Source:

01-13-2006 17:45

1944 can be called the dark year before dawn in the war against Japan. It was the year when, on the home front, production plans were being greatly exceeded in the border areas. The whole country responded to the campaign proposed by the government for the men to help reclaim wasteland from the mountains, and for the women to make cloth for the soldiers at the front. Overall, efforts were being directed at strengthening the alliance between civilians and soldiers. And so military facilities such as Guanghan Airport in western Chengdu were built, with the help of farmers and their children.

Zhou Xuan began her acting career in 1935. One of her early hits was the movie "Street Angel". In it, she sang two of her most memorable songs: "Wandering Singing Girl" and "Song of the Four Seasons". She continued her singing and acting career throughout the war years. Like the rest of the population of Shanghai, she lived through the hardships caused by the wartime shortages of goods and materials and the depreciation of the currency.

Desperate in the face of imminent defeat, Japanese commanders gave orders for pilots to carry out suicide missions. But these so-called kamikaze attacks proved to be a futile gesture. While the fighting continued on the front line, in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Area the production campaign continued apace, even after three years. Numerous model workers were produced in the course of keeping the frontlines fully supplied. With no shortage of recruits for the regular army and the militia, and with the population in the liberated areas growing rapidly, victory for China, it seemed, was nigh.

 

Editor:Wang Ping