Cemetery of the Fallen Soldiers of the Changde Battle

Cemetery of the Fallen Soldiers of the Changde Battle

The Cemetery of the Fallen Soldiers of the Changde Battle is a cultural relic protection unit of Hunan Province and a patriotic education base.

The Cemetery of the Fallen Soldiers of the Changde Battle is located between Renmin Road, Qingnian Road, and Jianshe Road in the urban area of Changde City.

The 15-day defense of Changde in 1943 resulted in the near-total sacrifice of over 8,000 soldiers of the 57th Division on the front lines. The Japanese forces also suffered heavy losses, with nearly 10,000 enemy corpses scattered within and around the city. Japanese records alone document the deaths of 4 senior officers above the rank of brigade commander, 5 battalion commanders, and 4 company commanders in this battle. The 15 days bought by the blood and lives of the patriotic soldiers of the 57th Division provided crucial time for the relief forces to launch a counter-encirclement of Changde, forcing the Japanese to retreat northward after less than 7 days in the city—so hastily that they didn’t even have time to burn all their dead. They finally felt safe only after reaching the north bank of the Yangtze River.

In 1944, after the conclusion of the Changde Battle, the Changde County Government, in cooperation with the remaining forces of the 74th Army, collected the remains of over a thousand fallen junior and mid-ranking officers and soldiers within the city. Using a large bomb crater as the foundation, they built a mass grave for the soldiers. The remains of the fallen officers and generals from the surrounding areas were gathered to construct an officers' cemetery, along with a memorial monument, two commemorative pavilions, and a memorial archway—all of which were damaged during the Cultural Revolution.

The original Officers' Cemetery and Soldiers' Cemetery of the Changde Battle Memorial have been destroyed. They are now represented by the “Epitaph of the Fallen Soldiers of the 74th Army in the Changde Battle,” written by Professor Ruan Xian of Hunan University of Arts and Science. The front of the monument bears the inscription “Memorial Tower for the Fallen Anti-Japanese Soldiers of the 57th Division, 74th Army,” along with inscriptions by prominent Nationalist military and political figures such as Yu Youren, Dai Jitao, Ju Zheng, and Sun Ke.

The Cemetery of the Fallen Soldiers of the Changde Battle was designated as a provincial-level cultural relic protection unit by the People's Government of Hunan Province in January 1996 and recognized as a municipal-level patriotic education base by the Propaganda Department of the Changde Municipal Committee in November 1995.