In one of our previous videos, we discuss how China's contribution to the Allied war effort
sort of goes under the radar, making a fairly brief reference to the Chinese
Expeditionary Force and its exploits in the China-Burma-India theatre of the Second World War.
In this video, we're going to discuss the Chinese Expeditionary Force,
primarily its constituent X and Y Forces, in greater detail,
as the Burma campaign, in particular, might have gone very differently without the Chinese.
Before we get to X Force and Y Force, it's worth understanding China's position in the war. To
put it simply, it wasn't good. Since 1927, the Nationalist-Party-of-China-led Republic of China
had been at war with the Communist Party of China, and this bloody conflict was merely put on hold
when, in 1937, a full-blown war broke out between China and Japan. A little over two years later,
after hundreds of thousands Chinese had already been killed, the rest of the world fell into
chaos, following Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland. Despite being preoccupied with
the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War inside of China, the nationalist Republic of China wasn't
too keen to get put on the spit by the Japanese banzai-charging through Burma towards China's
southern underbelly. Nor was the Republic eager to forfeit the Burma Road, via which it had been
receiving vital supplies from the United States for some time. So the Chinese teamed up with the
British, who had been — in classic British style — ruling Burma since 1824. The Chinese
units sent to contest the Japanese were known collectively as the Chinese Expeditionary Force.
As a part of China and Britain's forced bromance, the Chinese Expeditionary Force — comprised of
the Fifth, Sixth, and Sixty-sixth Army — fell under the command of American General
Joseph Stilwell on the ground and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek back in China.
As you can imagine, not every Chinese soldier was too chuffed about taking orders from a non-Chinese
general, and tensions between Stilwell and Chiang only grew as the Japanese bent the
Allies over at Rangoon and chased them northwards, gutting Burma up the middle.
The Allies weren't entirely on their back foot, however. While the Chinese Expeditionary
Force weren't able to maintain a front in the heart of Burma (as Allied command had wanted),
the Chinese gave the Japanese a seriously hard time in a few battles of note.
In the Battle of Toungoo, from the 19th to the 29th of March, 1942, the 200th Division
of the Chiang's 5th Army, which had taken over the defence of the city of Toungoo from British,
held with tooth and nail against an all-out Japanese attack for ten days before withdrawing,
sustaining heavy casualties but also inflicting them in turn. We already covered the Battle of
Yenangyuang in our aforementioned video, so for those of you who haven't seen that, the general
gist of it is as follows. While defending Yenangyuang oil fields from the Japanese,
some 7,000 soldiers of the British Burma Corps were encircled by as many Japanese troops,
and when things were looking grim, over 1,100 troops of the Chinese 38th Division penetrated
the Japanese encirclement, slaying 700 Japanese troops and winning the battle.
Of course, this victory didn't amount to all that much in the grand scheme of the Burma campaign,
and the Allies were given little choice but to try and flee the country. Doing so in an orderly
fashion, however, was easier said than done. Focusing on the Chinese Expeditionary Force,
some Chinese troops went left (on Stilwell's orders) into India, while some went right
(under Chinese General Du Yuming) into the Chinese province of Yunnan. While both groups
had it rough, the troops who followed Du Yuming to China were pulped in Japanese ambushes and turned
inside-out by disease. All in all, some 23,000 Chinese troops made it to India behind Stilwell.
It's safe to say that the Allies were feeling pretty sorry for themselves
after this disastrous defeat, but they were by no means out of the running.
From the remnants of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, two major Chinese forces were fashioned.
From the troops who fled to India, there was X Force, which grew to a strength of five divisions
and some 75,000 troops. And from the troops who fled to Yunnan, China, there was Y Force,
which grew to a strength of 25 divisions and some 175,000 troops. Under Stilwell, some two
thousand American support troops and advisors fell in with X Force, and the force benefited
from American training and equipment. In the words of American General Sir William Slim, commander
of the Burma Corps, "The most important thing of all was to ensure that the American-trained
Chinese not only fought, but fought successfully. No one could do that as well as Stilwell himself.
Indeed, he was the only American who had authority to actually command the Chinese."
Conversely, Japanese General Tanaka Shinichi stated that the post-Japanese-invasion Chinese
"were far superior in both the quality of their fighting and their equipment."
Despite Stilwell's insistence to take charge of the force, Y Force, on the other hand, remained
under Chinese command while also enjoying the benefits of American advisers.
All in all, it was by far the larger of the two forces, yet not as well prepared
as its India-based counterpart. Coordinating with Y Force, which operated out of China;
Slim's Burma Corps, which operated out of India; and various Allied special operations units,
such as Merrill's Marauders, the Chindits, and the local guerrilla force the Kachin Rangers,
Stilwell prepared to take the fight back to the Japanese in North Burma. X Force and Slim's Burma
Corps would open up a front from the north and southwest; Y Force, despite Chiang's reluctance,
would open up a front from the east; and the spec ops forces would simply run amok in the jungle.
Aiming X force towards the town of Mogaung and city of Myitkyina, Stilwell intended,
in his own words, to "go in through a rat hole and dig the hole as we go." As it would turn out,
capturing Myitkyina on the 3rd of August, 1944 was arguably the most crucial victory
in the Allied offensive of North Burma, and the American general owed it all to
the brave Chinese troops with whom the Republic of China had trusted him. To quote Slim again,
he went on to write, "The capture of Myitkyina, so long delayed, marked the complete success of
the first stage of Stilwell’s campaign. [...] When all was said and done, the success of the
northern offensive was in the main owing to the [...] Chinese divisions of [X Force] — and that
was Stilwell. [...] [It] was the largest seizure of enemy-held territory that had yet occurred."
Throughout the rest of 1944 up until September 1945, the Allied forces launched a series of
offensives into Burma, working their way south and ultimately retaking Rangoon.
Chiang, however, ordered the Chinese troops of X Force to advance no further than the town of
Lashio, which was captured on the 7th of March. And by April, the Chinese troops of both X Force
and Y Force were booking it out of Burma, with all Chinese units having withdrawn to China by the 1st
of July. Allied command wasn't too happy about this, but, with the Japanese wreaking havoc
in China, and a civil war looming just behind the curtain, could they really blame him?
Unfortunately for the soldiers of X and Y Force, they were mostly eradicated by the
Communist Party of China's People's Liberation Army when the Chinese Civil War resumed,
their combat experience in Burma counting for little at the end of the day.
But, despite Chiang's reluctance to commit Chinese lives to the campaign,
it's likely Burma would have been a different story for the Allies.
So how do *you* think things would have gone down? Do *you* think X and
Y Force were crucial to the Allied cause? Please share your thoughts in the comments.