Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze (16 page)

Many Japanese soldiers grew large beards while in China, but in a twist that was not easy to understand for foreigners, they could sometimes mix a fierce martial exterior with an almost feminine inner appreciation of natural beauty. Trainloads of Japanese soldiers would flock to the windows to admire a particularly striking sunset. It was not unusual to see a Japanese soldier holding his rifle and bayonet in one hand, and a single white daisy in the other. “Missionaries have found,” wrote U.S. correspondent Haldore Hanson, “that when bloodstained Japanese soldiers break into their compounds during a ‘mopping up’ campaign, the easiest way to pacify them is to present each man with a flower.”
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Many Japanese soldiers also carried cameras into battle, and as was the case with the Germans on the Eastern Front, their snapshots came to con-stitute a comprehensive photographic record of their own war crimes. Journalist John Powell remembered his revulsion when he saw a photo of two
Japanese soldiers standing next to the body of a Chinese woman they had just raped. He had obtained the image from a Korean photo shop in Shanghai where it had been handed in to be developed. “The soldiers apparently wanted the prints to send to their friends at home in Japan,” he wrote. “Japanese soldiers seemingly had no feelings whatsoever that their inhuman actions transgressed the tenets of modern warfare or common everyday morals.”
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On August 20, five Chinese aircraft were returning after another fruitless attack on the
Izumo,
which was still moored in the middle of the Huangpu, when they encountered two Japanese seaplanes over western Zhabei. A Chinese plane broke formation, went into a steep dive and fired a short machine gun salvo at one of the Japanese. It did not have a chance. It burst into flames and plunged to the ground. The other Japanese plane disappeared in the clouds. The entire encounter had only taken a few seconds.
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It was one of a series of hits that the Chinese Air Force scored during a brief period in August before it was completely subdued by its Japanese adversary.

In particular, it posed a threat to Japanese bombers, such as the highly flammable Mitsubishi G3M medium aircraft assigned to striking targets in Shanghai and other cities in central China. Japan’s First Combined Air Group lost half of its medium attack planes in the first three days of the battle for Shanghai, some missing, some confirmed shot down and others heavily damaged. Their crews were particularly vulnerable, since they did not bring parachutes on their missions.
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From late August, the air group’s bombers were escorted by Type 95 Nakajima A4N biplanes.
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This action amounted to a humiliating admission that China’s nascent air force was a force to be reckoned with.

“In view of the pressing situation in the Shanghai area,” said the First Combined Air Group’s commander, “our air raids reminded me of that famous, costly assault against the 203-Meter Hill.”
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The battle for 203-Meter Hill had been one of the bloodiest episodes of the entire Russo-Japanese War, claiming thousands of casualties on both sides. The Chinese performance was significant enough that even foreign military observers paid attention. British intelligence, in a report summarizing military events in the
middle of August, noted Chinese claims of having downed 32 Japanese aircraft. “This statement appears well-founded,” the report’s writer added.
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Even so, the Chinese airmen had been mostly untested and only partly trained when the war started. Their inferiority, especially against Japanese fighters, began to tell, and they gradually disappeared from the skies over Shanghai. Their compatriots on the ground expressed frustration over the lack of air cover. “We occasionally spotted two or three of our own airplanes, but the moment they encountered enemy anti-aircraft fire, they disappeared,” said Fang Jing, a regimental commander of the 98th Infantry Division. “They were no use at all. After August 20, I never saw our planes again.”
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That may have been hyperbole,
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but it was undeniable that the evolving Japanese air superiority proved a major handicap for the Chinese. The Chinese commanders soon realized that they had to carry out major troop movements under the cover of darkness. Japan’s domination of the skies affected everything the Chinese soldiers did and even determined when they could get food. “We didn’t eat until at night,” said Fang Zhendong, a soldier of the 36th Infantry Division. “That was the only time we could get anything. In the daytime, it was impossible to transport provisions to the frontline.”
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Without fighter protection the troops on the ground were dangerously exposed. They had very little in the way of anti-aircraft weaponry, mostly 20mm Solothurn guns produced in Switzerland. However, even these weapons made next to no difference as they were primarily deployed against enemy infantry.
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Also, the Chinese officers were reluctant to use their anti-aircraft guns lest they reveal their positions to the Japanese aircraft.
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In late August when Japanese Admiral Hasegawa was asked by a Reuters journalist visiting his flagship if he was in control of the air, his reply was prompt: “Yes,” he said. “I believe so.”
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By the morning of August 21, the 36th Division had pressed the attack against the wharf area almost without interruption for over 48 hours, and victory seemed as elusive as ever. Individual tanks had managed to break into the wharfs, only to discover to their dismay how extraordinarily robust the Japanese defenses were, and how numerous the troops manning them. In order to punch holes in the Japanese lines and reach Huangpu River, significant tactical muscle was required, and the Chinese no longer had it.
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The commanders had no choice but to acknowledge that the division had moved too fast and had neglected to secure its flanks, while reserves that could have moved up and shouldered that responsibility had stayed in the rear. It was necessary to withdraw. During the course of August 21, the division had to go through the agony of abandoning territory won at the expense of much blood over the preceding days. The 36th Infantry Division’s retreat marked the final admission by the Chinese that pushing the Japanese into the river was not going to be a simple maneuver.

Part of the reason for the lack of success was a failure to carry out joint operations involving different service arms. The German advisors complained that the Chinese troops on the Pudong side delivered only limited artillery support for the soldiers fighting in Yangshupu. By contrast, the Japanese naval guns were constantly active, doing their utmost to relieve the hard-pressed marines. This activity resulted in heavy losses, not only for the Chinese units at the front, but also for reserve and support units further to the rear, and contributed to the 36th Division suffering more than 2,000 casualties by late on August 22.
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Meanwhile, Japanese naval aircraft tried to prevent the movement of more Chinese troops to Shanghai by bombing the railway from Suzhou. However, despite the destruction of several bridges and damage to some railway stations, there were only minor delays. This was welcome news for the Chinese commanders, who had realized that the available resources were insufficient to bring the Shanghai battle to a successful conclusion. New reinforcements were necessary before further attacks could be launched.
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The assumption was that there was still time. The fact was that there was not.

While the Chinese officers were standing around their maps making plans for the future, Asano Yoshiuchi was waiting aboard the light cruiser
Jintsu
only a few miles away, in the Yangtze estuary. It was the afternoon of August 22, and the 23-year-old officer of the Imperial Japanese Army knew that very soon he would be part of one of the largest amphibious operations ever attempted. His own 3rd Division would land six miles north of Shanghai, and the 11th Division would get ashore a dozen miles further up the Yangtze. Neither division would be of full strength initially. The
advance part of the 3rd Division numbered 3,500 men, while the 11th Division, which was short of the regiment-sized Amaya Detachment posted to northeast China,
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would land 4,000 men.
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If the operation succeeded, it would boost the Shanghai garrison by thousands of battle-ready soldiers and might tilt the balance in Japan’s favor.
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For Asano, the days since the 3rd Division had received orders to depart for Shanghai had passed in a confused and action-filled haze. When they had marched out of their barracks in the city of Nagoya in southern Japan a little more than a week earlier, cheering and flag-waving crowds of civilians had seen them off. Then there had been long days of waiting inside Nagoya harbor, until dawn on August 20, when the division had suddenly embarked on several large steamers and sailed off. They soon found themselves part of a task force headed for China. It was led by
Nachi
and
Ashigara,
heavy cruisers that had been the most powerful of their class when they were built a decade earlier and were still impressive vessels. Asano had felt his chest swell with pride as he watched the cruisers’ immense steel hulls plow through the violent waves.

Late at night on August 21, the task force had reached the Yangtze River and the Saddle Islands off the river estuary. The soldiers had to be moved onto smaller vessels that could navigate the shallow waters of the Huangpu River. Asano and his unit transferred to the
Jintsu,
using gangways extended between the vessels. They had practiced this move many times before, and it was easy enough to do in the still waters of a harbor, but in the violent seas off China they had to take care that the ships did not collide against each other. Dozens of sailors were standing with long bamboo poles pushing the two hulls away from each other. Once aboard the
Jintsu,
Asano and his comrades discovered few creature comforts, and they had a hard time resting in the swelling heat of the Chinese summer. They had to find any spot they could on the vessel that offered some draft and get as much sleep as possible.

Asano and thousands of other soldiers were waiting almost within sight of the China coast, and still they went undetected. The Chinese commanders had neglected aerial reconnaissance over the Yangtze, and none of them had any idea about this large force waiting to strike. The intelligence failure was all the more astonishing because there had been speculation aplenty. It was widely assumed that if Japan were to send relief to the beleaguered
marines in Shanghai, it would land somewhere outside the city, possibly on the right bank of the Yangtze River. “From these points threats can be developed to Chinese (lines of command) along the Shanghai-Nanjing and Shanghai-Hangzhou railways,” reasoned an anonymous British analyst in a weekly intelligence summary on the situation in the Far East.
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A landing on the Yangtze, north of Shanghai would also set the stage for a deep thrust south, encircling the Chinese troops inside the city. This was a classic Japanese tactic. The military leaders of Japan were ardent disciples of German strategic thinker Alfred von Schlieffen, who had advocated encirclement as the ideal military operation. Schlieffen had based this on his study of the battle of Cannae in 216 B.C., when the Carthaginian general Hannibal had annihilated a superior Roman army using a much-admired pincer movement. It allowed victory despite numerical inferiority, and nothing could be of greater appeal to Japan, an island nation with a limited population. As a result, flanking movements, as described by Schlieffen, had become fundamental doctrine in Japan and had found their way into all army manuals and directions.
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Even for those who had not studied Japanese doctrine, an attack north of Shanghai was not a far-fetched proposition at all. It was exactly what the Japanese had done in early 1932 to eventually gain the upper hand in the first battle of Shanghai. Indeed, the fortress of Baoshan still carried the scars of that small war. Even the press corps suspected a repetition of this action. On the afternoon of August 22, a correspondent visiting the Japanese marine headquarters in Hongkou asked the captain guiding them around if there was any truth to rumors that Japan was in the process of landing troops on the Yangtze riverbank, with the aim of carrying out an encircling operation similar to the one five years earlier. The captain replied this was very unlikely. “We prefer to develop new plans,” he said.
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The exact opposite was true, as the next few hours would show.

A
S HE APPROACHED THE LIGHT CRUISER
Y
URA
, M
ATSUI
I
WANE SAW
how its gray hull reflected the orange flares on the riverbank as shell after shell tore holes in the velvet curtain that the night had thrown over the Huangpu. The thunder produced by the naval artillery pounding the Chinese positions drowned out all other noises, and it appeared as if the Japanese general’s dinghy was moving across the water without the slightest sound. It was 2:00 a.m. on August 23, and the first soldiers were scheduled to jump off their landing barges and wade ashore in just one hour. Only time would tell if the men, many of them in early middle age torn from cozy civilian lives just weeks earlier, still had the fight in them from when they were younger.
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The dinghy slowed down and came to a bobbing rest alongside the
Yura.
As Matsui ascended to the cruiser’s deck, Rear Admiral Nagumo Chuichi,
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commander of the 8th Cruiser Division, stood ready to receive him. Nagumo was in charge of the imminent landing, but even though he had his hands full, it was no surprise that he would take time out to personally welcome Matsui on board his flagship. One was an army man and the other a sailor, and they should have been separated by the traditional rivalries between the two services, but they were in fact old acquaintances. Both had been active in the Greater Asia Society. Matsui considered himself
lucky that he was able to work with a man like Nagumo at such a critical juncture.

Matsui climbed the ladder to the conning tower. From there he would get a much better view of the action as it unfolded. A dense roar rolled across the river from the town of Wusong, where explosions followed each other in rapid succession. This was where the 3rd Division was to land. From further afield came the fainter sound of the shelling of Chuanshakou, a town on the bank of the Yangtze that had been picked as the 11th Division’s landing site. The naval gunners had been at it since shortly after midnight. The previous day, many of the Japanese vessels had sailed as far south as Hangzhou Bay to harass the Chinese troops and force them to spread their attention thinly along the entire coast. However, with so little time left before the landing, there was no point in pretending any longer that it was going to take place anywhere else.

It was less than 48 hours since the decision had been made to launch two amphibious assaults near Shanghai, instead of just one. Matsui had initially favored a plan to land both divisions at Chuanshakou. From there, they would, in one sweeping move, cut through thinly defended countryside far to the west of Shanghai, trapping tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers in and around the city. The Third Fleet had a different and bolder plan, calling for the 11th Infantry Division to stick to the landing at Chuanshakou, but placing the 3rd Infantry Division in a much tougher spot, at Wusong far closer to the massive Chinese troop concentrations at Shanghai. The intention was to apply pressure to both the front and the rear of the Chinese forces. The plan might just work but it could also come to an immensely costly conclusion if the operation at Wusong ran into determined Chinese resistance. The naval officers who had devised the plan were aware of how risky it was, and to sugar the pill and make it easier for their army counterparts to swallow, they offered to put more than 500 elite marines at their disposal.

The discussion for and against the two plans had raged throughout much of the day on August 21, and the army and the navy had seemed incapable of reaching an agreement. In the end, Matsui had taken the decision for them. He was a military man who had spent almost his entire life in uniform, but he also had keen political instincts. He knew it was important to maintain good relations with the naval commanders, and besides,
their more aggressive plan could mean speedier relief for the Japanese citizens trapped in Shanghai. Therefore, in the end the navy had carried the day.

Matsui had met with the two divisional commanders on the morning of August 22. He liked them both. Fujita Susumu, commander of the 3rd Division, impressed him with his stoic attitude. The 11th Division’s Yamamuro Monetake, on the other hand, was determination personified. He was going to put up a good fight. Still, Matsui did not want them to be rash. The navy’s plan, he had explained, would not be easy to implement. Caution was of paramount importance. “Watch out for Chinese soldiers disguised as civilians, and also keep an eye on the mood of Shanghai’s population,” he had admonished the two. “Soldiers and officers must constantly stay alert to the situation around them. You have to be careful with the water and farm products you requisition. Make sure they are not poisoned by the Chinese.”
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The day before the landing had been busy. The two divisions had arrived at the Saddle Islands, the small archipelago off the Yangtze estuary, aboard troop transports and had transferred to smaller vessels. Meanwhile, ships of the Third Fleet had sailed up and down the Yangtze and the Huangpu, enjoying a nearly unobstructed view of the landing zones. Summer rains had caused the two rivers to swell, and in many places the water level was above the surrounding countryside, which was protected by high embankments. The Japanese had been able to see large stretches of verdant rice fields, with small canals and creeks running through them in intricate patterns. There were also clusters of farm buildings, some surrounded by solid walls. It was terrain ideally suited for defense.

Matsui had moved from one warship to the next throughout the day. His restless energy had disguised the fact that regardless of what he did now, success or failure was no longer in his hands. However, he could take comfort in the knowledge that he was no stranger to the units he was commanding. When he had been a young second lieutenant nearly 40 years earlier, his first assignment had been in the 6th Regiment, now part of the 3rd Division. Less than a decade earlier, he had been in command of the 11th Division for 28 months. It was as if everything was coming together for Matsui on this warm August night.

Shortly after midnight on August 23, the marines who were to form
the bulk of the first attack wave at Wusong arrived in a convoy of steamers from Shanghai. They were a welcome sight as they would spare the 3rd Division from being the first to step ashore. They hastily boarded their landing craft, small vessels especially developed for operations such as this. As the naval artillery barrage reached a crescendo, the boats moved across the waveless water.

With minutes to go before the landing, the ships in the river turned on their searchlights in order to blind the defenders, bathing the riverbank in a ghostly blue. The lights outlined a semicircle around the landing zone and showed the naval artillery where to direct its shelling. “Whenever a Chinese machine gun fired, it immediately attracted the attention of the Japanese gunners and was silenced. Trench mortars onshore were aimed at the approaching invaders, but all rounds hit the water with a plop, causing no damage.
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At 3:00 a.m., the first landing craft reached the bank. It dropped anchor, the ramp splashed down, and the marines waded ashore. They climbed the dike, which was 15 feet high in some places, and surveyed the terrain in front of them. Suddenly, a burst of machine gun fire ripped through the night, cutting down several of the marines. It was from a Chinese position a mere 50 yards away. The marines attacked with fixed bayonets. As they rushed across the short stretch of open field, they heard an explosion. Someone had stepped on a landmine. More explosions followed. But there was no turning back. They swarmed over the Chinese trench and engaged in a brief hand-to-hand struggle. After a few seconds the position was theirs.
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Further ahead were yet more Chinese defenders, but the marines had gained momentum and quickly pushed them back. As the Japanese had hoped, and intelligence had suggested, the soldiers put in charge of guarding that strip of riverbank were poorly performing paramilitary troops. The path was opened to their immediate objective, a military road running parallel with the Huangpu. As the marines set up positions, the 3rd Division disembarked at the water’s edge. By 8:00 a.m., the divisional command stepped ashore as the last unit to arrive. Naval pilots were bombing and strafing roads further inland to delay enemy reinforcements. The landing had been a complete success.

The news that Matsui received from the 11th Division was also good.
It had been scheduled to start landing at 2:00 a.m., but moving onto the smaller landing craft had taken longer than expected, and the first soldier from the division did not step ashore at a berth north of Chuanshakou until 3:50 a.m. Even so, as the soldiers moved towards the outskirts of the town, they had discovered only weak enemy resistance. Chuanshakou had been held by a single Chinese company. By 7:00 a.m. most of the first wave had disembarked.
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Matsui was pleased. Everything had gone according to plan. Actually, it had gone better than he had allowed himself to expect. Casualties in the two divisions amounted to little more than 40. Matsui credited the spirit of his soldiers. He also quietly thanked the Heavens, which had proven unusually cooperative; it had turned out to be a nearly cloudless morning, making it easy for him to take advantage of his superiority in the air. Once it was clear that the operation had been a success, Matsui called his staff together. This was a cause for celebration. They lifted their glasses of rice wine and shouted a toast for the emperor: “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!”

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Zhang Zhizhong received the phone call at 5:30 a.m. at a small village near Nanxiang, where he had recently moved his headquarters. At the other end was Liu Heding, commander of the 56th Infantry Division, which was in charge of the defenses of the Yangtze riverbank north of Shanghai. Liu informed Zhang that an enemy force of unknown size had landed in the vicinity of Chuanshakou. No other information was available at the time, as heavy bombardment had cut off all phone lines to the landing area. However, Zhang knew more than enough already. It was clear that a new front was opening up. His job had suddenly become immensely more complicated.

As most communications were down, Zhang concluded there was not much that he could do in Nanxiang and so he decided to go to the 87th Infantry Division’s command post in Jiangwan, a town north of Shanghai. It was closer to the landing area, and he was likely to get a better idea there of what exactly was happening. He set out in his staff car, but did not get very far. It was a bright summer morning, and Japanese planes filled the sky. His vehicle attracted their constant attention, and his driver was repeatedly forced to take cover. Zhang realized he was getting nowhere and
decided to leave the car behind and continue on foot. He soon encountered a private on a bicycle. The soldier got off to salute, and then asked with a snide expression in his face: “What’s that? Does the commander have to walk now?” Zhang Zhizhong did not even bother to reply. He snatched the bicycle out of the surprised soldier’s hands, jumped on it and steered towards the frontline.
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By the time he arrived, it was almost 9:00 a.m. Only then was he informed that the Japanese had landed not just at Chuanshakou, but also at Wusong. The situation was even more critical than he had thought. Wusong was closer, and to put out that particular fire, he immediately dispatched half the 87th Infantry Division and a regiment from the Training Brigade, an elite unit that had just arrived from Nanjing. As for the area around Chuanshakou, it was evident that the 56th Infantry Division alone would not be able to cover the back of the Chinese forces fighting in Shanghai. Therefore, Zhang Zhizhong put the 98th Infantry Division in charge of the defense of most of the Yangtze riverbank that was under threat.
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Meanwhile, he also sent marching orders to the 11th Division, which had recently arrived in the Shanghai area with Deputy War Minister Chen Cheng. It was to move towards Luodian, a town a few miles from the landing zone at Chuanshakou. The division’s commander tried to object. “The moment we raise our heads, we’re getting bombed. How are we going to get there?” Zhang Zhizhong insisted. “After all,” he said, “I myself made it all the way from Nanxiang to Jiangwan.”
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The Japanese got there faster. While the main landing force was still fighting for control of the town of Chuanshakou, it dispatched a small unit of a few hundred men down the road to Luodian. The march under a blazing August sun was wearing on the reservists, and once they had arrived in the town and encountered almost no resistance they immediately set up camp, doing little to prepare defenses. That made them easy targets. Advance units of China’s 11th Infantry Division arrived south of Luodian in the afternoon and even though it was somewhat shaken by air raids along the way, it decided to attack immediately. It was a short fight. Within an hour the Japanese had been repelled.
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A map found on a dead Japanese officer had Luodian penciled in. This showed to the Chinese, if they had ever been in doubt, that the town was a major objective.
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