With scant regard for the supposed neutrality of the International Settlement, the Japanese flooded their defence sector in the Hongkew district with troops, warships on the river and massive armaments with which to launch attacks on the Chinese forces in Chapei, Kiangwan and other territory of the Chinese government. To all intents and purposes Hongkew, officially still part of the Settlement under the administration of the Shanghai Municipal Council, became a fully-controlled Japanese base.

The dreaded Japanese Kempetai (military police) imposed a reign of terror on the inhabitants there. The Japanese Consular Police took over street patrols in a direct challenge to the authority of the British-officered Shanghai Municipal Police. There were armed military and naval patrols on the streets and on Garden Bridge over the Soochow Creek, which was the boundary between Hongkew and the central area of the Settlement, squat Japanese army sentries stood only a few yards away from men of the Seaforth Highlanders on the crown of the bridge.

All Chinese passing over the bridge into Hongkew were forced to submit to the most humiliating and degrading forms of treatment. They had to bow deeply in obeisance to the Emperor, the Son of Heaven, whose divine person was represented by the 'soldier dwarfs'.



Photo courtesy of Tess Johnston