When did the Second World War really begin? If you ask an American, they might say the
Pearl Harbour attack on December 7th, 1941. A proud Russian might say the war started
when Germany invaded the USSR on June 22nd, 1941. A Pole, upset at being forgotten again,
would then declare that the war *really* began on September 1st, 1939.
But who’s right? We reckon none of them. Because by the time the Germans marched into Poland,
a war in Asia had already been raging for two years,
claiming millions of lives. In this video, we tell the story of World War Two’s bloody prelude
and the two years of fighting that set the tone for the entire Pacific theatre.
When did the Second World War really begin? If you ask an American,
they might say the Pearl Harbour attack on December 7th, 1941. A proud Russian might say the
war started when Germany invaded the USSR on June 22nd, 1941. A Pole,
upset at being forgotten again, would then declare that the war really began on September 1st, 1939.
But who’s right? We reckon none of them. Because by the time the Germans marched
into Poland, a war in Asia had already been raging for two years, claiming millions of lives. In this
video, we tell the story of World War Two’s bloody prelude and the two years of fighting
that set the tone for the entire Pacific theatre. But across the Yongding River in Wanping Fortress,
all the Chinese soldiers could see was a load of well-armed Japanese troops doing manoeuvres.
When Private Kikujiro’s commander noticed he was missing, he demanded the Japanese army be allowed
over the river into the Chinese fortress to search for him. The Chinese garrison flatly denied the
demand. Infuriated, the Japanese commander decided to force his way in with a company of infantry.
By the time Private Kikujiro returned from his ill-timed break,
Japanese and Chinese troops were shooting at each other. This engagement became known as
the Marco-Polo Bridge Incident. But these were also the first shots fired in the Battle of
Beiping-Tianjin, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and by extension, World War Two.
Between 1937 and 1939, China suffered 1.03 million military casualties — amounting to half
of its 1937 strength. Civilians losses were inordinately higher,
with some estimates reaching 6.25 million deaths. The invading Japanese also suffered
220,000 military casualties during the first two years of the war.
To put that in context, the most costly campaign in Europe before Barbarossa was the Battle of
France. 135,000 French and German soldiers were killed in total. Battles raging across
China killed *ten times* as many soldiers, not to mention the appalling numbers of civilian deaths.
Many of these unfortunate casualties came from a battle known as "Stalingrad on the
Yangtze," or more conventionally, the Battle of Shanghai. A little over a
month after Private Kikujiro’s dump started a war, the Japanese army attacked Shanghai.
Their propagandists claimed that the ancient port-city could be captured by the racially
superior Japanese in three days, and the rest of China in three months. In reality, the tenacious
Chinese defended the city tooth-and-nail for three months and 13 days. The battle
was fought in the most brutal way possible — urban, close-quarters, and house-to-house.
China’s Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek knew he couldn’t hope to win against the Japanese
without international support, so he decided to turn the city’s defence into a statement.
He wanted the world to see that the Japanese advance could be stopped
and that even a small number of defenders could inflict devastating casualties.
Battered Chinese units held out in pockets throughout besieged
Shanghai. Their orders from high command were simple, yet suicidal: defend to the death.
The Sihang Warehouse was one position Chinese forces holed up in to make their last stand.
The defence of the warehouse only lasted a week, but in that time 452 Chinese defenders
held off 20,000 soldiers of the Japanese 3rd Division. The Japanese threw wave after
wave of infantrymen and tankettes at the Chinese, but they were rebuffed each time.
During the height of the battle, the Japanese brought a siege ladder to scale the warehouse’s
walls. Unfortunately for the attackers, they scaled the ladder and ran right into Colonel
Xie Jinyuan, the Chinese commander. Not one to stand back and let his men do the dirty work,
Xie promptly strangled a Japanese soldier with one hand,
grabbed the man’s rifle with the other, and shot a second soldier off the siege ladder with it.
This guy was NOT messing around, and neither were his men. By the end of the battle,
the Chinese soldiers had killed over 200 Japanese and lost only ten of their own.
The defence of Sihang Warehouse was immortalised as the "Last stand of the 800 heroes" by Chinese
propagandists. But last-ditch defences like this one were happening right across besieged Shanghai.
Endless pummelling from the air and sea eventually forced the lightly-armed Chinese to retreat,
but the price of this Japanese victory had been high. 20,000 crack soldiers were dead,
and a few thousand more were too badly wounded to ever return to the fight.
Chiang had made a statement to the world: China was committed to fighting to the bitter end.
While it was contained within Chinese territory, the war had global dimensions.
High above the hand-to-hand fighting on the ground, pilots from the Soviet Union and the
United States flew alongside Chinese aviators in German-made Heinkels and Messerschmitts.
These three great industrial nations managed to put their
differences aside to fight together against the Japanese, in support of Nationalist China.
Individuals in the United States launched fundraising campaigns to help out the Chinese
forces and attempted to lobby the US government to cut ties with Japan. A hoard of Chinese-American
mechanics and drivers even crossed the Pacific to set up a military logistics network.
Until 1938, Germany was training and equipping the cream of China’s forces. These became the core
of China’s military and made up the majority of the men who fought to defend Shanghai.
When the city was eventually lost, so were the best-trained Chinese soldiers,
along with their German-made gear.
The loss of these crack troops was keenly felt, and by late
1938, China had not only lost Shanghai but the capital Nanjing and most other major cities
as well. The battle lines were drawn, and they wouldn’t change until 1944.
But in the meantime, the Allied commanders knew they absolutely *had* to keep China in the fight.
Why? Because from 1937 to 1945 Japan never had more than 20% of its army
*outside* of China. During the entire Pacific campaign,
the Allies never faced more than one-fifth of the Japanese Army’s total strength. Just
imagine how the war may have gone if China hadn’t tied down the bulk of Japanese forces.
THAT was the story of the Second World War’s beginnings — right back in 1937. But
what do YOU think? How different do YOU think things would be if there were five times as
many Japanese troops in the Pacific? Do YOU reckon we’re right in saying it started in ‘37?
Or have YOU got another date that makes more sense? Let us know in the comments!