Amid stacks of faded photographs and war-era negatives, Zou Dehuai works to preserve a visual record of China’s turbulent past. The Beijing-based collector has spent a decade gathering more than 100,000 images tracing the arc of the Chinese-American alliance during World War II.
Figure 1. Dehuai Zou
“So many stories are sealed within old, overlooked photographs,” Zou told me in Mandarin. “What we need to do is very simple—pause in front of each photograph that sparks your curiosity. And then you’ll be surprised to discover that someone has already left their footprints here a long time ago.”
Before our interview, Zou had concluded his large exhibition at the Beijing American Center (BAC), titled “Heroes during the War, Neighbors in Peace: A Historical Photo Exhibit of China-America Cooperation.”
Figure 2. Poster of the exhibition:”Heroes during the War, Neighbors in Peace: A Historical Photo Exhibit of China-America Cooperation.”
When I met Zou at USC in September 2025, where he was a guest speaker at the US-China Institute, I asked him to select the most memorable photograph from his extensive collection, which spans from the late Qing dynasty to the end of World War II.
With no hesitation, he picked one from the 1942 Doolittle Raid. “It’s a thrilling story,” he said, his eyes lighting up as he spoke.
Many people are familiar with at least part of the story of the Doolittle Raid. To take the war to the Japanese homeland and avenge Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States launched an air raid on Tokyo and other targets on April 18, 1942. The Doolittle Raid provides the basic background of this historic mission. But most people don’t know the full story, stories that Zou’s photographs help bring to light.
Figure 3. A photograph of the Doolittle Raid from the National Museum of the United States Navy.
On April 18, 1942, 15 out of the 16 Doolittle aircrafts landed in four different Japanese-occupied Chinese provinces. Infuriated by this first attack on their homeland, the Japanese military launched a furious manhunt for the American pilots and carried out brutal reprisals toward the Chinese officials who aided them.
On that quiet April night, there was a heavy knock on the door of Tongsheng Liu’s home.
Liu was likely the only person within several kilometers who could speak English and was a graduate of prestigious Tsinghua University. That night’s story, which Zou pieced together from countless archives, came vividly to life when I spoke with Liu’s daughter, Melinda Liu.
Melinda recalled the moment: “One night, the local people came to my father and asked, ‘Do you speak English?’ He thought that was a really weird question to ask. But he said, ‘Yes, I speak a little bit.’ Then my father went with them and brought his suitcase.”
The strangers took Liu with them, walking for a long time through the dark. Eventually, Liu saw five Americans. “They were covered with mud, scared and very disheveled,” Melinda said. Only then did Liu learn that the United States had bombed Tokyo.
“My father decided to stay with them and help them as much as he could help them to get to safety,” Melinda said. “ So he traveled with them for a couple of weeks. A few of them died in the bailing out, and two crews were captured by the Japanese, but many of the rest survived and got to Chongqing.” Melinda told me.
They crossed half the country, from Zhejiang to Chongqing, to save the Americans. The journey spanned hundreds of miles, under constant threat of Japanese patrols and air raids.
“Even up until today, I still find this story incredibly courageous: ordinary Chinese villagers, at great personal risk, opened their doors one by one to help the American pilots and escorted them to safety. It is a story of extraordinary bravery and humanity.” Zou said with a mix of admiration and solemn respect.
Figure 4. On May 3, 1942, Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle received the Order of the Cloud and Banner, Third Class, from Mei-ling Soong in Chongqing, from Dehuai Zou’s collection.
The cost, however, was devastating. “Tens of thousands of Chinese lost their lives in Japanese reprisals for this rescue operation,” Zou said, his voice heavy with sadness. The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall website includes some stories about the heavy price the Chinese paid.
On May 15, 1942, the Japanese army launched the Zhegan Campaign with 100,000 troops from 55 regiments. In retaliation for the Doolittle Raiders being rescued by local Chinese, Japanese forces carried out a brutal sweep through the region—destroying airfields, looting villages, and massacring civilians. In an act of sheer atrocity, Unit 1644, stationed in Nanjing, even deployed biological weapons, resulting in the deaths of more than 250,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians.
In the memoir, James H. Doolittle quoted a telegram from Chiang Kai-shek to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Japanese troops have massacred every man, woman, and child in these regions. ”
General Claire Lee Chennault, commander of the American Flying Tigers, wrote in his own memoir, “Hundreds of villages suspected of aiding our pilots were looted; every town near an airfield was leveled to the ground… Within three months, 250,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians were slaughtered.”
This story, forged with blood and tears, was almost forgotten less than a century later.
Before interviewing Zou, I posed this question to a few American and Chinese friends: Do you know about the Doolittle Raid, the Flying Tigers, or even The Sino–American Alliance?
Figure 5.Two U.S. posters related to China during World War II, from Dehuai Zou’s collection.
“I’ve never heard that before, and I didn’t read any of that in our textbook,” said Luis Nicholas Blea, a master’s student at the USC Marshall School of Business.
“I don’t know these stories or concepts,” said Junyi Ge, a Chinese graduate student studying communication at USC.
For decades, this story faded from public memory. Few people from the younger generations in the U.S. or China have heard it before.
I asked Zou why.
Zou explained that after taking power, the Chinese Communist Party sided with the Soviet Union and fought against the United States in Korea from 1950-1953. China split with the Soviet Union and the country was torn asunder by political movements. Only in 1971-1972, did U.S.-China relations begin to improve, but China was still in midst of the Cultural Revolution. Many avoided talking about ties with Americans, even fleeting ones in service to the war effort, for fear of getting in trouble.
A similar “amnesia” befell the United States. As the Cold War began and tensions with Communist China escalated, wartime cooperation quickly became politically sensitive. During the era of McCarthyism, some who had once promoted U.S.–China cooperation were persecuted and lost their positions. Others feared being labeled as “soft on communism.”
As former U.S. diplomat John S. Service recalled, “Originally, there had to be a reasonable basis to consider you disloyal. That was changed to reasonable doubts as to loyalty.” The purge of China experts and the atmosphere of suspicion left veterans of the Doolittle Raid and the Flying Tigers voiceless for nearly two decades.
“By the time relations began to warm in the 1980s, most of those who had experienced the Sino-American Alliance had already passed away or faded from public view,” said Zou. “That’s why I think telling these stories is so important,” Zou continued. “If we don’t tell them, these stories will soon be completely buried by history.”
Today’s history textbooks are mostly fragmented. A single book, with such limited space, can hardly fully tell a long and complicated history.
“That’s why I think photographs are the best way to fill in those gaps,” he said. “There’s a saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
Zou hopes that when people visit the exhibition, they will be inspired by the photographs and learn about history through these old images and the forgotten stories behind them.
“They’ll find out that history isn’t boring,” he said with confidence. “When we look at the Chinese people involved in the Doolittle Raid, we find that they were open-minded and progressive — not the ignorant, dirty and backward figures often portrayed in textbooks.”
Zou paused for a moment, his tone turning more solemn. “I hope people will remember how hard peace was to achieve, and the friendship that once bound China and the U.S. as allies,” he said.
“Even though tensions between the two countries are intensifying today, as long as we don’t forget that back in 1942 we were comrades-in-arms, then this conflict won’t reach a terrifying point.”
About the author:
Mingwei Song is a graduate student in digital social media, specializing in U.S.–China relations and exploring the cultural, social, and political dimensions of the bilateral relationship.
