XXXIX: Old Enemies (5/43)
XXXIX: Old Enemies, May 1943
The Imperial Army was bristling with confidence even as Fiji fell to the Allies. Army forces had seen a nearly unbroken chain of successes for as long as anyone bothered to think about: Eastern China, the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, the East Indies and the South Pacific had all returned victories, and British attempts to push them back in Arakan had been a total failure. The two most prominent defeats, in New Caledonia last year and Fiji just recently, were both the Navy’s fault for failing to deliver the proper supplies. Other than General Ito, who had become a prisoner instead of seeking an honourable death, no major Army commanders had brought shame upon themselves or their families.
As the war dragged on, this overconfidence had been clouding the judgement of Japan’s top commanders to an increasingly extreme degree. A victory in the East Indies had led to the Port Moresby landing being approved, then that had led to FS, and on Yamamoto’s part at least, the final naval clashes of FS had led to a fixation on the Second Decisive Battle, which was fast becoming an unwinnable affair owing to America’s enormous productive capabilities. The Army had also succumbed to the so-called ‘victory disease’, perhaps worse than the Navy had (at least privately, the Navy acknowledged that losses so far had been higher than expected). By the middle of 1943, tensions between the Army and Navy had reached an all-time high, and both services were spending more time looking warily at each other than at any of Japan’s much more powerful external enemies.
Fiji’s fall was a shock to all in the Japanese High Command. Yamamoto was unconcerned (and possibly the only senior officer not involved in the internal conflicts), but the Army decided that this was the time to take control for themselves.
In May, the IJA’s plans had not yet reached the far more radical actions that would soon follow. They had already secured control of the country’s propaganda arm, and appeared to wish to sideline the Navy’s influence in the war planning. They had already blamed the Navy publicly for every major failure that Japan had suffered, but the Navy had won just as many victories as the Army had: while the Army could claim the credit for the Philippines, East Indies and Burma, the Navy had Pearl Harbour, Coral Sea and the destruction of the USN off Efate. If the Army was to prevail against the Navy, they had to score another triumphant victory. More importantly, this victory had to be won in a theatre where the Navy had no influence, so that they could not claim any credit of their own. The decision was obvious at that point: the battle had to be won in China.
The plan they decided to use, ‘Operation 5’, was the last realistic hope Japan had to win the war. Made up of two simultaneous offensives, one beginning in Henan province to take Xi’an and then Chengdu, and the other beginning in Hubei province and advancing along the Yangtze river, the final goal was to conquer the Sichuan basin, Chiang Kai-Shek’s last meaningful power base, and take his capital in Chungking. While the plan would do nothing about the persistent guerilla problem in China, if successful it could severely weaken any further organised resistance against Japan in the country.
Unfortunately for the Japanese, the Army was impatient and utterly certain of victory. Despite earlier versions of the Sichuan plan calling for several divisions’ worth of troops to be transferred from Manchukuo to strengthen the offensive (troops that were still available by May 1943), the Army faction in the Imperial Headquarters urged that the offensive go forward immediately. About 100,000 troops were available in the region, instead of possibly triple that had a two month delay been allowed. The Army believed that a two month delay would allow the Navy an opportunity to do a never-defined ‘something’ (they had influenced the Emperor once before after all). Generals were given orders, and the offensive was rushed into action.
When the offensives began on May 4th, the Chinese lines broke just as the Japanese believed they would. Equipment shortages and weak leadership, problems that had never been solved in China’s vast armies, once again reared their ugly heads. The Japanese were facing roughly double their number in these opening stages, and for several days the Army’s belief of its own superiority looked to be ‘proven’ true once again.
Chiang Kai-Shek, who was hesitant to get into a major battle with the Japanese (instead preferring to prepare for the next stage of the old conflict with the Chinese Communists), knew that this time he had no choice. Sichuan was too important to lose. As soon as reports of the Japanese offensive reached him, he ordered every available reserve be sent to the battle. Hundreds of thousands of troops. Even poor quality soldiers could slow down the Japanese, burying the attackers in a sea of manpower. The Communists watched on, their stronghold in Shanxi being largely ignored by the Japanese who were more interested in targets further south. The IJA felt there was no prestige to be gained from taking Mao’s mountain forts.
Their ignorance would cost them. When the moment was deemed right, towards the end of May, Mao unleashed his forces, striking the northern Japanese force in the flank and throwing them back. Although the counter-offensive pushed the Japanese most of the way back to their starting point, it cost the Chinese, Communist and Nationalist both, thousands of casualties. Chiang Kai-Shek’s incoming reserves began turning the tide in western Hubei at around the same time, but instead of a dramatic push east, all that he achieved was a stalemate. A new cell of guerillas opened up in the newly-taken territory, but there was no glory to be found there. In a battle that looked for prestige first and military objectives second, that stalemate was useless. The Japanese Army had been halted, the Nationalists had been bloodied, and the true victor of the offensive was the one power that was never supposed to be a part of the battle in the first place.
The Imperial Army made sure that they covered up the story as much as possible. No-one was to know that they had rushed a plan into action without the forces it needed to succeed (post-war historians believe that had the Japanese attacked with 300,000 troops instead, they would very likely have taken at least one of their first-stage major objectives). What men did already know about the operation outside of the Army’s highest ranks in the Home Islands were told that it was a localised incident of no particular importance. Those same top generals, foiled in their plan to present a major victory to the Emperor and the Navy, now began to look to other sources of power and glory. The fact that MacArthur was gathering an invasion force off the coast of New Guinea appeared to be of no concern to them at all.
- BNC
The Imperial Army was bristling with confidence even as Fiji fell to the Allies. Army forces had seen a nearly unbroken chain of successes for as long as anyone bothered to think about: Eastern China, the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, the East Indies and the South Pacific had all returned victories, and British attempts to push them back in Arakan had been a total failure. The two most prominent defeats, in New Caledonia last year and Fiji just recently, were both the Navy’s fault for failing to deliver the proper supplies. Other than General Ito, who had become a prisoner instead of seeking an honourable death, no major Army commanders had brought shame upon themselves or their families.
As the war dragged on, this overconfidence had been clouding the judgement of Japan’s top commanders to an increasingly extreme degree. A victory in the East Indies had led to the Port Moresby landing being approved, then that had led to FS, and on Yamamoto’s part at least, the final naval clashes of FS had led to a fixation on the Second Decisive Battle, which was fast becoming an unwinnable affair owing to America’s enormous productive capabilities. The Army had also succumbed to the so-called ‘victory disease’, perhaps worse than the Navy had (at least privately, the Navy acknowledged that losses so far had been higher than expected). By the middle of 1943, tensions between the Army and Navy had reached an all-time high, and both services were spending more time looking warily at each other than at any of Japan’s much more powerful external enemies.
Fiji’s fall was a shock to all in the Japanese High Command. Yamamoto was unconcerned (and possibly the only senior officer not involved in the internal conflicts), but the Army decided that this was the time to take control for themselves.
In May, the IJA’s plans had not yet reached the far more radical actions that would soon follow. They had already secured control of the country’s propaganda arm, and appeared to wish to sideline the Navy’s influence in the war planning. They had already blamed the Navy publicly for every major failure that Japan had suffered, but the Navy had won just as many victories as the Army had: while the Army could claim the credit for the Philippines, East Indies and Burma, the Navy had Pearl Harbour, Coral Sea and the destruction of the USN off Efate. If the Army was to prevail against the Navy, they had to score another triumphant victory. More importantly, this victory had to be won in a theatre where the Navy had no influence, so that they could not claim any credit of their own. The decision was obvious at that point: the battle had to be won in China.
The plan they decided to use, ‘Operation 5’, was the last realistic hope Japan had to win the war. Made up of two simultaneous offensives, one beginning in Henan province to take Xi’an and then Chengdu, and the other beginning in Hubei province and advancing along the Yangtze river, the final goal was to conquer the Sichuan basin, Chiang Kai-Shek’s last meaningful power base, and take his capital in Chungking. While the plan would do nothing about the persistent guerilla problem in China, if successful it could severely weaken any further organised resistance against Japan in the country.
Unfortunately for the Japanese, the Army was impatient and utterly certain of victory. Despite earlier versions of the Sichuan plan calling for several divisions’ worth of troops to be transferred from Manchukuo to strengthen the offensive (troops that were still available by May 1943), the Army faction in the Imperial Headquarters urged that the offensive go forward immediately. About 100,000 troops were available in the region, instead of possibly triple that had a two month delay been allowed. The Army believed that a two month delay would allow the Navy an opportunity to do a never-defined ‘something’ (they had influenced the Emperor once before after all). Generals were given orders, and the offensive was rushed into action.
When the offensives began on May 4th, the Chinese lines broke just as the Japanese believed they would. Equipment shortages and weak leadership, problems that had never been solved in China’s vast armies, once again reared their ugly heads. The Japanese were facing roughly double their number in these opening stages, and for several days the Army’s belief of its own superiority looked to be ‘proven’ true once again.
Chiang Kai-Shek, who was hesitant to get into a major battle with the Japanese (instead preferring to prepare for the next stage of the old conflict with the Chinese Communists), knew that this time he had no choice. Sichuan was too important to lose. As soon as reports of the Japanese offensive reached him, he ordered every available reserve be sent to the battle. Hundreds of thousands of troops. Even poor quality soldiers could slow down the Japanese, burying the attackers in a sea of manpower. The Communists watched on, their stronghold in Shanxi being largely ignored by the Japanese who were more interested in targets further south. The IJA felt there was no prestige to be gained from taking Mao’s mountain forts.
Their ignorance would cost them. When the moment was deemed right, towards the end of May, Mao unleashed his forces, striking the northern Japanese force in the flank and throwing them back. Although the counter-offensive pushed the Japanese most of the way back to their starting point, it cost the Chinese, Communist and Nationalist both, thousands of casualties. Chiang Kai-Shek’s incoming reserves began turning the tide in western Hubei at around the same time, but instead of a dramatic push east, all that he achieved was a stalemate. A new cell of guerillas opened up in the newly-taken territory, but there was no glory to be found there. In a battle that looked for prestige first and military objectives second, that stalemate was useless. The Japanese Army had been halted, the Nationalists had been bloodied, and the true victor of the offensive was the one power that was never supposed to be a part of the battle in the first place.
The Imperial Army made sure that they covered up the story as much as possible. No-one was to know that they had rushed a plan into action without the forces it needed to succeed (post-war historians believe that had the Japanese attacked with 300,000 troops instead, they would very likely have taken at least one of their first-stage major objectives). What men did already know about the operation outside of the Army’s highest ranks in the Home Islands were told that it was a localised incident of no particular importance. Those same top generals, foiled in their plan to present a major victory to the Emperor and the Navy, now began to look to other sources of power and glory. The fact that MacArthur was gathering an invasion force off the coast of New Guinea appeared to be of no concern to them at all.
- BNC