George Retelas (second from left), a US film director, works with Chinese volunteers at a Doolittle Raider parachute landing site in Jiangxi province in December 2025. PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Inside an abandoned building in a town in Jiangxi province, George Retelas felt something before anyone told him what had happened there.
His hosts guided him inside and told him: two US airmen had sheltered here in 1942, cared for by local villagers until someone who spoke some English could be found to help them escape. When Japanese soldiers swept through, they executed 14 people on the spot and burned the building to the ground.
"The chilling part is they didn't tell me what had happened until I was already inside," Retelas said. "As soon as I walked into that space, I could feel it."
That moment has marked Retelas' journey through a chapter of World War II history that many in the US have never heard about.
