With the Allies closing in, Germany and Imperial Japan launched spectacularly daring last-ditch
missions to save themselves in the dying months of World War 2.
While the German High Command launched the Ardennes Offensive, marking the beginning
of the Battle of the Bulge, Japan launched one of the most important operations in the
nation's history on the other side of the world.
The Imperial Headquarters was aware that the US Armed Air Forces were about to lay waste
to mainland Japan from air bases in China.
Resentful from years of prolonged fighting, the top Japanese commanders approved Operation
Ichi-Go, to be launched in April of 1944.
By then, China had been in a decades-long civil war, and the growing pressure from both
sides would influence the animosity towards Japan, as well as stoke a tense relationship
with America.
Japan’s hail-mary was going to try to fracture the region’s fragile alliances and unleash
chaos.
Ichi-Go would be the largest warfare operation in the history of the Japanese Army, and its
consequences would have an impact on China far beyond what was expected…
The Fractured Dragon ﻿
By 1944, China had been at war far longer than any other Allied nation in World War
2.
At the time, the nation was fractured into three regions: Nationalist China, led by Chiang
Kai-shek of the Kuomintang party; Communist China, led by Mao Zedong; and the areas occupied
by Japan.
Despite their differences, the former two had formed a fragile alliance to fight Imperial
Japan together since 1937.
However, the numerous yet poorly trained and equipped national and provincial Chinese forces
were no match for the Japanese.
Soon, plenty of foreign aid began to be flown into China, including from the Soviets, British,
and Americans.
During World War 2, the main broker between China and America was senior United States
military officer Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell.
For years, the Chinese received plenty of American support, including troop combat training
and meddling with Japanese communications lines via bombings.
United States officers viewed Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek as a reliable, pro-western
leader in charge of a democratic government whose battle strategies inflicted significant
losses on the Japanese.
However, little of that was true.
General Chiang often ordered his subordinates to conduct heroic yet futile defenses at the
expense of their lives, losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides.
In 1943, the Communist Chinese, made up mainly of field workers, were growing tired of fighting
for years on end and feeling disposable.
While the Japanese Navy was being demolished in the Pacific Theater by then, the Empire
was still determined to continue the fight against China.
After growing restless with the increasing number of Japanese troops on Chinese soil,
Chiang asked for more help.
During the infamous November of 1943 Cairo conference, the United Kingdom, China, and
United States representatives met to plan upcoming Allied operations against the Japanese,
as well as to make decisions about postwar Asia.
Other than preparing fierce Air Force attacks on Japan, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
reaffirmed his plans to kick off a strategic bombing campaign against their mutual enemy
that would be launched from China in May of 1944 using the new B-29 Superfortress bombers
for the first time.
Failed Empire
From early 1943 onwards, the United States steadily increased its Air Force power in
China.
By January of the following year, there were over 500 American aircraft in the area, more
than double the number of the Japanese Air Force in China.
Not only did the Allied aircraft interfere with Japanese ground operations, but they
also harassed the lines of communication and attacked several occupied areas.
Japan’s situation in the Pacific Theater kept worsening by the minute, and the Japanese
Air Force stationed in China struggled with replenishment.
There were also the increasingly bold air attacks by the United States Air Forces, the
constant harassing of water transport, and the destruction of communication lines.
And to make matters worse, Tokyo was aware of the planned B-29 Superfortress raids against
the home islands from within China.
It was the fall of 1943, and the Japanese needed to do something drastic.
Number One
The Japanese desperately wanted to reclaim their once-mighty power, and the nation’s
top officers soon ordered Operation Ichi-Go, which translates to Number One Operation.
The largest military offensive in Japanese history, Ichi-Go intended to capture Allied
airfields in eastern China and open an overland supply route stretching from Pusan, Korea,
all the way to Saigon, French Indochina.
Conquering such territories would open a line of communication that would reduce demand
on Imperial Japan's maritime lifeline, now badly frayed by unrelenting Allied submarine
attacks.
The operation also had secondary objectives, including the capture of the Kweilin and Liuchowhsien
airfields, countermeasures against enemy activities in southern China, and overthrowing the Chungking
Nationalist government.
From the beginning, the Imperial General Headquarters strongly pushed for complete secrecy in the
operation’s planning.
Forces On Forces
After the outbreak of the war in the Pacific in 1941, most of the well-trained and experienced
Japanese divisions stationed in China were transferred, leaving only newly organized
forces, inferior in quality, to cope with the Second Sino-Japanese War.
However, drastic changes needed to be made.
The top officials soon shifted units from their active battlefields, as well as 80 percent
of Japan's China expeditionary Army, leaving a force of 500,000 men, 15,000 vehicles, 6,000
artillery pieces, 800 tanks, and 100,000 horses for Operation Ichi-Go.
Despite having a force of over one million men, the Chinese believed that the initial
Japanese attack would be a localized feint in northern China.
As such, they withdrew 400,000 troops from the area to fight elsewhere.
The Republic of China's Nationalist Army forces were overconfident following a string of victories
while defending Changsha.
As such, Chiang Kai-shek and all his Republic of China authorities deliberately ignored
a tip from the French military stationed in Indochina warning of an impending Japanese
offensive.
The officials dismissed it as mere disinformation since only 30,000 Japanese soldiers were involved
in the first maneuvers of Operation Ichi-Go.
In addition, the battlefront between China and Japan had remained more-or-less static
since 1940, and Chiang Kai-shek believed Japan was reluctant to break the years-long stalemate.
Relentless Fighting
Operation Ichi-Go consisted of two major phases.
In the first one, the Japanese had to secure the vital Pinghan Railway located between
Beijing and Wuhan.
On the night of April 18, the main force of the Japanese 37th Division headed toward Chungmou,
opening the attack 12 days later and occupying it by the end of the month.
During the largest battle of the first phase, Operation Kogo, a massive force of 390,000
Chinese soldiers was deployed to defend the strategic position of Luoyang.
The Chinese Nationalists, while undertrained and underfunded, were willing to fight to
the end.
The Imperial Japanese Army's 3rd Tank division soon crossed the Yellow River and successfully
raked the area by May 25.
The second part of Operation Ichi-Go lasted from May to December, as the forces expanded
toward different provinces with different objectives.
The Japanese soldiers first advanced southward to Hengyang, Guilin, and Liuzhou, ultimately
getting to Changsha.
The China Expeditionary Army expected little to no opposition in these territories, but
the Chinese put up an impressive front for several days.
However, they were overturned in a matter of days.
During the defense of Hengyang, the Japanese won a Pyrrhic victory, as 17,000 Chinese soldiers
held out against more than 110,000 Japanese soldiers between June and August, inflicting
many losses.
Throughout the summer, constant rains significantly delayed repair work and turned the roads into
a sea of mud, causing severe traffic and disrupting communication lines.
As a result, the Japanese stopped receiving supplies for months and had to survive with
what little they had.
Betrayed By Their Own Kin
There was one significant and unexpected factor that contributed to the Japanese victory:
the Chinese population.
Growing tired of fighting for years, and with a thirst for revenge for the 1938 Yellow River
flood and the Chinese famine a few years before, several Communist Chinese peasants from the
Henan province rebelled against the Nationalist soldiers.
According to a firsthand account from General Jiang Dingwen of the First War Zone, the civilians
attacked his troops, taking guns, explosives, high-power mortars, radio equipment, and plenty
of munitions.
The angered villagers then surrounded his troops and took the lives of the highest-ranking
officers.
After the vicious attacks, the civilians also took all the grain, leaving the officers and
soldiers without food for months.
As told by General Jiang: [QUOTE] “In the end, the damages we suffered from the attacks
by the people were more serious than the losses from battles with the enemy."
Even when the Nationalist army ordered the Henan locals to destroy their own highways
to prevent the Japanese advance, they either refused or went back to repair the roads at
nightfall.
Near the end of the battle, the Japanese casualties amounted to almost 100,000, while the Chinese
losses surpassed half a million.
But as the fight continued, the Japanese managed to displace the United States Armed Air Forces
stationed in the Hunan province.
By then, most of the American air bases had been destroyed before they could be overrun.
As the year neared its end, the Japanese finally reached the city of Liuzhou, near the border
of Japanese-held Indochina.
The Japanese Army's China Expeditionary Army had achieved the operation’s main goals:
to open a vertical land route to French Indochina and to capture many southeast China bases.
However, their victory would come with a high price.
No Winners
Despite the success of Operation Ichi-go and giving Japan the victory it so desperately
wanted, the nation was not any closer to defeating China.
In fact, the United States could still bomb the Japanese homeland from other nearby bases.
In the seized territories, the Japanese only controlled the cities, not the surrounding
and more populated countryside.
Also, the sheer size of those lands severely thinned out the Japanese lines.
Because a large majority of Chinese soldiers were able to retreat and then return to attack,
future Japanese attempts to fight ended in failure.
As a result, Japan continued to suffer in the Pacific, and the Empire never got the
time or resources needed to achieve one massive final victory over China.
However, the damage from the Allied war effort in China was extensive and had far-reaching
consequences that still reverberate to this day.
While attempting to establish a secure overland line of communication in Indochina, the Japanese
overran all of the American forward airfields in eastern China.
The move eliminated a significant number of US tactical land-based air support in the
area during a critical phase of Allied operations against Japan, damaging Sino-American relationships
significantly.
While Mao Tse-tung's Communist Army continued to grow in strength and popularity, Chiang
Kai-shek's Nationalist Party's Army was incredibly weakened after Ichi-Go.
The significant losses from the Japanese operation gave way to a sense of social confusion, which
the Communist guerrilla leaders were able to exploit and thus gain even more influence
and control, particularly in the countryside.
Along with the rapid deterioration, the worldwide rejection, and the corruption of the Nationalist
forces, allowed the Communists to claim victory when the Chinese Civil War resumed after World
War 2.
To many experts and historians, the Chinese defeat against the Japanese in Operation Ichi-Go
may just be the reason Communism persists in the nation to this day.
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