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Monument for 1945 crash victims
18/8/2005 9:29

Chen Qian/Shanghai Daily news

Survivors of a Japanese warplane mishap in 1945 are keen to set up a monument at the accident site to mourn the victims.
A japanese jet crashed on June 4, 1945, during China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, hitting 12 houses on Jinan Road, Luwan District and causing the death of 61 residents.
"We will put forward their demand to the district government," said Yu Chengwei, an official with the Luwan District Archives, who stumbled upon the accident details in the early 1990s when he visited the neighborhood to look for some hidden history for a book titled "Hu Cheng Feng Qing." The book is compiled as a gazette of Luwan District.
"During my investigation, some residents told me about the tragedy, which had been suppressed by the Japanese troops at that time," Yu said. According to statistics Yu has now collected, 61 residents died and 38 others were injured in the crash.
Xu jiaosheng, 73, lived in one of the damaged houses. "My family totally broke up after the accident. Seven of 10 family members died in the crash," he said, remembering the painful incident.
Another survivor, 72-year-old Lu Zhengde said he saw a plane flying low at about 10am that day. "It flew so low that I could see the flag and the face of the pilot clearly," Lu recalled.
Lu was working on Huangpi Road, not far from his home. "Minutes later, the plane crashed." Houses on Jinan Road were all old-style structures, clustered together.
The area now hosts some new buildings and a greenland, where the survivors, who were relocated elsewhere in the district, are hoping to erect the monument.
Giving more details about the crash, Lu said Japanese soldiers soon arrived and took away the pilot's body. But there is no mention of this incident in any newspaper, he added.
Yu concurred, saying he went through newspapers of that period and "yes, I didn't find any stories because all the newspaper offices were controlled by the Japanese troops then."
All that the family members of the dead people received as compensation from the Japanese troops was 30 kilograms of flour.
In fact, a middle-aged resident named Luo Huiqian contacted Shanghai Daily yesterday, revealing that her mother Shu Fengying, 79, and 75-year-old aunt Luo Meiying were two survivors of the crash. "They always told us about the tragedy," Luo said. "My aunt told me she was at a nearby grocery store at the time. Just two minutes after she left it, the store, as well as other houses, were hit by the plane."