Monday, June 6, 2011

The China-Burma-India Theater

2 comments Posted by Mitch Williamson at 4:04 PM





The strategy for the defeat of Japan could not have been simpler: Allied air, land, and sea forces would advance on three broad axes to roll back the new Japanese empire to the Home Islands, which Allied forces would then invade and occupy, if necessary. British Commonwealth forces would advance from India through Burma to Malaya and Hong Kong; Australian- American forces would drive north and west from Australia into the Netherlands East Indies and the Philippines; and the United States, rich in naval air and surface units, would attack across the Central Pacific toward the Philippines and Formosa. Destruction of the Japanese armed forces (especially air and naval units) would proceed simultaneously with the ruination of Japan’s economy, dependent upon seaborne oil, minerals, coal, rubber, and foodstuffs. Any amateur who could read a map could design such a grand strategy. Making it happen proved quite a different matter.

The Allied military experience in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater demonstrated how difficult it would be to mount a cohesive offensive effort from nations with conflicting interests and asymmetrical capabilities. Not until 1943 did British commanders in India believe that their principal field force, the Fourteenth Army, could conduct even limited offensive operations. They tested their forces with a one-division advance along the Arakan coast and found the Japanese and terrain unconquerable. The Arakan offensive demonstrated what the Fourteenth Army commander, General William Slim, feared. Only wide-ranging amphibious operations could take his army past the rugged Chin Hills guarding Burma from the west and blocking access to the river valleys leading to Mandalay and Rangoon. A hardened field soldier who had learned his trade on the Western Front and in the Indian Army, Slim combined troop-leading and training skills with personal and moral courage as well as charm, a sound grasp of soldiering, and a solid appreciation of Asian warfare and the excellence of the Japanese Army. He had experienced the catastrophe of the 1942 retreat from Burma and the abortive attack in the Arakan. His honesty and character made him the obvious choice to reshape the Fourteenth Army, a force built on the Indian Army but including the ever-dependable Gurkha Rifles of Nepal, unproven infantry battalions from East and West Africa, and infantry battalions and supporting arms from the British Army.

In theory, the concept of amphibious envelopments reaching to Singapore made sense to everyone except the other Allies and much of the Royal Navy. With the demands of other theaters, the Allies could not find adequate amphibious shipping for even a modest operation aimed at Rangoon and scheduled for late 1943 or 1944. Slim now saw no alternative but an overland advance by his army, gradually reinforced from the Middle East and India proper, where the internal security mission required fewer British battalions by 1944. The Japanese Fifteenth Army, under Lieutenant General Mutaguchi Renya, also grew in the same months from four to eight divisions, thus raising the prospective cost to Slim of an overland battle through the mountains of western Burma. If Slim could find no reasonable alternative to a conventional offensive, others offered shining promises of easy victory. Churchill and Roosevelt, politicians and opportunists to the core, grasped these false options with enthusiasm.

Already tied to Nationalist China by sentiment and prior commitment, Roosevelt never abandoned his hope that Chiang Kai-shek’s armies would go on the offensive and that Chiang himself could actually play the role of regional leader. From mid-1942 until mid-1943 Roosevelt struggled to keep China in the war, aided in his quest by Marshall and Stilwell. In October 1942 Roosevelt answered Chiang’s Three Demands with limited promises of an air buildup in India and a serious effort to bring Lend-Lease supplies to Kunming by air. The Allies could complete the Ledo extension of the Burma Road only by driving at least one Japanese division from northern Burma with some sort of Sino-American army. Roosevelt did not promise to send ground combat forces, even though Stilwell favored this option. Encouraged by Hap Arnold’s staff and Chennault (now commanding the Tenth Air Force in China) to think more about offensive air operations from China, Roosevelt in May 1943 chose (much to Stilwell’s dismay and Chiang’s delight) Chennault’s concept of a major bomber offensive against China’s coastal cities and Japanese sea lanes. Chennault, the air defense expert, suddenly promised victory through bombing, probably influenced by his nominal theater air commander, Major General Clayton D. Bissell, and Bissell’s patron, Hap Arnold. The air plan, however, offered Stilwell some solace, since such a commitment required an open Ledo- Burma Road and a reformed Chinese Army to protect the bomber bases in China. At the Quebec conference of August 1943, Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff approved an offensive in north Burma.

With his schemes for amphibious operations frustrated by shipping shortages, Churchill supported American plans for the China-Burma-India theater, even though he had little faith in Nationalist China. Moreover, Churchill fell under the spell of one of the war’s most eccentric and charismatic commanders, Brigadier Orde Wingate. A Middle Eastern expert with guerrilla successes in the Sudan, Ethiopia, and Palestine, Wingate argued for unconventional warfare in Burma. Slim doubted Wingate would find the Japanese as impressionable as his Middle Eastern foes, and he resented Wingate’s influence with Churchill, who allowed Wingate to strip Fourteenth Army of some of its best British, Gurkha, and African troops.

Bursting with energy, Wingate formed the 3,300-man 77th Brigade in 1943, the Long Range Penetration Group (LRPG) or “Chindits,” a nickname drawn from the ferocious winged lions of stone guarding Burma’s temples. Wings had much to do with the Chindits, since Wingate expected his force to land by glider or parachute behind Japanese lines and then be resupplied by air. Fighter-bombers would provide fire support instead of artillery. The first experiment in February–June 1943 was no great success, proving only that Chindits got tired and sick like everyone else and could not live by airdrops alone. The Chindits killed three times as many Japanese as they themselves lost (68 to 28), but almost the entire force ended the operation unfit for future duty. Slim certainly did not see the Chindit operations as a substitute for his campaign.

Wingate’s quixotic schemes then grew into a larger and more optimistic plan for a return to Burma in 1944 on the same model. Churchill liked the concept, while Stilwell saw Wingate’s force as a useful instrument in his own plan to lead a Sino-American ground force against Myitkyina, a crucial road junction on the way to Lashio, terminus of the Burma Road. With the approval of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, appointed the theater commander in September 1943, Wingate wrested control of troops in India that were outside Slim’s command and formed a six-brigade LRPG of 20,000 officers and men. Stilwell had no comparable ground force. He had two small Chinese divisions under his direct control, and Marshall had provided only a makeshift infantry regimental combat team drawn from “volunteers” from the U.S. Army. Designated the 5307th Composite Unit Provisional, the unit preferred the name Merrill’s Marauders, thus identifying themselves with Brigadier General Frank D. Merrill, one of Stilwell’s favorite staff officers but an inexperienced commander with a serious heart condition.

Stilwell, however, had some other assets to entice Wingate into the north Burma campaign. First, he had the full cooperation of the American air forces (if not Chennault), since an open Ledo-Burma Road would dramatically reduce the airlift requirements over “the Hump,” the dangerous southeastern extension of the Himalayas. Moreover, the prospect of Chinese bases attracted American bomber generals, who were not having great success yet over Germany and who had made huge investments in a new long-range bomber, the B-29 Superfortress. Arnold and Bissell organized their own special operations wing, the 5138th Air Force Unit or the 1st Air Commando Group, commanded by Colonel Philip “Flip” Cochran, who proved one of the most able officers in the China-Burma-India theater. Stilwell promised Wingate that Cochran’s 200-aircraft group, which included fighter-bombers and transports as well as gliders and reconnaissance aircraft, would provide the Chindits the aerial support the RAF could not, if Wingate coordinated his operations with the Myitkyina expedition.

Both Stilwell and Wingate assumed they would enjoy the services of the pro-Allied Burma hill tribes. The major mountain tribal groups—Nagas, Kachins, Karens, Chans, and Shins—numbered a minority of about 7 million of Burma’s 17 million people. The Nagas, Kachins, and Karens had served happily in the colonial security forces, had fought the Japanese in 1942, and now wanted weapons to fight Burmese collaborators and the Japanese. Many Karens had become Christians, and the Kachins rivaled the Gurkhas in their warriorlike qualities. In 1943 the hill tribes welcomed new guerrilla leaders from the United States and the Commonwealth, Detachment 101 of the OSS and Force 136 of the British Special Operations Directorate. Generously supplied with arms, money, supplies, and radios, these partisan teams rallied thousands of Kachin and Karen tribesmen. They, too, depended on the 1st Air Commando Group for support.

While Slim’s Indian divisions conducted cautious offensive operations in central and south Burma in 1943–44, the Chindits, Marauders, and Chinese marched or flew into north-central and northern Burma in February and March 1944.Wingate did not intend to support Stilwell, but he died in an air crash in March, and his successor then coordinated the movement of the six LRPG brigades with Stilwell’s force. Unfortunately, Stilwell underestimated the fighting skill and tenacity of the Japanese 18th Division, under Lieutenant General Tanaka Shinchi, and he used his forces (including air support) with such profligacy that the Chindits and 1st Air Commando were combat-ineffective before Myitkyina fell. The Marauders and three Chinese divisions fought their way to the headwaters of the Irrawaddy by April 1944 but exhausted themselves in the process. In the battles of Walawbum and Shadzup, only the timely arrival of the Chinese saved the Marauders from disaster. Merrill himself collapsed with another heart attack.

Stilwell then ordered the remnants of his expeditionary force on a 65- mile trek to Myitkyina, which it besieged in June and finally captured in August with the help of more Chinese and the Burmese partisans. The campaign destroyed the Marauders and crippled the Chinese X Force. The campaign did not end, however, since Chiang had finally ordered Y Force into Burma from the east, while Marshall sent two more U.S. infantry regiments (Mars Force) to the CBI to replace the Marauders, who mustered barely 200 effectives from an original 3,000-man force. Chiang’s price of cooperation was Stilwell’s relief, since he viewed “Vinegar Joe” as pro- Communist. Stilwell did know which Chinese regime would seize the Mandate of Heaven. The Kuomintang, he noted, was characterized by “corruption, neglect, chaos, economy [bad], taxes . . . hoarding, black market, trading with the enemy.” The Communists “reduce taxes, rents, interest . . . raise production, and standard of living, participate in government. Practice what they preach.” Vinegar Joe, sick and bitter, left the CBI before the north Burma force finally met Y Force at the Chinese border south of Lashio and allowed U.S. Army engineers to link the Ledo Road with the highway to Kunming.

By the time the land route to China had been reopened, the Chennault air plan had already come a cropper. Even Roosevelt finally accepted the conclusion his military chiefs had reached long before: the Chinese Nationalists would do little to defeat Japan. Within China, signs of shirking were only too clear. Inflation and corruption, fueled by American supplies and money, became rampant. Chinese military casualties fell below 300,000 for the first time since 1937. The American military mission in Chungking, now directed by Major General Albert C. Wedemeyer, believed that only the Communist Eighth Route Army and the OSS-supported Chinese-Mongolian partisans were real fighters.

The decline of the Nationalist Army did not reflect any lack of effort by Tenth Air Force’s air transports in flying “the Hump.” By August 1943, C-46s were delivering 5,000 tons of supplies a month to China, an unthinkable figure when Chiang had demanded that support a year earlier. By January 1944, Tenth Air Force effort reached 15,000 tons a month. The commitment took a heavy toll. The transport force lost at least one aircraft for every one of the 500 air miles between India and China; more than 1,000 aircrewmen perished along the route. At its peak strength, Tenth Air Force had 650 aircraft in the air every day, around the clock. This effort made it possible for Chennault to mount Operation Matterhorn, the strategic bombardment of Chinese and Formosan targets with B-24s and B-29s based in China.

The opportunity cost to the Chinese Nationalists was high, too, since 90 percent of the cargo tonnage in 1943–44 was aviation gasoline and ordnance, not Lend-Lease arms for the Chinese Army. This imbalance exacted its toll all too soon. As the airlift over “the Hump” provided more logistical support, Arnold sent more operational wings to China and created a new command for Chennault, the Fourteenth Air Force, which included one B-29 bombardment wing. When Churchill and Roosevelt met Chiang Kaishek on their way to Teheran in November 1943, they promised Chiang, awash in self-importance, a great air war from China against Japan. Their meeting coincided with the first American bombardment of Formosa. They also promised to push operations in Burma to open the Ledo-Burma Road and increase Lend-Lease aid. In return for recognition of his role as Allied Generalissimo in Asia, Chiang promised to use his army to the best of its limited ability to support the American and British offensive.

The Japanese did not look kindly on the growing U.S. Army Air Forces presence in China, however, and ordered the China expeditionary army to begin ICHI-GO (Operation One) in January 1944. For the next ten months the Japanese Army pushed the Nationalists back and overran base after base, forcing the forward-based Fourteenth Air Force fighters and bombers deeper into China, more than half of which remained unconquered. The Chinese Army’s resistance was erratic and ultimately futile, but Japanese casualties and the lengthening logistical tail of the Japanese divisions brought operations to a halt in January 1945. The Japanese generals in China cautioned Tokyo that they could not advance far enough to capture the bases of the new B-29s, which had a range of 4,000 miles.

The strategic bombing champions, however, had already concluded that an enlarged Matterhorn was too tall a challenge. With the decline of Fourteenth Air Force and military support of Chiang Kai-shek, operations in the China-Burma-India theater, divided into the Southeast Asia and Chinese theaters in 1944, reverted to a British Commonwealth effort to restore the British Empire, a goal the United States failed to support with any enthusiasm. The war with Japan would be won elsewhere.

 

Thursday, July 29, 2010

SMALL OPERATIONS GROUP (SOG)

2 comments Posted by Mitch Williamson at 1:39 PM

Nicknamed "Soggy"

Date Founded: June 1944
Mission When Founded: Provide small parties of uniformed troops trained and equipped to operate in enemy coastal, river and lake area using small craft, inflatable boats, paddle boards or swimmers
Mission During the War: Unchanged Theatre(s) of Operation: South East Asia Headquarters: Fort Hammenhiel, Karaitivu island, Ceylon # of Personnel: 345 all ranks (1945)

HISTORY/PROFILE:

The Small Operations Group was formed in June 1944 to bring together the disparate amphibious units assembling in the Far Eastern theatre under one command, and to apply the lessons learnt in Europe and the Mediterranean to the Japanese. SOG was headquartered at Admiral Mountbatten's South East Asia Command (SEAC) headquarters, and continued Mountbatten's predilection for unconventional warfare formed whilst commanding Britain's Combined Operations. SOG was the first attempt to co-ordinate the activities of units that previously operated as "private armies".

SOG was commended by Colonel H.T. Tollemache RM, and Blondie Hasler was transferred from the RMBPD, promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and made second in command with responsibility for training. SOG consisted of COPP 7 and 8, SBS groups A and B, the Sea Reconnaissance Unit and RM Detachment 385. Although highly trained in their respective specialities, once in Ceylon all SOG members were given intensive training in jungle warfare and survival, day and night navigation and endless training embarking/disembarking submarines, destroyers, motor launches and Catalina flying boats.

Burma's rivers and coastline provided the ideal location for SOG's units to demonstrate their talents. Of SOG's 173 operations, over 80 were on Burma's west coast alone. Later operations expanded to Malaya, Siam and Sumatra. SOG performed two types of mission: "Independent operations" and "Force Commanders' Operations". An Independent operation was what it was named - the SOG commander was responsible for planning and execution. On a Force Commander's Operation, a team was detached to the formation HQ for a major operation. SOG was only responsible for team selection and liaison. Only 19 of SOG's operations were independent - the rest were force commanders' operations.

COPP 7 and 8 had arrived in India in November 1943. For operations the COPPs were always attached to Force W - the naval amphibious force. Due to operational demands and the unhealthy waters of the Arakan, COPPs 7 and 8 rotated with COPPs 1, 3, 4 and 9 in 1945.

The remaining units of SOG worked with 3 Commando Brigade, the 14th Army and XV Corps. They performed reconnaissance, intelligence gathering including prisoner snatches, defence clearance, diversionary raids and jitter parties for SEAC, although SOG's official history notes that HQ struggled at times to find suitable targets for SOG's raiders. SOG's operations were usually made at night as boats are easily spotted during the day, dodging patrolling Japanese motor sampans.

SBS teams operated with V Force(1), a locally raised intelligence force, and Force 136(2), SOE's guerrilla operation - resupplying, bringing in team members and commanding local guerrillas.

The Sea Reconnaissance Unit was founded by Lieutenant Commander Bruce Wright of the Canadian Naval Reserve and an Olympic swimmer in December 1942. The SRU's mission was reconnaissance and attack by long-distance swimmers on paddle boards similar to Malibu-style surf boards. The swimmer and three metre board would be dropped by parachute 20 miles from the target. Equipped with hand paddles the swimmer would make his way to the target using the board's compass.

Initial training was at the US Marines' Camp Pendleton, San Diego, but sharks and cold water restricted swimming to 5-10 miles. The SRU moved to warmer Nassau, Bahamas in 1943 for more intensive training. Sea training was completed in March 1944, and consisted of 48 men all ranks. By then the SRU's proposed missions for the Aegean and the Adriatic were cancelled and the unit reoriented for Asian seaborne roles and was assigned to SOG.

The SRU started operations in 1945, working in 10-man sections, plus porters for the boards, and performed recces ahead of Allied advances and cleared Japanese defences. SRU's most valuable contribution to British seaborne raiding were long swimming fins and the American-pattern single-window diving mask soon adopted by all British combat swimmers. The unit was disbanded at the end of the war.

Royal Marine Detachment 385 was created in the summer of 1944, and became operational in March 1945. The 122-strong unit consisted of canoeists and parachutists. Organised into three sections suited to specific operations, Detachment 385 performed deception raids, Japanese prisoner snatches and landed agents and stores for guerrillas, and generally acted as SOG's general purpose unit. The unit's first operation was almost its last when six men were lost, and eight of its 18 missions were failures.

(1) V Force was a guerrilla force run by the British Army, and assembled from Ghurkha platoons of the Assam Rifles augmented by 1,000 hill tribesmen. Originally conceived as a "stay-behind" force in the event of Japanese invasion; its role changed to that of intelligence gathering and the maintenance of outposts ahead of the advancing main British units. V Force's officers were appointed on the basis of expert knowledge of the local language and peoples rather than rank.

(2) Force 136 was the cover name for the Special Operations Executive in the South East Asian theatre. First named GS I(k) it became Force 136 in March 1946. Most of Force 136 agents were Malaysian, Chinese, Thai and Burmese. Force 136 utilised native resistance to the Japanese occupation by organising local resistance movements. Force 136 also organised more conventional military operations behind Japanese lines.

 

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Japanese Warhawks over Rangoon!

0 comments Posted by Mitch Williamson at 1:22 PM




One of the most unusual tales regarding the air war in the Far East during World War II concerns the operational use of Curtiss P-40 Warhawks by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF)! According to research by noted Japanese military aviation historian Osamu TAGAYA;

"In total, the Japanese appear to have had as many as ten flyable P-40Es. For a brief period, during 1943, a few of them were actually used operationally by the 50th Hiko Sentai in the defense of Rangoon. Testimony to this fact is given by Yasuhiko Kuroe (64th Hiko Sentai) in his memoirs, in which he says one Japanese Warhawk shot down a friendly 'Sally' over Rangoon by mistake!"

However, Hawk victories over No.12 Hiko Sentai (FR) Mitsubishi Ki-21 Sally bombers in the skies above Rangoon, Burma began on 25 December 1941. On that date, twenty-seven Sally bombers attached to No.12 FR departed their home base at Don Muang Airfield, Bangkok Thailand (Siam) for a mission to bomb Rangoon and the nearby airfield at Mingaladon. Accompanying No.12 FR were thirty-six Sallys of No.60 FR along with an escort of twenty-five Nakajima Ki-43 Oscars belonging to No.64 FR.

After forming over Don Muang, the formation proceeded to Moulmein, Burma, changed course and approached Rangoon at an altitude of 6000 meters. With Rangoon in sight, the lead Sally of the No.12 FR under the command of Capt. KUSAKARI, suddenly turned away. A message from Capt. KUSAKARI indicated that his aircraft had some mechanical difficulty and the No.1 Hiko Chutaicho for No.12 FR, Capt. OURA, was to take the lead position. As the formation reorganized and proceeded to the primary target, the electric power facility at Rangoon, they were attacked by the defending force, British Brewster Buffaloes and Curtiss P-40Bs belonging to the 3rd Pursuit Squadron ("Hell's Angels") of the American Volunteer Group, "Flying Tigers."

At least three of the No.12 FR Sallys were lost. The first being that of Lt. Seizo HAYASHI. Two other Sallys made forced landings. One crash-landed at Don Muang and the other, flown by Lt. Koichi MIYAWAKI, crashed in the mountains of Siam. Major Tateo KATO, leading the escort fighters of the No.64 Hiko Sentai, lost at least two of his pilots, Lt. Horoshi OKUMURA and Sgt. Shigekatsu WAKAYAMA.

Sources: "Japanese Army Heavy Bomber Units," by Dr. Yasuho IZAWA "Japanese Fighter Units and Aces," by Dr. Yasuho IZAWA Translation by Shuichiro Watabiki

 

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Sino-Japanese War – the Beginning

0 comments Posted by Mitch Williamson at 12:30 PM


The old and the new: the Japanese capture of Hsüchow, Honan province, 1 July 1938. Representation of a light tank invites the suggestion that it was the only tank available to the Japanese in this operation: the fact was that the Imperial Army was wholly under-invested in armour and mechanized-motorized forces, as the Soviet Army demonstrated one year later.

A sign of change: Japanese troops disembarking at the Shanghai bund, for long the physical manifestation of western power in China, in November 1937 in readiness for the move against Soochow (abandoned by the Chinese on the 19th) and thence against Nanking.

Japan's ever-closer identification with Germany and Italy in the course of the 1930s was of symbolic rather than practical value: Japan's hope that the Treaty would serve to check the Soviet Union was to prove stillborn. The significance of Japan's association with Germany and Italy was not missed, but in the event this need not have been significant. What was far more significant was the outbreak of war in China following a clash between Chinese and Japanese forces outside Peking on 7 July 1937. At first this encounter did not seem unduly important: there was every possibility that it could be resolved by the Japanese in exactly the same way that numerous incidents in northern China had been resolved over the four previous years. After overrunning Manchuria in 1931-2 the Japanese had set about a deliberate encroachment on Chinese territory: Jehol was invaded and occupied in January-February 1933 and the Chinese squeezed from Hopei in June 1935 and from Charar in the following month.

In the aftermath of the clash of July 1937 the Japanese, by their standards, were restrained, confining themselves to the occupation of Tientsin and Peking. There was good and obvious reason for such restraint, not least the paucity of Japanese forces in northern China, but in the event the determination of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria to further its ambitions in Inner Mongolia and the outbreak of fighting in Shanghai on 13 August pushed Japan towards general war: by the end of September the Japanese Army had dispatched ten divisions to northern China and another five to Shanghai, primarily to rescue the naval formations which had provoked the August clash in an attempt to ensure that the army did not steal a march on its sister service in matters Chinese.

In reality, deeper forces were at work in producing Japan's 'special undeclared war' with China, specifically China's attempts after December 1936 to resolve her civil wars in order to present a united front to future Japanese aggression. Within the Japanese high command, therefore, there were elements that sought to forestall such a development, and with the spread of war, and the inability of Tokyo either to contain the conflict or to end it by negotiation, Japanese operations quickly assumed their own momentum. Within four months of the outbreak of general war, the Kwantung Army had secured Inner Mongolia and installed a puppet regime at Kueisui while by the end of 1937 much of China north of the Yellow River - considered by some of the Japanese military to be the minimum sphere of influence that was acceptable - had been overrun. It was in central China, however, that the main story unfolded, specifically the Japanese capture of Shanghai in November and Nanking, amid scenes of mass murder, rape, torture and pillage, in December.

In the course of 1938 Japanese forces in northern China cleared Shansi and Shantung and advanced to the Pinglu-Kaifeng-Hsuchow-Taierhchwang line, while from their positions on the lower Yangtse the Japanese were able to develop offensives that cleared Anhwei north of the river and moved into the Wuhan cities, the Chinese having ceded the middle Yangtse in order to withdraw into the fastness of Kweichow and Hunan. With the simultaneous seizure of Canton, Japanese success in the course of 1938 was impressive, yet it represented failure, and for obvious reason: the basic dilemmas which had proved so intractable during the Chinese civil wars of the 1920s presented themselves anew. The Japanese were confronted by the basic question of whether to seek to destroy the Nationalist regime of Chiang Kai-shek or to preserve it as the only authority that might deliver a negotiated settlement. They also faced the related problem of whether to sponsor rival regimes in an attempt to put pressure on the Nationalists to come to a settlement, or as genuine alternatives to the Nationalist government in Chungking. But either and both of these sets of alternatives concealed the real problem. Japan did not embark upon the conquest of northern and central China in order to provide alternatives to her own rule: Japan sought to secure the power of decision exclusively for herself, and certainly never understood any force of nationalist aspiration other than her own.

Moreover, success in the field merely confirmed the truth of the Clausewitzian observation that it is easy to conquer but hard to occupy. In the vastness of China it was impossible to force a military victory, while by the beginning of 1938 guerrilla warfare had taken hold in many areas nominally under Japanese control, even as banditry revived inside Manchuria as a result of the reduction of the Japanese garrisons in order to provide for operations in China. With the Nationalists having opted for 'a sustained strategy of attrition' that in the end the Japanese could never counter, 1938 also saw clashes with the Soviets, which in turn presented another conundrum: whether operations in China were to be curtailed in order to ensure the security of Manchuria or developed without reference to the distinct possibility of further, serious clashes with the Soviet Union.

In such a situation, and unable to force battle upon the Chinese Nationalist armies in the wastes of Szechwan, Kweichow and Yunnan, the Japanese undertook the first strategic air campaign in history. Douhet, Mitchell and Trenchard are always paraded as the high priests of air power, specifically strategic bombing, but interestingly the first person to have committed to paper the idea of breaking an enemy's will to resist by a bombing campaign directed against a civilian population was a Japanese naval officer, Nakajima Chikuhei, in 1915. The first such employment of air power came as early as August 1937, and in summer 1938 the Japanese undertook a terror bombing campaign against Canton; in May 1939 the Japanese launched their first attacks on Chungking. In spring-summer 1940, however, the Japanese launched Operation 101, a systematic campaign against Chinese cities in the interior, primarily Chungking, with a view to breaking Chinese morale. A year later, in spring-summer 1941, the Japanese renewed their attempt with Operation 102, but this was a halting affair as Japanese naval aircraft were in the process of being withdrawn from China in readiness for operations in south-east Asia and the Pacific.

The two offensives produced interesting results, although not the ones that the Japanese sought. Chinese cities, on account of their massive concentrations of people and generally flimsy construction, were peculiarly vulnerable to bombing, and a number of them, most obviously Chungking, were all but razed. With their populations either driven out or underground, Chinese morale faltered under the initial blows, but it did not break. Moreover, the Japanese were to find that the effectiveness of their raids was directly dependent upon fighters first having secured air superiority: before August 1940 and the commitment of the A6M Zero-sen long-range fighter to the battle, Japanese losses were all but prohibitive. As it was, both Operation 101 and Operation 102 were conducted on a scale that was too small to have realistic chances of success - the total effort involved in Operation 101 was less in terms of aircraft sorties and bomb load than those directed against Dresden in February 1945 - and, critically, this last-resort option failed. The army and navy air forces were not able to record a result that the Japanese military could not achieve on the ground, and the China war remained thereafter, as it had been since 1937, unwinnable by military means.

 

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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Personal Experience IV

0 comments Posted by Mitch Williamson at 8:22 PM


 

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Personal Experience III

0 comments Posted by Mitch Williamson at 8:21 PM


 

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Personal Experience II

0 comments Posted by Mitch Williamson at 8:20 PM


 

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