World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseCheng Benhua was born in Gaoxiang village, Hexian county, Anhui Province, China to farmer Cheng Chihe in 1914. Her mother's surname was Liang. She was the third child among a total of four siblings by the same parents, and another younger brother by a different mother. When she was in middle school, she received some survival and leadership training with the 1194th Regiment of the Scouts of China. She actively participated in anti-Japanese resistance activities during WW2. In late 1937, she was engaged to fellow resistance fighter Liu Zhiyi. In early 1938, Liu was killed in action with Japanese troops. In Apr 1938, she was captured in combat in her home county by a unit under the command of Koichi Yamashita with 13th Regiment of Japanese 6th Division. In captivity, she was tortured by interrogators and was raped by several guards. Several days later, when the Japanese received orders to move to another position, Cheng and her fellow resistance fighters were executed by bayonet.

ww2dbaseIn 1992, Chinese author Fang Jun was a student in Japan, and WW2 veteran Isamu Kobayashi was among the members of his host family. Kobayashi had fought together with Yamashita during the war, and the two worked with Fang in with his academic project as an attempt to address their guilt for crimes that they had committed in China. Among the materials Yamashita shared with Fang was a photograph that Yamashita had obtained from a journalist who had been attached to his regiment decades prior, and the subject was Cheng, moments before she was to be executed. Yamashita noted that her demeanor on her day of execution had made a deep impression in him, and in order to not forget her name, he had written "Cheng Benhua, age 24" in the back of the photograph. According to Yamashita, Cheng had just witnessed the execution by bayonet some of her fellow resistance fighters as a form of torture and intimidating, forcing her to divulge any intelligence that she might possess. Despite knowing her fate, she showed no fear, nor did she give in to Japanese demands. In 2005, a widely-distributed Shandong Province publication printed this photograph. In 2009, an editor of a Hexiang-based magazine found Cheng Benhua's sister-in-law, 92-year-old Xu Renzhen, who had married one of Cheng's younger brothers; Xu confirmed the identity of the photographed subject as Cheng Benhua. On 25 Dec 2012, the oldest living member of the Cheng household, Cheng Naifu, carried a framed copy of the photograph from Yamashita into the Cheng family ancestral worshiping hall to symbolize a proper burial for Cheng Benhua.

Photographs