Date of letter:1993-02-03
Address of author:Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province
Date of event:1937-1940
Location of event:Yangjiang City, Guangdong Province
Name of author:Fan Maozhi
Name(s) of victim(s):Fan Bitian (Fan Maozhi’s father) and townsmen
Type of atrocity:Air Bombings, Others(AB, OT)
Other details:Hometown Longkuang Villagee, Yangjiang City, Guangdong Province was bombed and strafed by Japanese planes under the “Burn All, Kill All, Loot All” policy.
Solicitor Tong:
How do you do!
Wish happiness for your whole family, and all the best.
Owing to the Japanese invasion, the GMT fled to my hometown, Longkuang Village, Yanling, Fogang in Guangdong Province. The village was flanked by two streams in the front and the back, (the left side is a large mountain forest). Back then there are only 400 people in my village, so the sudden arrival of one division of army brought war calamity and human disasters in all social aspects, with prices soared and bandits abounded. It was not until 1940 that the Japanese army entered Fogang area to implement “Burn All, Kill All, and Loot All” policy. Since there is an artillery division in the area, the Japanese aircrafts reconnoitered, and bombarded the area each day. Villagers entered the mountain to seek hiding in the day, and could only do some farming work in the night. Residents were conscripted by the GMT army as laborers, and since then they had to live a beastlike life.
The Japanese army was determined to destroy this artillery division, so when they learned it was in our Longkuang Village, they decided to dispatch aircrafts to bombard the area; but the Japanese army’s interpreter was a Chinese who was friendly with our Longkuang Village. He immediately notified one KMT soldier to ride a horse and come back to tip us off overnight. After learning of the news, our village immediately blackened new houses with charcoal, and disguised houses with leaves. Guns were dragged into the mountains by horses into all battle trenches, “Even today you can find the evidences.” The second day the Japanese aircrafts were unable to locate the targets, the Japanese aircrafts flew to Sanjiang Town, which was nearly 3 and half li away from our village. Since Wukuang Village has terrain features similar with ours, it was leveled to the ground, and only a mother and her child who traveled out of town to see relatives escaped, when they returned the next day they burst into tears and fainted.
Owing to fatigue resulting from war calamity, and overload of family burden, my father Fan Bitian died in 1944 at the age of only 48 due to repeated illness. I myself was still a baby, due to lack of milk and food, my family was forced to sell my sister and brother to tide over the famine; the result is only two and “half” being left out of the five sisters and brothers. My sisters and brothers were unable to go to school, and I suffered all the hardship that could be tasted in one’s life. If what I suffered after the war was not enough to claim compensation from Japan, how could our already dead victims of the “Three All” policy ask for compensation from the Japanese invaders? If I don’t have a share in the persecution compensation, where can one find justice in the world?
Jiangcun, northern suburb of Guangzhou, The Provincial Geological Prospecting Company
Fan Maozhi
1993.2.3