China

China was the most populous country in the world in 1941, with a population of some 400 million persons. China also has one of the oldest civilizations in the world, but the Renaissance in Europe left China behind, and Europeans equipped with firearms were able to progressively nibble away at the Chinese Empire. The corrupt and ineffective Qing Dynasty finally collapsed in 1911, leaving China politically fragmented and in economic ruin. The Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek attempted with some success to unify and modernize the country, against the opposition of local warlords. However, resistance from the remaining warlords and the Chinese Communists prevented complete unification, and the Japanese invasion in 1937, following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident at Peiping, led to a brutal three-way war.

Japanese expansion in China dated back to the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894, when Japan successfully challenged China's position as the leading power in the Far East, detaching Korea from China and annexing Formosa. Japan was awarded Russia's lease of Port Arthur following the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, along with the right to garrison the rail system of southern Manchuria. Korea was annexed outright by the Japanese Empire in 1910. During the First World War, in which Japan fought on the Allied side, Japan seized the German concession at Tsingtao and then presented the young Chinese Republic with what became known as the Twenty-one Demands. These would have reduced China to a Japanese protectorate, but the growing sense of nationalism in China and diplomatic pressure from Britain and the United States forced Japan drop most of its demands.

In 1919, the Kwantung Army was activated to garrison the Kwantung Peninsula and the Southern Manchurian Railroad. As the largest Army formation outside the Empire proper, the Kwantung Army soon became a law unto itself. It became increasingly involved in local politics, arranging the assassination of Manchurian warlord Chang Tso-lin in 1928. However, the government of Premier Hamaguchi adopted a policy of friendship towards China in July 1929 and received a favorable response from the Kuomintang, raising the possibility of a rapprochement on Manchuria. This was brought to ruins by the twin blows of the Great Depression, which worked in favor of Japanese ultranationalists and militarists, and the assassination of Hamaguchi on 14 November 1930. Kwantung Army staged the Mukden Incident the next year as an excuse to seize control of Manchuria. This led to further Japanese penetration of north China, and in time to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident and full-scale warfare. The war expanded further with Japanese landings at Shanghai following clashes between Japanese and Chinese forces near the International Settlement.

Initially, the Japanese encountered stiff resistance from German-trained Kuomintang divisions at Shanghai, and the Chinese Republican Air Force (whose ranks included foreign mercenaries and Russian “volunteers”) inflicted heavy losses on unescorted Japanese bombers. Chiang committed the bulk of his forces at Shanghai, in part because he knew this was the center of Western interests in China and he hoped for Western intervention. But no such intervention was forthcoming, and the defeat of the Chinese forces at Shanghai meant the destruction the best Chinese army formations. Meanwhile, improved Japanese fighters swept Chinese air forces from the skies. Thereafter the Japanese were able to go pretty much wherever they wanted. Nanking was conquered in December 1937, unleashing an orgy of destruction in which perhaps as many as a quarter of a million Chinese were murdered. Hankow (Wuhan) followed in April 1938, after which the Japanese were able to advance as far as the Yangtze Gorges at I’chang. The top Chinese commanders too often moved their own forces around like chess pieces, prevented effective concentration and cooperation between neighboring units, whose commanders had often never met each other and were quite unable to establish proper liaison.

The Japanese advance then bogged down under its own logistical difficulties. The Japanese Army was heavily dependent on the rail system, which was still quite limited in China and tended to dictate the avenues of advance.  With Japanese operations thus canalized, the Chinese had numerous opportunities for surprise attacks and harassment, though these were seldom exploited very effectively. The Japanese advance on Changsha was defeated by the Chinese in the spring of 1941, and the Kuomintang regime in Chungking held out under aerial bombardment. There followed an undeclared truce, punctuated by a vengeance campaign in the Chuchow area in April 1942 following the Doolittle Raid, that lasted until the Japanese Icho-go offensive of 1944. The Japanese controlled the railroads, rivers, and major cities of north and central China; the Communists controlled much of the countryside of north China; and the Kuomintang controlled the south and west. Australian observer Rhodes Farmer wrote (Hastings 2009):

The campaigns the Japanese waged between 1938 and 1944 were foraging expeditions rather than battles. They had no greater strategic objective than to keep the countryside in terror, to sack the fields and towns, to keep the Chinese troops at the front off-balance, and to train their own green recruits under fire.

Curiously, the war between China and Japan remained undeclared until Pearl Harbor. There were legal niceties involved: Formally declaring war would place a number of restrictions on the belligerents under international law and restrict trade with the United States under the Neutrality Acts. As a result, the Japanese routinely referred to this Second Sino-Japanese War as "The China Incident."

The Chinese contribution to victory in the Pacific War is difficult to assess. It is likely, of course, that there would have been no Pacific War in the 1940s were it not for the Japanese actions in China. When war broke out, the Japanese allocated just 11 divisions to the Centrifugal Offensive against the Allies, out of an army of over fifty divisions. Most of the rest remained in China. This supports the view that China was a quagmire that kept the Japanese from deploying their full strength to the Pacific, but it seems likely that the shortage of Japanese shipping would have been a serious constraint in any case. Certainly the contribution of China was far less than American strategists had hoped for at the start of the Pacific War.

Probably the sharpest disagreement between the British and Americans, who were otherwise remarkably close allies during the Second World War, was over the role of China. The Americans were determined to open a supply route to China to equip and train a huge modern army that would crush the Japanese. The British, with their experience of the Raj in India, knew that it was unrealistic to expect to raise such an army from such a backwards country in time to make any difference in the Pacific War. They agreed to support the airlift across the Himalayas and ground operations to open of the Ledo Road to China largely to placate the Americans. Churchill's real interest in southeast Asia was to restore British prestige by reconquering Singapore, a program the Americans were completely unwilling to support.

American diplomacy with China was extraordinarily clumsy. The choice of Stilwell as Chiang's chief American military adviser was a particularly poor one, but better diplomats were equally unsuccessful in persuading Chiang to reform his government and fight more effectively against the Japanese. Chiang seemed to hold the high cards: The threat of the Kuomintang coming to terms with the Japanese, thereby freeing the Japanese Army to move large forces to the Pacific, was a powerful one. But, in the end, Chiang's intransigence led the Americans to turn to Stalin to eject the Japanese from mainland Asia.

Chinese suffering during the war is almost indescribable. A recent careful estimate based on Chinese archives suggests a figure of four million military and eighteen million civilian dead (Frank 1999).

With the Japanese surrender in 1945, a full-scale civil war broke out between the Kuomintang and the Communists. The Russians, who previously had backed Chiang, had seized Manchuria in the closing days of the Pacific War and now switched their support to Mao. Communist control of Manchuria proved fatal to the Kuomintang. The civil war ended in 1949 when the remaining Kuomintang forces were forced to retreat to Taiwan (Formosa).

The Chinese Army

The rank and unit structure of the Kuomintang Army was inflated relative to Western and Japanese armies. Divisions typically had a strength of just 6,000 to 7,000 men, except for a few divisions organized and trained by German advisers before 1937. There were about 300 divisions active in December 1941, of which the vast majority were very poorly trained and equipped. Total manpower was 3 million men. 1,200,000 men (about 176 divisions) were under Chiang, of whom 650,000 were directly controlled and 550,000 under nominally loyal warlords. The best 31 divisions, "The Generalissimo’s Own" (300,000 men), had been trained and equipped by the Germans prior to the Tripartite Pact, were led by officers educated at the Central Military Academy in Nanking, and were relatively capable. However, they were constantly held in reserve against the Communists and rebel warlords (including the Muslim warlords of the northwest), who Chiang regarded as the real long-term enemy. The remaining 145 divisions were under regional warlords or the Communists.

The Kuomintang inducted some 14 million men between 1937 and 1945. However, peak strength never exceeded 6 million men, which gives the reader some idea of the casualty rate (which likely includes a vast number of desertions.) The great majority of those inducted were peasants, since recruiting was notoriously corrupt and the middle class could buy their way out of the draft. Xu Yongqiang, a Kuomintang interpreter in 1944, gives us some idea (Hastings 2007):

Most recruits came simply as prisoners, roped together at bayonet point. They had so little training that it was easy to see why they were no match for the Japanese, who for years had been schooled to kill. It was inhuman! Inhuman! There were no such things as civil rights in China. For eight years, it was the peasants who had to fight the Japanese, both for the Communists and the Kuomintang. The middle class stayed at home and made money. The big families did nothing at all.

As Marvin Williamsen has observed, "For these men life in the ranks was nasty, and apt to be brutish and short as well" (Hsiung and Levine 1992.)

The Chinese peasant soldier did have certain strengths. Terrible as was life in the ranks, it was often better than life as a peasant farmer or urban refugee. The Chinese soldier showed an astonishing capability to endure hardships and was sometimes tenacious in defense. However, there was a tendency for battered Chinese formations to simply disintegrate and for retreats to turn into routs.

Chinese military leadership was abysmal. At the very top, Chiang's headquarters proved unable to coordinate the operations of its huge armies and unwilling to delegate authority to subordinates. The former is unsurprising given the backwardness of 1940s China. The latter is perhaps understandable given China's recent history of wardlordism and lack of national unity. This is not to absolve Chiang of all responsibility for his failures of command, but the challenges he faced were all but insuperable. Leadership at the army and division level was characterized by its ineptness. Except for a core of elite officers trained at the academies at Whampoa or Nanking, most general officers were amateurs, and all suffered from the lack of a competent staff. Abysmal communications equipment exacerbated the problem: A Chinese division could only defend about 12 miles (20 km) of front without losing contact with its own headquarters.

The country was divided into war areas that were simply too large and carried too many civilian administrative responsibilities. The longer troops were stationed in an area, the more they became involved in local politics. Chiang set a poor example by issuing many order directly to war area commanders, bypassing the Chun-ling-pu (Ministry of Military Orders). Chiang was fond of giving detailed orders by telephone, often based on 1:1,000,000 scale maps that were full of cartographic errors.

Junior officers died in large numbers early in the fighting, making the same mistake the Allies had during the First World War of trying to overcome firepower with valor. By June 1940, the Chinese Army had suffered 24,806 officers killed and 42,991 wounded -- over a third of the prewar professional officer corps. Large numbers of replacement officers of questionable ability were promoted out of the ranks, and only 27% of the replacement officers had any formal academic military training. Many traveled with their families. Against this background, and contrary to much Western finger-pointing, Chiang must be rated one of the more capable Chinese officers, one of the few with any grasp of modern military science, and with a record of victories in the civil wars of the 1920s. Most of the generals suggested as alternatives to Chiang had in fact proven to not be his equal during this time period.

The entire Chinese Army had perhaps 6,000 trucks, of which half were serviceable. This may not have mattered much, since fuel was extremely scarce and paved roads and sturdy bridges lacking. When 93 Army was sent from Szechwan to Kwangsi in late 1944 in response to Ichi-go, it took two months to arrive. Likewise, 97 Army took twenty days to reach Kweichow from Chungking in what was a life-or-death situation.

Equipment was very poor, and it was an unusually well-equipped division that had anything more than rifles and light machine guns. 80% of hand grenades failed to explode. There were only 457 artillery pieces in the entire Chinese Army in 1935. The following table illustrates the difficulty (Hsiung and Levine 1992):

As can be seen from the table, there were not even enough rifles to equip most of the soldiers. Logistics were also poor, often being put in the hands of a civilian businessman who met the minimum requirements and pocketed the rest of the funds. There was often only enough transport to supply rice to the front line, which took priority over ammunition. Troops responded to supply shortages by pillaging the local civilian population.

Foreign aid was therefore an important part of China's military effort. Prior to 1939, this came from several sources. According to British sources, in the first half of 1938, these included Germany, which supplied 70 percent of China's artillery shells and 113,250,000 rounds of small arms ammunition; Czechoslovakia, which supplied 5500 machine guns and 26 million rounds of small arms ammunition; Sweden, which supplied 40 percent of China's antiaircraft guns, 90 percent of China's mortar shells, and 117,670,000 rounds of small arm ammunition. The United States and Britain supplied mostly aircraft and spare parts, while Britain also supplied 25 percent of all dynamite and gelignite.

Chinese strategy and tactics suffered from a tendency to try to cover all points evenly, leaving inadequate reserves, and to commit such forces as were available in a piecemeal fashion, inviting defeat in detail.

See also: Kuomintang Order of Battle

Chinese abroad

Many Chinese had emigrated to southeast Asia, particularly to British-controlled territories (via Hong Kong). Here they had become a financially successful middle class that remained ethnically distinct from the local population. Their success bred resentment among Asian nationalists, and Thai dictator Phibul explicitly likened them to the Jews of Europe. From a social and economic perspective, this was a reasonable analogy. Thus Hastings (2007) describes the Japanese persecution and murder of ethnic Chinese in occupied Asia, carried out partially to win favor with local nationalists, as pogroms. One of the worst of these occurred at Singapore, where it is estimated that 2000 Chinese were slaughtered following the Japanese victory.

Chinese abroad were in fact active in opposition to the Japanese. For example, Lim Bo Seng was an ethnic Chinese living in Singapore who helped organize guerrilla operations against the Japanese after the fall of that city. He had previously helped organize anti-Japanese boycotts and raise money for the Kuomintang from the ethnic Chinese community.

Ichi-go

The largest offensive attempted by the Japanese in China during the Pacific War was the Icho-go offensive of 1944, which involved up to 400,000 Japanese troops and 800,000 Chinese troops. Of these, the Japanese admitted about 30,000 casualties, while the Chinese suffered nearly 300,000 casualties.

The immediate objectives of the offensive were, first, to capture airfields in south China from which American air forces were preparing to carry out a strategic bombing campaign against southern Japan; second, to preempt any Allied counteroffensive from Yunnan; third, to establish land communications from Korea to Rangoon and bypass the increasingly tight American submarine blockade; and, fourth, to destabilize the Kuomintang government and possibly force China out of the war.

Preparations were extensive. The Japanese diverted the Yellow River and repaired its railroad bridges, moved rail stock to the main Peiping-Hankow line, expanded airfields, and equipped their forces with 100,000 horses, 800 tanks, 1500 artillery pieces, 240 aircraft, and 15,000 motor vehicles. The Japanese scraped the bottom of the barrel for this offensive: Over 80% of the strength of China Expeditionary Army was committed, and replacements were brought in from Manchuria and Korea who were so poorly equipped that some were ordered to share rifles until they could capture Chinese weapons. At the same time, the Japanese engaged in a disinformation campaign meant to create the impression that they were only opening the rail line to compensate for difficult navigation along the Yangtze River.

As a result, Chinese intelligence failed to recognize Japanese preparations for Ichi-go in spite of a tip from the French in Indochina on 27 April 1944 that this was a major effort by the Japanese. By then the Japanese offensive in the north, Ko-go, had been underway for ten days, but the Chinese evaluated this as a localized effort and dismissed the French intelligence as a piece of Japanese disinformation meant to draw Chinese troops out of Burma. There had not been major fighting in China since 1940, and Chiang did not believe the Japanese would conduct serious operations anywhere but central China. The lack of Japanese river vessels seemed to preclude a serious advance along the Yangtze to Chungking. This failure of Chinese intelligence would prove disastrous.

Ichi-go consisted of three main phases. The first, Ko-go, which commenced on 17 April 1944, was an advance across the Yellow River into Honan by 400,000 Japanese troops against about 100,000 defenders. This advance sought to clear the railroad between Chengchow and Hankow. The attacking force was spearheaded by three infantry and one tank division and supported by a large number of independent mixed brigades. Luoyang fell on 25 May 1944 and the railroad was secured by June 1944. The thirty defending divisions, led by T'ang En-po, enjoyed no support from the people of Honan, who were embittered by continuing taxation in a time of famine and were allegedly incited by Communist collaborators.

Japanese order of battle, Operation Ko-go

Kuomintang order of battle, Operation Ko-go

The second phase, To-go, was an advance into Hunan in June 1944 by a force of 360,000 Japanese spearheaded by 25 infantry divisions, a tank division, 11 independent mixed brigades, a cavalry brigade, and an air division. Transport was lavish by Japanese standards, consisting of 12,000 motor vehicles and 70,000 horses. The Chinese eventually reinforced the defending forces to a maximum strength of 800,000 troops, but were unable to hold Changsha. The Japanese then advanced to Hengyang where, to their surprise, the Chinese 10 Army held the city for 47 days. The defenders enjoyed support from Chennault's 14 Air Force but held mostly through sheer courage. Meanwhile, the advance of 23 Army from Canton was delayed by Chinese counterattacks and the army actually lost touch with its base between 3 and 14 November. However, on 10 November 1944 the Japanese took Kweilin and were threatening Kweiyang. Fear of a Japanese advance clear to Chungking prompted Wedemeyer to airlift 23,000 troops into Kweichow.

The second phase of To-go and final phase of Ichi-go was an advance into Kwangsi in August 1944 by 100,000 Japanese troops against a roughly equal number of Chinese warlord troops, though the Chinese rapidly reinforced the defenders at Tushan with five armies from 8 War Area that had previously been keeping watch on the Chinese Communists. By the end of the year, the Japanese had secured the railroad between Hengyang and Canton.

Japanese order of battle, Operation To-go

Kuomintang order of battle, Operation To-go

The Ichi-go offensive attained almost all of its objectives. The American airfields were put out of action, though by the end of 1944 this no longer mattered much, since the Americans had recaptured Clark Field in the Philippines and sealed off Formosa Strait from the east. The rail link across central and southern China was secure. Nationalist China lost the best 10% of its troops (over 500,000 men) and 25% of its remaining industrial base, as well as the manpower and agricultural resources of Honan, Hunan, and Kwangsi, putting it effectively out of the war. Again, at this point this no longer mattered much, since American forces were closing in on Japan from the south and east.

Critics of Stilwell point out that, because of his influence, the best Chinese troops had already been committed to Burma when Icho-go commenced, and Stilwell refused to leave the front in Burma to organize the defenses in central China. The most severe critics go so far as to suggest Stilwell deliberately refused to help in order to prove his point about the need for reform in the Chinese Army and perhaps to incite a coup d'état against Chiang. This was the last straw for Chiang, who demanded Stilwell's recall in the middle of the Japanese offensive.

In spite of its stunning success, Icho-go appears to have exhausted the strength of the Japanese Army in China. Army chief of staff Umezu Yoshijiro reported to the Emperor in June 1945 that the combat strength of all Japanese troops in China was equivalent to that of about eight American divisions and that munitions reserves were sufficient for only a single battle.

Operation Iceman/White Tower

Following Ichi-go, Chiang attempted to rally his forces for a counterattack against the Japanese in the spring of 1945, named ping-jen ("Iceman") or pai-t'a ("White Tower"). The objective was to retake the ports along China's southwest coast in preparation for Anglo-American landings. Alpha Plan, an agreement between China and the U.S. for the latter to equip and train 36 divisions, was making progress and would supply the needed forces. In April 1945 the first counteroffensive was launched and recaptured Kweilin and Lichou. The second phase of the counteroffensive, to recapture Canton, began in late July 1945 but was rendered moot by the use of nuclear weapons.

The surrender surprised the Chinese, who were unprepared even to arrange transportation for Japanese surrender delegations. Chiang felt compelled to ask the Japanese to stay in place and maintain order until Chinese troops could arrive. The disruption of rail lines by vast numbers of refugees meant that Kuomintang troops were delayed in reaching north China and Manchuria, which had serious implications for the postwar power struggle with the Communists.

References

Browne (1967)

Dorn (1974)
Drea (2009)

Frank (1999)

Gilbert (1989)

Hastings (2007)
Hsiung and Levine (1992)

Kehn (2008)

Liu (1956)

Sih (1977)

Wilson (1982)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007-2010 by Kent G. Budge. Index

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