Operation Ichi-gō

Operation Ichi-gō

Part of: Second Sino-Japanese War

The movements of Japanese troops during Operation Ichi-gō

date	April 19 to December 11, 1944
place	Chinese republic
Casus Belli	Establishment of a land link between the Japanese-occupied territories in northern China and Indochina and Burma
output	Japanese victory
Territorial changes	Guangxi and large parts of southern China fall to Japan

Parties to the conflict
Japan	China United States
Commander
Hata Shunroku Okamura Yasuji Sugiyama Hajime	Tang Enbo Xue Yue Claire Lee Chennault ( USAAF )
Troop strength
about 400,000 soldiers of the Kwantung Army 800 tanks 670 aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force	about 900,000 soldiers of the NRA 200 tanks 300 aircraft of the 14th Air Force
losses
around 100,000 dead and 80 aircraft wounded	around 400,000 dead and wounded around 80,000 prisoners 190 aircraft
about 400,000 civilians

Overview - Pacific War

The operation Ichi-go ( jap. 一号作戦 , sakusen Ichi-go , dt, operation # 1 ';.. Chinese  豫湘桂會戰  /  豫湘桂会战 , Pinyin Yù Xiang GUI Huizhan  - "battle of Henan - Hunan - Guangxi ”) was a large-scale operation by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War . The Japanese units in southern China, which had not undertaken any major operation against the Chinese troops since 1942, went on the offensive in mid-April 1944, encircling large parts of the Chinese army in the three southern provinces of Guangxi, Hunan and Henan within a few months destroyed. The Japanese troops had captured several important cities by December 1944, when the advance of the armies involved came to a halt in front of the heavily defended city of Nanning . The Imperial Headquarters therefore considered the tactical objectives of the operation to have largely been achieved. In the long term, the operation proved to be almost worthless, as despite the capture of the important southern China airfields from where the American B-29 bombers flew air strikes against Japan, the bombing of mainland Japan by the recently captured Marianas continued. The additional direct land connection between the Japanese-occupied areas in northeast China and those in Indochina and Burma also proved to be significantly less effective than planned due to extensive partisan activity.

Objectives of the operation

A Japanese tank and several trucks during Operation Ichi-gō

In early 1944, the plan of General Umezu Yoshijirō , the commander of the Kwantung Army , to start a large-scale offensive in southern China to open access to Burma , was approved by the Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo for implementation. General Umezu, who at the time as general of the Kwantung Army was also commander in chief of all armed forces in Northern China and was a member of the General Staff of the Imperial Army, set the goals of the planned offensive in February 1944 together with the staff of the Kwantung Army and the Regional Army of Northern China firmly. In March, the operations staff was assembled at the Kwantung Army's headquarters in Xinjing ; among its members were General Ōkido Sanji , Marshal Sugiyama Hajime , General Hata Shunroku and General Okamura Yasuji . The goal of Operation Ichi-gō was set at a staff meeting that the destruction of the three most important Chinese associations in the three provinces of southern China should be classified as a priority goal . Furthermore, the smaller Chinese units should be encircled and destroyed, the most important cities of these three southern provinces secured, and a supply and reinforcement route to northern Burma should be created. This enabled the Japanese troops of the Burma Regional Army fighting in northern Burma to be supplied and, if necessary, evacuated via southern China. The troops who were to take part in this offensive were the 3rd Panzer Division , which belonged to the Kwantung Army and was equipped with 800 Ha-Go and Chi-Ha tanks, and the 6th , 11th and 12th Armies . These troops were made up of 17 divisions with a total of over 400,000 men. The force also comprised 12,000 vehicles and around 6,000 artillery pieces, as well as 70,000 horses and mules. Operation Ichi-gō had two sub-operations: the first was codenamed Operation Ko-gō ( コ 号 作 戦 , Ko-gō Sakusen , also: 京 漢 作 戦 , Keikan Sakusen , dt. 'Chinese capital operation'): should from April 1944 the railway line Beijing - Wuhan in the area of ​​Henan province to be secured in order to open a supply line for the second phase of Operation Ichi-gō. During the Ko-gō offensive, the Chinese troops under General Tang Enbo in the area around Luoyang were to be encircled and wiped out during the advance . The destruction of this Chinese unit had been classified as a priority target for the operations of the Kwantung Army in Xinjing . The code name of the second sub-operation was To-gō ( ト 号 作 戦 , To-gō Sakusen , also: 湘桂 作 戦 , Shōkei Sakusen , dt. 'Hunan-Guangxi-Operation'): the Japanese troops should pass through the provinces of Hunan and Guangxi advance to the French-Indochinese border and Hong Kong , both of which were under Japanese control, and those of the XX. USAAF Bomber Command shut down airfields in southern China that could be used for air strikes on Japan. Operation To-gō is also known as Tairiku Datsū Sakusen ( 大陸 打通 作 戦 ) or continent crossing operation in Japanese .

Operation Ko-gō

Beginning of the offensive

Operation Ichi-gō began on April 19, 1944 with the attack of the 11th and 12th Armies, which were supported by the 3rd Panzer Division. First the attack of the 11th Army took place, which advanced in the best weather conditions east of Luoyang against the Chinese front. Around 1 p.m. the following day, the units of the XIII. motorized tank regiment broke through the right wing of the Chinese defense and advanced on the small towns of Linru and Baisha and Jia County , while the XVII. Panzer regiment swerved further south. Shortly after the start of the enemy operations, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the general of the Chinese soldiers standing there, Tang Enbo, ordered the Japanese tank units that had already broken in to be cut off and destroyed by flanking attacks. The isolated counterattacks of individual Chinese divisions, which, however, had no anti-tank guns , hit the Japanese III deployed on the flank. motorized infantry regiment whose advance south could be slowed down considerably. The use of the XVII. However, the tank regiment was able to repel the Chinese. On April 22, Japanese advance formations of the XIII. Panzer regiment occupy some strategically important villages in Henan without resistance and work their way up to 20 kilometers from Luoyang by April 25.

Meanwhile, the Japanese 12th Army under Lieutenant General Uchiyama Heitarō took on the left wing of the Chinese front on April 20 and met fierce resistance there. Only with the breakthrough of the VI. Armored brigade through the positions of the Chinese further south, the 12th Army succeeded in softening the enemy lines of defense. Due to the gap created in the Chinese front, the nationalist troops could be bypassed and in some places the front clearly indented. By April 25, the 12th Army finally took some villages east of Luoyang, with the Chinese troops concentrated for defense being inflicted heavy losses by the Japanese armored forces. Almost at the same time, some units of the 11th Army attacked Luoyang from the west. The tank columns of the 13th Panzer Regiment advanced south of Luoyang to unite with the leaders of the 12th Army and encircle Luoyang. The meeting of the two large Japanese associations proceeding in a pincer movement took place on April 30th. With the conquest of the important city of Xuchang , whose railway line was the only supply route for the Chinese troops in Luoyang County, the supply and communication lines of the nationalist troops in Luoyang were cut off and around 390,000 soldiers were encircled. On the Chinese side, there was great confusion these days, as the first Japanese air strikes, which had begun parallel to the advance on April 19, had broken the connection between the various front-line units, making it impossible to coordinate the counter-attacks by the Kuomintang troops. The operational nationalist reserve group at Luoyang, which consisted of 30,000 men in three divisions, could not be used because the front was crushed by the Japanese units within a few hours. General Tang soon recognized the danger that threatened his trapped troops in the Luoyang boiler room, and therefore asked Chiang Kai-shek for permission to attempt to break out of the boiler with his troops. This was refused by the generalissimo, as the Chinese staff believed that the city of Luoyang must be held unconditionally. General Tang was instructed to defend every yard of the ground. On May 1st, the commander of the Chinese troops in Jia County reported that he had to move east immediately, as he was being attacked by the Japanese units of the 13th and 17th tank regiments and his troops had no heavy weapons or tanks and asked for this corresponding instructions. Since he had not received a response by the morning of May 2nd, he interpreted this as a denial of his request and therefore prepared Jia's defense. At noon the first Chinese defense lines in Jia were opened by the Japanese XIII. Panzer regiment breached, with the Chinese suffering heavy losses. By the evening of May 2, another advance by the XIII. Panzer regiment to form a union with the motorized reconnaissance division of the 3rd Panzer Division, which had attacked the district from the south, thus closing the ring around the 12,000 men of the Guangxi and 13th Army stationed in Jia . On the same day, Lieutenant General Yamaji Hideo , commander of the 3rd Panzer Division, ordered that the removal of this cauldron be entrusted to the motorized reconnaissance department. The 13th and 17th regiments, accompanied by infantry troops from the 12th Army, were supposed to take care of the destruction of the opposing troops in Linru and Baisha. To this end, they advanced further and were able to close another pocket around the remaining parts of the 13th Army at Linru on May 3rd.

On both May 2nd and 3rd, Chinese troops attempted to break out of the Jia pocket. However, these attempts were unsuccessful and led to high losses by the Japanese tank units and the motorized reconnaissance department. The remaining Chinese units were able to break through the Japanese lines of the 12th Army, but they also suffered heavy losses from the tanks of the reconnaissance division. The Chinese units that succeeded in breaking out slowly retreated towards Linru on May 3rd, being pursued by Japanese armored forces. General Tang gathered these troops on the Linru-Baisha line between May 3rd and 4th, but the Japanese infantrymen of the 12th Corps of the 12th Army were able to penetrate this last Chinese line of defense. The organized retreat of the 13th Army turned into an unplanned escape. The troops suffered enormous losses and lost up to 90% of their equipment. In the enemy breakthrough, the 13th Army lost all of its artillery, which in any case was not numerous, and suffered from the destruction of its rear services. In addition, the combat strength of their 20 divisions in the Luoyang area was only 9,000-10,000 men per division, a total of no more than 200,000 combat-capable soldiers. The thirteen divisions of the Guangxi Army, which were not enclosed in the Luoyang pocket, had an average combat strength of only 7,000 men, but were able to save a larger part of their equipment and supplies after the defeat at Xuchang. The Japanese reports of the Luoyang offensive speak of a total of 40,000 Chinese prisoners of war and 583 captured or destroyed enemy artillery, while Japanese troops lost 4,000 men and 2 tanks during the operation.

Advance on Luoyang

On the evening of May 2, the city of Linru was reached by tanks from tank regiments XIII and XVII, and these vehicles, supported by around 400 Japanese artillery pieces, including captured Chinese cannons, bombarded the Chinese defenses in front of Linru the following night . A few hours after the start of the bombardment, infantrymen of the 12th Corps attacked the city, which was held by about 4,000 Chinese soldiers of the 13th Army. The attack of the XVII. The tank regiment broke through the defense lines of the 13th Army at 5:30 a.m. on the morning of May 3, and the 12th AK advanced into the outer districts of the city. These troops could on May 4th together with the XVII. Panzer regiment take the city completely. On the following day Baisha also fell to the troops of the motorized reconnaissance division. General Tang in Luoyang initially had no news from the front, but when the aviation forces of the 23rd Fighter Pilot Group (the Flying Tigers ) reported the action of enemy motorized columns on Luoyang, the grave situation of the Chinese troops in the Luoyang pocket was first recognized. However, since General Tang did not have sufficient troops available to fill the gap in the defense of Luoyang, General Yamaji was able to operate relatively freely and turned the XIII. Panzer regiment headed northwest towards Longmen to meet the troops of the 12th Army Corps and the motorized reconnaissance column. On the left wing of it, however, the XVII. Regiment against stronger Chinese resistance in the Yuxian area. It took some towns on May 9th and was then turned to the northwest to advance against Luoyang.

The advance of the motorized reconnaissance division, which, after taking Baisha on May 4, was now operating in the south of Luoyang, turned out to be more difficult. Although it broke through the Chinese positions near Longmen on May 5, to deal with the XIII. Regiment advanced in the direction of Luoyang, but they came under fire from Chinese PaK guns in the mountains outside the city of Longmen. On that day, the division's tanks were no longer used because the Chinese had concentrated an anti-tank brigade in key positions in the valleys in order to seal off the Japanese breakthrough. On May 6th and 7th, the infantry troops of the motorized division attacked these positions, while they were covered by supporting artillery fire. On May 7th, the Chinese positions could be excavated by flamethrowers, with the nationalist troops losing about 4,000 men. The Chinese units in Longmen suffered heavy losses from artillery fire, while at the same time they were the attacks of the XIII. Had to fend off the tank regiment. Eventually General Tang ordered the troops to retreat to Luoyang in an orderly fashion, but on May 10th these troops were wiped out by the Japanese tank columns. As a result, the troops of the 12th Corps attacked, supported by a total of 360 tanks of the XIII. and XVII. Regiment, the motorized reconnaissance department and the III. Motorized artillery regiments ( Type 97 Chi-Ha tanks and Type 89 I-Gō ) frontally from the west, north and east to the Chinese positions in front of the city in order to narrow the siege ring around Luoyang.

Conquest of Luoyang and end of Operation Ko-gō

Japanese troops in Henan Province, May 1944.

At 4:00 am on May 12, the Japanese attack on Luoyang began with the bombing of the city by 40 Mitsubishi Ki-67 and Kawasaki Ki-48 bombers. Luoyang was largely destroyed from 5:00 a.m. by massive fire from field, tank, siege artillery and mortar batteries, with the Chinese defense troops of the 13th Army suffering heavy losses. At 12:00 p.m. the large-scale ground offensive was finally launched by the troops of the 6th and 12th Army. These soldiers were supported by seven tank, motorized artillery and infantry regiments. The 14th and 23rd Infantry Divisions were able to overcome the first Chinese defenses, supported by flamethrowers, and were able to secure Luoyang's main train station and some areas in the city center on that day of the battle, killing around 3,000 Chinese soldiers. The main station was attacked by the Chinese several times during the day and changed hands several times, but the Japanese troops of the 23rd Infantry Division were able to hold it, while the 25th Infantry Division together with the tanks of the XIII. Regiment successfully repelled the attacks of the 13th Army on the station. Japanese machine gunnery established several defensive positions in the center of the city during the night, with some tanks positioned on the street corners to serve as mobile defensive positions. On May 14th, General Tang ordered that Luoyang Central Station be retaken by all means, for which some battalions of the 13th Army were allocated. These units managed to infiltrate the central station and fend off several Japanese counter-attacks, but the Chinese troops were wiped out by artillery fire and machine gun fire: 20 tanks of the XIII. On the morning of May 15, the regiment drove the Chinese from the station area, which was retaken by the Japanese in a counterattack. On the evening of the same day, the main station was again controlled by the Japanese troops of the 23rd Infantry Division. The Chinese lost a total of 2,000 men in the fighting over the station.

While the troops of the 23rd Division took the station, the 14th, together with the 8th Division and the XVII. Panzer Regiment, advanced into the city center, driving dispersed Chinese units in front of them. The Japanese units became involved in an urban warfare in central Luoyang on May 16, suffering heavy losses. Artillery bombardment destroyed most of China's defensive positions on May 17, engaging Chinese forces in a tumultuous and confusing street-to-street and building-to-building battle against the 14th and 8th Divisions over an area approximately three miles wide were entangled by rubble of houses and factories. General Tang sent reinforcements to this area of ​​the city on the morning of May 18, but the advancing Chinese troops were carried by the tanks of the XVII. Regiment almost completely worn out. Heavy rains on May 19 silted up the streets around Luoyang and slowed Japanese operations in the city, while the Chinese took advantage of enemy inactivity to build new defenses near the city's town hall. The fighting also developed on the two banks of the Luo He , with the Chinese formations suffering losses of up to 80% of their initial strength. The Japanese troops in the center were finally able to advance on May 22nd, breaking through the last Chinese lines of defense at City Hall. After heavy hand-to-hand fighting against some scattered troops of the 13th Army, the town hall building was taken on May 24th. This officially ended the conquest of Luoyang, although some Chinese units continued to fight. The Japanese lost 2,300 dead, while the Chinese lost more than 20,000 men in battle; a further 46,000 Chinese soldiers died in the Luoyang boiler room, around 20,000 were wounded and more than 45,000 were taken prisoners of war .

With the securing of Luoyang, Operation Ko-gō , the first part of Ichi-gō, ended and Operation To-gō has now begun.

Operation To-gō

Campaign in Hunan

Chinese troops at Dongting Lake, during the 4th Battle of Changsha .

Even during the fighting for the Luoyang Basin, the Japanese troops started Operation To-gō to exploit the gaps they had made in the Chinese lines in southern China. On May 30th, while the fighting in the Luoyang pocket was still ongoing, the 11th Army (General Isamu Yokoyama ) went on the offensive. These troops, supported by two motorized infantry and one artillery division, began their advance in Wuhan , with Motorized Division VI breaking through the Chinese lines 40 kilometers north of Changsha , in the Hunan province , on the morning of June 1st . On the morning of June 4 at 5:00 am, the Kuomintang defenses of the units of the 4th Corps of the Guanxi Army (General Xue Yue ) stationed in Hunan were breached by the 3rd and 13th Japanese Divisions in Liuyang . The 13th Motorized Division advanced into the rear area and on June 7th, with the 3rd Division, was able to take some villages that were barely 38 kilometers from Changsha. Although they were not supported by armored units, these troops could inflict very heavy losses on the Chinese units, and on June 10, several heavily contested villages about 35 kilometers from Changsha also fell.

On June 12th, the motorized reconnaissance division and the VI. Tank brigade of the 3rd Panzer Division, which after the fighting for Luoyang had almost 150 tanks and motorized artillery pieces, attacked, breaking through the last Chinese defenses on the banks of the Yangtze . The Chinese units, which were not equipped with anti-tank artillery, could not stop the Japanese advance and were routed by the tanks. Gene. In the face of weak enemy resistance, Yamaji was able to operate freely in the greater Changsha area and on June 14th turned the reconnaissance division to the southeast in the direction of the city to meet the troops of the 11th Army and encircle Changsha. Now, however, there were supply bottlenecks for fuel in these two tank units, which brought the advance to a standstill. Only after deliveries from Wuhan and Luoyang was the operational readiness of the two units restored on the afternoon of June 15. The advance of the 11th Army in the background turned out to be simpler, because the Chinese troops in the Changsha area had suffered heavy losses and for the most part consisted only of scattered units that were retreating to Changsha. The 11th Army advanced relatively quickly and reached Dongting Lake on June 15th . On June 16, the last troops of the 4th Army Corps in the area of ​​the lake were wiped out, with some Chinese units being able to cross the lake in ships. However, these ships came under fire from Japanese planes and were sunk. To date, around 30,000 Chinese soldiers have been killed in the fighting in the greater Changsha area, while another 20,000 have been wounded or captured. In view of the enormous casualties, on June 17th General Xue Yue ordered all troops still capable of fighting to withdraw towards Hengyang . The march began the same day, and about 50,000 Chinese Kuomintang units were able to withdraw to Hengyang by June 21, when the Japanese tank and infantry units closed the pocket around the Changsha area. In the meantime, on June 18, the Japanese troops of the 11th Army had reached the city of Changsha, which was only defended by around 13,000 Chinese troops. Artillery bombardment began on the morning of June 18, with several Japanese planes attacking key buildings in central Changsha. On June 18, at 12:00, the city was by the troops of the 58th Infantry Division attacked , and suffered the Chinese defenders during urban warfare in the center of Changsha heavy losses. The Japanese captured the city within a few hours, while several Chinese associations fiercely fought in the Changsha area. According to Japanese figures, 10,200 Chinese soldiers are said to have been killed or wounded in the battle.

A Japanese machine gun emplacement in northern Hunan Province, June 1944.

Conquest of Hengyang

First Japanese attack

During the fighting in the greater Changsha area, Field Marshal Sugiyama Hajime of the 68th and 116th Infantry Divisions immediately after taking the city of Changsha on 18/19. The order was issued on June 6th to capture the city of Hengyang and, if possible, to advance in the direction of Guanxi Province. The Chinese leadership under General Xue Yue had meanwhile taken measures to prevent a Japanese breakthrough via Hengyang in the direction of Guanxi. In mid-June, it moved more than 10,000 soldiers to Hengyang by trains, with the city now being heavily fortified by around 17,000 soldiers. Other reserves also arrived there. When the 3rd, 10th, 190th and 45th Divisions were finally gathered around Hengyang, these units were formed as the 10th Army Corps under the command of Gen. Lt. Catch Xianjue together. These troops consisted of 20,000 men who were armed with light guns and mortars, among other things. When the Japanese 68th Division broke through the only line of defense of the 10th AK north of Hengyang on June 20, it was attacked by troops of the 190th and 10th Divisions, which were supported by American fighters of the 23rd Fighter Group (Flying Tigers) . The 68th Division suffered heavy losses, particularly due to the ongoing American air raids, and had to retreat towards Changsha, where it was reinforced by troops from the 116th Division. After this first failure, the Japanese units began attacking the city again on June 24th. In the southern section of the front held by the Chinese 3rd Division, the advance of the 68th and 116th Divisions began on June 25th, with these two formations trying to push in the Chinese front in order to advance towards Hengyang. Here, too, the Japanese attack was supported by heavy artillery fire and air strikes. According to Sugiyama's plan, the Japanese troops attacked south of Hengnan and west of Hengdong , and in the evening that day the attackers of the Japanese 68th Infantry Division managed to break through the front of the Chinese 10th Army Corps at Hengdong. General Fang Xianjue made the mistake of holding in reserve the units of the Chinese 190th Division, which was the only Kuomintang unit with any chance of success in repelling one of the Japanese spikes: when the Chinese defenses were breached, these troops could not fill the gap in the front section more in time. Several Chinese regiments were encircled and wiped out by Japanese forces of the 68th Division, killing around 4,000 nationalist soldiers. The fast Japanese motorized units of the 68th Infantry Division in the south advanced after the breakthrough in the direction of Hengyang, where they were reached by troops of the 116th Division on the afternoon of June 26th. The Chinese units of the 10th Division, which were stationed in the city, were able to stop the Japanese advance a few kilometers from Hengyang, pinning the Japanese units at Chengguan with heavy losses of their own .

The Chinese troops fighting in Chengguan were able to hold back the Japanese attacks, which were partly supported by tanks of the 6th Tank Brigade, until July 2nd, during which they lost more than 7,000 men. The Japanese, however, had to cancel the attack that day because the Japanese soldiers at Chengguan no longer had ammunition, fuel and medicines at their disposal. Troops from the 68th and 116th Divisions withdrew to Hengdong on July 3, eventually allowing the Kuomintang troops of the 10th Division, who had defended Chengguan, to retreat northwest towards Hengyang. They fought first in a southerly direction on the east bank of the Xiang Jiang, which had just been occupied by the Japanese army, and later to the west towards the 3rd Division approaching from Hengyang, and reached the city on July 5th.

Second Japanese attack

On July 11th, Marshal Sugiyama again ordered the Japanese troops of the 68th and 116th Divisions, which had since been reinforced by units of the 58th and 64th Divisions, to attack the city of Hengyang again from Hengdong in order to finally secure them. From July 12, motorized and armored Japanese spikes of the participating divisions had advanced westward on the Chinese city, with no resistance to meet them. The northern wing of the Japanese attack was formed by the 58th and 116th Divisions, while the southern advance was carried out by the 64th and 68th Divisions. In order to stop the northern Japanese advance, the Chinese 3rd Division, which had reinforced the already badly damaged 10th Division after the fighting over Chengguan, was supposed to secure the crossing over the Xiang Jiang River northeast of Hengyang together with the 45th Division . The last consisted of inexperienced and newly called up recruits who did not have artillery. Nevertheless, it was mainly these troops who prevented the Japanese troops from taking the bridges quickly, with high losses. Marshal Sugiyama then let his troops run ruthlessly against the defensive line formed by the Chinese on the western bank, so that on July 16 and 17, hand-to-hand combat took place shortly before and in Hengyang, which led to high Chinese losses. 5,000 Japanese were also killed or wounded during the fighting over the bridges. The Chinese troops withdrew to the walled city on the evening of June 20 to build the last line of defense against the Japanese forces. The defenders of Hengyang consisted of only 4,000 men at that point, who were reinforced by parts of the city's police and fire brigade units. The position at Hengyang became untenable for the Chinese soldiers when the remaining mass of the four Japanese divisions crossed the Xiang Jiang River north of the city on July 28th. By then, Japanese troops had captured several neighborhoods, wiping out the Chinese defenders, and were also controlling two hospitals. On August 4, armed Japanese soldiers from the 116th Division broke into the hospitals and murdered several thousand Chinese wounded, including shooting some doctors and nurses. On the same day, General Fang Xianjue attempted to commit suicide at his headquarters, but some officers stopped him before he could kill himself. On August 8th, after some Japanese officers of the 68th Division had discussed the conditions with him, he signed the document of surrender and on the same day went into captivity with his remaining troops, a total of 2,000 men .

Advance towards Guilin

First attack

General Zhang Fakui, staff officer of General Bai Chongxi who commanded the troops in Guilin.

On August 7, shortly before the surrender of the Chinese units in Hengyang, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the troops of the 10th Army Corps, which had not been encircled around Hengyang, around 3,000 men to withdraw to Guilin. By August 16, the withdrawal of these troops was slow but largely on schedule. The marching soldiers were attacked several times by Japanese planes, and the intensity of these air strikes increased over time, killing about 400 men. During this withdrawal, however, the Chinese troops lost all trucks and much of the ammunition. After the capture of Hengyang, the pressure from the regular troops of the 20th Army, which was tasked with the destruction of these Chinese troops, increased, but the Kuomintang units were able to reach the city of Guilin on August 18th . The command of the Chinese troops in the greater Hunan and Guanxi provinces was transferred to General Bai Chongxi by Chiang Kai-shek on August 14th . Bai Chongxi was supposed to try to reorganize the troops under him, which consisted of the dispersed soldiers of the 10th Army Corps, in order to prepare an effective defense of the cities of Guilin and Liuzhou . The units of the 10th Corps were reinforced on August 20 by three divisions of the 4th Army Group : In total, General Xue Yue now had around 30,000 men, most of whom were armed with Mauser 98 (Zhongzheng). Some mortar and artillery units were stationed in Guilin, but ammunition was very limited. Since these troops would be included by the Japanese units in the foreseeable future, General Bai Chongxi tried to get as much ammunition and food as possible into the city, with American planes of the " Hump " also being able to bring several tons of medicine to the Guilin airfield. The Japanese 20th Army was reinforced on August 26th by units of the 11th and 23rd Armies: on September 3, these troops blocked the Guilin-Liuzhou retreat and cut the troops of the 10th Army Corps stationed south of Guilin from the rest of the Chinese unit who was trapped in Guilin in the following weeks. The fuel and ammunition of all units under General Bai Chongxi's command were now running low, and on September 30, after heavy hand-to-hand fighting, Guilin airfield was captured by the troops of the 58th Japanese Infantry Division, with air supply from the aircraft of the "Hump" was cut off. The Chinese troops in the Guilin area, which totaled 100,000 men, were able to break the Japanese units of the 6th Regional Army, which had been formed on August 25 from the 6th, 11th, 13th, 20th and 23rd Armies, at the beginning of October stop by attacking and wiping out the Japanese attack spikes. The aircraft of the 14th Air Force and especially the machines of the 23rd Fighter Group were able to interrupt the Japanese communication and supply routes through violent air strikes. The 13th Army in particular suffered heavy losses from these ongoing American air raids and had to retreat in the direction of Hengyang, where they were reinforced by troops of the 6th Army.

Second attack

After this first failure, the Japanese units began the attack on Guilin again on October 20, which was only defended by just under 24,000 men. The situation of the Chinese troops in Guilin dramatized almost every hour in the following weeks: On November 1, the last supply packages were dropped, but in most cases they fell into the hands of the Japanese. The Chinese wounded in the city could no longer receive medical treatment due to a lack of medication, but despite the desperate situation, the Chinese soldiers continued to fight for fear of Japanese imprisonment. After heavy fighting, the Japanese army captured the first quarters of the center on November 4th, the Japanese 68th Division and several units of the 11th Army advanced into the defensive positions of the Chinese troops, crushing the last Chinese line of defense in the center. At that time there were only about 6000 Kuomintang soldiers in the city, but they could no longer be grouped into units. Most of the troops holed up in their houses and could inflict heavy losses on the Japanese, but when the Japanese soldiers dug hundreds of Chinese positions in the center using flamethrowers on November 8th, the last defenders were also killed or wounded, with the command post of the following day General Bai Chongxi was reached by the Japanese soldiers. Guilin was finally considered safe on November 10th . The Chinese troops lost a total of 120,000 men in the two-month battle, while the Japanese units lost 8,000 soldiers.

14th Air Force air strikes

The aircraft of the 14th Air Force began their air strikes against the troops of the Japanese 6th Regional Army on October 30, mainly in the north of Guanxi Province. The aim of these attacks was to stop the Japanese attack against Guilin. Above all, the machines of the 23rd Fighter Group (Flying Tigers) destroyed around 200 Japanese trucks on the streets between late October and early November, as well as some tanks and artillery pieces. The Japanese squadrons, which took off from Changsha and Hengyang airfields and were equipped with Ki-44 and Ki-84 , were able to repel some of these attacks as the enemy pilots flew inferior P-40s . The 23rd Fighter Group lost 33 aircraft in these attacks. The Japanese air forces lost a total of 40 machines, but after these air raids the attack power of the Japanese troops was much lower than at the beginning of the operation against Guilin: two motorized battalions and one motorized brigade had lost all trucks, and several artillery batteries were also destroyed.

However, the Japanese were able to advance further south until November 12, although the streets were still under American fire: On November 13, troops of the 104th and 129th Infantry Divisions (23rd Army) captured the less important city of Liuzhou. Heavy artillery preparation meant that the defensive positions of the 4,000 Chinese troops defending this city were destroyed. The Japanese attack began a few hours later: First, the advance of the 104th Division took place, which, in the best weather conditions, advanced west of Liuzhou against the Chinese front and was able to push it in within a few minutes. A little later, the units of the 129th Division had completely breached the right wing of the Chinese defense and advanced towards the city center, encountering only weak and uncoordinated resistance from dispersed Chinese troops. On the evening of November 12th, the city was secured, and Liuzhou airfield, which had been used by the 14th Air Force until November 10th, was also captured. The Japanese troops lost no more than 120 men in Liuzhou. The Chinese units, however, were completely wiped out; Several thousand men from dispersed units who fled Guilin were also taken prisoners of war. Only the aircraft of the 14th Air Force were able to prevent the Japanese troops from advancing immediately towards the city of Nanning, taking several Japanese vehicles. and tanks on the streets: some B-24 bombers were able to damage the two Japanese airfields Guilin and Liuzhou at the end of November, which severely hampered Japanese air operations: the 14th Air Force lost a total of 13 bombers and 12 fighters in these attacks, while on Japanese Site about 30 aircraft were shot down. The Japanese 23rd Army advanced up to 50 kilometers from Nanning by the evening of November 20th, despite the American attacks. These armies had previously been strengthened by shortening their front line.

End and consequences of Operation Ichi-gō

Japanese troops in a machine-gun position, southern China in late 1944

After the capture of the two cities of Guilin and Liuzhou, Operation Ichi-gō was over. The Japanese troops had succeeded in achieving the operation's primary objective, the conquest of the provinces of Henan , Hunan and Guangxi . From the report by General Okamura Yasuji , commander of the 6th Regional Army, it becomes clear that the Japanese staff of the Northern China Regional Army and the operations management in Xinjing already considered the southern parts of China to be completely secure at the beginning of September, the time it took to conquer the province of Guangxi but estimated significantly longer. However, since the Chinese troops in this province were not perceived as a real threat, as they consisted only of scattered units, the 6th and 11th Armies were dispatched from northern Guangxi to Wuhan in October . During the fighting for Guilin-Liuzhou, the Chinese units of the 4th Army Group were able to move into new positions along a defensive line in front of Nanning. These positions also included the city, which was defended by two divisions of the 4th Army Group. The airfield at Nanning was defended by a division, which was reinforced by 2,000 troops from the Y-Force (the Chinese armed forces in Burma ). The offensive carried out by the Japanese 23rd Army from November 16, 1944 had the goal of conquering these positions and opening further accesses towards Burma in order to create a supply and reinforcement route to Myitkyina and northern Burma and thus the one there fighting troops of the 33rd Army . But the attack made slow progress against the well-fortified Chinese positions. It was only after a heavy air raid that the Japanese troops managed to advance at the end of November. Some divisions of the 33rd Army were able to encircle Nanning in December, taking the city together with the 23rd Army. Thus the operation was finally over. The failure to adequately protect the southern Chinese regions and the important airfields, however, led to the replacement of Chiang Kai-shek's top American military advisor , General Joseph Stilwell , by General Albert Wedemeyer in October 1944. The priority of American military planning shifted with the end of the Japanese offensive in the following weeks away from the China-Burma-India theater of war and towards the successful strategy of island jumping in the Pacific Ocean.

Although the tactical objectives had largely been achieved by December 1944, the operation proved almost worthless in the long run. Thanks to the conquest of the airfields of Changsha, Guilin and Liuzhou, the American air forces of the US 14th Air Fleet , which weakened Japan's war industry by bombing before Operation Ichi-gō, were unable to carry out air strikes against the Japanese islands. But the aircraft of the XXI Bomber Command , part of the 20th US Air Fleet , were able to use the bases on the Mariana Islands , which had since been captured, for further strategic air raids on Japan. In addition, the 14th Air Force was largely able to disrupt the Japanese lines of communication in China through continued air strikes: in February 1945 alone, 20 enemy locomotives, 500 vehicles and 40 aircraft were destroyed in southern China. In Japan itself, this strategic failure, as well as the loss of the Marianas in July 1944, led to a military crisis before the end of Operation Ichi-gō: Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki resigned and was replaced by Koiso Kuniaki .

losses

The Chinese army suffered enormous losses during this operation. In the absence of precise Chinese information, one has to rely on the information in the American report by General Joseph Stilwell, which, after the end of the fighting in November 1944, resulted in the destruction of 4 entire Chinese armies, 6,723 guns, around 190 aircraft of the 14th Air Force and thousands Vehicles reported. According to the report, around 300,000 Chinese soldiers died in the fighting, 100,000 were wounded and 80,000 were taken prisoner by Japan, but no details are available. On the Japanese side, a total of around 100,000 soldiers were killed or wounded during the six-month operation, but here, too, the exact number of casualties is unknown. Around 400,000 Chinese civilians also died, mainly due to Japanese artillery fire, but also of starvation, especially in the besieged cities of Luoyang, Hengyang and Guilin, and due to Japanese massacres .

literature

• Jonathan R. Adelman: Symbolic war: The Chinese use of force, 1840-1980. National Chengchi University , 1993, ISBN 957-9368-23-6 .
• Charles F. Romanus, Riley Sunderland: Stillwell's Command Problems. Part of the series: United States Army in World War II. Office of the Chief of Military History, Washington DC 1954.
• Gordon L. Rottman : World War II Japanese Tank Tactics. Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2009, ISBN 978-1-84603-234-9 .
• Boris G. Saposhnikov: The China theater in World War II, 1939-1945. Progress Publishers, 1985, ISBN 0-8285-3158-7 .
• Dick Wilson: When Tigers Fight: The Story of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945. Penguin, 1983, ISBN 0-14-006750-7 .
• Steven J. Zaloga : Japanese Tanks 1939-45. Osprey Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84603-091-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} 新聞記者 が 語 り つ ぐ 戦 争 16 中国 慰 霊 読 売 新聞 社 (1983/2) P187
2. ^ ^{A b c d} Gordon L. Rottman: World War II Japanese Tank Tactics. 2009, p. 39.
3. ^ ^{A b c} John Toland: The Rising Sun. 1992, pp. 617-618.
4. ^ ^{A b c} Larry M. Wortzel: Dictionary of contemporary Chinese military history. ABC-CLIO, 1999, p. 121.
5. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 776.
6. ^ ^{A b} Gordon L. Rottman: World War II Japanese Tank Tactics. 2009, p. 40.
7. ^ John King Fairbank: The Cambridge history of China: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2. 1998, p. 706.
8. ^ ^{A b} Gordon L. Rottman: World War II Japanese Tank Tactics. 2009, p. 41.
9. ↑ John Toland: The Rising Sun. 1992, p. 430.
10. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} John King Fairbank: The Cambridge history of China: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2. 1998, p. 708.
11. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Gordon L. Rottman: World War II Japanese Tank Tactics. 2009, p. 42.
12. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Gordon L. Rottman: World War II Japanese Tank Tactics. 2009, pp. 43-44.
13. ^ ^{A b c d e} John King Fairbank: The Cambridge history of China: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2. 1998, p. 709.
14. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o} Gordon L. Rottman: World War II Japanese Tank Tactics. 2009, p. 44.
15. ^ ^{A b c d e f} John King Fairbank: The Cambridge history of China: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2. 1998, pp. 710-711.
16. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n} Larry M. Wortzel: Dictionary of contemporary Chinese military history. ABC-CLIO, 1999, pp. 122-123.
17. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} John Toland: The Rising Sun. 1992, pp. 621-622.
18. ^ ^{A b} Anthony A. Evans: The Illustrated Timeline of World War II. The Rosen Publishing Group, 2011, p. 187.
19. ^ Gordon L. Rottman: World War II Japanese Tank Tactics. 2009, pp. 42-43.
20. ↑ ^{a b c d e} John Toland: The Rising Sun. 1992, p. 622.
21. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Stillwell's Command Problems Chapter IX .
22. ↑ ^{a b c} Sino-Japanese Air War 1937-1945. Operations 1944
23. ^ ^{A b} John King Fairbank: The Cambridge history of China: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2. 1998, p. 712.
24. ↑ John Toland: The Rising Sun. 1992, p. 624.
25. ^ ^{A b c} John Toland: The Rising Sun. 1992, p. 625.

Web links

Commons : Operation Ichi-Go  - collection of images, videos and audio files

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on February 2, 2012 .