Japan's invasion of China unfolds across seven reels of US Army wartime footage, made as part of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series for American troops. The film opens with a survey of Chinese civilization, the compass, printing, gunpowder, porcelain, before turning to Japanese expansion: the 1937 clash at the Marco Polo Bridge, the bombing and capture of Shanghai, the sinking of the US gunboat Panay on the Yangtze, and the fall of Nanking, where footage of dead and injured civilians documents what the narration calls the Rape of Nanking. Chiang Kai-shek speaks on camera, and the government's retreat to Chungking is shown as the city is dug full of air-raid shelters and bombed regardless. Later reels track the war's turn: coolies widening the Burma Road by hand, guerrillas ambushing a Japanese patrol, dikes blown on the Yellow River to stop an advance on Chengchow, and the Flying Tigers taking off to bomb Japanese airfields. Madame Chiang Kai-shek addresses the US Congress, and Generals MacArthur and Stilwell appear as the Ledo Road is built and cargo planes fly the Hump into China.