Monument to the Victims of the Japanese Bombing of Lishui

What it commemorates

The Monument to the Victims of the Japanese Bombing of Lishui stands in Lishui District and commemorates the civilians killed when Japanese aircraft bombed the county town on 29 November 1937. The year the monument was erected, its site and its inscription are not given by the sources available to this site and are not written here.

The bombing and the losses

According to the Party History Office of the CPC Nanjing Municipal Committee, Japanese aircraft bombed the Lishui county town on 29 November 1937, destroying more than 5,000 houses by blast or fire. The same source gives neither the number of sorties, nor the duration of the raid, nor the distribution of the bomb strikes.

Two figures for the death toll

The source sets two figures side by side: more than 1,200 civilians killed, and 1,798 on a count based on contemporary newspapers and on survivors. The two rest on different scopes and methods of counting. This entry sets them side by side, neither merging nor averaging them, nor choosing between them.

To be supplied

• The year the monument was erected, its site and its inscription.
• The number of sorties and the duration of the raid of 29 November 1937.
• The scope and origin of each of the two figures for the death toll.