There was yet another menace to add to the hazards faced by a population of more than four million - the underground war between the Japanese and their Chinese traitor-puppets and the loyal Chiang Kai-shek agents who carried on the fight in cloak and dagger operations master-minded by the dreaded Kuomintang (Nationalist) secret police chief, Lin, who, it was said, often penetrated into the city in disguise from his forward base in Free China.

The removal by assassination of key figures in the puppet regime was the main assignment of what became known as the Chungking Underground which had its secret headquarters somewhere in the Shanghai foreign-controlled area and which employed a vast army of patriots sworn to fight to the death the traitors and their Japanese masters.

The patriots used an amazing variety of weapons to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies - revolvers, sub-machine guns, hand-grenades, bombs, knives, strangling ropes, poison, acids and other lethal objects. They lived dangerously and often briefly. Once caught by the Japanese, violent death - sometimes after months of torture - was the only fate they could expect.

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