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Another puzzling photo from an old car forum asking for information on the
make of vehicle seen in Chongqing, China, but as yet not identified.
Chongqing is a town in central China which during the Sino -Japanese war
(1937-46) was the provisional capital city of China under General Chiang
Kai-shek after their retreat from Wuhan. Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of
the Republic of China and the Generalissimo of the National Revolutionary
Army from 1928 to 1949. The car seems a modified version, or perhaps a
historical/museum mock-up based on a genuine car, of a cca 1947 Buick
Super Eight with a possibly bulletproof roof. Buick Super Eight was
supplied to General Chiang Kai-shek while head of Chinese Republic. One is
believed in Nanjing. Similar presidential Buick cars were used in the Far
East in period
by President Sukarno of Indonesia and have survived and remain in preservation.
A very brief history of current China can be summarized as follows: The
Nationalists, or Kuomintang, overthrew China's last imperial dynasty, the
Qing, during the 1911 Revolution and established the Republic of China run
by the Beiyang Government 1912-1928. The pledges to bring democracy to
China and modernize the economy were frustrated by Japan's invasion during
World War II and corruption within the government. The Beiyang Government
was overthrown by the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek who was
subsequently responsible for the 'Shanghai Massacre' when thousands of
communists were rounded up and murdered, thus sparking off the hate of the Nationalists by the
Communists lasting to this day. After World War Two, and after the subsequent Sino-Japanese
war, the Nationalists lost a bloody civil war to Mao Tse-tung's Communist
Party and retreated to Taiwan in 1949.
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Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of the Republic of China and was the
Generalissimo of the National Revolutionary Army from 1928 to 1949. He had
gained initial fame within China by leading the 'Northern Expedition' from
1926 to 1928 which resulted in splitting his Kupmintang (KMT) party into
two, the winning part led by him, - mainly because of his 'Shanghai
Massacre' of many thousands of communists, for which he briefly went into
exile in Japan. However, he soon returned and led the National
Revolutionary Army to victory over the coalition of local chiefs and
warlords, and the Beiyang government, and thus effectively re-united China
as the Republic of China.
Meanwhile everybody else was gearing up for World War Two, where Chiang
Kai-shek was on the Allied side and against the neighboring Japanese,
with whom they only recently had a war. For eight years Chiang led the war
of resistance against Japan, a vastly superior enemy, mostly from his
wartime capital Chongqing. Chongqing had been visited by Lord Mountbatten
while he was Supreme Commander SEAC in Ceylon.
At the end of the 'World War', the Chinese Civil War resumed where Chiang
was forced to fight his old foe the Communists. Mao Tse Tung (Mao Zedong)
who had been a party activist had steadily risen through the ranks and had
progressively become the Red Army leader. The skirmishes and battles that
ensued for many years killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese and resulted
in the capture of Mao's wife, who was beheaded. But the tide eventually
turned in favour of the communists who were not about to forget the
Shanghai Massacre either. Chiang's nationalists were mostly defeated in a
few decisive battles in 1948 by Mao's Communists. In 1949 Chiang's
government and army retreated to the island of Formosa, now better known
as Taiwan. Subsequently Chiang presided there over a lengthy period of
peace, social reforms and economic prosperity which resulted in him
winning five elections to six-year terms as President of the Republic of
China, mostly unopposed. Three years into his fifth term as president, and
one year before the death of Mao, he died in 1975 at the age of 87. Mao
died at 82.
There is at least one Buick Super Eight associated with Chiang Kai-shek
in preservation in the People's Republic of China relating to
pre-revolutionary China. This is in the Meiling Palace (below) built in n 1934 as
a residence for "the Chairman of the Chinese National Government,
Chiang Kai-Shek" who gave the villa to his wife Soong May-ling on her
birthday. Soong May-ling married Chieng in 1927, had been American
educated and a presbyterian, and was his second wife. Later the villa
was used as a base for officials visiting the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, a
massive grave complex of the first leader of the Republic of China located
nearby. After the end of the war between China and Japan in 1946, the
National Government moved back to Nanjing and Chiang Kai-Shek used this
villa as his official residence before retreating for Taiwan. For the
subsequent few decades the building was closed to the public. However,
very recently with improving relations with Taiwan the mansion was
extensively renovated and reopened to the Public, complete with Chiang's
Buick car parked out under the portico at the front. It is believed that
this car was a gift from President Roosevelt of the USA.
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