Guangdong Memorial Hall of the East River Column, Shenzen, Guangdong Province
The East River Column was a brigade-sized guerrilla formation (numbering up to 5,000 fighters at the height of the war) raised by the Chinese Communist Party who recruited the Column’s members from both Hong Kong, especially from the areas in and around Sai Kung in the New Territories, and from China’s Guangdong Province. As a paramilitary formation, it mainly staged acts of sabotage against the Japanese occupying forces and aided foreign clandestine units, such as the British Army Aid Group, in gathering intelligence and rescuing downed Allied airmen, POWs or war refugees in southern China.
The Guangdong Memorial Hall of The East River Column was established by a group of foreign Chinese and Shenzen business people in 2005. It explores the types of warfare the guerrilla groups conducted in the area of Guangdong in the years 1937 to 1945. A large collection of weaponry and military artifacts displayed alongside interpretive panels further explains the role these revolutionary fighters had in the growth and spread of support for the communist party leading into the 1949 revolution.