At the end of 2014 it was released in theaters around the world. The Crossinga film directed by Hong Kong-born John Woo that passed through the European billboards unnoticed. The film revealed a tragedy of which there were hardly any references in the West: the sinking of the Taiping steamship in 1949. Its parallels with another maritime catastrophe immortalized in cinema, that of the Titanic, are more than evident.
The story of The Crossing epic intermingling and romance in the midst of an event in which more than a thousand people lost their lives. On board the ship were, among others, businessmen, officials and sympathizers of the Kuomintang, the nationalist party that held power in China at that time and against which the Communist Party had risen up, unleashing a bloody civil war.
From transport to war
The story of Taiping begins more than two decades earlier, in a very different political and economic environment. Built in 1926, it was designed to meet the growing demands of British colonies in Asia, such as Hong Kong and Singapore. It was a modern and resistant ship, capable of transporting large quantities of merchandise, and intended to strengthen commercial connections between the colonies. The Taiping operated on routes that were established as vital arteries of trade and communications in the region.
It didn’t take long, however, for him to change his main job. Starting in the 1930s, international instability began to spread throughout the world, affecting all types of commercial activities. Among them, the transport of passengers and goods. Taiping was not going to emerge unscathed in that especially bellicose environment.
On July 7, 1937, the Empire of Japan invaded northern and eastern China, beginning the Sino-Japanese War. At the time, Nationalist China had American support, while Japan was backed by Nazi Germany. The signing by the Japanese of the Tripartite Pact, together with Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, marked a turning point in the increase in tension in the area.
In this situation, no one was surprised that the British Royal Navy requisitioned the Taiping, like so many other private ships of the time, to use it to supply supplies. The need to transport supplies and supplies between the various Allied bases in Asia was urgent, especially with the threat of a Japanese invasion of Hong Kong and other British territories.
An image of the steamship Taiping taken around 1935.
It was one of many commercial ships reused for war purposes in times of need. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the effective internationalization of World War II turned the Taiping into a ship destined for war efforts.
From world war to civil war
At the end of World War II, the steamship was returned to its rightful owners and regained its original functions of transporting passengers and goods. But tensions in its area of operations were far from over. Once the world war was over, the communist revolution led by Mao began to advance at cruising speed throughout China, with the nationalist forces commanded by Chiang Kai-shek in sharp retreat.
The successive communist victories in 1948 anticipated that their rise to power was going to come sooner rather than later. The army and Kuomintang sympathizers began to withdraw towards Taiwan, where the Communist Party had no presence. The island became the refuge of the defeated. The mass exodus of nationalists, along with civilians who feared reprisals, increased the demand for transportation to it.
The communist army enters Beijing victoriously at the beginning of 1949.
It was in this context that the Taiping tragedy occurred. At the beginning of 1949, few could doubt that victory for the communist forces was near, and fear among sympathizers of the opposing side grew by the day. It was urgent to leave the zone of influence of the People’s Army, and Taiwan was the safest destination.
The data confirms this: an estimated two million people fled to the island from mainland China. Precisely, that was the destiny of the Taiping, on a fateful trip that left Shanghai towards Keelung, a city located in the north of Taiwan.
The Taiping’s capacity was just over five hundred passengers. However, even if the exact number of travelers on that tragic journey is unknown, all sources agree that it far exceeded a thousand. Along with wealthy families, officials from nationalist China, members of the Kuomintang army and sympathizers of Chiang Kai-shek’s government traveled, seeking to start a new life away from communist guidelines.
The fatal crash
In these precarious conditions, on January 27, 1949, on the eve of the Chinese New Year celebration, the Taiping left the port of Shanghai. The war continued and curfew required the ship to sail in darkness to avoid attracting the attention of the enemy army. As told by Ting Wen-ching and Chen Yu-ting in their 2014 book Tai Ping Wheel: The truth behind the legend of troubled times (“The Taiping steamer: the truth behind a legend in turbulent times”), which collects testimonies from survivors and relatives, the sea was calm that night; The light of the stars also facilitated navigation.
However, shortly before midnight, near the Zhoushan archipelago, off the coast of China’s Zhejiang province, a small cargo ship, the Chienyuan, unexpectedly collided with the Taiping. The difference in consistency between the two ships caused the Chienyuan to sink almost immediately. At first, it appeared that the Taiping had suffered no damage.
The reality, however, was very different. Unexpectedly, the ship’s hull began to flood, and, despite the crew’s desperate maneuvers, the Taiping began to sink. Many of the passengers drowned without being able to leave the ship; Many others jumped into the sea with no better luck. The fact that there was no record of the people on board and that the accident occurred during a period of war prevented us from knowing the exact number of deaths. However, all sources agree that they far exceeded a thousand; Many of them put the death toll even above fifteen hundred.
The number of survivors is also unknown, although official reports collected by the press of the time indicated that there were more than forty. Most of them were rescued by the Australian ship HMAS Warramunga, which was in the area, and by several fishermen from Zhoushan Island.
The truth is that the sinking of the Taiping is considered one of the ten worst maritime tragedies, by number of deaths, not caused by naval combat. Although even today there are those who do not agree with the official version of the accident.
Accident? Negligence? Enemy attack?
The dimensions of the catastrophe and the limited response it received, both inside and outside China, have aroused many suspicions over the decades about the real cause of the incident. Although everything seems to indicate that it was a fortuitous collision between two ships, the versions and nuances are innumerable. Many of them are collected in Ting and Chen’s book based on references from different investigations and testimonies.
The Taiping steamer.
There are speculations that attribute the main cause of the crash to the negligence of the captain and part of the ship’s crew, who were wildly celebrating the arrival of the New Year during the voyage and were in a state of intoxication. Other versions suggest that spies from the Chinese Communist Party were traveling on the Taiping and sabotaged the ship and caused its sinking.
For one reason or another, the shipwreck did not reach the mythical dimension of the Titanic, despite its equally dramatic consequences. The fact that it was derived from a war conflict, in which victims were recorded in multiple scenarios, and that it had taken place far from the Western gaze, so prevalent at that time, played a role in the low significance of the tragedy.
Source: www.lavanguardia.com
