China Theater - the most under-reported WWII front
The China Theater where over 20 million lives (including more than 2 million troops) were lost and over 10 million troops fought is significantly under-reported in most literature on World Ward II due to the following reasons:
- The literature produced outside China usually favors the authors' own countries. For example, World War II Day By Day published in UK covers almost every war related incident in UK while touching slightly on some major events in China or Soviet Union.
- The Chinese Communist Party, the victor of the Chinese civil war that took place immediately after WWII, writes its own version of history in its favor. Since it played a minor role in the Sino-Japanese war compared with the Chinese Nationalist Party, and the wartime leader of China, Chiang Kai-shek, was its #1 enemy, CCP deliberately omits or barely touches the major battles in its version of history.
Here are some author's notes in his effort to seek the truth about the China Theater. Wikipedia's article Second Sino-Japanese War is very good but it could be expanded significantly with more details.
- The National Revolution Army (NRA) fought 22 campaigns involving more than 100,000 troops each, 1117 major battles involving more than 10,000 troops each and 28931 other battles against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA).
- More than 250 generals, more than 17,000 other officers and more than 3 million solders gave their lives in defending their motherland.
- More than 10 million refugees fled from the Japanese occupied areas to the southwest rare area mainly on foot traveling thousands of kilometers.
- The brutality of Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army, makes the German Nazi's gas chamber humane. For example, they slowly poisoned a mother and her daughter to death in order to see how poisoning gas works. They conducted regular vivisection without anesthesia to get the so called "best data". The commander of Unit 731, Shiro Ishii, was protected from war crime trial and put on American payroll by General McArthur.
- Battle of Shanghai involved about 1 million troops with 100, 000 to 200,000 Chinese casualties and 70,000 Japanese casualties.
- The defense of Nanjing was carried out by 70,000 exhausted Chinese troops against almost 300,000 fanatic Japanese troops who slaughtered 300,000 civilians in Nanjing.
- The first Chinese victory of a campaign is the Battle of Tai'erzhuang in March 1938. The Japanese troops were completed defeated with 16,000 casualties which resulted in a Japanese cabinet crisis and high morale of the Chinese.
- The Battle of Wanjialing in October 1938 essentially wiped out the 106th division of the Imperial Japanese Army and incurred huge loss on its 101th division and 27th division with total Japanese casualties exceeding 20,000.
- The Battle of Wuhan (Jun - Oct 1938), which includes the Battle of Wanjialing, drew so many resources of Japan that at the end of the battle Japan had only one division left on its home island. Japan allocated 350,000 troops for this battle while bringing 400,000 troops from its homeland to China to assist. China deployed 1.1 million troops to fight the Japanese.
- In the Battle of Suixian-Zaoyang in May 1938, 220,000 Chinese troops fought 113,000 Japanese troops. Their casualties are 28,000 and 21,000 respectively. In the end the Chinese troops retook the cities that were taken by the Japanese at the beginning of the campaign.
- The first Battle of Changsha (Sept. to Oct. 1939) ended with the Japanese defeat and complete retreat with casualties of over 20,000.
- The second Battle of Changsha (Sept. to Oct. 1941) ended with another complete defeat of the Imperial Japanese Army with over 40,000 casualties.
- The third Battle of Changsha (Dec. 1941 to Jan. 1942) ended with even bigger defeat of the Imperial Japanese Army with casualties close to 60,000.
- The Battle of Mt. Zhongtiao from May to June 1941 was the worst performance of the Chinese troops. Chinese troops suffered 42,000 casualties and 35,000 captured in exchange for only 4,000 casualties of their enemy. The other similar case is the Battle of Zaoyang-Yichang where they suffered casualties of over 100,000 in exchange for 7,000 casualties of their enemy.
- The US did not completely stop exporting oil, machine, military materials to Japan until August 1940.
- After China lost all the coastal ports where it used to get badly needed aid, the British government, per the request of Japan, closed the only route that China had to receive foreign goods - Yunnan-Burma road for 3 months in 1940.
- Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed in 1941 resulting in the stop of USSR's aid to China when the Chinese people needed foreign assistance most.
- China lost essentially all land routes to foreign supply in 1942. China was among the 4 major allies - US, UK, USSR and China. The US suggested opening an air route to China through Alaska and Siberia, but USSR rejected it. Then the US suggested a land route from Iran, through USSR, to China. The USSR agreed to consider it under the condition that for every ton of transported supply, China must pay a ton of agriculture product as the toll. The ratio of the US aid to Europe and China was 100:1.7 in 1941.
- The US aid to the UK is $29 billion, to the USSR is $9 billion, and to China is $0.86 billion. The aid to China is unique because the aided supply was sent to General Stiwell who retained most of it in India to support his preparation to take Burma.
- The British declined the Chinese offer of sending troops to fight along with them in 1941. They accepted the offer in January 1942 when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Burma, but the British did not provide any logistic assistance to the Chinese army which soldiers were eating leaves sometimes.
- Almost 7,000 British soldiers, and 500 prisoners and civilians were encircled by the Japanese 33rd Division at Yenangyaung on April 16, 1942 . The 113th Regiment of the Chinese Expeditionary Force's New 38th Division led by General Sun Li-jen attacked and defeated the encircling Japanese troops rescuing the encircled British troops and civilians on April 19, 1942. The British troops and civilians were so happy and grateful to their rescuers that they were hugging the Chinese troops in tears. This is historically called Battle of Yenangyaung. Here is how the British book World War II Day by Day summarizes this battle: "Burma: The Chinese Expeditionary Force holds Twingon, near Yenangyaung, enabling over 7,000 Allied troops to escape the Japanese."
- After the defeat at the first Battle of Changsha, the Japanese concentrated on bombing the rear area. In the last two months of 1939, there were more than 2600 raids with 14,000 missions dropping 60,000 bombs killing 28,000 and wounded 31,000 civilians.
- The Yellow River flood in 1938 created by NRA opening a dike gained 3 months of precious time to avoid the annihilation of a large army group and to strengthen the defense of Wuhan.
- Mao devised the guideline for his Chinese Communist Party during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War as following: 10% effort to fight the Japanese, 20% effort to deal with the Nationalists that were fighting the Japanese under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek and 70% effort to expand CCP's force. The CCP's expansion was extraordinarily successful.
- The 1st Sino-Japanese War ended in 1894 with the defeat of China.
- Contrary to the common belief - the 2nd Sino-Japanese War started on 1937-07-07, it actually started at 4:50 1937-07-08.
- The 29th Army was so much loved after their fierce fight against the Japanese and heavy loss in the first battle of the war that the people in Beijing offer their service, drink and food for free to its soldiers.
- There were 108 colleges before the war of which 52 were moved to the rear area, 17 were closed, 25 were continued in the foreign leased areas and 14 were in the rear area originally.