The Battle of West Hunan, also known as the Battle of Xuefeng Mountains and the Zhijiang
Campaign, was the Japanese invasion of west Hunan and the subsequent Allied counterattack
that occurred between 6 April and 7 June 1945, during the last months of the Second Sino-Japanese
War.
Japanese strategic aims for this campaign were to seize Chinese airfields and secure
railroads in West Hunan, and to achieve a decisive victory that their depleted land
forces needed.
This campaign, if successful, would also allow Japan to attack Sichuan and eventually the
Chinese war time capital Chongqing.
Although the Japanese were able to make initial headways, Chinese forces with air support
from the Americans were able to turn the tide and forced the Japanese into a rout, recovering
a substantial amount of lost ground.
This was the last major Japanese offensive, and the last of 22 major battles during the
war to involve more than 100,000 troops.
Concurrently, the Chinese managed to repel a Japanese offensive in Henan and Hubei and
launched a successful attack on Japanese forces in Guangxi, turning the course of the war
sharply in China's favor even as they prepared to launch a full-scale counterattack across
South China.
== Background == By April 1945, China had already been at war
with Japan for more than seven years.
Both nations were exhausted by years of battles, bombings and blockades.
From 1941-1943, both sides maintained a "dynamic equilibrium", where field engagements were
often numerous, involved large numbers of troops and produced high casualty counts,
but the results of which were mostly indecisive.
Operation Ichi-Go in 1944 changed the status quo, as Japanese forces were able to break
through the inadequate Chinese defenses and occupy most of Henan, Hunan and Guangxi, connecting
Japanese-held areas from north to south in a continuous front.
However, the Japanese victory resulted in very little actual benefit for them: the operation
drained Japanese manpower and a weakened Japanese army had to defend a longer front with more
partisan activity in occupied areas.
The opening up of north-south railway connections did little to improve Japanese logistics,
for only one train ran from Guangzhou to Wuhan in April 1945, and due to fuel shortages the
primary mode of transportation for Japanese troops was on foot.
On the other hand, although the Chinese government in Chongqing had lost land access to their
remaining forces in Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi with their defeat in Ichi-Go, Chinese fortunes
in the war improved with the retaking of northern Burma by Allied and Chinese forces.
On 4 February 1945, the first convoy of trucks reached Kunming from the British railhead
in Ledo, India, over the newly completed Stilwell Road and the northern section of
the Burma Road; using this road link, over 50,000 tonnes of petroleum started to arrive
into China every month.
By April 1945, enough materiel had become available to the Chinese army to equip 35
divisions with American equipment.
A major counter offensive was planned.
== Order of battle ==
=== China === Commander-in-Chief: He Yingqin3rd Front Army:
Tang Enbo27th Army Group: Li Yutang26th Corps: Ting Chih-pan41st Division: Tung Gee-Tao
4th Division: Chiang Hsiu-jen94th Corps: Mu Ting-fang5th Division: Li Tse-fen
43rd Division: Li Shih-lin 121st Division: Ch Ching-minNew 6th Corps:
Liao Yao-hsiang14th Division: Lung Tien-wu New 22nd Division: Li Tao4th Front Army: Wang
Yao-wu18th Corps: Hu Lien11th Division: Yang Po-tao
18th Division: Chin Tao-shan 118th Division: Tai Pu73rd Corps: Han Chun15th
Division: Liang Chi-lu 77th Division: Tang Sheng-hai
193rd Division: Hsiao Chuang-kuang74th Corps: Shih Chung-cheng51st Division: Chao Chih-tao
57th Division: Li Yen 58th Division: Tsai Jen-chieh100th Corps:
Li Tien-hsia19th Division: Yang Yin 63rd Division: Hsu Chih-hsiu
13th Division: Chin Li-san 6th Provincial Division: Chao Chi-ping
assorted independent units10th Army Group; Wang Ching-chiu39th Corps; Liu Shang-chih
(uncommitted)51st Division; Shih Hun-hsi92nd Corps; Hou Ching-ju21st Division; Li Tse-fen
142nd Division; Li Chun-ling (uncommitted)Air Support (400 aircraft)Chinese Air Force1st
Air Group 2nd Air Group
3rd Air Group 5th Air GroupU.S. Air Force14th Air ForceSources{{rp|458}
=== Japan === 20th Army: Ichirō Banzai 板西一良
34th Division: Takeo Ban 伴健雄 47th Division: Hiroshi Watanabe 渡辺洋
68th Division: Mikio Tsutsumi 堤三樹男 116th Division: Ginnosuke Uchida 内田銀之助
Elements of the 64th Division 86th Independent Mixed BrigadeSources
== Japanese strategic objectives == For this campaign, the Imperial Japanese had
three main objectives.
The first of which was to neutralize the Chinese airfield at Zhijiang, whose complement of
USAAF and ROCAF was ensuring Allied air superiority in the region and a base for U.S. bombers,
either by physically reaching the airfield, located only 435 km (270 mi) from Chongqing,
and securing it, or simply by pressing forward close enough to the airfield to force the
Chinese to destroy the installation. Their second objective was to secure their
control of the Hunan-Guangxi and Guangzhou-Hankou railways.
A third objective was to preemptively disrupt the planned Chinese offensive in the region.
== Preparations for battle == By this point of the war, Japan was losing
the battle in Burma and facing constant attacks from Chinese forces in the country side.
Spare troops for this campaign were limited.
The Japanese army began preparations for the battle in March 1945, constructing two highways
with forced Chinese labor: the Heng-Shao Highway ran from Hengyang in a northwest direction
to Shaoyang, a Japanese-controlled city in central Hunan a mere 100 km (62 mi) from Zhijiang;
and the Tan-Shao Highway from Xiangtan, southwest to Shaoyang.
Supplies and equipment were stockpiled near Shaoyang, to be the headquarters of the Japanese
20th Corps, led by Ichiro Banzai.
Under it were the Japanese 34th, 47th, 64th, 68th and 116th Divisions, as well as the 86th
Independent Brigade, massing at various locations across Hunan, for a total of 80,000 men by
early April.In response, the Chinese National Military Council dispatched the 4th Front
Army and the 10th and 27th Army Groups with He Yingqin as commander-in-chief.
At the same time, it airlifted the entire New 6th Corps, an American-equipped corps
and veterans of the Burma Expeditionary Force, from Kunming to Zhijiang.
Chinese forces totaled 110,000 men in 20 divisions.
They were supported by about 400 aircraft from the CAF 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th Air Groups
and the USAAF 14th Air Force.
== Battle == Japanese forces took over the outskirts of
Hunan with little resistance.
However, they didn't realize that the Chinese forces were well prepared for the Japanese
assault.
The mountainous terrain was ideal for ambushes and mortar bombardment on approaching Japanese
forces in the lower grounds.
The Chinese also had air superiority in this battle.
After some defeats Japan decided to retreat.
However, Chinese forces gave chase and inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese.
The local Chinese guerrilla forces then attacked the Japanese positions.
Japan ended up losing a large amount of territory that they once occupied.
== Casualties == After the battle, the Japanese first announced
that they only had 11,000 casualties (5,000 KIA).
They later revised the figures to include an additional 15,000 casualties "due to diseases".
Finally, they admitted to a casualty figure of 27,000.
On the other hand, the Chinese claimed to have inflicted on the Japanese 36,358 casualties,
including 12,498 KIA.
The Chinese sustained (Chinese figures) 20,660 casualties with 7,817 KIA, of which there
were 823 officers.
== References ==