Drowned Earth: The Strategic Breaching of the Yellow River Dyke, 1938

• Autores: Diana Lary
• Localización: War in history, ISSN-e 1477-0385, ISSN 0968-3445, Vol. 8, Nº. 2, 2001, págs. 191-207
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Early in the war of resistance against Japan, the Chinese military command used a tragic version of scorched-earth tactics: they denied access to the Japanese imperial army to a vast stretch of China not by literally scorching it but by drowning it. In June 1938 the Chinese command turned the ultimate symbol of Chinese civilization, the Yellow River, into a weapon of war. The southern dyke of the River was breached at Huayuankou (Flower Garden Mouth) in Henan, 30 miles to the west of the Japanese vanguard. A cataclysmic flood swept through the breach, killing by the lowest estimate half a million people and turning millions of others into refugees.