Wolf Boy: Japan’s Psy-Ops Against China

Japan’s psychological warfare program in World War II was remarkably diverse, and targeted not just the western Allies, but also the Chinese, as the examples below demonstrate. They are from … Continue Reading →

Radio Free China

This article on how a sleepy California beach town was at the center of a war across the Pacific is excerpted from Boom, a Journal of California. For the full … Continue Reading →

An Unlikely Encounter

Shanghai, 1945: Roy Matsumoto, a 32-year-old linguist in the US Army, is on a mission to interrogate Japanese prisoners of the war that has just ended. Defying the laws of … Continue Reading →

The Camera as a Weapon

When the Japanese army marched into the Chinese capital Nanjing in December 1937, only a small number of foreign residents had stayed behind. One of them was John Gillespie Magee, an … Continue Reading →

The Coca-Cola Ad

The photos on this page all have the same basic motif: Japanese soldiers engaged in battle in front of a giant Coca-Cola ad. They are from the same spot in … Continue Reading →

‘All Quiet on the Western Front’

All Quiet on the Western Front as an 80-year-old Chinese comic book! That’s one of the most recent acquisitions made by the Rauner Special Collections Library, part of Dartmouth College … Continue Reading →

The Awful Fate of Prisoners

Part of the Sino-Japanese struggle in the late 1930s was aimed at global public opinion, and movies were among the weapons. This short documentary, shot shortly after the fall of … Continue Reading →

Victory Song

”Gongxi, gongxi” – ”Congratulations, congratulations.” That’s the name of a tune that will be played over and over again in the coming days as Chinese all across the world celebrate … Continue Reading →

Nice to the Children

It is well-documented that Japan’s invasion of China in the 1930s was accompanied by horrendous atrocities against the civilian population. As was the case with the Nazi rule of terror … Continue Reading →

In Love and War: WW2-Themed Wedding Photos

Wedding photos are a huge business in China, and people from the middle class up are willing to pay serious amounts – sometimes thousands of dollars – for this special service. The … Continue Reading →