One Sheep Lost, One Fact Distorted?
If you do not try to save one sheep, how can you save 100 sheep?
If you accept one false fact, how can you judge history?
For example, it was Chinese troops that came to attack City Shanghai from inland bases in the summer of 1937.
It was troops of the Empire of Japan that were engaged in defence of Shanghai including settlement districts where many Westerners lived, against numerically 10 times more Chinese troops, since the Imperial Government in Tokyo had no intention to expand front lines in the Chinese mainland.
SECTION I: Execution in China
A Japanese man in his 60's was arrested by the Chinese police in 2006 for allegedly carrying 2.5 kilo grams (5 pounds) of stimulant drugs at the Dalian International Airport.
He was sentenced to death in 2008 and executed yesterday by the Chinese authority. It is the first case that the Chinese Government executes a Japanese civilian after normalizing Japan-China diplomatic relations in 1972.
While the unlucky Japanese lived in Osaka, Japan, he often visited a pub, saying to the female owner of the shop, "You should not become a 'yakuza' (gangster or thug). You should not trust 'Boryoku-Dan (organized criminals),' though he strangely looked in an urgent need of cash unlike ordinary Osaka citizens.
(http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0406/OSK201004060054_01.html)
It is speculated that the drugs the unlucky Japanese was carrying had been produced in North Korea.
This combination of North Korea, the Chinese police, stimulant drugs, and the shadowy network in Osaka (and Kobe) is one of the most dangerous factors for ordinary travellers in the Far East, including American tourists, since North Korea is more dangerous than Mexico and China is far larger than Cuba.
SECTION II: Shanghai, August 14, 1937
On August 14, 1937, Chinese air forces, mobilizing a dozen and more airplanes, suddenly started to bomb a naval ship of the Empire of Japan stationed in the Huangpu River flowing through Shanghai.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangpu_River
The Chinese air raid actually failed, since Japanese cruiser Izumo defended itself well with anti-aircraft fires.
Accordingly, Chinese planes could not hit Izumo, but four of the attack planes changed the target to bomb streets in the international concession district of Shanghai with a 250 kilo-gram bomb from each. Their bombs destroyed the Palace Hotel and the Cathey Hotel run by English men, resulting in hundreds and more deaths.
(http://ww1.m78.com/sinojapanesewar/shanghai%20bombing.html)
However, Chinese advertised this tragedy as an act of the Imperial Military. Their claim is still found in English Wikipedia and other Web sites:
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On August 14, the Taiwan-based Shikaya and Kisarazu air squadrons of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force launched bombing raids against Chinese targets in the Shanghai area. The bombings directly caused tens of thousands of civilian deaths as the explosives landed in populated centers and major transportation hubs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shanghai#First_phase_.28August_13_-_22.29
On August 14, the Taiwan-based Shikaya and Kisarazu air squadrons of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force launched bombing raids against Chinese targets in the Shanghai area. The bombings directly caused tens of thousands of civilian deaths as the explosives landed in populated centers and major transportation hubs.... In 1940 the government announced August 14 would be the Air Force Day to raise the morale of the Chinese populace.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Battle_of_Shanghai
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It is true that the Headquarters of the Imperial Military ordered, as a response to sudden all-out offence by China, nine bombers of the Shikaya air squadrons stationed around Taipei, Taiwan, to make a sally but not to Shanghai; they attacked air fields in Hangzhou (Kou-shu in Japanese) located 180 kilometres (112 mi) southwest of Shanghai. Another nine bombers of the Shikaya air squadrons were ordered to attack a Chinese air base in Guangde County (Kou-toku in Japanese) at the opposite side to Shanghai over a big lake.
The Kisarazu air squadrons stationed in Kyusyu, Japan, were also ordered to sortie, but due to bad weather they cancelled the plan. No air planes of the Kisarazu air squadrons flew to anywhere on August 14, 1937. A typhoon was moving north in the East China Sea, so that the Imperial Military abandoned an idea even to mobilize an aircraft carrier.
(http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B8%A1%E6%B4%8B%E7%88%86%E6%92%83 )
The Chinese military planes that bombed the Shanghai streets were witnessed by some Westerners. Based on their report, American author Trevanian (Rodney William Whitaker) wrote some vivid passages in a famous novel called "Shibumi."
In this novel, he depicted the air raid by the Chinese military using Northrop Gamma 2E planes. It is assumed that he referred to an article of The North China Daily News founded by Henry Shearman.
(http://www.geocities.jp/sada5ro/shanghai2.html )
From the beginning, many Japanese citizens also lived around the international concession district of Shanghai, so that the Japanese bombers could not bomb Shanghai streets, though it would have been rather four 8-inch guns of cruiser Izumo that must have been used for firing on Chinese troops on Shanghai streets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cruiser_Izumo
Yet, this bombing by Chinese attack planes took lives of some Americans, including Robert Reischauer, elderly brother of Edwin Reischauer who was American Ambassador to Japan in 1960's. Robert Reischauer was reportedly attacked by a bomb near office buildings occupied by a Japanese bank and a Japanese (Manchuria) railroad company.
Yet, even today, some Americans believed that military planes of the Empire of Japan air-raided the Shanghai Street to kill thousands of citizens including Chinese and Westerners.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&refid=store&item=390168553032
Reports the Imperial Military filed and recorded during WWII are very accurate, since Japan had been a modern nation since 1860's.
And, a rational analysis of the Shanghai incident on August 14, 1937 simply tells that it is a Chinese act that bombed and killed hundreds and more civilians in the streets of the international concession district of Shanghai, since there were no Chinese soldiers in the district for cruiser Izumo to fire on with big guns from the big river. And, no Imperial Military bombers flew to Shanghai, as now you know, on August 14, 1937.
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Letters: Feb. 2, 1962, TIME Magazine
Ambassadors Abroad
Sir:
I read with particular interest the article about our new ambassadors [Jan. 12]. Ed Reischauer was a contemporary of mine at Oberlin. His older brother Bob was a classmate and close friend of mine. It was tragic and ironic that Bob was killed by a Japanese bomb dropped on a Shanghai hotel in 1937, since Bob grew up in Japan.
Louis S. PEIRCE Cleveland
> It was a Chinese bomb that killed Robert Reischauer. He was on a study tour of China, leading a group of students, when war with Japan broke out. While he was registering at the Cathay Hotel in Shanghai, a Chinese aerial bomb aimed at Japanese warships in the river landed outside the hotel.—ED.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,828957-3,00.html
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In 1956, widower Edwin Reischauer married a Japanese woman of a distinguished family who actually became his second wife. Then he was appointed to the United States Ambassador to Japan by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.
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April is the season of school entrance ceremony and company orientation for children and graduates in Japan.
The ceremony is mostly held on April 7 in schools.
Decades ago, some company in Japan had graduates start to work from March 21 and paid the first monthly salary to them on April 30 but not on April 20.
I do not think it was Fujitsu Limited, though.
(http://www7.plala.or.jp/machikun/ANNI____.MID
Source: http://www7.plala.or.jp/machikun/hototogisu2-2.htm)
Mar 4:7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
Mar 4:8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.