China will commemorate the 70th anniversary of V-J Day with a grand military parade in Tian’anmen Square on Sept. 3, attended by President Xi Jinping and foreign dignitaries along with veterans and their families.

The War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), known in the West as the Sino- Japanese War, was a bloody conflict that historians today increasingly recognize had a crucial e ect on the wider Allied victory in World War II.

For years, Chinese soldiers and civilians fought side by side with Allied forces to contain the invading Japanese Imperial Army, slowing its advance into Southeast Asia and preventing hundreds of thousands of troops from being sent elsewhere in the Asia-Pacifi c Theater, which could have changed the outcome of key battles.

Equally so, China was able to resist for so long only because of the support it received from Western allies, in particular Britain and the United States.

“Wi thout the Chinese contribution, it’s much harder to see an Allied victory in Asia during the war,” said Rana Mitter, author of “Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937-45” and director of the University of Oxford’s China Centre. “And without the British and Americans, it’s also much harder to see a Chinese victory.”

China paid a heavy price for its refusal to surrender to the Japanese. By the time the guns finally fell silent in 1945, an estimated 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians had been killed or injured.

Inside, we remember some of the stories of Chinese camaraderie and shared sacrifi ce with Allied troops that have long been overlooked, as well as some of the central fi gures in the Allied support, such as the American pilots of the Flying Tigers, who for a time were the only thing standing between the Japanese and total aerial supremacy over China, and the U.S. Army photographers who recorded everyday life in war-torn China.