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Between 1939 and 1941 there had been no fewer than 268 bombing raids, much of the central city (Chongqing) had been gutted by firestorms, and thousands had died—more than 4,000  in one terrible two-day raid at the very beginning of the Japanese campaign.

The Chinese behaved with memorable stoicism during the bombing bombardment which was arguably more sustained and terrifying than any other aerial bombardment inflicted on any of other city in history.  Robert Payne…..talked in 1943 to an elderly Chinese professor who put the campaign into perspective…Payne was discussing the bombing raids on Tokyo the year before, somewhat approvingly, and the Chinese sage was nodding his head in a way that Payne assumed signified complete agreement. It was only after the man began to speak that he realized “for the thousandth time since I came to China that a man who nods his head may be actually expressing the most profound disagreement:

“I was in Chongqing during the bombardment,” he said. “I have no wish that the Japanese should share the same fate. Nothing is so terrible, nothing so remorseless, nothing so revolting to the soul as a bombardment. The soul cannot suffer in peace after such indignities. Only now, two years afterward, can I think coolly of what happened, I now praise God that China for centuries refused to harbour such things. The Chinese knew about poison gases fifteen centuries ago; we invented an airplane, and quite rightly executed the inventor; we are the only nation that has thought continually of peace. I have no malice against the Japanese, who killed my parents and my brothers. I have pity, but it is not Christian pity, I’m afraid—it is the pity that burns.”

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom by Simon Winchester