1938 - Zhang Delan & Mary Bai

November 29, 1938

Huangchuan, Henan

Zhang Delan.

The Japanese had occupied Huangchuan in the fall of 1938, and after they pulled out, the Guomindang (Nationalist) forces who took their place accused the Catholics of co-operating with the Japanese. The soldiers came and interrogated the parish priest, Father Zhang. They then abruptly departed, only to return two hours later to barricade the church, convent, and the refugee center. All Catholics inside these facilities were ordered to assemble in front of the chapel to await instructions. After more than two hours of propaganda the Catholics were allowed to return to their rooms. The sisters decided to prepare their winter clothes in the hope of fleeing from their captors, as they had an overwhelming sense of impending doom if they remained where they were.

Zhang Delan went to the room of a young sister named Mary Bai to help her pack. Bai was a young nurse who had only recently taken her vows. Every day she worked at the Society of the Servants of the Holy Spirit. When Zhang went to her room, however, she saw that Mary had not yet returned to the convent that night.

Before any of the sisters had a chance to escape, there was a sudden loud banging on the convent door. The sisters saw several soldiers outside, who loudly proclaimed that they were thirsty and wanted some tea to drink. None of the sisters dared to open the door, as they knew the callous soldiers had more in mind than a drink of tea. The banging on the door grew more intense. Sister Fan ordered the other women to hide while she went to the door alone to confront the men. One of the soldiers told her, “I want to marry Sister Zhang and I order her to hand me back a signed agreement within the space of two hours.”[1] After a series of vulgar threats, the men stormed off into the darkness.

Zhang Delan was understandably alarmed by the news and fled from the convent into the nearby refugee centre. She wept all night, while the rest of the convent sisters prayed until dawn. As the sun rose, they all gathered with the intention of making their escape, but they were too slow to act. A sentry forced their way into the Catholic compound and the commanding officer, a man named Huang, ordered Sisters Fan, Wang and Zhang to come with him to the Catholic hospital. When the trio arrived at the hospital they saw Sister Bai, who had been detained there the previous night. Her hands and feet were bound. The two youngest women, Zhang Delan and Mary Bai, were interrogated together, then taken away.

A student later claimed that Mary Bai knew of her impending fate. She asked her captors for permission to go to the washroom, where she told the student, “We are afraid that we cannot survive until evening! Their treatment of us is so brutal and savage that we can only expect death. Please pray for us and beg the Good Lord to grant us the courage to endure whatever suffering comes! We badly need God’s aid.”[2]

The next day the soldiers suddenly left the hospital when their unit received a new assignment. Nobody knew what had happened to Zhang Delan and Mary Bai, so the priest asked the Catholic neighbours to search for them. For several days no sign was found of their whereabouts, until someone walking through the northern end of the hospital compound noticed an unpleasant smell emanating from an old well. At first,

“it was thought that the water of the old well was dirty and causing the smell so no further attention was paid to it. But by the eighth day, this smell became stronger, so much so that one had to cover one’s nose when passing. Some people took long bamboo poles to poke about the contents of the well…. At first, all they dragged up were twelve stone boulders and only afterwards discovered the decaying corpses of the two sisters.”[3]

Mary Bai.

The terrible ordeal that the two young virgins endured was evidenced by marks and wounds found on their decaying bodies. An autopsy found the two women had succeeded in retaining their chastity, and had almost certainly been tortured and killed because of their refusal to give in to the sexual demands of their captors. One sickening report says,

“Sister Zhang’s face was so bloated and swollen that it was barely recognizable; one eyeball had practically fallen out of its eye socket and there were wounds around her waist. All Sister Bai’s teeth had been wrenched out and on her chest there were blue and purple wounds and scars. Around the waists of both of them a coarse rope had been wound three times and the end of each rope was tied to a large stone to ensure that the corpse would sink to the bottom of the well.”[4]

The bodies of the faithful Zhang Delan and Mary Bai were lovingly buried in the garden of the convent grounds. Later that same day, “two Chinese Catholic leaders were tried and beheaded. Their heads were mounted on poles on either side of the bridge adjoining the northern and southern halves of the city as a warning to other collaborators.”[5]

1. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 45-46.
2. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 47.
3. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 47-48.
4. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 48.
5. Letter from Ruth Elliott, December 6, 1938; cited in Bays, Christianity in China, 324-325.