Burning Beneath the Rising Sun: Wrapping Up Southern China
With its northern flank secured Japan was once more able to devote much needed attention to China. The Japanese had faced so many distractions from their campaign in China that it was almost hard to remember that the conflict with Britain began when their efforts to secure southern China went awry. The Battle of Hong Kong and the need to strike out at Britain before it could mobilize meant that planned follow ups to the Canton Operation never materialized. Those were now on the top of the todo list.
Their target list wasn’t all that long: the large island of Hainan, the major port city of Shantou, and Nanning, the primary economic centre of Guangxi Province. The issue was rather that these objectives were meant to have been accomplished by now. Every day that China wasn’t effectively land locked was another day of access to the international arms market. One thing in their favour now was that they had access to Hong Kong’s modern naval facilities as a launch pad.
Chiang’s intelligence offices were not blind to the increased naval activity. However, they had difficulty interpreting what it might mean. A further offensive in the Canton Area? A new landing elsewhere in Southern China? Another strike south against the British? Japan’s decision making had proven so unpredictable that Chiang even felt the need to warn France that Indochina might be Japan’s next target.[1] Chiang had only so many forces to spare, and seemingly every fishing village on the coast was a potential target in need of a garrison.
Eventually the NRA concluded that Japan’s use of Hong Kong indicated that it was intending to strike further west. Further, based on Japan’s previous amphibious operations they concluded that Japan would likely be limited to pursuing two targets at most. The NRA’s initial preparations focused on significant ports east of Canton, but the British attache urged that Hainan was likely Japan’s objective, as it would greatly improve the coverage of its airborne ASW patrols.
China was accordingly completely unprepared when a fairly light force from Formosa took Shantou and Chaozhou by storm on the 16th of July. As the NRA scrambled to reassess its deployments, the two forces from Hong Kong departed.
The smaller of these two forces landed in numerous spots around the island of Hainan. Despite weeks of alerts, the large NRA force on the island was not prepared for a Japanese attack. Rather, the local commander had the force dispersed throughout the interior fighting communists and suppressing the Li.[2] The developed coastal regions were quickly overrun and the bulk of the NRA’s force were defeated in detail. By the 23rd, major combat operations were concluded and the local NRA forces were reduced to a handful of guerilla formations in the island’s mountainous south.
IJA armour coming ashore on Hainan
To the North, the 5th Division had landed on the coast of Qinzhou Bay and by the 25th had managed to capture the city of Qinzhou itself. Their efforts to push further, however, were frustrated by a spoiling attack conducted by mechanized elements of General Xu Tingyao’s 38th Group Army.
These new campaigns represented the start of an even grimmer chapter for Hong Kong, which had already suffered so much hardship. Many of the city’s sons would be yanked from their homes and press ganged into labour battalions, forced at bayonet point to assist in Japan’s campaigns and the economic exploitation of newly subjugated territories. The city’s daughters didn’t escape Doihara’s grasp either. The IJA had already established a number of brothels in the city to provide “comfort women” services. When the IJA moved on, they dragged their playthings along with them. This relentless exploitation of Hong Kong’s human resources, along with a number of deportation schemes and countless executions, would reduce Hong Kong from a happy city of 1.4 million to a mere 300 thousand by war’s end.
Break In And Through: The Siege of Niah
Far to the south, a different story unfolded. On Borneo, the Japanese had exhausted their offensive potential. Their efforts to overrun Niah were defeated by a series of “company boxes,” spaced such that they were able to mutually support each other. Slim’s 5th Brigade was also exhausted, as you’d expect of a force that had been besieged for nearly a month.
Further to the west, Auchinleck was feeling pressure to resolve the matter. From nearby Singapore, Lord Gort was effectively breathing down Auchinleck’s neck. This is not to say that the Auk didn’t grasp the severity of the situation facing the 5th Brigade. Rather, having been burnt multiple times by surprise Japanese counter attacks and rearguard actions, he was quite cautious in his inclinations, and hoped to wait for further reinforcement.
John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort, was Chief of the Imperial General Staff and, as a proponent of the British Army, was intent that the land campaigns of the Anglo-Japanese War not be reduced to a mere sideshow to the naval war
By mid July, Auchinleck had at last settled on a plan of attack. Between the 15th and 17th, British artillery engaged in sporadic high volume barrages of suspected Japanese positions. When the Japanese ceased replying on the 17th, the decision was made to attack the next day.
Starting at noon, the 5th Division pushed through the battered Japanese positions to link up with its stranded brigade, taking the fight further to the forces on the 5th Brigade’s flanks. The Indian 4th Division followed shortly behind, its mechanized forces acting as an exploitation force, charging through the village of Niah, and rolling over the Imperial Guards that stood between them and the river with their Matildas. They quickly spread along the bank of the river, isolating the two Japanese divisions from reinforcements and resupply. At the same time, further south, the New Zealand Division forded the river and looked to break into the IJA’s rear areas.
They didn’t find much. Far from a large supply line, they only found malnourished officers. The Japanese on Borneo seemed to be a spent resource. This fact was confirmed later that day when a recon flight spotted pillars of black smoke rising from Brunei’s oil wells. The Japanese had come to the island to capture those wells. If they were destroying them rather than defending them, then they believed their situation to be hopeless. The campaign wasn’t over yet, but it may as well have been.
Auchinleck had escaped Lord Gort’s attention, which now turned towards the increasingly dire situation on New Britain.
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[1] this was entirely unnecessary. Southern Area Army commander Kenji Doihara had promised harsh reprisals against any officer who so much as took a unit within two kilometres of the border with french Guangzhouwan. Given Doihara himself was no stranger to army adventurism, it’s likely Tokyo was riding his ass pretty hard on this point.
[2] drawing on his experience in Manchuria, Doihara quickly recognized the Li as the best candidates for collaborators. The Li themselves were less enthusiastic to betray their communist allies, but as the nationalist forces relentlessly exploited the Li to sustain their guerilla campaign, the Li, represented by Wang Guoxing, saw little recourse but to enter talks with the Japanese.
A/N:
Sorry it took so long to produce such a meagre update. I’m starting a new job, and that’s always going to cause some disruption.
