Assault on Shanhaikwan Fort: November, 1945

On the same day the Honolulu Star Bulletin featured the November 12, 1945 article featuring the visit of Ogden Mills Reid and his assistant Wilbur S. Forrest the newspaper also reported an assault on Shanhaikwan Fort, today known as Shanhaiguan, a section of the city of Qinhuangdao in Hebei Province. It features some of the best-preserved sections of the Great Wall of China. My father mentioned visiting the Great Wall, but I am not sure if it was at this location.

For some up-to-date color photos of Shanhaiguan Pass, including the fort and sections of the Great Wall, go to this link.
and this link.

Chiang Drive Reported On Shanhaikwan Fort
Chungking, Nov. 12 (AP)

A Communist spokesman charged today nationalist troops had launched an assault on the fortress city of Shanhaikwan which stands at the southern threshold of Manchuria.

Without confirmation elsewhere, he declared more nationalist troops were streaming toward the front in an effort to deal a “serious blow” to Communist troops entrenched there. He said commando troops trained by the United States office of strategic services were employed against the Communists.

Lt. Gen. Tu Li Ming, newly named Nationalist commander for Manchuria, said yesterday his troops would move soon, but said so far they had engaged only in “defensive fighting pending the outcome of peace talks here.” The Communist spokesman reported the fighting was serious, but that Shanhaikwan at the coastal end of China’s Great Wall was still in the hands of Chinese regulars.


CHINESE SPLIT MAY BE HEALED
Chungking, Nov. 12 (AP)

The Central government and Chinese Communists agreed today to submit their political and military differences to a political consultative council meeting here November 20. Their decisions to place their differences before the council came at the suggestion of the Chinese democratic League, which has been seeking to mediate between the two groups for some time.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek today appealed to Russia for permission to fly his armies into Manchuria to avert a civil war with Chinese Communists massed at northern ports and along the Great Wall. Dispatches said Generalissimo Chiang’s field commanders had abandoned all thought of entering Manchuria by sea, and were staking their peace hopes on a conference with Russian army commanders at Changchun. Upwards of 1,000,000 Communists and an even greater number of Nationalists were poised along the Great Wall for battle. There is no word on the Russian attitude.

It was emphasized that the air movement, if made, would be in American planes, but not under Chinese ownership, and piloted by Chinese. American Vice-Admiral Daniel E. Barbey stepped into the crisis again with a new appeal for peaceful settlement. He admitted the danger of a full scale civil war was great.

Source: Honolulu Star Bulletin, November 12, 1945. Page 1.