Show notes
Last time we spoke about the beginning of the Third Battle of Changsha. After China declared war on Japan following Pearl Harbor, General Xue Yue devised the "Heavenly Furnace Tactic" for the Ninth War Zone: lure Japanese forces deep into a trap around Changsha, let disgraced 10th Army commanders Li Yutang and Fang Xianjue redeem themselves by holding the city, while outer forces closed a ring to annihilate the invaders. Chiang Kai-shek approved the plan. Meanwhile, Japanese General Okamura, anxious that Hong Kong's imminent fall might render his Hunan offensive pointless, moved up his attack despite unprepared units. On December 24, amid brutal snow and freezing cold, Japan's 6th Division crossed the Xinqiang River, breaking through Chinese positions defended fiercely by Yang Hanyu's Sichuan troops, who bought crucial time through costly delaying resistance—including a battalion that fought to the last man. The furnace had been lit; the Third Battle of Changsha was underway, its outcome resting on whether the trap would close on the Japanese or collapse on its builders. #223 Snow and Steel: The Third Battle of Changsha Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The 20th Army fought a stubborn, successive delaying withdrawal between the Xinqiang River and the Miluo River, holding on from dawn on the 24th until dawn on the 27th. As the Japanese pursued the Chinese forces defending the first line up to the northern bank of the Miluo River, the campaign entered its second phase. The 37th Army under Chen Pei and elements of the 99th Army under Fu Zhongfang formed up to meet the enemy, and the fighting continued, no less arduous or fierce. The Japanese official history The Changsha Operations records the brutality of this phase from the other side's perspective: Following orders issued by the 11th Army on the 26th, each division pressed rapidly toward the line of the Miluo River. For days the river had risen with the wind and snow, its currents turbid and swift, its depth impossible to gauge. The Yokota Battalion suppressed the enemy's star-shaped strongpoints with rapid-fire guns and heavy weapons while forcing its way through under grenade fire into the enemy position through blind spots in their defense... The 3rd Company, at 1:30 p.m., forced its way across the Miluo River the water reaching the men's chests amid flying snow, and pressed forward to exploit its gains without even pausing to dry its soaked uniforms. A squad assigned to guard the pack-horse train was struck three times in succession while pursuing from the rear, and nearly annihilated entirely. After the Ito Infantry Battalion passed safely through, the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, its regimental colors leading the advance, came within seven or eight hundred meters of the Miluo River when it suddenly came under withering fire from strongpoints on both sides of the road. The regimental adjutant was wounded immediately, and sixty-four horses were shot down one after another... The enemy's resistance was extraordinarily stubborn, encircling the regimental headquarters from both left and right... In this engagement, Captain Toshi Kimura, commander of the 1st Company, newly reorganized Mountain and Field Artillery Regiment No. 6, was killed by a bullet through the head. On the 29th, an unusually heavy snow fell across Hunan; along the banks of the Miluo River, everything lay pure white... Shortly after crossing the river, the Toda unit [note: the 234th Regiment, 40th Division, under Colonel Yoshinao Toda] encountered the established defensive positions of the Chongqing army's 95th Division [note: under the 37th Army, commanded by Luo Qi]... The main force of the 95th Division made skillful use of the terrain to resist with great tenacity; our artillery bombardment proved ineffective, and the attack was extremely difficult. By dawn on the 30th, it became clear our units had advanced too close to the enemy position for frontal artillery support to remain possible. As a result, the guns could only provide suppressive fire from the flanks, leaving the front-line troops to advance yard by yard on their own; even heavy machine guns could not be brought up to the position, forcing reliance on light machine guns and grenade launchers alone. Combat requiring this volume of grenade use had never before been seen. Lieutenant Colonel Keiu Morikawa, commander of the 40th Transport Regiment operating in the rear, was attacked on the night of the 30th while resting with Chinese laborers at a temple in Changhu, ten kilometers southeast of Xinqiang, and died in the snow. Ever since reaching the banks of the Miluo, rumors had circulated among frontline officers and men that this campaign was merely meant to divert attention from Hong Kong, and that the army would likely turn back by the 31st. Yet now, having advanced beyond the left bank of the river, with the army still pressing southward, the men had no idea what lay ahead in terms of further action, and remained in a state of suspicion and unease. The sleet turned entirely to heavy snow beginning on the 27th, and the snow continued falling without pause until the 30th. Northern Hunan had become, exactly as the Japanese history described it, a world of unbroken white. More than fifty years later, that snow melted away without a trace. Year after year, crops, forests, and wild grasses grew and vanished across the land, burying the old battlefields layer upon layer until not a single mark remained. Both nations' official histories record how many soldiers on each side froze to death or were maimed by the cold in that snowfall and in all the years since, neither country's history records another snowfall as heavy, or as bitterly cold, as that one. Corporal Sawahito Shimoda, of the 40th Division's 235th Regiment (also known as the Nishina Regiment), had been assigned to escort the transport unit during the 1941 winter Changsha campaign. After crossing the Xinqiang River, the transport column came under a fierce ambush by a small detachment of Chinese troops operating behind the lines a battle that began and ended amid an expanse of snow. He recalled: "The snow was so heavy! My hand on the rifle ached with the cold; my right index finger was so stiff it wouldn't obey my brain, and I worried I wouldn't be able to pull the trigger if it came to that... Behind the thicket, hateful shadows moved. Bullets struck the ground, throwing up sprays of snow... Shimokawa, Onizuka, Matsumoto, Yamazaki — my comrades fell one after another into the snow. Above the dark red pools of their blood drifted the last faint warmth of their lives. The heavy snow smothered every other smell, but the sweet, metallic tang of blood cut straight into my throat, and I felt an overwhelming urge to be sick... That temple was completely surrounded by Chinese troops. Explosion after explosion rang out from that direction. In the heavy snow, gunfire and blasts carried no echo at all, which somehow made them cut into the soul all the more sharply. The four of us stared silently toward the sound, unable to cross over and join a fight so hopelessly outmatched. Kojima groaned beside me, blood bubbling up from beneath the bandage on his chest — we knew he wasn't going to make it... I fell hard, ice and mud and filth covering my face and body, and strangely, the snow felt almost burning hot against my skin... Squad Leader Katayama had already made it back ahead of us, and when he saw the state we were in, he couldn't hold back his own tears. He helped us wash, gave us dry clothes, fed us, and then told us, grief-stricken: the dozen or so men who had been with Regimental Commander Morikawa — all of them had died at that temple, smashed to pieces. Part of the transport train had been looted by the enemy, the rest burned. Katayama said: 'The Commander died horribly. His head was gone, and one of his feet too. They'd stripped his uniform off him — probably to claim some reward based on his rank. His body had been left exposed in the snowy wilderness, and by the time they found him, wild animals had already gotten to him...' I heard that Commander Morikawa had been a fine officer — fond of jokes, full of compassion, well-liked by the men under him. Before joining the army, he had worked as a construction engineer. Even now, I refuse to spend winters in Hokkaido. I have relatives in Sapporo and Kushiro who sometimes invite me to visit in winter, and I always find some excuse to decline. The truth is, I'm afraid of seeing snow blanket everything like that again..." On December 30, gazing out at the snow falling in thick silver curtains over Yuelu Mountain, Xue Yue dictated a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek: "Urgent. To Chairman Chiang, Chongqing. Confidential. The Third Battle of Changsha bears on the very survival of the nation and on the shape of the international order. In this battle, I [Xue himself] hold to a resolve to die if necessary, and a conviction of certain victory. In order to seize the moment, annihilate the enemy, and achieve a great victory, I have established the following three measures, communicated by telegram to all units for compliance: (1) Every group army commander, army commander, and division commander must maintain firm control of his forces and personally direct operations at the front, so as to seize the moment and annihilate the enemy when it comes. (2) Should I fall in battle, Deputy Commander Luo shall assume my duties and continue the encirclement and annihilation of the enemy according to the established plan. Should any commander at the army, division, regiment, battalion, or company level fall in battle, his deputy, or the next most senior officer, shall immediately assume command. (3) Any commander at any level — group army, army, division, regiment, battalion, or company — who fails to fight with full effort or causes the loss of a critical opportunity shall be dealt with under the Revolutionary Army's law of collective responsibility, without exception or leniency. The above three matters are respectfully telegraphed for your record and approval. Xue Yue. [Changsha]" In Chongqing, Chiang Kai-shek had spent days reviewing the telegrams from the Ninth War Zone one by one, and now, holding Xue Yue's latest dispatch, he paced back and forth between the operational map of the Ninth War Zone and the map of the world. Just before dawn that morning, T.V. Soong had sent an urgent cable: representatives of twenty-six nations — the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, China, the Netherlands, Australia, and others — had reached a preliminary agreement in Washington to form a united front against fascism, with the signing ceremony for the Declaration by United Nations set for January 1. China's status as one of the world's four great powers had now received unanimous recognition from the international community. China's war of resistance against Japan, recognized as a vital front in the broader global struggle against fascism, was drawing widespread attention from the forces of peace across the world. With barely two days remaining before the Declaration took effect, various foreign governments and civic organizations were already approaching Soong to discuss aid for China's war effort more requests than he could keep up with. Chiang's thoughts returned once more to the snow-covered expanse of northern Hunan. The Ninth War Zone's successive delaying withdrawals had, according to plan, drawn the Japanese deep to the very gates of Changsha; the decisive blow was now imminent. If this battle could be won, what better gift could there be to mark the birth of the world's anti-fascist alliance? He walked to his desk and drafted the reply himself — the very telegram that historians, decades later, would find preserved in the archives: Urgent. To Commanding Officer Xue, Changsha. Confidential. Your telegram of the 30th received. That you hold to such resolve, and rally your forces with such vigor, brings me great comfort. At this moment when we fight shoulder to shoulder with our allied nations, I earnestly hope this battle will achieve a decisive victory, and win for our revolutionary soldiers glory beyond compare. Chiang. [Chongqing] To the Staff. On the morning of New Year's Day 1942, the wind had stopped and the snow had ceased; the sky was clear. Southeast of Changsha, more than 20,000 officers and men of the Japanese 3rd Division—having just forced a crossing of the Liuyang River at Mopanzhou—stood assembled under Division Commander Toyoshima Fusatarō. Facing the first sunrise of the new year, they turned east and held a prayer ceremony. When the prayers ended, the quiet, solemn ranks came alive. Officers and men exchanged New Year's greetings, wishing one another the early realization of the Greater East Asia dream and victories in the year ahead. The orderly military formation dissolved, for a moment, into an enthusiastic New Year's gathering. Toyoshima moved through the ranks of the division's support units, offering holiday greetings of his own. He stopped before Major Katō Motoichi, commander of the 2nd Battalion, recently transferred in from the 6th Regiment. Katō was in a sour mood: his battalion had been designated the mobile reserve and would not see immediate action. Toyoshima clapped him on the shoulder. "I will give your unit the chance to claim the greatest merit," he said—a promise that drew cheers from Katō and his men. The battalion had fought in nearly every major engagement since the Shanghai Campaign and had built a reputation for night fighting that made it a favorite of successive division commanders. At 8 a.m., Toyoshima gave the order to attack. Artillery and aircraft opened up in close coordination, the explosions dense and continuous, and the infantry regiments surged forward along their assigned routes toward the defenses of Changsha. Sixty miles to the north, the headquarters of the Japanese 11th Army buzzed with the noise of telephones and radio traffic. Staff officers hurried between desks; several bent over maps, marking positions with tense concentration. Amid this activity, the man who had set it all in motion—Army Commander Anami Korechika—remained conspicuously calm. He glanced now and then at the shifting map, exchanged quiet words with Chief of Staff Kinoshita Isamu, and read through the telegrams and intelligence reports brought to him, occasionally jotting a note. On one wall of the operations room hung a blackboard bearing four large characters in yellow chalk: "New Year's Day · Changsha." The staff all knew the commander had written them himself. Anami's confidence was not unfounded, at least by the logic then available to him. The Chinese forces, having suffered a defeat only two months earlier in the previous battle for Changsha, had not yet recovered their strength; in numbers and morale alike, he judged them unequal to a renewed Japanese assault—a judgment the smooth early progress of his units seemed to confirm. And against the backdrop of Japan's string…
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