Taking pride in doing everything by the rules, Hu Guobing’s regiment set off in perfect marching order through the ripening rice fields. A platoon headed by a young lieutenant formed the vanguard, which moved forward at a brisk pace in neat rows, as if on the parade ground. There was nothing discreet about this textbook formation, and Japanese aircraft circling overhead spotted it almost immediately. A shell whistled across the sky and exploded in the middle of the platoon in front, sending tons of moist soil into the air. It left no recognizable piece of the young lieutenant. A squad commander was ripped in half and died instantly. Two soldiers lost legs. Wisely, the regimental commander ordered the platoons to disperse and make their way to the objective individually.
As they came within rifle range of the Japanese line near Wusong, the platoons dispersed further, splitting into squads. Soon the crack and rattle of small arms could be heard all along the regiment’s front. Battalion commander Qin Shiquan, a graduate of the Central Military Academy, led two companies towards the enemy positions, taking care not to be seen. When they were close enough, he ordered his bugler to sound the charge. He then raised his Mauser pistol, turned around to face his men and shouted, “Attack! Attack!” The sudden noise caused his position to be fatally exposed. Unseen Japanese observers hiding nearby sent his coordinates to warships offshore. Within minutes shells started raining down on the unit with uncanny precision.17
As the Japanese sent a storm of steel over the Chinese formation, all order disintegrated. Soon it was every unit for itself. Hu Guobing spent most of the day evading Japanese aircraft, which circled over the battlefield waiting for targets to reveal themselves. “It seemed as if the enemy could see everything. It was important not to act rashly. There was no other choice really but to take cover in a hole or behind a ridge,” he said.18 The shooting went on throughout the afternoon and did not die down until after the approach of darkness. Only then could the soldiers start breathing more freely, take a few bites of their field rations and relieve their parched throats with a sip from their water canteens. At the same time, they took advantage of the freedom of movement the night offered and rushed to improve their positions. They knew that once dawn broke, it would be too late, and a shallow trench or poor camouflage could mean death.19
Hu shared his trench with a young student. They had only known each other for a few hours but they had struck up a fledgling friendship. When darkness gave way to day on August 24, the tense atmosphere returned. Suddenly, Japanese shells started pelting their position. Pressing against the bottom of the trench, Hu was absorbed by one thought, and one thought only—to stay alive. Then it occurred to him that the student next to him had never been in a battle before and that this must be his first artillery barrage. He turned around, intending to say a few comforting words. What he saw was the young man lying prone on the damp soil, eyes closed peacefully as if asleep. Blood was streaming from a gaping injury in his forehead, covering his face in red. He was dead.20
For Lieutenant Liu Yongcheng of the Training Brigade, the first two days of battle with the Japanese were not what he had expected. It was a deadly game of hide-and-seek with an invisible enemy who never showed his face, but manifested himself in a sudden hail of bullets or a series of shells which came out of nowhere. Late on August 23, he was leading his men through a small cluster of bombed-out peasant huts near Wusong, when he stumbled across a group of injured Chinese soldiers. Liu did not recognize their faces, but obviously they were the only ones left from their unit. They could not be evacuated, since the route back to the main Chinese line was across wide expanses of open countryside, with no features to offer any protection against the deadly fire of the naval artillery. Liu did not linger long near the injured soldiers but moved on, without a word. He had a job to do.21
Later that day Liu was crouching behind a ridge separating two rice fields. He had sent out scouts twice, and they had not returned. He decided to look for himself. He attempted to roll over the top of the ridge, but the moment his silhouette showed, two bullets hit his right leg. He slid back, bleeding profusely from the injuries. One of his squad commanders, a veteran of the 1932 battle, helped him dress the wounds and used the opportunity to broach the tactical situation. He pointed out that his own platoon and the two neighboring platoons had suffered severe losses. “Let’s not keep attacking,” the squad commander argued. “The enemy knows exactly where we are. But we shouldn’t retreat either. Retreating is even more dangerous. Let’s just stay here and hold the position behind the ridge.” Liu listened in silence. He knew the squad leader was an old hand, and he respected his views. They stayed behind the ridge for the rest of the day.22
The following morning, Japanese scouts spotted Liu’s position behind the ridge and started raining down rifle grenades. Liu was injured once more, this time in the back. One of his soldiers grabbed a first-aid kit intending to bandage his wound. When he turned Liu around, a bullet hit the wounded officer’s shoulder. Bleeding from multiple injuries, Liu was as helpless as the incapacitated soldiers he had seen near the peasant huts the day before. However, when the company commander was informed of Liu’s plight, he sent a team of stretcher bearers to evacuate him back to the divisional field hospital. Ahead lay months of recovery, but he was among the lucky ones. Out of 44 officers and soldiers in the platoon that had gone into battle the day before, only 16 remained fit to fight.23
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Putting Zhang Zhizhong and Feng Yuxiang, the Christian General, in charge of the defense of Shanghai had been Chiang Kai-shek’s own decision, in his capacity of chairman of the National Military Council. A week into the battle, he had even consolidated Feng Yuxiang’s authority by transforming the Shanghai area into the Third War Zone and putting him in command. Now he was begining to have regrets. In a telephone conversation with Feng Yuxiang shortly after the Japanese landings, Chiang Kai-shek reiterated the need to keep an eye on the younger frontline commanders. “Don’t hesitate to give them advice,” he said. Feng replied that he would not hold back. Then he went on to tell an anecdote about the Japanese General Nogi Maresuke, who during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and 1905 had allegedly left all major decisions to his chief of staff. “The frontline commanders have courage and a belligerent spirit. Their job is to take orders and fight. Mine is to sit behind, like Nogi, write a few poems, and just wait to die.” Chiang Kai-shek was insistent: “No matter what, don’t be shy. Share some advice with them.” “Of course,” Feng replied, “if I see something wrong, I’ll point it out. I won’t hesitate. Don’t worry.” This was hardly sufficient to reassure Chiang.24
Zhang Zhizhong, the scholarly commander of the left wing, was a source of even greater concern to Chiang. All his talk about fighting the Japanese seemed to have been mostly empty rhetoric. Zhang had not shown sufficient will to push through with the attacks against the small Japanese forces in the city at a time when they could have decided the battle. With Japanese reinforcements firmly in place on two locations in the greater Shanghai area, it was too late to seek a quick defeat of the enemy. With little progress on the ground, Zhang added insult to injury by seeming to spend a disproportionate amount of time making grandiose statements to the newspapers. Chiang Kai-shek was frustrated. It was a frustration he shared with his German advisors, who agreed Zhang did not possess the necessary “toughness” in the face of Japanese resistance.
The dispatch of Deputy War Minister Chen Cheng to the front was a first indication, emerging even before the Japanese landings, that Chiang was preparing to replace Zhang Zhizhong. While Zhang had proved to be a weaker leader than expected, Chen Cheng was more a man to Chiang’s liking, who advised an all-out battle to challenge the Japanese at Shanghai and divert Japan’s attention away from the north.25 Further confirmation that Chen Cheng was gaining favor followed after the Japanese landings when he was put in charge of the 15th Army Group, which had been hastily formed from seven divisions scattered over a large area west of Chuanshakou.26 Given its p
osition on the left wing of the Chinese Shanghai Army, the 15th Army Group arguably fell within Zhang Zhizhong’s area of responsibility. However, in a humiliating twist, Zhang was not even informed about Chen Cheng’s appointment, and only learned about it indirectly from other field commanders.
Fearing that he was being sidelined, Zhang Zhizhong rushed to the Third War Zone headquarters in Suzhou to get a sense of the political situation by talking to the commanders there. While in Suzhou, he also managed to talk on the phone with Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing and immediately understood how much his standing had declined. Chiang started off by criticizing him for turning up so far behind the frontline. “What are you doing in Suzhou? What are you doing in Suzhou?” Chiang repeated, showing no inclination for dialogue. “Mr Chairman,” Zhang replied, “I’m merely back in Suzhou to discuss important strategic issues. Otherwise, I’m constantly at the frontline.” Feeling unfairly targeted, Zhang added: “What’s the matter with you?” Chiang Kai-shek was incensed at the disrespectful retort. “What’s the matter with me?” he yelled. “You ask me what’s the matter with me?” His voice transformed to a hoarse shriek, Chiang Kai-shek hung up.27 At this point, Zhang Zhizhong must have been in little doubt that his days as the chief field commander were numbered.
An undertone of desperation was beginning to spread among the Chinese commanders. The Japanese landings had achieved the immediate objective of relieving the pressure on the small marine forces holed up in Shanghai. The Chinese had been forced to halt their attacks on Hongkou and Yangshupu. Instead they now had to carefully consider where to allocate their resources among various fronts. If the Japanese landing party grew large enough, as was likely, they faced the very real possibility that they could become the object of a Japanese pincer movement. Essentially, within a few days, the Chinese forces had moved from the offensive to the defensive.
It was against this backdrop that Chen Cheng, newly appointed head of the 15th Army Group, arrived in Suzhou on August 24. His presence was intended to help stiffen the resistance, but he was also to acquaint himself with local conditions as he was expected to play a greater role at the front shortly.28 Chen Cheng’s self-assured behavior, and his readiness to overrule the local commander, signaled that real authority already rested with him. He agreed with Zhang Zhizhong’s plans from the day before to counter the landings, but considered them insufficient given the threat posed by the fresh Japanese troops. He ordered that more soldiers be moved from Shanghai proper to the landing zones.29
Zhang Zhizhong meekly agreed. In fact, he left the other officers assembled in Suzhou, including the Germans, with the impression that he was willing to give up the entire Shanghai front.30 Just a few days before, he had impressed foreign reporters with his cold-blooded behavior in the middle of a Japanese air attack,31 but now he came across as downright timid. After ten days of almost no sleep, he seemed to be about to crack. With this kind of leadership in the face of setbacks at the front, it was no surprise that a dangerous defeatist mood was spreading among the generals in Suzhou. To counter this, Falkenhausen proposed a plan that could rekindle the enthusiasm for the offensive among the Chinese. During a long meeting on the night between August 24 and 25, the German general suggested rallying all forces sent to the Luodian area for an attack from all sides against the Japanese landing force. Demonstrating the German predilection for a decisive blow, he wanted to throw the invaders right back into the Yangtze. The assembled officers agreed.32
Even so, as day dawned, the optimism that had animated the nightly staff meeting gradually evaporated. It was now 48 hours since the landings, and the Japanese Army had strengthened its foothold at Chuanshakou, rapidly approaching a critical mass that would make it impossible to dislodge it again. Tanks and artillery were lined up on the riverbank, and engineers were building a pier to facilitate unloading men and materiel at an even faster rate. Already they were in possession of a bridgehead that measured 10 miles in length, with a depth of five miles, and they had started constructing a road reaching inland, as an obvious preparation for a major offensive.33
In a secret report to Chiang Kai-shek, Falkenhausen described the difficult situation as the Japanese consolidated their material advantage. “It should be noticed that the enemy’s army and navy act in close coordination. Even though his land-based artillery is still weak, this is compensated for by strong naval artillery and ship-based aircraft,” the German general wrote. He added that airfields on Chongming Island helped underpin Japan’s now “complete air superiority” in the area, concluding: “As a result, the main operations on our side should be carried out after dark.”34 The German officer’s words marked both a piece of advice and a statement of established fact. From late August, most Chinese movement took place after sunset. Only then could Chinese and Japanese infantry meet on somewhat even terms, without the crushing advantage that air support gave the latter. Night turned out to be the great equalizer in the uneven battle over Shanghai.
In the daytime, the tirelessly active Japanese seemed to be everywhere. They sent rubber boats up small rivers to scout and harass. Their observation balloons were hanging over the horizon, to keep a watchful eye on the Chinese and immediately scramble aircraft when they detected any movement.35 They combined their technological mastery with bravery approaching the suicidal. When in danger of being taken prisoner, the Japanese often preferred death. After one pitched battle in the area near Luodian, one of the dead retrieved by the Chinese was a sergeant major who had committed hara-kiri, while a seriously injured private was found to have tried to slit his own throat with his razor-sharp bayonet.36
Luodian remained the immediate target of nearly all the Japanese forces in the area, and they faced the same Chinese units that had pushed them out on August 23. The Chinese were firmly entrenched in and around the town, but they were too few to consider offensive operations against the Japanese at Chuanshakou. Instead, they had to do their best to improve their defenses. However, while they were waiting for the Japanese to resume the assault, they were subject to massive and sustained bombardment.37 Among the Chinese officers, there was a sense of crisis and a very real feeling that the line could buckle any time. From their perspective, the Japanese were on a roll. From the Japanese invaders’ own perspective, it looked very different.38
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Gu Qingzhen, a 12-year-old Chinese boy, had nowhere to run when the Japanese arrived. Many inhabitants in the hamlet of Hanjiazhai, near Luodian, had fled ahead of the invasion force, but his parents had been among the ones who had stayed behind to look after their homes. As a patrol of eight infantrymen speaking their strange, toneless language entered the village, they realized they had made a mistake. The small Gu family was among a group of 13 hiding in a building, but they were detected. The Japanese entered with fixed bayonets, and the slaughter began.
Gu was squeezing with his parents into a narrow space behind a stove. It was no use. A soldier found them and stabbed his mother through her heart. Another thrust, and his father was dead. Gu himself escaped detection, but the bayonet that had killed his parents scraped his head and went through his right shoulder. He lost consciousness. When he came to, he could hear the Japanese soldiers talk loudly outside. His head, neck and shoulders were sticky with blood, his own and that of his parents. Gu remained hidden under the bodies of his parents until the following dawn, when was sure the Japanese had disappeared. He walked through countryside littered with murdered civilians until he met the only person left alive from his village, an old women who took him to be reunited with a relative of his.39
What Gu had been forced to experience was a Japanese brand of requisitioning-cum-murder. The soldiers of the 11th Japanese Division were running out of supplies and had started to do what armies have done since ancient times—live off the land. While the initial landing had gone exactly according to plan, on the second day it was becoming evident that getting provisions on shore was proceeding at a much slower pace than expected. Soldier
s and their equipment were also not being unloaded as fast as scheduled. By noon on August 24, only about 80 percent of the second wave had managed to disembark from their boats. This was a far cry from the impressive invasion force that the Chinese officers believed to be forming on the bank of the Yangtze.
The sluggish movement off the ships was partly because of the natural features of the landing site. The Yangtze was very shallow near its southern bank, and much of the unloading could only take place during a short window of opportunity just before dawn, when the water level was at its highest. The navy had lent a few sailors to help with the onerous task of disembarking the troops. It was not enough. The lack of provisions caused the offensive towards Luodian to slow down. “It’s a terrible pity,” Matsui wrote in his diary. “The main reason is that insufficient men and materiel have been prepared for landing and provisioning.”40
Japanese casualties were gradually increasing as the Chinese reinforcements that had been sent to the Luodian area started making a difference. Two days after the landings, the number of killed and injured from the 11th Division had reached more than 400, and from then on kept rising. Among those who had lost their lives was one of the division’s senior staff officers. He was killed when he stepped off his landing craft at Chuanshakou, by a Chinese airplane that had slipped through the Japanese fighter cover. The number of bodies grew so fast that not all could be cremated, the way the Japanese preferred to dispose of their dead, and all privates and junior officers had to be hastily buried instead.41 For an army claiming to honor its dead soldiers more than those who remained alive, it was a blow to morale.
Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze Page 12