Yang Hui-min’s (楊惠敏) action in delivering a national flag to Republic of China troops who were besieged by Japanese forces at a Shanghai warehouse in 1937 was driven by patriotism and bravery, the late heroine’s son said.
Yang, born in 1915, became a civilian heroine during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945 when she braved grave danger to deliver the flag to about 400 besieged soldiers who were holding out at the Sihang Warehouse during the Battle of Shanghai.
Her heroism was later recorded for posterity and written into Taiwanese school textbooks.
Photo: CNA
In a recent interview with the Central News Agency as part of celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, Yang’s second son, Chu Fu-hung (朱復轟), described his mother as a woman with extraordinary courage.
“Who would care about life or death when the country was going through such an ordeal?” Chu asked, citing his mother’s remarks while recalling her volunteering to make the delivery after learning that the soldiers wanted a national flag to declare their determination to guard their land.
Yang, who died in 1992, once said that seeing the warehouse surrounded by Japanese flags during the siege made her feel it would glorious to hoist a Republic of China flag above the warehouse.
Later, after the Republic of China’s defeat at the hands of the communists in China’s civil war, Yang followed the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government to Taiwan, where she married National Taiwan University professor Chu Chung-ming (朱重明) and had two sons.
The Sihang Warehouse is on the Suzhou River, on the opposite bank to the Shanghai International Settlement, which existed as a congregation of foreign concessions from 1843 and 1943.
The Battle of Shanghai, which erupted on Aug. 13, 1937, disrupted Japan’s plan to seize China within three months.
About 400 Chinese soldiers held out at the Sihang Warehouse for four days and nights in October that year, allowing most of the other troops to retreat to the west and carry on the fight against the Japanese Imperial Army.
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