Eighty Years Ago: Asia Pacific, May 29 – June 4, 1941

May 29, 1941: China’s First Lady Song Meiling thanks US for relief fund drive, hailing the “unprecedented scale of the present American movement of assistance for China”

May 30, 1941: Japan reaffirms commitment to Axis alliance with Germany and Italy

May 31, 1941: United States pledges to take steps after the war to give up special extraterritorial rights that its citizens enjoy in major Chinese cities

June 1, 1941: Air Chief Marshal Robert Brooke-Popham, British commander in the Far East, says: “We are ready for anything and anyone, and we are actually growing stronger every day.”

June 2, 1941: China says four years of war have cost Japan the equivalent of its entire national income in 1936

June 3, 1941: Japanese newspaper The Times Advertiser surprisingly pays tribute to British and Greek ‘samurai’ defending Crete against German attack

June 4, 1941: Heavy fighting between Chinese and Japanese troops in Shanxi province

Categories: War

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