The Marco Polo Bridge Incident
What Happens Abroad Doesn't Always Stay Abroad
When did World War II begin? If you ask anyone off the street, and they happened to know, they would probably answer, “1939, of course.” Some might answer, “1941, when the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor.” In some sense, they’re probably right. But another answer, another date, could be used instead: 1937.
By 1937, Italy had invaded Ethiopia (or Abyssinia, as it was then called). Hitler had remilitarized the Rhineland. He had already established the concentration camps in Germany, although they were mostly for political dissidents and criminals. His euthanasia program was killing “life unworthy of life,” as the Nazis saw it. Mostly, it was the physically and mentally handicapped. By 1937, Austria had not even be annexed. That would have to wait another year.
In the east, however, Japan was kicking off their part of the war. They had already invaded part of China back in 1931. The northern provinces were organized into the puppet state of Manchukuo. The more Japan attempted to intervene in China, the more the Chinese fought them.1 Then, on a moonless evening in July 1937, a the Marco Polo Bridge (aka the Lugouqiao Bridge) Japanese forces engaged the Chinese forces under the ultimate command of Chiang Kai-shek. The Japanese were only out on night maneuvers, albeit with live ammunition, when a soldier of the Chinese Twenty-Ninth Route Army opened fire. After the Japanese returned fire, roll call was conducted and a private was found missing. Word of the missing private went up the ranks. Unfortunately, word did not reach the higher commands that the missing private had returned. Probably he went off to relieve himself, but we’ll never know because he died in Burma in 1943.2
As the historian Frank puts it:
[I]t is the Marco Polo Bridge Incident that immediately initiated a train of events ending with the dissolution of the Asian empires of Britain, the Netherlands, Japan, and France in favor of at least nineteen sovereign nations; the division of Korea; the Communist takeover of China and continuing conflict over the status Taiwan; and the American military hegemony over Japan and the East Pacific that persists to this day.3
Around July 1937 in America, Benny Goodman’s hit, Sing, Sing, Sing, was produced and became a hit. A year earlier, Louis Prima was out at the race tracks with Bing Crosby and George Raft when the words, “Sing, Bing, sing,” began going through his head. He couldn’t shake the thought. Not known as a composer, Prima went home and penned, “Sing, sing, sing,” changing “Bing” to “sing” for commercial reasons.4 By the time it reached Goodman, the original song had undergone some changes. But what really struck listeners was Gene Krupa on the drums. Sing, Sing, Sing, was a two-sided record that part of a larger effort by RCA Victor to get in the swing action. Other musicians on the four records included Tommy Dorsey, Bunny Berigan, and Fats Waller.5
While America was trying to recover from the Depression, and many were listening to the great Gene Krupa on the drums, the Japanese were beginning an action that would end, not only their imperial designs, but also the world order as it was then known, initiating another one that persists to this day.
Small, seemingly insignificant events, far away in a country most Americans probably rarely if ever thought about, found their way into the lives of ordinary Americans who were drafted into the military to oppose the Japanese threat. Ordinary Americans like my grandfather, who sacrificed a probably opportunity to play football professionally—he was actually that good6—to fight the Japanese in the Philippines. After being wounded and contracting malaria, he wouldn’t be able to play. He still made a good life of it, but his dream would not be realized.
What happens abroad doesn’t always stay abroad.
Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, rev. ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 79.
Richard B. Frank, Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, July 1937-May 1942, (New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2020), 5-6.
Frank, Tower, 6.
Mike Zirpolo, “‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ (1937) Benny Goodman with Gene Krupa, Vido Musso and Harry James,” Swing & Beyond, 09 July 2017, https://swingandbeyond.com/2017/07/09/sing-sing-sing-1937-benny-goodman/.
Zirpolo, “‘Sing, Sing, Sing.”
We had a neighbor growing up who was a teacher in a different school district when my grandfather was playing football. He distinctly remembered reading about my grandfather in the local newspaper.