Introduction

World War II was the largest and most violent armed conflict in

the history of mankind. However, the half century that now separates

us from that conflict has exacted its toll on our collective knowledge.

While World War II continues to absorb the interest of military scholars and historians, as well as its veterans, a generation of Americans

has grown to maturity largely unaware of the political, social, and military implications of a war that, more than any other, united us as a

people with a common purpose.

Highly relevant today, World War II has much to teach us, not

only about the profession of arms, but also about military preparedness, global strategy, and combined operations in the coalition war

against fascism. To commemorate the nation’s 50th anniversary of

World War II, the U.S. Army has published a variety of materials to

help educate Americans about that momentous experience. These

works provide great opportunities to learn about and renew pride in

an Army that fought so magnificently in what has been called “the

mighty endeavor.”

World War II was waged on land, on sea, and in the air over several

diverse theaters of operation for approximately six years. The following

essay is one of a series of campaign studies highlighting those struggles

that, with their accompanying suggestions for further reading, are

designed to introduce you to one of the Army’s significant military feats

from that war. 

This brochure was prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military

History by Mark D. Sherry. I hope this absorbing account of that period will enhance your appreciation of American achievements during

World War II.

JOHN W. MOUNTCASTLE

Brigadier General, USA

Chief of Military History
China Defensive

4 July 1942–4 May 1945

The China Theater of Operations more resembled the SovietGerman war on the Eastern Front than the war in the Pacific or the

war in Western Europe. On the Asian continent, as on the Eastern

Front, an Allied partner, China, carried the brunt of the fighting.

China had been at war with Japan since 1937 and continued the fight

until the Japanese surrender in 1945. The United States advised and

supported China’s ground war, while basing only a few of its own

units in China for operations against Japanese forces in the region

and Japan itself. The primary American goal was to keep the

Chinese actively in the Allied war camp, thereby tying down

Japanese forces that otherwise might be deployed against the Allies

fighting in the Pacific. 

The United States confronted two fundamental challenges in the

China theater. The first challenge was political. Despite facing a

common foe in Japan, Chinese society was polarized. Some Chinese

were supporters of the Nationalist Kuomintang government; some

supported one of the numerous former warlords nominally loyal to

the Nationalists; and some supported the Communists, who were

engaged in a guerrilla war against the military and political forces of

the Nationalists. Continuing tensions, which sometimes broke out

into pitched battles, precluded development of a truly unified

Chinese war effort against the Japanese.

The second challenge in the China theater was logistical. Fighting

a two-front war of its own, simultaneously having to supply other

Allies, and facing enormous distances involved in moving anything

from the United States to China, the U.S. military could not sustain the

logistics effort required to build a modern Chinese army. Without sufficient arms, ammunition, and equipment, let alone doctrine and leadership training, the Chinese Nationalist Army was incapable of driving

out the Japanese invaders. A “Europe-first” U.S. policy automatically

lowered the priority of China for U.S.-manufactured arms behind the

needs of U.S. forces, of other European Allies, and of the Soviet

Union. The China theater was also the most remote from the United

States. American supplies and equipment had to endure long sea passages to India for transshipment to China, primarily by airlift. But

transports bringing supplies to China had to fly over the Himalayas—

the so-called Hump—whose treacherous air currents and rugged
mountains claimed the lives of many American air crews. Despite a

backbreaking effort, only a fraction of the supplies necessary to successfully wage a war ever reached southern China.

Regardless of these handicaps, the United States and Nationalist

China succeeded in forging a coalition that withstood the tests of time.

Indeed, Chinese leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the Allied

Supreme Commander, China Theater, accepted, though reluctantly,

U.S. Army generals as his chiefs of staff. This command relationship

also endured differences in national war aims and cultures, as well as

personalities, until the end of the war. The original policies of

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Army Chief of Staff George C.

Marshall succeeded—China stayed in the war and prevented sizable

numbers of Japanese troops from deploying to the Pacific.

Strategic Setting

China’s estimated 400 million people seemed to offer the Allies a

great military asset in terms of inexhaustible manpower. Emerging

from a century of defeat and humiliation at the hands of European

powers and Japan, plus years of civil wars, China in the early 1900s

appeared to be moving slowly toward restoring its national sovereignty. By the late 1920s, the Chinese government had gained at least nominal control over most of the country and embarked on a path of

reform and modernization, with advice and support from selected foreign governments and individuals. Japan’s undeclared war in China in

1937 gained popular sympathy and respect for the Chinese from the

international community. By 1941, for a variety of reasons ranging

from noble political idealism to crude anti-Japanese sentiment, the

West was again ready to support China.

One key recipient of this support was the Chinese Nationalist

Army. Despite Chiang’s apparent unification of China by military

force, his army incorporated many units more loyal to their former

regional warlords than to his new central government. Nationalist

Army units were not only uneven in loyalty but also in quality. On

paper China had 3.8 million men under arms in 1941. They were organized into 246 “front-line” divisions, with another 70 divisions

assigned to rear areas. Perhaps as many as forty Chinese divisions had

been equipped with European-manufactured weapons and trained by

foreign, particularly German and Soviet, advisers. The rest of the units

were under strength and generally untrained. Overall, the Nationalist

Army impressed most Western military observers as more reminiscent

of a nineteenth- than a twentieth-century army.

4
A

B

C

C

Yangtze R

West R

Yellow R

UNION OF SOVIET

SOCIALIST REPUBLICUSSR

M A N C H U R I A

K O R E

A

Peiping

Anpei

Yenan

Nanking

Wuhu Shanghai

Nanchang

Hankow I-chang

Chungking

Kunming

Kweilin

Swatow Canton

Hong Kong

FORMOSA I

HAINAN I LUZON I

FRENCH

INDOCHINA

Note: Map is based on Imperial GHQ Army Order No. 575,

 3 December 1941 

Area to be secured and "public order" to be restored

In this area, communications along Yangtze R to be

secured and enemy resistance eliminated

"Strategic" areas to be occupied

JAPANESE PLAN–DECEMBER 1941

0 500

Miles

A

B

C
6

Full-scale war with Japan began in July 1937. Although quickly

defeated in north China, stubborn Chinese resistance in Shanghai later

that year earned them worldwide respect. But Japan’s highly trained

soldiers proved too much for the Chinese. Driven from Shanghai, the

Chinese retreated inland. Nanking, the Nationalist capital, fell to the

Japanese in December 1937. Yet China refused Japan’s peace overtures and withdrew still deeper into the rugged interior, finally reestablishing a capital at Chungking, on the upper Yangtze gorges some 700

miles from the coast.

Chiang’s army received $250 million worth of tanks, trucks, and

aircraft from the Soviet Union in 1938, plus some British and French

military supplies. Nevertheless, by the summer of 1939 Japan controlled most of northeastern China and all major coastal seaports,

except for the British Crown Colony at Hong Kong. In short, China

was isolated, except for supplies moving from the west along the socalled Burma Road or through French Indochina.

Joining in widespread international condemnation of Japan’s

aggression, the United States circumspectly supported China.

President Roosevelt approved $25 million in military aid to China on

19 December 1940, permitting the Chinese to purchase one hundred

P–40 pursuit aircraft. By late spring 1941, the United States had also

earmarked over $145 million in lend-lease funds for China to acquire

both ground and air equipment. In May 1941, Secretary of War Henry

Stimson approved a Chinese request for sufficient equipment to outfit

thirty infantry divisions, intended for delivery by mid-1942. Prompted

by his private adviser, Claire L. Chennault, a retired U.S. Army Air

Corps officer, Chiang also obtained Roosevelt’s support for an

American Volunteer Group (AVG) of about one hundred U.S. civilian

volunteers to fly the one hundred recently purchased P–40s. These

“Flying Tigers” began arriving in Burma in late 1941, the first

Americans actually to be fighting alongside the Chinese.

Having responded to disparate Chinese requests for specific arms,

General Marshall moved quickly to ensure tighter coordination

between Chinese requirements and U.S. production plans. He established the American Military Mission to China (AMMISCA) on 3 July

1941 under Brig. Gen. John Magruder, an officer with previous China

experience. Rather than simply serve as a conduit for Nationalist

requests for supplies, Marshall directed Magruder to advise the

Chinese on their military needs and ensure a closer match between

those needs and the capabilities of U.S. defense production.

Still, China had a lower priority for supplies than the United States

and its European Allies. Even the relatively meager amount of
materiel required by the Chinese proved difficult to deliver. Japanese

control of the China coast meant that all supplies had to reach inland

China through either Burma or French Indochina. British reluctance to

provoke Japan limited shipments through Hong Kong, and French

acquiescence to Japanese occupation of northern Indochina in

September 1940 left Rangoon, Burma, the closest friendly port to

Nationalist-held areas in China. Having crossed nearly 14,000 miles

by sea, lend-lease aid next went by rail to Lashio in northern Burma,

and then 715 miles by truck over the Burma Road to Kunming, China.

Over this precarious route only a trickle of supplies arrived at

Kunming. Burma’s loss to Japan’s armies in late May 1942 cut this one

remaining overland resupply route. The closest port for Chiang was

now in India, and henceforth all supplies earmarked for China had to

travel by air over the Himalayas, the Hump.

Despite these hardships, the U.S. government established a military theater of operations in China soon after Japan’s attack on Pearl

Harbor brought America into the war. President Roosevelt appointed

Army Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell head of the U.S. China-Burma-India

theater, and at the combined level, Generalissimo Chiang appointed

him chief of staff of the combined forces in the theater. Arriving in

China in early March, Stilwell found himself in a military and political

quagmire.

From the beginning of his tenure, Stilwell was dismayed by the

overall Chinese war effort. Many officers had noted that only a small

minority of Nationalist divisions were personally loyal to Chiang.

Most of the others reserved their allegiance for their own commanders,

whose subordination to Nationalist authority was problematic.

Moreover, most commanders viewed their units as political as well as

military resources and fought accordingly. Their intention was to conserve manpower and equipment rather than defeat the Japanese. Not

surprisingly, U.S. observers considered the Nationalist Army excessively defensive-minded, and were further dismayed by Chiang’s insistence that several of his best units deploy to northwestern China to

blockade the Chinese Communist forces in Yenan. Although both

Nationalists and Communists had pledged a united front against

Japan, this precarious truce broke down in mid-1941. Civil war, it

often seemed, was more likely than joint military action.

Stilwell’s immediate problem was the Japanese threat to China’s

supply lines in Burma. Chiang deployed nine Chinese divisions from

Yunnan Province, including several of his top units, equipped with the

first lend-lease supplies, to defend Burma. But even Stilwell’s personal

leadership of that force could not stanch the Japanese tide. Stilwell and

7
the Chinese force retreated to India where he laid plans for retraining

the Chinese Army for sustained offensive operations to retake Burma

and take the offensive in China itself.

Operations

Stilwell’s first instinct in the China theater was to seize the initiative, so June 1942 found him proposing a counteroffensive to push the

Japanese back down the Yangtze valley toward Hankow. Perhaps of

more immediate import, Stilwell was also proposing lifting the blockade of China by recapturing Burma, and possibly even northern

Indochina, through a multifront offensive employing Nationalist units

in southern China and those Chinese units operating together with

British forces from India. The fact that the latter units could be directly supported by British ports in India made this second project particularly attractive. Stilwell reasoned that a simultaneous advance from

both the west and east against the north-south portion of the Burma

Road held by the Japanese would be difficult to counter, and that

restoration of the China land supply route would make possible the

other projects seemingly desired by both Chiang and Stilwell. The

logic of the campaign seemed simple to American planners, but in

China nothing was simple.

Chiang supported neither offensive. Emphasizing the underequipped condition of most Chinese divisions, the Generalissimo

argued successfully that army resupply and training must precede any

major operations against Japanese forces in China. He bristled at the

concept of using Chinese divisions to restore Burma to British

Imperial control and may have also feared that his American-advised

and -equipped troops in India would become yet another independent

army. Moreover, although Stilwell had requested that at least one

American division be committed to the Allied campaign in Burma, no

U.S. forces were made available, greatly reducing American leverage.

Chiang also questioned the level of lend-lease supplies and their

transportation to China itself. U.S. and Chinese leaders had agreed

that the Thirty Division plan, approved in 1941, and aid for building a

500-plane Chinese air force, would require delivery of at least 7,500

tons of supplies per month. Because of production problems in the

United States, however, the War Department was able to forward only

3,500 tons per month to China through most of the rest of 1942.

Although it approved an additional 1,500 tons per month to U.S. air

units in China, for a monthly goal of 5,000 tons, even this supplement

was unrealized.

8
Equally significant, the Allies lacked the airlift capability to

move the supplies over the Hump. Although the Chinese estimated

that seventy-five C–47 transports could fly 5,000 tons per month, the

CBI theater’s Air Transport Command had only fifty-seven aircraft

in May 1942. Partly because of inclement weather, these planes averaged only fifty-seven round trips between China and India during the

months of May and June, delivering a total of 186 tons for both

months. Consequently, supplies intended for the Chinese accumulat9

Engineers unload a bulldozer from an Allied transport plane.

(U.S. Army Military History Institute)
ed in India awaiting airlift to China. But when Stilwell argued for

using these backlogged supplies to outfit Chinese units for a Burma

campaign, Chiang felt the Americans were again trying to bypass his

orders to further their own enterprises.

The shortages of delivery over the Hump caused another dilemma

for Stilwell. The AVG’s success in Burma and China led to its integration into the U.S. Army Air Forces on 6 July 1942 as the China Air

Task Force. Claire Chennault, recalled to active duty as a brigadier

general, commanded the new unit. Enjoying a warm personal relationship with Chiang, Chennault planned for offensive air operations

from bases in China against Japanese ground, air, and naval targets

throughout China and Southeast Asia. To carry out his plans,

Chennault needed nearly 2,000 tons a month of supplies, virtually all

of the imported Hump tonnage. Although Stilwell forwarded

Chennault’s request to Chiang in September 1942, he recommended

against it because the diversion of supplies would endanger his higher

priority Thirty Division plan.

The conflict between the priorities of Stilwell and those of

Chennault set the stage for another major dispute over theater strategy.

The U.S. inability to meet lend-lease requirements afforded Chiang

considerable leverage in his inclination to side with Chennault.

Unwilling to see his remaining forces decimated in premature combat

operations, he also proved wary of many of Stilwell’s reform ideas.

Similarly, not only was the United States unable to provide the infantry

division Stilwell had requested, but American advisory personnel for

China amounted to only 1,255 men by the end of the year, with all but

250 of those being Air Forces personnel. This aid was far below

Chiang’s expectations.

It took Roosevelt’s personal envoy, Dr. Lauchlin Currie, to broker

a compromise. Acquiescing to Stilwell’s proposals on 1 August 1942,

Chiang agreed to a campaign in Burma at an unspecified date involving as many as 20 Chinese divisions, including 15 operating from

Yunnan Province in southern China and 2 from India. The latter

would be trained at a U.S.-run base at Ramgarh, India—a victory for

Stilwell. In exchange, Chiang held out for one U.S. division, 500 aircraft for the Chinese air force, and 5,000 tons of supplies per month

airlifted over the Hump.

Thrusting himself headlong into planning for a major Burma campaign in the spring of 1943, Stilwell spent the remainder of 1942 training Chinese forces in India and trying to obtain operational control of

the fifteen Chinese divisions in Yunnan, designated the “Y-Force.”

Accelerated shipments of supplies for the Y-Force, however, could

10
only come at the expense of supplies for Chennault, who campaigned

through both official and unofficial channels for continued logistical

support for his needs. Capitalizing on the discord between two of his

American advisers, the Generalissimo sided with Chennault, recognizing that the lack of supplies for the Y-Force would compel Stilwell to

table his ambitious plan.

Meanwhile, the ground war in China remained stalemated. In May

1942 the raid on Japan by Brig. Gen. James H. Doolittle’s carrierlaunched medium bombers sparked a punitive campaign by six divisions of the Japanese Eleventh Army and Thirteenth Army against

Nationalist airfields in Chekiang Province. Although none of

Doolittle’s twin-engine bombers from the aircraft carrier Hornet ever

11

American trainer explains a tactical situation to Chinese soldiers. (U.S. Army Military History Institute)
reached these landing areas, the threat of future strikes on Japaneseheld territory from these airfields remained. Thus, despite nominal

opposition by units from nineteen Chinese “armies” in the area,

Japanese forces rapidly moved west into Kiangsi Province until a

Chinese counterattack in August threw them back. Perhaps unduly

impressed with the ability of his own forces to check further Japanese

excursions into the Chinese interior, Chiang supported Chennault’s

concept of an offensive air campaign against the Japanese supply lines

and, eventually, Japan itself. Such a theater strategy, relying on U.S. air

power for offensive operations, also promised to reduce Chiang’s own

casualties while avoiding some of Stilwell’s administrative reforms

that ignored the political realities of the Chinese military organization.

The continuing problems involved in airlifting supplies into China

exacerbated the tension between Chiang and Stilwell. In March of

1943 the 124 transport aircraft then available delivered only about

12

Smashed railroad bridge near the city of Kweilin, China.

(U.S. Army Military History Institute)
13

4,000 tons of supplies, 1,500 of which were designated for Chennault’s

forces. Meanwhile, pursuing his own objectives, Stilwell had managed

to establish artillery, infantry, and signal training centers at Kunming

in February 1943, but reorganizing and equipping of the Y-Force

lagged. Indeed, most small arms and other equipment for the now 32-

division, American-supported force would come from existing

Chinese stocks, with the United States providing primarily mortars

and artillery.

While the Thirty Division plan, which included the Y-Force in

southern China, remained behind schedule, Chennault continued to

lobby all who would listen for expanded air operations from China

bases. Having secured a U.S. heavy bombardment group in March, he

obtained Roosevelt’s support for an offensive air campaign using

these bombers from forward bases in east China. The general envisioned air attacks against Japan itself by the end of 1943. Roosevelt

Chinese soldiers receive training in use of the bayonet. (U.S.

Army Military History Institute)
endorsed Chennault’s optimistic plan, allocating him at least 4,700

tons per month of airlifted supplies for the Fourteenth Air Force,

beginning in July 1943. Though Roosevelt also set an overall goal of

10,000 tons per month by September to accommodate the Thirty

Division plan, ground supplies still languished in India. The only real

consolation Stilwell received was Marshall’s agreement to support a

second Thirty Division plan after completing training and equipping

of the first group.

Rebuffed again in his plan to reopen the Burma Road through a

combined offensive from China and Burma, Stilwell’s headquarters

concentrated during the summer of 1943 on plans to rebuild the

Chinese Army. Despite Chiang’s insistence on giving Chennault a

higher priority, Stilwell stubbornly expected to train and equip the thirty Chinese divisions in the Y-Force as envisioned in the lend-lease

plan, as well as the two, later three, divisions in India. With the U.S.

Army liaison team which had been scheduled for the Burma Road

operations serving as training advisers to the Y-Force in the interim,

Stilwell worked quietly through Marshall to pressure Chiang about

using the Y-Force to reopen the Burma Road.

At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, Allied leaders agreed

on an early 1944 date for a counteroffensive into Burma. Stilwell

sent the Chinese 22d and 38th Divisions, then at Ramgarh, into

northern Burma in December. A third Chinese division, the 30th,

entered the campaign shortly afterwards. U.S. Army engineers followed closely behind, building the Ledo Road from India to connect

with the Burma Road just south of the China border. American logistical planners believed that by reopening a ground route to China,

65,000 tons of supplies per month could move over all-weather

roads. But scarcity still dictated strategy in the CBI theater. For

example, transport aircraft, vital for Stilwell’s plans and always in

short supply, were diverted from flying the Hump to air drop supplies to Allied forces fighting in Burma. Again the Thirty Division

plan found itself relegated to a backwater.

Likewise, plans for the expedited development of an offensive

Chinese ground capability clashed with Chennault’s air campaign

initiatives. War Department approval to stage B–29 heavy bombers

from bases in China for a strategic air campaign against Japan triggered a massive base construction program and a follow-on logistical

effort whose costs were enormous. Initial plans called for over 400

transport aircraft to support B–29 operations in China. In reality the

Air Transport Command flew nearly 18,000 tons over the Hump

from February through October 1944 to support the B–29 program.

14
This was more tonnage than it had delivered to the Chinese Army

since May 1942.

The B–29 campaign and Fourteenth Air Force operations consumed most of the of airlifted supplies during the first six months of

1944. Although monthly air transport reached a peak of 8,632 tons in

October 1943, at least half of that went to Chennault. Both Roosevelt

and Chiang’s support for the air option left the Y-Force only partially

equipped and unprepared for combat, further increasing Stilwell’s frustrations. To mollify him, Chiang at least approved his earlier recommendation for a second Thirty Division plan. Designated the “ZEBRA

Force” by U.S. advisers, this group would defend air bases in east

China and eventually undertake a counteroffensive against Japanese

forces in the Yangtze valley. 

Always hopeful, Stilwell established an infantry training center at

Kweilin in Kwangsi Province soon afterwards and staffed it with about

2,200 U.S. personnel. But until the needs of the first Thirty Division

plan had been met, the War Department committed itself to providing

only 10 percent of ZEBRA Force’s requirements, enough for no more

than preliminary training efforts.

American patience with the slow pace of progress in China was

not indefinite. As Tokyo began deploying troops from China to other

theaters, American criticism over the failure of the Chinese Army to

initiate offensive operations began to grow. Beginning in December

1943, for example, five Japanese infantry divisions departed China for

the Pacific islands. Although this force represented only a small portion of the China Expeditionary Army’s 620,000 men organized into

some thirty-two division equivalents, it clearly signaled Japan’s lack of

concern with Chinese military capabilities.

Growing U.S. disquiet over Nationalist inaction even prompted

some American interest in the Chinese Communists. Stilwell had complained to Marshall and Roosevelt that as many as 500,000 Nationalist

soldiers were preoccupied with blockading the Communists rather

than fighting the Japanese. Meanwhile, bottled up in Yenan by both the

Japanese and Chiang’s forces, Mao Tse-tung had initiated an ambitious guerrilla campaign against the Japanese in occupied northern

China. On 9 February 1944, Roosevelt formally asked Chiang to permit a U.S. “observer mission” in Yenan to gather military intelligence

about the Japanese and coordinate the rescue of downed U.S. airmen.

Despite U.S. arguments that this mission was military, not political,

Chiang rejected the request.

The growing gulf between the United States and China over theater

strategy was further widened by the inaction of the Y-Force during the

15
Burma campaign. Despite Stilwell’s urging that Y-Force support the

Allied offensive in northern Burma by attacking the Japanese 56th

Division astride the Burma Road in western Yunnan Province, Chiang

demurred. The Generalissimo pointed out that U.S. lend-lease supplies

to the Y-Force, including 244 howitzers, had been inadequate to equip

and support the entire force. Stilwell countered that deficiencies in YForce readiness resulted primarily from the Chinese refusal to either

man units at full strength or to merge skeletonized formations into

effective fighting divisions. To break the impasse, Roosevelt demanded

on 3 April that Chiang attack the understrength and overextended 56th

Division with the Y-Force. When the Americans threatened to divert

April Y-Force supplies to the Fourteenth Air Force instead, Chiang

finally approved committing the Y-Force into action. 

Advised and supported by Brig. Gen. Frank Dorn’s Y-Force

Operations Staff (Y-FOS), General Wei Li-huang’s Chinese

Expeditionary Force of six armies comprised sixteen divisions. Wei

crossed the Salween River on the night of 11–12 May. He intended to

trap the Japanese in a pincers movement by securing key terrain both

north and south of the Burma Road, but unexpectedly strong Japanese

resistance stopped the Chinese advance. Siege operations against several Japanese strongpoints eventually proved successful, but at the

price of slowing the tempo of advance. Japanese resistance to the

north, at Teng-chung, proved especially stubborn. In the south, Wei’s

XI Group Army reached the outskirts of Lung-ling on the Burma

Road in early June before being pushed back by a Japanese counterattack on 16 June. Suffering from overextended supply lines, and in

extremely difficult terrain with units averaging only 60 percent effective strength, Wei’s attack ground to a halt.

Wei’s failure coincided with a major Japanese offensive in southern

and central China. Stung by increasingly audacious air attacks by the

Fourteenth Air Force, and aware of preparations for B–29 operations

against the Japanese home islands, Tokyo ordered the ICHIGO offensive.

The Japanese intended to capture Allied airfields in east China and to

open an overland supply route stretching from Pusan, Korea, to Saigon,

French Indochina. Such a line of communication would reduce demand

on the empire’s maritime lifeline, which was badly frayed by unrelenting Allied submarine attacks. Key goals were securing the entire northsouth Peiping-Huangshi rail line, as well as the Wuchang-Liuchow rail

line in central China. To provide the needed force, the Japanese shifted

units from the Kwantung Army and Mongolia Garrison Army south,

bringing their forces in China proper to 820,000 men. Fifteen divisions

would participate in Operation ICHIGO. 

16
Launched on 19 April 1944, Operation ICHIGO eliminated Chinese

resistance in Honan Province in central China by late April. To the

south, the Japanese offensive also enjoyed a steady string of victories

from May through August, although both the Chinese Army and the

U.S. Fourteenth Air Force harassed and delayed the pace of the

Japanese advance. The Z-Force had begun receiving some support

from the Kweilin Training Center, but remained woefully ineffective,

as the Y-Force had a first priority for all training and equipment.

Operation ICHIGO provoked a major crisis in the China-BurmaIndia theater. Facing the first major Japanese offensive since December

1941, Chiang blamed Chinese setbacks on delays of Allied supplies to

both Y- and Z-Forces, threatening to withdraw General Wei’s units

from the northern Burma campaign to defend southeastern China.

17





 



 











B-29 Aflds

XXX

MONGOLIA

GARRISON XXXX

XXXX

XXX

13th Corps

XXX

12th Corps

1st Corps

NORTH CHINA AREA ARMY

Jan or Feb 1945

TOGO 2, Jul-Sep

TOGO 2, Jul-Sep

TOGO 3, Oct

23d Corps

TOGO 1, Jun-Jul

11th

Corps XXX

KOGO, Apr-May

Peiping

KOREA

MANCHURIA

Kaifeng

Hsian Loyang

Nan-cheng

Liang-shan

Chungking

Cheng-tu

Kunming

FRENCH

Nan-ning

Kweiyang

Kweilin

Liuchow

Ling-ling

Nan-hsiung

Sui-chuan

Hong Kong

Canton

Changsha

Heng-yang

En-shih

Hankow

Wuchang

Shanghai

FORMOSA

C H I N A

Yellow R

Yangtze R

ICHIGO PLAN

0 300

Miles

Approximate Limit of Japanese Control,

 Mid–April 1944

 Allied Airfields
Chiang noted Fourteenth Air Force successes in disrupting Japanese

lines of supply along the railway from Wuchang, and endorsed further

diversion of Hump tonnage to sustain these efforts at the expense of

ground operations.

Stilwell was equally obstinate. He blamed the reverses on Chiang’s

unwillingness to reform command and training practices of Chinese

Army units. He also believed Chiang had to make common cause with

the Chinese Communists to defeat the Japanese. He denounced

Chiang’s decision to divert Hump tonnage from his ground forces to

the Fourteenth Air Force. President Roosevelt supported Stilwell and

18

Shweli R

Salween R

Irrawaddy R

Mekong R

MYITKYINA

FORCE

54th Corps

53d Corps

39th Div

(XI GA)

CEF HQ

XXXX

XX GA

XI GA

71st Corps

2d Corps

Myitkyina

Fort Harrison Ku-tung

Htawgaw

Hai-po

Pao-shan

Teng-chung

Lung-ling

Mang-shih

Ping-ka

BURMA ROAD

CHINA

BURMA Wanting

Bhamo

CHINA

BURMA

THE SALWEEN CAMPAIGN

ELEVATION IN FEET

0 1000 2000 3000 and Above

0 30

Miles

11 May–30 June 1944

Area of Strong Japanese Resistance,

 End of June
on 19 September urged Chiang to place Stilwell in effective command

of all Chinese ground units, including the Communists. Heretofore

Roosevelt had supported Chiang’s strategic vision. Now he signaled

clearly that future support depended on Chiang’s accepting U.S. strategic guidance. Chiang, however, remained resistant to American advice

and, on 2 October, formally rejected Roosevelt’s proposal. Thereafter,

American relations with Nationalist China, while outwardly warm,

slowly became more formal.

Having already decided to split China into a separate theater from

Burma and India, Roosevelt recalled Stilwell on 18 October, replacing

him with Maj. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer. As head of the U.S. ChinaBurma-India (CBI) theater, Stilwell had reported to two different

supreme commanders: Chiang and the British Admiral Lord Louis

19

General Wedemeyer arrives in Chungking in October 1944.

(U.S. Army Military History Institute)
Mountbatten of the Southeast Asia Command. This was an arrangement that became progressively more difficult as the tempo of operations increased in both theaters. General Wedemeyer, however, would

serve only as chief of the U.S. China theater. Nevertheless, when the

new commander arrived in Chungking on 31 October, he inherited all

of Stilwell’s difficulties with Generalissimo Chiang. There, at the

Nationalist wartime capital, he found the situation tense and atmosphere defeatist. Even Chiang’s political allies expressed growing criticism of his leadership as the Japanese China Expeditionary Army

moved deeper and deeper into Kwangsi Province.

General Wedemeyer had advantages when dealing with Chiang

that General Stilwell lacked. Freed of overseeing Chinese operations in

Burma, Wedemeyer also relinquished the role of Chinese lend-lease

administrator. He was more tactful than Stilwell and better able to get

along personally with Chiang. He also benefited from dramatic

increases in Air Transport Command strength. In October 1944 almost

300 aircraft flew 35,131 tons of supplies over the Hump, four times the

monthly tonnage of the previous year. Yet Wedemeyer still had only a

small advisory force of about 4,800 officers and men attached to the

Training Centers, the Y-Force, and the badly mauled Z-Force. Indeed,

20

Officers observe an attack on a fortified Chinese city. (U.S.

Army Military History Institute)
most supplies for the first Thirty Division plan and the approved 10

percent of supplies for the second Thirty Division plan still remained

in India awaiting either airlift or the reopening of the Burma Road.

Not until the overland route reopened could Wedemeyer’s logisticians

hope to deliver sufficient supplies and equipment to sustain even two

and a half divisions per month.

Unlike his predecessor, Wedemeyer had easy access to the

Communists. Chiang had reluctantly agreed to allow a small U.S. liaison mission to enter the Communist-controlled area of north China.

But Col. David D. Barrett, who headed this military mission, was soon

eclipsed by Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Hurley, the flamboyant American

ambassador to China. Hurley worked from November 1944 through

January 1945 trying to patch together a Nationalist and Communist

military coalition, hoping to divert Japanese troops in the south through

a series of coordinated Nationalist–Red Army joint offensives in the

north. Meantime, Barrett’s mission proposed to support Mao’s guerrilla

campaign in Japanese-occupied north China. However, largely because

of Nationalist objections, nothing came of either American proposal.

At the end of 1944, Wedemeyer and Chiang still faced the steadily

advancing Japanese Army in southeast China. The ICHIGO offensive

captured both Kweilin and Liuchow, a Fourteenth Air Force base, on

10 November, and two weeks later Japanese forces captured Nan-ning

in the extreme south, linking up with Japanese Southern Army units

advancing north from French Indochina shortly thereafter. By the end

of the year Japan’s China Expeditionary Army had achieved Operation

ICHIGO’s two primary goals: opening a land route to French Indochina

and capturing southeast China air bases. Although B–29 air raids on

Japan did continue from bases farther west, they were too minor to

have much impact on the overall air campaign.

Wedemeyer responded to continued Japanese successes with an

operational plan to protect the capital of Yunnan Province, Kunming,

against a further enemy offensive. Code-named Operation ALPHA, the

plan sought to reinforce Chinese units in southeastern China with two

divisions from Burma and the 53d Army, part of the Y-Force.

Although Chiang neither accepted nor rejected the plan, Wedemeyer

nevertheless shifted available Hump supply tonnage to the ALPHA

Force divisions and, at the same time, merged the Y- and Z-Force advisory staffs, as well as his training and service school advisers, into the

Chinese Training and Combat Command under General Dorn. The

entire effort was yet another U.S. design for equipping and organizing

selected Chinese Army units for specific campaigns under American

direction. Like the others, it suffered a mixed fate.

21
Meanwhile, south of the Chinese border, the campaign to reopen

the Burma Road with Y-Force units had begun moving again. Having

taken Tengchong by siege in August, General Wei’s XI Group Army

attacked Lung-ling on 29 October, seizing it on 3 November. Wei’s

depleted units then slowly advanced against the Japanese 56th

Division’s strong rearguard action, finally capturing Che-fang on 1

December. Following another protracted battle, on 20 January Wei’s

troops seized Wanting on the Burmese border, completing a linkup

with Allied troops from Burma on 27 January. Finally, the Japanese

blockade of China was broken. An overland motor convoy departed

Ledo, Burma, on 12 January and reached Kunming on 4 February, the

first of many runs bringing much needed supplies and equipment to

the Chinese Army.

Victory in the Salween campaign and the reopening of a ground

supply route to China allowed Wedemeyer to concentrate on building

the ALPHA Force. Restructuring Stilwell’s earlier and incomplete

Thirty Division plans, Wedemeyer proposed a Thirty-Six Division

22

Lung-ling

Mang-shih

Meng-ka

Che-fang

BURMA ROAD

CHINA

BURMA

Wanting

Mu-se

Mong Yu

Salween R

Shweli R

53d Corps

71st

Corps 6th

Corps

20 Nov

20 Nov

2d Corps

2d

Corps

71st

Corps

24 Nov

17 Nov

1 Dec

53d Corps

71st Corps 20 Jan

6th Corps

2d Corps

71st

Corps

22 Jan

2d Corps

27 Jan

20 Jan

113th

Inf Regt

112th Inf Regt

END OF THE SALWEEN CAMPAIGN

ELEVATION IN FEET

0 1000 2000 3000 and Above

0 20

Miles

3 November 1944–27 January 1945

Area of Strong Japanese Resistance

Axis of Advance, Chinese Army, Date
plan, organized around former Y-Force units and supported by a 4,000-

strong American advisory mission. The latter would provide advisory

teams to each Chinese regiment. With the Burma Road open and

Hump tonnage accumulating, Wedemeyer believed he could equip and

train thirty-six Chinese divisions by September 1945. Combat losses

of existing equipment would have had to be replaced, somewhat complicating the supply problem.

While most ALPHA Force units were undergoing initial training, the

enemy struck. On 8 April, Japan’s 20th Army launched a local offensive

from territory in southern China seized earlier during Operation

ICHIGO. Their target was the American air base at Chihchiang. The

Japanese 116th Division initially drove back four Chinese armies: the

18th, 73d, 74th, and 100th. Hurriedly, U.S. planes and trucks carried the

“new” 6th and the 94th Armies to Chihchiang to reinforce retreating

Chinese forces. By early May, Chinese forces had finally halted the

Japanese offensive well short of the Chihchiang air field, and by June

they had driven the Japanese back to their original line of departure.

23



Seking Detachment

116th Div

Shigeniro

Detachment Chihchiang Lung-hui

Yung-feng

Tung-kou

Ching-hsien

Wu-yang

Wu-kang

Hsin-ning

HUNAN

KWANGSI

Ling-ling

Taohsein

Kweiyang

Heng-yang

Pao-ching

Siangtan

6th Ch

Corps

100th Corps

18th Corps

73d Corps

74th Corps

94th

Corps

THE CHIHCHIANG CAMPAIGN

ELEVATION IN FEET

0 200 500 1000 and Above 0 100

Miles

8 April–7 June 1945

Axis of Advance, Japanese Unit

Limit of Japanese Penetration

Axis of Advance, Chinese Army 
The Chihchiang campaign was the last major Japanese offensive in

China. General Wedemeyer had already initiated planning for a major

Chinese offensive in the summer of 1945 intended to open a seaport on

China’s east coast. Equally important for the China theater was Plan

KETSU, adopted by Imperial General Headquarters on 1 April.

Intended to strengthen the defenses of the Japanese home islands, and

also counter a possible Allied amphibious landing in southern China,

Plan KETSU provided for major deployments from the Asian mainland

back to Japan and for the concentration of the China Expeditionary

Force along the coast. Allied defensive operations in China were over,

and a new offensive campaign was finally ready to begin.

Analysis

The China theater posed unique problems for the U.S. military.

Unlike Western Europe, where key partners employed comparable

resources, operations in China involved only a handful of U.S. ground

and logistical units in support of huge Chinese armies. Moreover, civil

strife in China, which long predated the outbreak of World War II and

was, at best, only obscured by the struggle with Imperial Japan, made

any conventional approach to American support unrealistic. Within

both the Nationalist Chinese and Red Chinese armies, internal politics

and military reform were inextricably linked, and any hope of creating

an effective and conventional Chinese military while temporarily

shelving China’s internal political problems was unrealistic.

The U.S. Army’s main role in China was to keep China in the war

through the provision of advice and materiel assistance. As long as

China stayed in the war, hundreds of thousands of Imperial Japanese

Army soldiers could be tied down on the Asian mainland. Success was

thus measured differently than in most theaters. How well both

General Stilwell and General Wedemeyer persuaded the theater commander-in-chief, Generalissimo Chiang, to support U.S. strategic

goals, and how effectively U.S. training and materiel support could

build selected Chinese Army divisions into modern tactical units,

capable of standing up to Japanese adversaries, were secondary objectives. What mattered most was simply keeping China in the war

against Japan.

The major U.S. failure in China was logistical: America was not

able to meet its lend-lease commitments. The closing of the Burma

Road in 1942 made it impossible to deliver sufficient equipment,

weapons, and munitions to build the dream of a well-equipped and

trained thirty-division Chinese force. By the time the Burma Road

24
reopened and supplies flowed freely across the border into China,

operations in other theaters had shaped the course of the war against

Japan. A paucity of available airlift capacity meant that deliveries of

supplies to China over the Hump proved barely adequate to replace

Chinese war losses, but not to sustain a major unit modernization and

training program. Generalissimo Chiang used this U.S. failure to

undermine General Stilwell’s credibility in Chungking and to reject his

strategic and operational guidance when it conflicted with the

Generalissimo’s desires.

The political nature of the Nationalist Chinese Army threatened all

American objectives in the China theater. Since that army served primarily as a political tool of Chiang Kai-shek and as a foundation of

the Nationalist regime, any action that modified its structure or risked

its destruction was assiduously avoided by the Nationalist government.

The army had to be maintained, not reformed. Military commanders

were selected for their political loyalty to Chiang rather than for their

military ability, and risking excessive casualties through offensive

operations was unacceptable. Chiang also had to keep his Communist

rivals at bay, habitually using his best troops for that purpose.

25

China-bound supply convoy travels up the Burma Road. (U.S.

Army Military History Institute)
Combined operations by rival Chinese armies against the Japanese

were impossible. Thus, differing Sino-American aims, magnified by

internal political conflict, cultural differences, and the personality conflicts between General Stilwell and Generalissimo Chiang, all inhibited

chances for success in the war effort.

Both Stilwell and Wedemeyer found themselves involved in competing priorities between the air and ground wars. Although he recognized the value of the support of the Fourteenth Air Force to the

Chinese Army, Stilwell was increasingly frustrated by Chennault’s

success in selling his ambitious air campaign. Chennault had secured

President Roosevelt’s support by promising a quick, cheap victory

through air power that avoided relying on the problem-ridden Chinese

Army. The thought of using Chinese air bases for U.S. planes to

attack Japanese bases in China, Japanese shipping in the Pacific, and

Japan itself had tremendous appeal to the president. The same concept appealed to Chiang because it required few of his precious

resources. In contrast, the plans of Stilwell and Wedemeyer demanded

the “Americanization” of theater operations and a major overhaul of

the Chinese Army. Ironically, for political rather than military reasons, Chennault’s request for diversion of Hump supply tonnage and

coolie laborers to build air bases was perhaps the more practicable

course of action.

Despite these problems, the China Defensive Campaign succeeded.

China remained in the war, diverting 600,000 to 800,000 Japanese

troops, who might otherwise have been deployed to the Pacific.

Because of U.S. support to China, the Japanese Army might conduct

limited offensive operations there, but had no hope of ultimate victory

on the Asian continent. Chiang relied on his U.S. allies to open the

Burma Road, and on U.S. air power to check Japanese offensives by

interdicting supply lines in order to conserve his own army and the territory in the interior of China that his government continued to control.

By May 1945, the United States and China were finally ready to

assume the offensive in China.

26

Further Readings

The most extensive and detailed analysis of World War II operations in the China-Burma-India theater remains the three-volume

Army official history of the theater by Charles F. Romanus and Riley

Sunderland: Stilwell’s Mission to China (1956), Stilwell’s Command

Problems (1956), and Time Runs Out in CBI (1959). For flavor, The

Stilwell Papers, edited by Theodore H. White (1948) is still recommended, while for a critical appraisal, see Chin-tung Liang’s book

General Stilwell in China, 1942–1944: The Full Story (1972).

Japanese perspectives can be found in Meirion and Susie Herries,

Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army

(1991); Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War: World War II and the

Japanese, 1931–1945 (1978), and Saburo Hayaski and Alvin D. Coox,

Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War (1959).

Cover: Chinese mule pack moves troops down the Burma Road.

(U.S. Army Military History Institute)

CMH Pub 72–38

PIN : 073892–000