Season 15, Episode 10: The War With China, Part I
When the Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937, China was far less prepared for war than Japan. They had almost no tanks, their economy was weak and still largely non-industrial, and the prior years of warlordism and civil war had diminished their readiness for a new conflict. International observers did not need to be experts in modern warfare to see that things were about to go very badly for the beleaguered Chinese government.
For the Imperial Japanese Army, on the other hand, things were proceeding exactly as they had foreseen. While the empire of Japan had not achieved the full east Asian autarky to which they aspired, their economy was considerably healthier than China and could more easily be shifted into a supporting role for the war ahead. Factories could be repurposed to build guns, tanks, aircraft, battleships, and every other new innovation of modern warfare. To have seized Beijing, which was no longer the capital but was still one of China’s most prominent cities, in just a little over a month after this war’s inception was understood by many Japanese observers as a sign that this engagement would be short and decisive.
Japanese citizens eagerly following the events of the war as reported in their daily newspapers had multiple reasons for optimism. Until very recently, Chiang Kai-shek had been using the Republic of China’s meager military resources against domestic enemies, chiefly Chinese communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong. It is estimated that the anti-communist encirclement campaigns inflicted around 90% casualties against the communist militias who were forced to engage in a yearlong retreat known by history as the Long March. Fleeing Jiangxi Province, whose mountains had so long protected them, Mao’s branch of the Chinese Red army marched around six thousand miles between October 1934 and October 1935. Successfully escaping Chiang Kai-shek’s encirclements helped solidify Mao Zedong’s status as the primary leader of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, and many decades later the Long March would be considered by the Chinese to be a legendary strategic maneuver comparable to George Washington’s winter encampment in Valley Forge.
In 1936 a peace agreement was forged between the KMT and the CCP, and the Second United Front was formed in advance of Japan’s incursion into China. A few days after Beijing had fallen to Japanese troops, however, there would be an opportunity for Japan to seize Shanghai.
Because of the numerous foreign concessions it contained, Shanghai was often seen as neutral ground even though it was a Chinese city. You may recall that we discussed in episode 5, “The League of Blood,” how fighting erupted in 1932 between Japanese and Chinese troops in Shanghai, and how the Chinese army had been driven away. However, the conclusion of that particular drama was to preserve Shanghai’s neutrality and reinforce the property rights of its many foreign residents. This time, China would not be so lucky.
The conflict began when two Japanese sailors, one a lieutenant, were found dead along with the body of a Chinese soldier, all of them riddled with bullets. Accounts vary regarding what led to this killing but suffice to say Japan demanded that Chinese troops be withdrawn from the city, a demand which was denied. A few days later, some Japanese and Chinese troops exchanged small arms fire and by the afternoon of August 13, 1937, Japanese troops were advancing on various strategic centers throughout the city. They were opposed by the 88th division of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, or NRA, who had been trained by German officers and put up a stiff resistance.
Chiang Kai-shek committed significant troop numbers to the defense of Shanghai, hoping to prevent its seizure and perhaps even turn the tide of war. This was a gamble; if he could turn the Japanese back then a peace settlement might be forthcoming. If the Japanese triumphed, however, he risked losing some of his best-trained troops and would have a much more difficult time dislodging the Japanese later. Ultimately, he lost this gamble. The Battle of Shanghai raged for more than three months from mid-August to late November and although the battle was hard-fought, the Japanese triumphed. In order to win this battle, the Japanese troops had resorted to gas attacks, and although they accused the Chinese of also deploying chemical weapons, it’s unclear who used them first or whether the Chinese actually used them at all.
The loss of Shanghai, which had resulted in between two hundred and three hundred thousand Chinese casualties, both military and civilian, ensured that the war would continue. Shortly after the Battle of Shanghai began, the Imperial Japanese Navy had been engaging in a bombing campaign against Nanjing, which had been made the new capital after Chiang Kai-shek reunited the country under the KMT. This resulted in some evacuation from the city, which reduced the population of the city from over one million residents to just under five hundred thousand. As Chinese troops were pushed out of Shanghai toward the end of November, the survivors trickled gradually into Nanjing where they hoped to regroup. The chaotic nature of their withdrawal, however, gave the Japanese an opening to advance on the capital, where Chiang Kai-shek personally waited to marshal a defense.
Over the course of the Battle of Shanghai, the Battle of Taiyuan began and ended. This massive Japanese offensive involved nearly one hundred fifty thousand troops and its objective was the capture of Taiyuan, the capital city which oversaw Shanxi Province. This incursion was resisted fiercely by the KMT and CCP, whose armies now worked together as the Second United Front and managed to stage an enormous and successful ambush against the Kwantung Army’s fifth division. The initial strike, which was launched in a particularly hazardous mountain pass, caused significant casualties among Japanese forces, who quickly abandoned their supplies in retreat, which the Chinese eagerly celebrated over. However, this victory was short-lived. Reinforcements arrived and by November 9, after a ruthless campaign of shelling, bombing, and aircraft-strafing, Japanese troops had taken Taiyuan. Japanese High Command believed that taking control of Shanxi Province would provide future access to nearby coal fields with which they could continue pursuing this war and those beyond. However, The Chinese defenders had managed to inflict greater casualties than expected and the CCP continued engaging in guerrilla tactics against Japanese occupiers, a skill which their many years fighting against the KMT had helped perfect. It was one thing to take Shanxi; it would be quite another thing to hold it long-term while also trying to support future offensives.
As Chinese troops fled from Shanghai, they engaged in a large-scale scorched earth campaign in an attempt to deny the Japanese army access to local supplies like food and vehicles while also doing their best to block roads and sabotage the enemy’s advance. They fell back to Nanjing, where they united with their fellow defenders and the local garrison. Around 80,000 Chinese troops fortified a forward position and dug in while they waited for the Japanese to arrive.
In the five weeks it took for the Imperial Japanese Army to reach Nanjing, there was some debate among Chinese high command over whether the new capital should be defended or whether they might be better off abandoning the city and waiting for a more advantageous time to strike on their own terms. Chiang Kai-shek championed defending the city, reasoning that it would be easier to get help from those many nations which had previously guaranteed Chinese sovereignty if they could prove themselves on the battlefield through successful defense. Many of his high-ranking generals argued against this, reasoning that their armed forces needed more time to recover from the Battle of Shanghai, as well as pointing out that the terrain around the city did not have many natural defenses and that the landscape favored the attackers. Ultimately, Chiang Kai-shek convinced a few of his generals to support his plan, though later it would be very unclear to the actual defenders whether they were making a last stand or just delaying the invaders.
The Japanese attack began with aerial bombing which was followed up by dogfighting courtesy of the Republic of China Air Force, whose pilots displayed great skill in aerial combat in spite of being frequently outnumbered. In late November, after nearly a month of running battles between those retreating and those advancing, the Imperial Japanese Army arrived at the first of the outer defenses of Nanjing. They quickly took some of the outlying cities, which had also been fortified and were defended by desperate Chinese troops. Both of those cities were looted and their civilians subjected to cruel treatment at the hands of Japanese soldiers including torture, rape, and murder.
Chinese POWs fared even worse than the civilians they had been attempting to defend, as the Imperial Japanese Army adopted a policy of summary execution for prisoners. Even by the standards of the time, these actions were highly illegal and constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity. Keeping the army aligned with international law, however, was not a priority for the Japanese high command and even the emperor himself believed that international law, as a concept, was irrelevant.
In early December, the Imperial Japanese Army was closing in on Nanjing proper as they continued systematically seizing strategic fortifications around the city. On December 9, they were able to approach the Fukuo Line, which was the last line of armed defense of the walled city. The Japanese utilized the same tactics which had worked against the outlying towns and which was something of a hallmark of fighting from the first world war: strike the enemy’s defenses with heavy artillery and follow up with rapid infantry charges. However, the Fukuo Line held strong throughout the first day of fighting and the Chinese even managed to set fire to a flour mill outside the city which the Japanese had been using as an observation post while guerrilla fighters attacked the invaders’ communication by killing couriers behind their lines.
After relentless attacks, counterattacks, and various pincer maneuvers executed by both sides of the engagement, the Fukuo Line was gradually abandoned by the Chinese defenders who fled to safety behind Nanjing’s walls. Those walls were breached by artillery fire and in spite of the ferocious defense offered by the remaining Chinese soldiers, the city was brought under total Japanese control on December 13, 1937. The day before, however, an incident occurred which threatened to bring another world power to China’s defense.
Traveling along the vast Yangtze River, a river gunboat named the USS Panay was twenty-eight miles, or forty-five kilometers, away from Nanjing. Its mission was two-fold: evacuate US citizens, including the US embassy staff, from Nanjing and protect three oil tankers which belonged to the Standard Oil Company. As part of the settlement of the second Opium War, various foreign powers were allowed to patrol the Yangtze River in order to protect the lives and property of their citizens.
On December 12, the Japanese Naval Air Service dispatched several bombers and other aerial craft to investigate reports of Chinese troops fleeing on large boats in the Yangtze. Upon spotting the USS Panay as well as the three oil tankers, they proceeded to drop bombs and torpedoes and flew several strafing runs over the course of twenty minutes.
Later, they would claim that this attack had been a mistake due to the pilots being unable to identify the American flags on the ships, but there is good reason to call malarky on that claim. The USS Panay was very clearly marked with several large US flags, some of which had been painted on her hull, and there happened to be a film crew on board whose footage captured the attack. In that footage, the faces of the pilots can be clearly seen, which means they were absolutely close enough to discern the flags of the ships they were mercilessly attacking. The USS Panay returned fire, but soon became too damaged to defend and was evacuated onto lifeboats. Said lifeboats were also strafed by Japanese fighter planes. The three oil tankers were also destroyed.
Three US citizens were killed during the attack on the USS Panay, and forty-eight were wounded. There was some outrage in the US press when the incident was reported, but the American public was still very much opposed to starting a war with Japan. President Roosevelt debated with his cabinet over the appropriate response and ultimately settled for a two-fold demand: an apology and compensation. The imperial government offered a solemn apology and agreed to pay 2.2 million dollars in compensation, which satisfied the American press and political establishment for the moment.
Although Chiang Kai-shek and most of his high command had managed to evacuate the city before its fall to Japanese troops, most of its remaining civilian population was not so fortunate. Operations in Nanjing were under the command of Prince Yasuhiko, one of the emperor’s brothers, because the usual commander General Matsui had fallen ill. Prince Yasuhiko issued the order that all captives should be killed, which some historians claim created the impetus for what became known as the Nanjing Massacre. However, there is plenty of blame to go around and the horrors in Nanjing that followed its capture were the work of many people, not a few bad apples.
The horrors included mass murder, which was often indiscriminate and in some cases seems to have been incorporated into Japanese soldiers’ routines as though it was a favorite pastime. Soldiers’ diaries from the time proudly boast of the wanton slaughter, some bragging about killing the elderly as well as women and children and seemingly doing so for fun. For six weeks the killings continued as the Imperial Japanese Army found new creative ways to commit mass murder. None of this was kept secret either; foreign war correspondents at the time wrote extensive accounts of massed piles of corpses as well as the horrific acts like beheading and disembowelment which they seemed to be witnessing every day.
The casualties of the Nanjing Massacre probably numbered between one hundred and two hundred thousand, though some estimates go as high as three. In addition to the residents of the city, Chinese people from the surrounding rural countryside were also abducted and killed without regard to age, sex, or even loyalty to the Republic of China. Unfortunately, this was far from an isolated incident and we will continue discussing documented war crimes as they arise. That being said, there are a lot and I am fully willing to admit that I’ll probably miss one or two along the way.
Although the worst atrocities ended around late January, small-scale instances of casual murder, rape, and other war crimes would continue throughout the occupation period. General Matsui, when he had recovered from his illness and reassumed his command, called the Nanjing Massacre a terrible disgrace and scolded his officers with tears in his eyes, telling them they had ruined Japan’s reputation by engaging in this brutality. They responded by laughing in his face.
While the horrors were still well underway in Nanjing on January 10, the Imperial Japanese Navy was in the process of retaking the coastal port city of Qingdao, which you may recall they had previously taken by force from the Germans during the first world war. Having long nursed a bitter grudge over being forced to return the city to China’s possession by the other imperial powers in 1922, recovering Qingdao would prove much easier than their previous effort. Japanese planes flew over the city and dropped leaflets which gave instructions, in many languages, for the residents. Foreign residents were told to gather at a church and native Chinese assured that they would not be harmed if they did not resist. There was no military presence in Qingdao, nor was there sufficient resources or will to fight back. The navy landed and took possession of the city, raising the rising sun flag overhead.
Meanwhile, north of Nanjing but south of Beijing, 600,000 Chinese troops were regrouping in the area around Xuzhou, which became the next target for the Imperial Japanese Army. From early February to early May the area was full of near-constant fighting which for quite some time did not seem to favor either side. Japanese troops would take an area only to be driven out within a day by Chinese counterattack, then the Chinese would mass an offensive and take some Japanese-controlled territory only to be similarly repulsed. Japanese High Command opted to plan a massive pincer maneuver which would encircle and destroy the Chinese defenders. The defenders managed to evacuate the area and escape from the encirclement, but this did mean abandoning the city of Xuzhou, which was taken thereafter. Its population was subjected to similar treatment to the residents of Nanjing. The fleeing Chinese army broke the levees that helped contain the massive Yellow River, causing a flood which they hoped would help cover their retreat and prevent the Japanese from following soon after. The tactical effectiveness of this intentional flood is still debated, but it definitely resulted in more casualties of Chinese civilians and massive property damage across Jiangsu Province.
Early 1938 was a terrible time for the Republic of China, as it was also when the Germans decided to pull up stakes and remove the assistance they had been providing. Adding insult to injury, about a month later Germany extended diplomatic recognition to Manchukuo. The Chinese forces which retreated from Xuzhou after suffering upwards of two hundred thousand killed and wounded, regrouped at Wuhan, an inland city where the KMT and CCP forces prepared to make their next stand against the Japanese invasion.
In May of 1938, a daring and unprecedented mission was executed by the Republic of China Air Force. Initially the plan was for a long-range bombing raid which targeted a large naval base in Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu. However, it seemed unlikely that this attack would succeed at anything more than killing a few people and damaging some easily-replaced equipment. The focus then shifted as the planners asked whether dropping something besides explosives on Japan might be more sensible.
Captain Hsu Huan-sheng and Lieutenant Tong Yanbo each flew a B-10 Bomber from Wuhan to Nagasaki. When they arrived at Kyushu, they released their payload: propaganda leaflets which testified to the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanjing and all around China. They released these flyers over several large cities on the island and then returned safely to Wuhan, where their successful mission was celebrated. The hope was that the Japanese people would see for themselves the horrors being committed on their behalf and would perhaps muster the political will to stop their military from continuing this vicious, destructive conflict.
Of course, as we now know, this did not fully work out. Still, that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying. The Imperial Japanese Army continued its advance in mainland China, arriving in the area around Wuhan on June 11 and commencing with yet another brutal siege. Next time, we will discuss the battle of Wuhan as we continue our examination of the Second Sino-Japanese War.