For the next eight months Hankow (or, in its triple character, Wuhan) was the capital of unoccupied China. The Generalissimo had his headquarters across the river in Wuchang on the south bank. In Hankow itself the foreign missions crowded into the Western-style buildings of the Concessions facing the river where the U.S.S. Luzon, flagship of the Yangtze patrol, lay at anchor. The city was a chaos of thousands of people rushing around “like ants on a hot rock,” in Stilwell’s phase: officials, hangers-on, journalists, profiteers, refugees, welfare committees and all the hectic influx of war.
...more
