SHANGHAI UNDER ATTACK
AH FONG, photographer.
The Sino-Japanese Hostilities 1937.
Shanghai, Nanking Road, 1937.
Oblong 8vo album, ff. 24 with 110 original gelatin silver prints, each numbered in pencil above, and folding printed index with captions to all images (108 images measuring c. 90 x 60 mm, 2 images measuring c. 190 x 70 mm); five images printed in red and black to reflect the bombing; an excellent copy, bound in the original illustrated black paper boards printed in silver, upper board with large block showing Shanghai under attack.
Excellently preserved copy of this rare album of photographs documenting the bombing of Shanghai at the opening of the Second Sino-Japanese war, a haunting and moving visual record of what is considered by many to be the first battle of World War II.
The Battle of Shanghai was the first, as well as one of the longest and bloodiest, major engagement fought between China and the Imperial Japanese Army at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Lasting from August until November and involving close to a million troops fighting on land, in the air, and at sea, it has been described as ‘Stalingrad on the Yangtze’, and concluded in a victory for Japan, and the loss of a significant portion of China’s best personnel, though at the cost of Japanese morale and a substantial loss of life on both sides.
The album includes evocative images of the Royal Navy, US, Russian, Japanese and Italian warships; General Chiang Kai-shek; refugees fleeing from the ruins of Pei Sing Tsin village; the victims and destruction caused by the Cathay Hotel bombing; bomb victims receiving first aid; and the bombing of the Tsun Tsin Training Camp. The last image printed in red and black shows Zhabei district burning at night.
The index leaf attributes the photographs to ‘Ah Fong Photographer 819 Nanking Road Shanghai’, with the photographs themselves apparently taken by two photographers identified only as ‘S.S.’ and ‘S.C.S’ during the Sino-Japanese hostilities in Shanghai from August to November 1937.
