Battle of the Yalu, July 1941
In the Far East, Stalin’s war with Japan had been stalled at the Yalu River since the autumn of 1940. General Vatutin’s efforts in the meantime had been directed towards securing Manchukuo to reduce the risk of pro-Japanese sabotage to the railroads and other essential elements of the Far Eastern Front’s logistics. By May 1941 the Red Army had a strong grip on Manchukuo, which meant that Vatutin was ready to launch the final stage of the war: evicting Japan from Korea.
The Japanese had expected the move since the fall of Harbin (when the bulk of the IJA had retreated towards Korea instead of the Red Army’s goal of Mukden), and had built a heavily fortified line on the Yalu that could rival the stronger defences on the Western Front. Now manned by nearly two million brave Japanese soldiers prepared to give their life for the Emperor, it was likely the biggest obstacle the Red Army was ever forced to fight in the whole war.
But what the Japanese had in bravery, the Soviets had in heavy equipment. Having lined up hundreds of Katyusha multiple rocket launchers along the length of the Yalu, Vatutin launched one of the greatest artillery bombardments in history to signal the beginning of the assault, which was backed up by three million Red Army soldiers, with KV-1 and T-34 tanks backing them up.
The Yalu line was breached in several places, and was abandoned as soon as it became clear that the line would not keep the Soviets out of Korea entirely. The Red Army pushed aside much of its initial opposition, and headed for Seoul. The IJA simply retreated into the mountains, hoping to make the Red Army overextend itself, while the Navy attacked any Red Army formation within range of a battleship’s guns.
The Japanese tactics caused the Red Army to suffer horrific losses as they had to dig out Japanese soldiers from every pass and cave in the mountains of northern Korea. Naval fire destroyed what were terrible roads to begin with, making resupply of the Soviet forces much more difficult than expected, and although Vatutin eventually entered Seoul, he had suffered horrific losses and had at best a Pyrrhic Victory. But in Japan, the fall of Seoul finally shook the country’s confidence in the militarists that had previously had a stranglehold on power, but now seemed to do nothing but disgrace themselves in battle every time they fought.
2nd Battle of Tianjin, August 1941
Following his return from Moscow, Mao felt that his position in China had improved considerably. Increasing numbers of Chinese peasants were supporting the Communists, in no small part due to promises of land reforms and other methods of winning over the hearts and minds of the population. Chiang had an ironclad grip over Sichuan and Chungking, and was popular in the regions once occupied by Japan, but the central region, where the fiercest battles had been waged in 1938 and 1939, was beginning to support the Communists.
Mao’s aim was to secure the north and centre of China, dividing Chiang’s support base in two while fifth columnists eroded his support in the devastated south. Although he continued to avoid open confrontation with the much larger Nationalist armies, he knew that Communist strength needed to be proven in battle. As he later justified, “A tiger must get into, and win, a fight every now and then, or people cease to fear him”.
From this plan came the Peking-Tianjin Operation. Mao chose the heavily populated northeast as it was the most distant from Chiang’s power base in Sichuan, and would thus be the least well-defended area in China. Furthermore, the Red Army controlled Manchukuo and had men less than 100km from Peking, and if the CCP’s forces could meet up with the Soviets, further aid from Moscow would have an easier time travelling through Peking than if it was to cross the inhospitable deserts of Xinjiang or Mongolia.
Unfortunately for Mao, a prominent communist major defected to the Nationalists and alerted Chiang’s subordinates to the planned move. Chiang ordered around 400,000 men north to reinforce the garrison in Peking and the surrounding area.
They would never make it to Peking. The Communists, using Soviet T-26 tanks, overpowered Chiang’s forces in the north before reinforcements could arrive. Although the garrison of the city of Peking was placed under siege, beginning a fierce month-long battle, the rest of the Communist forces avoided the city and headed for Tianjin and the coast.
Chiang’s reinforcements instead ended up pacifying the province of Shandong, which had been a target of fifth columnists since Mao decided upon the Peking Operation. Communists in the area were known to cause disruption by changing street signs, destroying railroads (the CCP had little in the way of rolling stock) and setting off bombs in pro-Nationalist cities. Lost in the confusion of the province, Chiang’s men were tasked with hunting down and killing any communist bands that they could find, and over the autumn the columns there were effectively wiped out.
A Mistake Repeated, August 1941
By August 1941, America was getting closer and closer to entering the war. Hundreds of American planes were being used by French, British and Nationalist Chinese air forces. The US Navy was escorting convoys to Britain as far east as Iceland. The Army was swelling in size, and industrial plants across the nation were gearing up for war against the Nazis and Communists. Although it looked inevitable that the USA would eventually join the Allies, isolationists still held a significant fraction of seats in Congress, and a return to the Western Front was not something that many Americans looked forward to. Roosevelt was hoping to give the Allies the benefits of American industrial power without the need for American soldiers.
But on August 24th, 1941, the cruiser USS Tuscaloosa was sunk while escorting a convoy. The American public was enraged, as angry at the Germans as they had been after merchant ships and the Lusitania went down in World War I (as it turned out, the Soviet submarine S-7 was responsible for sinking the Tuscaloosa, after the captain misidentified it as a British ship).
Congress was quick to declare war on Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria and the USSR, and shortly afterwards passed the Conscription Act 1941, bringing in a draft system similar to that used in World War I. The ‘sleeping giant’ had finally risen.
- BNC