War in China; Maine's Passamaquoddy

Sailors examine the spot on the deck of the USS Augusta in Shanghai harbour, where the first American casualty of World War II fell, killed by a stray Japanese bomb. Although nominally a friend of the US, Japan’s aggression against China brought the American navy and the citizens of Shanghai’s international zone into the sphere of war in August 1937. The atmosphere of escalating fear and tension is vividly captured in this frontline report from the Battle of Shanghai.

True to the March of Time’s mission to inform as well as entertain, the film sets the events in Shanghai in their historical context, but it also reflects the pro-Chiang kai-Shek views of Henry Luce, the owner of Time-Life-Fortune Inc. The resulting report champions China’s recent reforms while blaming the Japanese aggressors for any failure, without mentioning Chiang’s own long-standing internal struggles against the Chinese Communist Party. The issue’s second film reports on the failure of a New Deal scheme to build a dam in Eastport Maine, the highlight of which is a sequence deceptively edited to appear as if President Roosevelt is being stared at by angry locals as he waves cheerily from his yacht.