Photograph by: H S Wong Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
The image of the wailing and wounded baby sitting alone on a railway platform in China, moments after it was completely torn apart by Japanese warplanes, was made by H S Wong, on 28 August, 1937. At the time, Wong was a photojournalist with the Hearst Metrotone News. Up until then, the United States and the rest of the world did not pay attention to Japan’s brutal attacks on China. When the photograph came out, it caused an uproar in the United States. Wong had been amongst the few photojournalists who arrived at Shanghai’s South Railway Station immediately after the bombing. As he was walking along the platform, he spotted a lone baby surrounded by smouldering wreckage, while the mother lay lifeless a few feet away. He immediately made a few images and also shot some footage using a 35mm movie camera.
The Other Side of the Story: Sceptics suggest that Wong added smoke to the picture during postprocessing, for dramatic effect.
In the same year, LIFE magazine published the image in their October issue, fanning anti–Japanese propaganda. Tokyo declared that the photo was a fake, and set a price on Wong’s head. Nevertheless, he continued to work under the protection of British authorities. He eventually relocated with his family to Hong Kong. Incidentally, one of the other pictures Wong had made of the scene, shows another child beside the baby, along with a man who is presumed to be their father. Sceptics used it to accuse Wong of staging the photograph, claiming that the man in the picture assisted in moving the second boy out of the frame.
This article originally appeared in the August 2015 issue of Better Photography.