a press conference that the Japanese would dislodge the Chinese from the warehouse, citing a "stout, stubborn refusal to surrender," further claiming that everything had been done to "spare the lives of the defenders in the true
Samurai spirit, but we must make a final assault now." The foreigners in the concessions in Shanghai did not want the site of combat to be so close to them. With that consideration in mind, and faced with pressure from the Japanese, they agreed to try to convince the Chinese to cease resisting. On the 29th they submitted a petition to the
Nationalist Government to stop the fighting "for humanitarian concerns." A meeting was arranged with the British general
Telfer-Smollett through the commandant of Shanghai Auxiliary Police (上海警備), Yang Hu (楊虎),
Final Japanese assault on Sihang Warehouse In the late night of October 30 at around 10 p.m., the Japanese moved their artillery even closer to the warehouse and intensified their bombardment of the building. Observers across the creek watched the Japanese batteries, four 75-mm guns, fire intense barrages, which were only broken by intermittent pauses during which a Japanese
searchlight would move around the wall to inspect the damage. A Chinese soldier attempted to destroy the searchlight by hurling a hand grenade from a window, but it fell short.The Japanese bombardment became so intense that British soldiers on the Lese Bridge had to abandon their positions for their own safety. The Japanese also began to fire on the warehouse with heavy machine guns and hand grenades, scoring direct hits on the stronghold. Because the Japanese were firing towards the south, several shells missed and landed into the Settlement, one hitting the
North-China Daily News building and injuring three Chinese civilians. A number of combat casualties was reported to have been sustained during the fighting in the early dawn, although a precise figure could not be calculated.
October 31 Chinese retreat from Sihang Warehouse As the Japanese barrage continued, the Chinese began their breakout near midnight. To reach the British settlement, the Chinese soldiers had to run across 20 yards over the New Lese Bridge whilst being exposed to Japanese fire. The Chinese planned to send the wounded first, followed by the 1st Company and Machine Gun Company in small groups under Xie Jinyuan, then by the 2nd and 3rd Companies under Yang Ruifu. To cover the retreat, the Chinese formed a rearguard of a platoon from the 1st company along with some twenty-seven troops too heavily wounded to be moved easily; these men agreed to stay behind to man heavy machine guns and cover the remaining forces. To conceal their movements, the Chinese defenders evacuated in a gradual manner, moving every now and then in groups of twos and threes or alone. Each time, a Japanese machine gun posted near the north end of the bridge would open fire. However, the darkness and extreme confusion near the warehouse meant only a few Chinese were hit before they reached the British lines. Among them was Yang Ruifu, who was shot through the left leg while crossing, but managed to limp the remaining distance on his good leg. Whether or not British soldiers opened fire in support of the Chinese retreat is unknown. British travellers W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood encountered rumors in 1938 of British troops returning fire against the Japanese, putting a machine gun out of action. Similarly, Zhang Boting and Major Shangguan Zhibiao claimed the British had assisted in eliminating one of the four Japanese machine guns near the North Railway Station. Stephen Robinson claims that British soldiers probably did open fire, citing their obvious sympathies with the Chinese defenders and their anger over the deaths of four
Royal Ulster Riflemen killed by Japanese shelling two days prior. As the Chinese escaped, a Japanese column headed by a tank attempted to cut off the retreat by blocking the road. Platoon commander Yang Yangzheng attacked the column with a machine gun, but was wounded when the tank fired a shell at him, destroying his left eye with shrapnel. Yang was then dragged half-conscious across the creek by his comrades. By 2am, the last troops in Sihang Warehouse had retreated into the settlement safely, with dozens of wounded troops and Yang Huimin's flag being carried out along with 400 rifles, 24 light machine guns, 6 heavy machine guns and ammunition boxes, many of which were still hot from combat. Some 50 wounded Chinese soldiers were taken by British ambulances to various hospitals to be treated for their injuries including Yang Ruifu. By this point in the battle, the warehouse had caught fire from the bombardment. A
Japanese Special Naval Landing Party was subsequently reported to be in possession of the building. The American Consul General at Shanghai reported some 300 Chinese survivors had crossed to the British lines and laid down their arms and that several buildings in the downtown district were hit by Japanese shells during the fighting. Another western observer that 327 soldiers had escaped unhurt, another 28 wounded, claiming the survivors had stated they had left 100 comrades killed within the building. However, the vast majority of the Chinese defenders had escaped alive, some 377 men and officers in total including both Xie Jinyuan and Yang Ruifu. Company Commander Kobayashi himself was also seriously wounded by an enemy grenade while clearing out the Zhabei Pocket. By around 6 PM Zhabei had largely fallen to the Japanese, with the exception of the Four Banks' Joint Warehouse (Sihang Warehouse), where the Shanghai SNLF reported approximately 800 enemy troops to still be held up at. The Japanese initially advised the troops held up in Sihang Warehouse to surrender, but by the early hours of October 31 with their demands still unmet and signs of the defenders making an escape into the British defense sector of the International Settlement, the Japanese decided to attack the warehouse. On October 31 at 0115 hours the Imperial Japanese Navy confirmed sightings of Chinese troops evacuating into the International Settlement and began to bombard the warehouse with artillery fire thirty minutes later. At 0300 hours, SNLF troops stormed the Sihang Warehouse and within ten minutes had completely swept the warehouse of enemy troops and occupied the building. After securing the warehouse, the Imperial Japanese Navy reported roughly 80 corpses of fallen Chinese troops and a number of weapons to be inside. According to Japanese naval records, the Imperial Japanese Navy's advance on Zhabei from October 27 to 31 resulted in a total of 42 wounded, four of which were directly injured during the assault on Sihang Warehouse on October 31. One of wounded, Warrant Officer Tanaka Shiroku—a platoon leader from the Shanghai SNLF 10th Battalion—later died on November 2, after being shot near the warehouse on October 30. ==Casualties ==