- 78 - Pacific War - West Hubei Offensive and Changjiao Massacre, May 16-23, 1943

Last time we spoke about the battle for Attu. The allied commanders responsible for the frigid northern pacific theater finally unleashed a major campaign to kick the Japanese off American controlled soil. However the battle of Attu was to be by no means a cake walk, far from it. The men of the 7th and 35th divisions were about to receive a baptism under ice. As they stormed multiple beaches on Attu all was eerily quiet, there was no enemy to be seen. However upon marched a bit up the rugged hills and ridges they found extremely well concealed and well defended positions of the enemy. The Japanese rained pure hell upon the Americans causing a bloodbath. Despite the incredible numerical superiority, the Americans struggled to claim each hill, slope and ridge against a tenacious enemy. Today we are going to finish that story and jump back over to China for another bloody conflict.

This episode is the West Hubei Offensive & Changjiao Massacre

Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. 

We left off at Attu with Colonel Zimmerman taking command after Colonel Earle was killed by a Japanese sniper. The Southern force was pinned down at Massacre Valley just in front of Jarmin Pass. Colonel Culin’s Northern force and Willoughby’s Scouts were making gradual progress over in the Holtz Bay area, preparing to launch an all out offensive in 35 hours. The weather was terrible for the allies. The misty fog was concealing the Japanese positions upon the peaks, while the Japanese could fully see the allies down below. To make matters worse, casualties were mounting as a result of the brutality of mother nature. The clothing issued in San Francisco was  not nearly warm enough for fighting in Attu trenches. More than 100 Americans suffered death, injury, cripping frostbite and trench foot by May 14th alone, and the casualties were continuing to pile. The allied artillery were stuck in mud along the beaches. Supplies on the beaches sprawled in great clogged heaps which the men were forced to carry on their backs, causing them to sink further into the snow and mud. The transport ship Perida which was carrying vital supplies and beached herself after hitting a pinnacle rock. Landing crafts were running double time carrying supplies to the beaches and wounded men from them through crashing frigid waves. The air force were grounded because of the terrible weather, already 4 Wildcats had been smashed into mountainsides because of gusts of wind. Continuous radio pleas for supply drops were heard with men demanding sleeping bags and food. 

General Brown decided to prod the enemy defenses with another assault on May 14th, tossing Zimmerman’s 3rd battalion against the Jarmin Pass, this time with some support from the USS Nassau. Yet as usual the weather was brutal and 3 Wildcats would get caught in a williwaw in the early morning crashing them. The troops assault likewise was just as disastrous. 4 company commanders were put out of action, two killed and two wounded. The casualties were high and the battalion was forced to run right back to their trenches. Zimmerman was forced to relieve the battered unit by bringing up the 2nd battalion of the 32nd regiment.

Further south, the newly arrived 1st battalion, 32nd regiment were clambering onto a very overcrowded beach. The transports were having a difficult time unloading unlike their counterparts at Beach Red who were managing to move the flow of supplies more smoothly to the front. General Brown was anxious to make progress and reluctantly requested that General Buckner’s 4th regiment be brought over from Adak.  His message included this “Evidence of greater enemy strength than anticipated. Indication of lack of sufficient force to accomplish mission… Recent captured enemy documents show enemy strength considerably above than anticipated.” But Admirals Rockwell and Kinkaid had to refuse the request because the southern beach was congested, Kinkaid sent back this message,“Every effort must be made to expedite clearing of beach and unloading of transports in order that they may be withdrawn as soon as possible. Reinforcement by 4th Regiment not possible until completion of above.” Well that response certainly did not sit well with the Brown and the Army lads. Brown reacted bitterly, telling his staff officer he didn't believe the Navy cared at all about the Army’s needs. As Major General Archibald Arnold put it  “Attu was the first Army-Navy operation for almost all of us. We had little understanding of successful cooperation. The Navy had no conception of the effect of terrain and weather on the combat efficiency of the troops on Attu. It had no conception of how ground troops fought, and therefore Admiral Kinkaid could not evaluate the prospects for the outcome.”

To make matters worse, Rockwell’s three old battleships had exhausted their bombardment ammunition, they needed to head back to Adak for more, leaving Brown and his men without that critical bombardment support. Admiral Kinkaid was really unhappy with the lack of progress on part of the Army and demanded Brown write a report of the situation. Unfortunately the PBY Catalina carrying that report accidentally dropped it into Massacre Bay. Admirals Kinkaid and Rockwell were not at all happy with what appeared to be utter silence from Brown.

Meanwhile Culin’s Northern force were firing from their trenches and withstanding Japanese mortar and artillery barrages. Both sides were causing significant casualties upon another. One of the Japanese Doctors at the scene, Dr. Paul Tatsuguchi wrote this in his diary  “Continuous flow of wounded in the field hospital. Took refuge in the trenches during daytime and took care of the patients during the bombardment. Enemy strength must be a division. Our desperate defense is holding up well.” Over in the mountains Willoughby’s scouts had been fighting nonstop from May 14th to the 16th. Constant firefights and shootout with entrenched Japanese was taking a toll on them. The Japanese continuously were heard screaming “Damn American dogs, we massacre you!”. After the series of grim firefights in intense cold, the men went to their foxholes hungry as they had no rations. By the evenings nearly half his men were casualties. Willoughby would later describe his constant struggle to save his men, as many as possible from frostbite and gangrene. "The ones who suffered were the ones who didn't keep moving. I tried to keep everyone on the move, but I didn't catch some of them. They stayed in their holes with wet feet. They didn't rub their feet or change socks when they needed to". Willoughby had no choice but to push the men forward. They had no food and their boats had been casualties of friendly fire, their only salvation was to link up with the northern force, but to do so they would have to break through the enemy lines.

On the 16th, Colonel Yamasaki decided to withdraw his forces to the Moore Ridge on the far side of Holtz Valley, it would be a miracle to Willoughby’s men. Yamasaki’s men had left behind large stores of ammunition and food. The rationale for the withdrawal was to thwart getting caught between the Northern FOrce and the Scout battalion. The Japanese had actually believed the Scout battalion to be a much larger force than it was because of the intensity of their fighting. Willoughby’s battered men finally linked up with Culins force at Holtz Bay. Only 11 of Willoughbys scouts were dead, but out of his 420 men, now only 165 were effective. They had been crushed by wounds, frostbite, gangrene and other ailments.80 scouts were left to hold key positions in the mountains as the other 320 scouts would join the northern force’s plight against the Jarmin Pass.

Something had to be done to break the stalemate at Jarmin Pass which was causing unbelievable losses upon the allies. Culin ordered his battalions to march east during the night, hoping to push the Japanese off Moore ridge to the Chichagof Valley which would effectively cut off the Jarmin Pass defenders. Further south, Zimmerman led another front assault against Jarmins pass, but like the other times it failed.

That noon, Rockwell decided to pull his warships out of Attu’s waters within the next 24 hours as they had become sitting ducks. During this period, Brown was forced to physically come aboard Rockwell’s Flagship to meet with the Admiral as communications had all but broken down. Brown had come to argue about transporting the 4th regiment, while Rockwell wanted to know what the hell was going on. Brown was able to convince Rockwell to send word to Kinkaid that they both wanted the 4th regiment to come over to Attu. Additionally they requested road-equipment to help the engineers build some roads to clear up the supply nightmare on the beach. Kinkaids response to Brown was made in haste with some poor choice of words “What did you expect to build there with such tremendous supplies—a stadium, or a city? You asked for supplies that you couldn’t have used over a period of months.” Kinkaid basically read Brown’s requests and came to the conclusion the General was expecting a battle to last 60 days, while the original battle plan was expecting 3 days. At this point when they were messaging another it had been 5 days of battle. Thus Kinkaid deduced Brown had shifted to a defensive stance rather than offensive. He was really pissed off by this and immediately met with General’s Buckner and DeWitt. Buckner and DeWitt were not fans of Brown and would fan the flames blame upon him. As a result of terrible bad communications and some service rivalry, General Brown was relieved of his command. General Landrum was to relieve him and take command of the 7th division. Before Brown’s 

On may 16th, both Rockwell and Brown were relayed the message to their shock. Landrum was on his way, and in the meantime Brown retained command. Thus Brown ordered Zimmerman to launch an attack again against the Jarmin Pass and once again it failed. They had incurred so many losses from that attack the 2nd battalion of the 32nd regiment had to be relieved by the 3rd battalion of the 17th regiment. Do remember the 2nd battalion had been sent to relieve the previous one.

To the north, Culins battalions had crossed the Holtz valley under the cover of night, applying pressure to the defenders on Moore Ridge. The allies were pinned to the valley floor while they rained hell upon Moore Ridge. Again we have a diary entry from Dr. Paul Tatsuguchi displaying the lengths the Japanese would go to, to hold their position. “If Shitigati Dai [Moore Ridge] is taken by the enemy the fate of East Arm is decided, so orders was given to destroy all the wounded soldiers by giving them shots in the arm and die painless. At the last minute there was an order from Headquarters Sector Unit to proceed to Chichagof Harbor by way of Umanose [Fish Hook Ridge].” Culin then sent some platoons out along the beach to his left to climb the seaside ends of the ridges. The men climbed from hump to hump and were forced to charge into several hand to hand fighting with the defenders, but they gradually earned a foothold upon the ridge by nightfall.

Culin had thus managed to capture Holtz valley, finally a significant piece of good news. He sent word by radio to Brown. It was to be the only bit of good news Brown would hear as he responded “well done” to Culin. A few minutes later Brown heard General Landrum had just arrived at the harbor. Brown and Landrum met awkwardly. Brown gave a full report to Landrum who expressed astonishment. Landrum then made it clear he found no fault with Browns command and ordered his plans to continue exactly how they were. He judged Kinkaid’s condemnation of Brown without even meeting with him in person to be a grave error. Brown took one last look at Attu, before he made his departure to the States. Without Browns knowledge, General DeWitt went on the record writing up a efficiency report of him, adding passages like this “Personality and temperament not conducive to command joint operations. Impulsive.” These sly remarks would block Brown’s promotional chances later in his career. 

Back at Moore Ridge, the Japanese defenders were down to a single meal a day, usually a single ball of cold rice. Many of them broke under the strain of cold and hunger. The psychological effect of waiting for ones death was too much for many. Many of the men would simply go off on their lonesome to attack the American positions in order to be shot and put out of their misery. Again Dr Paul Tatsuguchi wrote in his diary of the defenders plight “At night about 11:30 o’clock under cover of darkness I left the cave. Walked over muddy roads and steep hills of no-man’s land. No matter how far or how much we went we did not get over the pass. Was rather irritated in the fog by the thought of getting lost. Sat down after 30-40 steps, would sleep, dream and wake up, same thing over again. We had few wounded and had to carry them on stretchers. They got frost-bitten feet, did not move after all the effort.” 

 

Colonel Yamasaki decided to abandon Moore Ridge and the Holtz Bay area, withdrawing into the Prendergast and Fish Hook ridge during the night of May 16th. This left the Jarmin Pass defenders in an impossible position, so the 303rd independent battalion was likewise order to pull back and take up a position at the Clevesy pass. The Americans failed to realize this because of the thick fog, however with the lull in firing they gradually came to realize the brutal battle for the Massacre Valley which had caused 1100 casualties up to this point had ended.

On may 17th, Culin launched a night attack to seize the rest of Moore ridge and the men anxious advanced for hours expecting carnage at any moment only to find out the Japanese had withdrawn. On Moore ridge they found large stocks of supplies, including artillery guns. While all of this was a great relief to the men, a few Nassau Wildcats coming in for a bombing-strafing run upon their position was not so great. Many of Culin’s men were wounded by the aerial strike prompting word to be brought over to Kinkaid. Kinkaid sent Colonel Eareckson to Attu to better coordinate the air strikes with the ground operations. Meanwhile Willoughby sent out some patrols to link up with the Southern forces at Jarmin Pass to spread the good news.

Prior to receiving that news, the fog had prevented Zimmerman's men from noticing the enemy had withdrawn. Zimmerman sent some patrols to the pass which found out the news for themselves and Zimmerman would begin occupying the pass by the end of the day. Zimmerman walked the crest of the pass and found the corpse of one Captain John Jarmin alongside the bodies of his platoon and the small clumps of dead Japanese horribly mangled by artillery shells. The pass, then named Massacre-Holtz Pass, was renamed after Jarmin who died on May 14th. Now we are going to take a leave of the frigid north pacific to talk about some American naval developments and a bloody offensive about to begin in China. 

On February 7th of 1943, the submarine USS Wahoo entered Pearl Harbor carrying 8 rising sun flags on her signal halyards and a broom lashed to her periscope shears signifying a “clean sweep”. She had just come back from a long submarine cruise and one of the most remarkable ones for the war. She was hailed by a crowd of officers, personnel and even news reports. News reporters coming to see a submarine was indeed a rarity, thus adding to the nickname “the silent service”. The American submarines never promoted themselves and received basically no press coverage. But one person in the Pacific Fleet did decided to publicize the submarine war and much of the Wahoo’s reports were given to him for public release. The captain of the Wahoo, Commander Dudley Walker Morton was nicknamed “a one-man wolfpack” and the submarine got an article published in Hawaii’s Hawaiian Advertiser  titled “Wahoo running japs A’gunning”. Wahoo had sunk 5 ships totalling 32,000 tons on her third cruise. But what is more significant than the damage done was Morton’s tactics. He had turned a new page and many submarine commanders would begin to study him. As Morton’s executive officer, Richard O’Kane would say “cast aside unproven prewar concepts and bugaboos”. Morton was extremely aggressive and employed daring tactics like surfacing beside enemy ships to induce panic and deck gunning vulnerable ships. This often led to convoys scattering causing logistical nightmare for the Japanese. 

However as triumphant as the Wahoo’s ventures were, it could not sweep away the lingering frustration and disenchantment for the Pacific submarine force. Submarines had sunk 180 enemy ships totaling 725,000 tons in 1942, more aggregate tonnage than Japan could build that year, but it was felt the fleet was not reaching its full potential. Too many submarine crews clung to pre-war tactics. There was overwhelming evidence that the Mark 14 torpedo was a complete lemon, but the Navy’s bureau of ordnance unanimously rallied against any critics and refused any suggestion that things needed reevaluation. In the later half of 1942, Admiral English had sent over 61 war patrols out of Pearl Harbor and 27 returned empty handed. Patrols off Truk had been far less productive than patrols within Japanese home waters. Glory hunting, ie: chasing capital ships was not producing results. The Japanese freighters and oil tankers, much slower and easier targets were a better investment. In the Atlantic Nazi Germany’s Wolf packs were demonstrating how a relatively small number of Uboats could menace a vital economic and military lifeline. Japan like Britain was extremely vulnerable to a war of commerce and it was evident to all this was not being pursued heavily enough. But the Submarine leadership, admirals English, Fife, Lockwood and Withers were allowing their vessels to perform marginally important reconnaissance services or support various other campings in ill-conceived roles, ie pre-war doctrine stuff. 

The active duty submarine officers were becoming increasingly resentful to their leadership and extremely annoyed at watching countless torpedoes explode prematurely, not explode at all or run in circles rather than speed towards a target. To these criticisms, Admiral English retorted “ SUBPAC has never had a premature explosion”. The Bureau of Ordnance instead of investigating, began to blame the sub crews for failures. According to Clay Blair a scholar of the Pacific submarine Campaign “The torpedo scandal of the U.S. submarine force in World War II was one of the worst in the history of any kind of warfare.” Ned Beach, a submarine commander who later became a historian and novelist remarked about the torpedo’s “performed so poorly that had they been the subject of deliberate sabotage they hardly could have been worse”.

It might have honestly been better if the torpedoes 100% all failed, because perhaps an investigation would have come sooner. The torpedo problem was gradually fixed over the period of two years, while the bureaucrats resisted bitterly and the submariner crews risked their lives carrying faulty weapons. The first problem to be solved was the Mark 14’s tendency to run 10 feet deeper than set. Charlie Lockwood in Freemantle, Australia ran a series of tests and demonstrated the problem to the bureau of ordnance and got Admiral King involved who championed his cause. It was easily fixed by changing the depth setting. Next in August of 1942, while the torpedoes were certainly not going too deep anymore, the explosion rates were not improving. The magnetic influence exploder was faulty and causing premature explosions and through a lot of bickering amongst numerous commanders it was decided to deactivate it. This seemed to cure the mark 14’s of premature explosions, but still more was wrong. So many submariner crews reporters dud hits, and when the magnetic influence exploder was deactivated the duds became even more apparent. It seemed the contact pistol was faulty. To solve this engineers adopted a ball switch and electric detonator rather than using a firing pin mechanism. Now the depth issue was solved, the premature explosion issue was solved and the dud issue was solved, but the torpedoes still tending to go in circles or simply ran erratically. Turned out to be an easy fix, they attached collars to the mark 14, which mark 15’s had and this caused them to steer straight.

To give an idea of how these minor engineer fixes changes the war lets go through some figures. By the start of the war, the Japanese had 6,384,000 tons of shipping. During the first year of the war, they lost 1,147,400 tons of shipping, but they also added 706,000 tons of shipping, for a total net loss of 441,400 tons, which left them with 5,942,600 tons of shipping by the start of 1943. It’s important to mention that the Japanese leadership believed they needed to retain 3 million tons of shipping in order to meet the industrial and civilian needs of the economy, although this estimate was probably too low, as Japan's industrial capacity was proportional to her ability to import the needed material.  In 1943 Japan would lose 1.5 million tons of shipping, in 1944 this became 2.7 million. The Pacific Submariners were strangling the island nation to death. Now as a result of the increased american submarine attacks upon shipping, alongside Japan's increased demand for shipping to be used to transport men, supplies and raw materials for the war effort, well as you can imagine all of this required the homefront to produce more. As a result the shipping available for secondary theaters like the north pacific and even that of China forced Japan to seek out alternative means to secure the resources they needed. 

For example at Yichang there was approximately 20000 tons of steamer tonnage for inland river navigation which could alleviate supply issues for the China theater. But Chinese control over the southern bank of the Yangtze river prevented the Japanese from moving the ships forward to Wuhan. Going all the way back to 1938, Chiang Kai-shek in absolute desperation to stop the Japanese advance had opened the levees that held back the Yellow River at Huayuankou in Henan province. This move had cost an estimated 500,000 Chinese lives. The fertile plains of Henan province were destroyed and its people drowned or starved. The Japanese army gradually moved south seizing the strategic city of Wuhan on the Yangtze river. The Nationalists still held control over unoccupied Henan provinces as the Japanese held around 1.5 million soldiers within China at the time and did not have the resource to push deeper. For most of the Pacific War, the Japanese were content simply controlling the Yangtze river from Wuhan, extending along the rich fertile delta that passed through Nanjing and Shanghai before exiting into the east china sea. A further 466 miles upstream to the west of Wuhan behind multiple barricades of mountains lay Chiang kai-shek's wartime capital of Chongqing. 

In effect there began a stalemate between 3 sides in the conflict; the Japanese, the Nationalists and the CCP. Mao had brokered a secret deal with the Japanese not to fight another for awhile, some units of the NRA had similar pacts with the Japanese. This resulted in trade between both sides, and it might surprise you to hear, this even resulted in some lend lease materials that came over the hump being traded down the Yangtze river to the Japanese in Wuhan. Chiang Kai-shek did not have the resources to train and army even his core divisions let alone the local NRA forces led by provincial commanders. FDR promised Chiang kai-shek in 1943 to arm and modernize the NRA’s core of 90 divisions, out of a theoretical 360, but in practice the hump could only provide enough materials to modernize 30 divisions, the X force and Y force. Stilwell was in charge of training these divisions which would in turn retake Burma to open up the land supply routes to CHongqing along the Ledo-Burma Road. Without resources to equip his armies on the eastern front, Chiang Kai-shek knew any head-on engagement with the Japanese would most likely end with defeat and destruction. This led the 2nd sino-japanese war conflict from 1942-1944 to see the majority of fighting limited at a local level, with struggles in agrarian regions ,village by village and between the NRA and CCP. 

Now back to the offensive at hand, the Japanese sought to occupy the area between Yichang and Yueyang to increased their control over the Yangtze River and crush the Chinese fighting strength in the region. Now a bit further back in time there had been an offensive launched between february and march north of the Yangtze, performed by the 11th army of General Yokoyama. They managed to occupy the area between Jingzhou and Yueyang, thus acting as a preliminary for what would be called the west hubei offensive. Within the region was the 6th war area army under the command of General Sun Lianzhong, but overall command in the hands of the leader of the Chinese expeditionary force in the Burma theater, though at this point was still in Hubei, General Chen Cheng. The Chinese expeditionary force had 40,000 men that held defensive positions all over the region.

General Yokoyama commenced the operation by ordering his 40th division to advance upon Shishou, then Huarong. The 40th division successfully captured the line running east and west of the towns by mid april. By early May, the 40th division sent its Koshiba detachment further west to prepare an assault upon the town of Nan while the 3rd division and 17t independent mixed brigade deployed at Shishou to prepare and assault upon the well defended base at Anxiang. Alongside this the 34th divisions Harigaya detachment performed a wide flanking maneuver to hit Nan and Anxiang from the south. This all consisted of the first phase of the operation, if it was successful, then the 3rd division would continue west to attack Zhijiang and Gongan, supported by the 58th divisions Nozoe detachment and the bulk of the 13th division.

On May 5th, the west hubei offensive officially began with the 3rd division and 17th brigade crossing the Yangtze and smashing the NRA’s 26th army defensive lines. Meanwhile the 40th division began to advance south and east securing the Yueyang area with the Toda detachment rapidly attacking NRA defensive lines around Yushanzhen. To the east, the Harigaya detachment crossed Dongdongting lake and defeated NRA forces around Hengling Hu, supported by the 44th air regiment. The Japanese advances were so powerful and quick, the defenders had no ability to stall them and rapidly began withdrawing south and west. By may the 8th, the 3rd division had defeated the NRA forces trying to escape towards Anxiang, successfully intercepting their escape route as the 17th brigade began occupying Anxiang. Further east, Nan was captured by the Koshiba detachment while NRA positions south of it were annihilated by the combined assaults performed by the Toda and Harigaya detachments. And it is at this point, one of the most horrible events unfolded during the 2nd sino-japanese war. 

Most of you listeners and honestly many people in the world are aware of what is termed “the rape of Nanking”, but most of you in the west I imagine have never heard of the Changjiao Massacre. The town of Changjiao is around Dongdongting lake surrounded by water on three sides. As such the civilians were easily trapped within the town when the Japanese troops began to enter. The Japanese forces seized the waters ways and land routes coming out of the town quickly before anyone could escape. The Harigaya and Toda detachment alongside the 17th independent mixed brigade encircled Changjiao from all four sides while preparing for a river crossing to Changde’s coastal area. The 73rd NRA army alongsides tens of thousands of civilians were besieged as a result. 

In the early hours of May 9th, hundreds of Japanese forces landed in the Yonggu embankment in the central part of Changjiao. This was an area considered safe, thus thousands of local residents and refugees had gathered there. As the IJA forces landed they began massacring the civilian indiscriminately, forcing many to kneel down or be ties up in groups to be killed with knives and bayonet. On may 11th, the IJA forces forced hundreds of civilians to the Yongguyuan ditch port to salvage bullets dropped by NRA forces. Due to the cold weather and deep water in the port, the people were unwilling to cooperate. The IJA officers ordered machine gun crews to open fire upon them forcing countless into the waters. At this ditch port, more than 1000 people were stabbed to death by bayonet, gunned down, or even stoned to death. The survivors dug a bit to bury the victims and it is called “the thousands peoples pit” by locals. 

In Changjiao is the Anhe river which is something like a deep mota blocking the east-west traffic, it was the only passage from Nanxian country to Hanshou and Changde county. On may 10th, the IJA indiscriminately massacred more than 6000 NRA POW’s of the 73rd army and local civilians trapped there. In the early morning of the 10th the Japanese first bombed the area with aircraft, then the ground forces opened fire upon them. It is said the smell of decomposing corpses could be smelt miles away and was called “bloodwater river” by locals. In the Valienne dike, the Japanese performed 5 sweeps along the embankment killing more than 3000 people. In the Yucheng embankment of the factory cellar, the Japanese hacked to death 30 people with knives; within Quancheng village, 200 people were killed within 3 days by IJA forces. The Japanese forced 200 civilian to kneel on the ground before being gunned down by machine guns. Very few escaped the carnage. In many other local places pockets of civilians were killed in similar fashions. Sometimes the IJA would tie civilians to the back of motorboats and would drive at full speed to kill them. 

It is estimated the Japanese raped more than 2000 women, from the young to the old, no one was spared. 3000 houses were burnt down alongside 2500 ships. The Japanese looted gold, silver, copper, iron and grain on a large scale. 

The massacre was part of “the three alls policy, kill all, burn all, loot all”. In just 4 days, the Changjiao Massacre claimed the lives of 30,000 people. It was conducted under the command of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata ad the testimony of one Japanese Kempeitai officer named Uno Shintaro who participated in the event gives a chilling account.

“I personally severed more than forty heads. Today, I no longer remember each of them well. It might sound extreme, but I can almost say that if more than two weeks went by without my taking a head, I didn’t feel right. Physically, I needed to be refreshed.”

A chinese civilian in Changjiao who survived named Guolu Ping give us this account. "Japanese soldiers slammed their feet into the pregnant bellies of women, laughing as they bloodily miscarried." Guolu Ping was bayoneted alongside his father and brothers: "The first blade barely pierced my thick coat... they stabbed me again in the back & abdomen." 

After the horror, the first phase of the operation was a success. The 3rd division then advanced the Songzi river and assembled around Tuochuanbu while the 17th brigade moved towards Lixian and the 13th division advanced upon Zhijiang. On the 12th, the second phase kicked off, with the 13th division crossing the Yangtze to attack Zhijiang while the 3rd division trapped 50000 NRA forces of the 87th army at Gongan. The NRA were completely unprepared and utterly defeated as they fled towards Songzi. By the 18th the Songzi position collapsed and the defenders proceeded to flee further south suffering terrible casualties.

Its important to note while this all looked like a large scale operation to annihilate and conquer, Historian Barbara Tuchman has this to say about the operation  "The Japanese withdrew without pursuit from what appeared to have been a training and foraging offensive to collect rice and river shipping." Forage for materials they did so at large scale, but also they annihilated large armies of NRA and performed unspeakable atrocities upon civilians.

I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.

The battle for Attu was a bloody affair, but soon the allies would seize the frigid north island and end Japan's toehold in the Americas. The Changjiao massacre is yet again another taste of the absolute horror that Japan unleashed upon the Chinese people.