Battle of Zaoyang–Yichang

The Battle of Zaoyang–Yichang, also known as the Battle of Zaoyi (Chinese: 棗宜會戰), was one of the 22 major engagements between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Battle of Zaoyang–Yichang
Part of Second Sino-Japanese War
Japanese troops in the battle of Zaoyang-Yichang
Date (1940-05-01) (1940-06-18)May 1 – June 18, 1940 (1 month, 2 weeks and 3 days) Location Vicinities of Zaoyang and Yichang, Hubei 32.1252°N 112.7510°E / 32.1252; 112.7510 Result Japanese victory
Belligerents
Republic of China	Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
Li Zongren Zhang Zizhong †	Waichiro Sonobe
Strength
18,970 officers and 381,258 soldiers [1]	IJA 11th Army 200+ tanks 100+ aircraft 1st China Expeditionary Fleet
Casualties and losses
Japanese records:[2] 63,127 killed 4,797 captured 81 artillery pieces captured 727 automatic weapons captured 12,557 rifles captured Chinese records:[1][3][a] 768 officers and 36,215 soldiers killed 2,066 officers and 48,443 soldiers wounded 645 officers and 22,473 soldiers missing	Chinese claim: 25,941 killed and 53 captured[3] Japanese record: 1,403 killed and 4,639 wounded[2] According to the medical department of the China Expeditionary Army, the army in April, May, and June of 1940 suffered 6,611 killed and 45,011 wounded. Excluding the 2,527 killed and 6,031 wounded suffered by the North China Front Army in these three months, most of the remaining losses should be in the battle of Zaoyang-Yichang against the Fifth War Zone, the Summer Offensive launched by the Ninth War Zone to support the Fifth War Zone, and the Liangkou Operation / Second Battle of Northern Guangdong launched by the Japanese army against the Seventh War Zone to support the operation[4] The number of unrecoverable losses in the 3rd Division (Imperial Japanese Army) was at least 6,044(Calculated based on the number of additional soldiers)[5][6]. About 800 people of the 65th Infantry Regiment were killed(Based on the military history compiled by Japanese war veterans after the war)[7] 2nd Independent Mountain Artillery Regiment Suffered irreparable losses of about 1,300 people(Calculated based on the number of additional soldiers)[8]
The losses of the 41st army in the statistical table compiled by the Fifth War Zone are much less than in the statistical table compiled by the 22nd group army

Background

The Japanese were seeking a quicker solution to achieve a Chinese surrender. The Japanese contemplated moving directly down the Yangtze to the relocated Chinese capital, Chongqing. To do so, they would need to capture a critical town in western Hubei province, Yichang.

The Japanese attack did not commit many troops or material, which enabled the main Chinese commander, Li Zongren, who had frustrated the Japanese before, to repel the Japanese.

Battle

On 1 May 1940, three divisions of the IJA 11th Army under command of General Waichiro Sonobe began a drive towards Zaoyang. They pushed towards the 5th warzone's strongholds in the Tongbaishan and Dahongshan mountains, attempting to encircle and destroy the Chinese 31st Army Group under General Tang Enbo in a pincer movement. The Chinese strategy aimed to let the Japanese forces run low on supplies, and then counterattack, as had been successfully employed at the Battle of Changsha. When the Japanese managed to outmaneuver Tang's forces, General Zhang Zizhong marched to his aid with the Chinese 33rd Army Group. The Japanese forces rallied and pushed back the Chinese, and General Zhang Zizhong was cut down in a burst of machine gun fire when he refused to retreat from the front lines. He was the most senior Chinese commander to be killed in combat during the war.^[9]

After defeating Zhang Zizhong's 33rd army group, the 11th army launched a general offensive against the fourteen to fifteen Chinese divisions gathered around Zaoyang on May 19. The 75th corps and 56th division of the 39th corps suffered very heavy casualties and retreated to the west bank of the Tangbai River.^[10] At dusk on May 20, the 233rd infantry regiment of the 39th division sent three officers to scout ahead for the crossing point of the Tangbai River. Two of the scouts laid prone on the ground and used telescopes to observe the situation on the other side. The third scout stood upright as incoming gunfire was light and believed that the land they were observing was a sandbar. However, the report from the other two scouts, who judged that it was the opposite bank of the river, was accepted. At midnight on the 21st, the regiment began to land on what was believed to be the other side of the river. As soon as a green signal was fired to indicate a successful crossing, the defending 4th security regiment of Hubei Province led by Li Langxing (李朗星), which had been lying in wait, opened fire all at once. As the sandbar offered no cover, the regiment quickly suffered heavy losses. More than 300 including regimental commander Tetsujirō Kanzaki (神崎哲次郎) were killed in action. The Tangbai River crossing became known as the 39th division's most tragic battle.^[11][12]

The Japanese used chemical weapons against Chinese forces who lacked chemical weapons in order to compensate for when they were numerically inferior, whenever Chinese were defeating the Japanese in hand-to-hand combat. The Japanese did not dare to use gas against the Americans because the Americans had their own chemical weapons stockpile and the Japanese feared retaliation.^[13][14][15]

The Japanese launched gas attacks against Chinese when the Chinese were defeating and overwhelming the Japanese in hand-to-hand combat, like at the battle of Yichang in 1941, where Japanese ground forces in the city were routed by Chinese soldiers but the Japanese deployed mustard gas to win the battle.^{[16][17][18][19][20]}

Aftermath

According to Japanese records, the Japanese casualties were 2,700 troops killed and 7,800 wounded. Chinese records show that 11,000 Japanese troops were killed. While the Chinese 5th War Area arguably made tactically sound decisions in its battle plans, it was ultimately overwhelmed by the sheer firepower of the Japanese combined arms offensive, relying primarily on small arms to face the onslaught of Japanese air, naval, artillery, and armoured striking power. As the Chinese commanders had surmised, the Japanese forces were overextended, and were not in a position to pursue their victory. However, the Imperial Japanese Navy pushed strongly for the occupation of Yichang, located at the edge of Sichuan and connecting the 5th and 9th war zones. The Navy felt that it was critically needed as a forward base for air attacks against Chongqing. After considerable argument, the Japanese Army agreed to occupy Yichang.^[9] This dealt a considerable blow to the morale and fighting capacity of the Chinese as no large-scale offensive was mounted after this operation.^[21]

See also

• Order of Battle: Battle of Zaoyang-Yichang