Broadway Mansions
The Japanese military commandeered the Broadway Mansions at 11.00am on 17 August 1937, with all non-Japanese residents were ordered to evacuate from the Broadway Mansions by Japanese military sailors, often at the point of a bayonet. Soon the Japanese flag fluttered over the Broadway Mansions, to the great delight of Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto who toured Shanghai in April 1938. The Mansions became a "de facto" Japanese possession. The Journal of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines in discussing accommodation in Shanghai indicated: "Broadway Mansions? No. That's out. It is ... mostly empty and in darkness. Some Japanese military are there, that is all. It is a British property, Shanghai's newest and best apartment hotel. Another indemnity is accumulating." Within a year most of the Mansions was rented to Japanese tenants. According to testimony presented to a US Congress sub-committee, "Broadway Mansion is the "brain" of all Japanese control in Shanghai. Here most of the important combined policy meetings are held." The Mansions was used as the headquarters of the Japanese Army Liaison Office. Before December 1941, the Japanese military government held weekly (and later bi-weekly) press conferences at the Broadway Mansions, and had offices there, including its transportation office. Foreigners who transgressed the Japanese rules of the territory occupied by Japan were held for questioning in the Mansions.