AN AMERICAN IN CHINA: 1936-39 A Memoir
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Wuhan ~ 武汉/武漢 |
HANKOW - HANKOU - WUHAN The American travel writer Harry A. Franck wrote in the 1920’s:
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Pictured above, the pristine Hankow Bund along the foreign concessions in the early 20th century. Until the Nationalists took the city in 1926, the Bund was virtually off limits to the Chinese. The concessions originally numbered five: the British, Russian, French, German and Japanese.The Germans surrendered theirs in 1917, the Russians in 1920, the French in 1943. The Chinese took over the Japanese concession in 1937, when Japanese residents left at the outbreak of war. The entire town of course would fall to the Japanese in 1938. The British were forced to give up theirs in 1927 after it was taken over by mobs. In December 1944, much of the tri-city area was destroyed in U.S. firebombing raids conducted by the 14th Army Air Force. Today however, Wuhan is a vibrant commercial and industrial center.. NOTE: NONE of the images on this Web page are included in the book "An American in China, 1936-1939" |
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The Yokohama Specie Bank in Hankow in the early 20th century.
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Kemp Tolley, in his book Yangtze Patrol (Naval Institute Press, 1971) writes:
The history of Hankow is indelibly linked to that of the Yangtze Patrol, which had its headquarters there during the 1920's and 30's. Fleeing the Japanese advance in August 1938, the U.S. Ambassador Nelson T. Johnson and his staff set off on the USS Luzon and the USS Tutuila, for the new provisional capital, Chungking.
The American missionary Paul Frillman
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Above, a section of the Japanese Bund. in serene, prewar days.
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German Police Station in 1920's |
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The former English Concession in the 1930's. |
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Left, the Russian Orthodox Church in Hankow. The Russian presence in Hankow was considerable in the 1920's and 1930's because of the number of White Russians that fled the Revolution. Russians had arrived much earlier, however: by 1900 they were in charge of the Hankow tea trade, manufacturing “brick tea,” which they exported to Russia. In the 1930's, Christopher Isherwood wrote, rather uncharitably, in “Journey to a War” of the White Russians he encountered: “You see two or three of them behind nearly every bar — a fat, defeated tribe who lead a melancholy indoor life of gossip, mahjongg, drink and bridge.” |
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Buildings on the Bund; at left is the Customs House. |
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British Naval Officers at the Hong Kong |
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The imposing clock tower of the Chinese Customs House dominated the Bund in the 1930s. |
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The Chinese Customs House today. |
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Hankow 1938
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In her account of her visit to Hankow some months before it fell to the Japanese in October 1938, the British journalist Freda Utley wrote: "Hankow remained largely a foreign city with |
The Battle of Wuhan lasted four and half months (June-October 1938), and was the longest, largest and one of the most significant battles of the Sino-Japanese War.
"The western section of Hankow, the original Chinese city, began with broad modern streets, large shops, and handsome buildings, and ended in the wooden shacks, mud houses, and tiny workshops in the narrow alleys which led down to the Han river. Hanyang could only be reached by sampan, but a steam ferry-boat ran every half-hour from Hankow across the Yangtze to Wuchang. We had a strenuous time after air raids getting backwards and forwards to see the damage, first in Hankow itself, then over in Hanyang and then across on the ferry to Wuchang." |
A rare and delightful view of Wuchang,
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Stone Pagoda at Wuchang
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Brochure under the Japanese occupation. Bukan Sanchin is Japanese for the three Wuhan cities. |
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In pre-war 1930's Hankow as in Shanghai, a day at the races was de rigueur for the fashionable set. |
Christopher Isherwood in 1938 in the journal Journey to a War (Paragon House, 1990), written with W.H. Auden, says about the Race Club, perhaps with some exaggeration:
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Wuhan today is made up of three cities: Hankow (now Hankou), large area center; Hanyang, lower left; and Wuchang, near left, across the Yangtze from Hankou. |
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The foreign concessions in Hankow in an early 20th century map. |
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Hankow Bund at the turn of the last century.Notice the pontoon next to the ship, as permanent docks were impossible because of the changing levels of the Yangtze. |
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NOTE: NONE OF THE IMAGES ON THIS PAGE ARE INCLUDED IN THE BOOK "AN AMERICAN IN CHINA"
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Peiping |