Looking back at the most memorable moments of 2015

Zhao Xu: Memories of war

Best stories: A series of articles focusing on the Allies' help to China during World War II. One of them featured men from the US Army's 164th photo company based in the China-Burma-India Theater. What they captured on film, sometimes risking their lives to do so, are almost the only images we have about those days. By recording images that touched them, these men paid a tribute to humanity and at the same time built their own monument.

Most interesting person: Yang Guoqing, a mountain guide turned amateur WWII historian. The trajectory of Yang's life interacted with history in a way the 52-year-old had never expected. While climbing the hills in Nankou, in the northern suburbs of Beijing, Yang came across spent bullets and shrapnel, and later found some bones belonging to either an invading Japanese soldier or to one of the Chinese fighting to defend in the area in August 1937.

Yang never discovered the truth behind the bones, but he had them buried in wooden coffins under a clump of bushes. "We Chinese believe in resting in peace," he said.

Most memorable interviewees: Shau-Jin and Ying-Ying Chang, the parents of Iris Chang, the author of the Rape of Nanking. In 1997, the 29-year-old American-Chinese published her best-selling book, recounting for the first time in English the harrowing story of events in late 1937 and early 1938, as the Japanese army embarked on 40 days of rape and slaughter in the city. In 2004, Iris Chang, who had severe depression, took her own life.

Sitting with her parents made me want to comfort them, but I didn't know how to do so. But ultimately, maybe they can draw strength from one reviewer, who called their daughter's book, "unbearable to read, but should be read".