The Battle of Hengyang () 23 June – 8 August 1944 was fought between Chinese and Japanese forces in mainland China during World War II. Although the city fell, Japanese casualties far exceeded the total number of Chinese troops defending the city. It has been described as "the most savage battle ever fought in the smallest battlefield with the greatest casualties in the military history of the world". Japanese military historians equate it to the most arduous battle in the Russo-Japanese War, calling it a "Battle of Ryojun in South China". A major Chinese newspaper of the day compared it to the Battle of Stalingrad.
Strategic importance Hengyang in Hunan Province lies in an oval basin surrounded by mountains and hills, with Guangdong and Guangxi to the south, Guizhou and Yunnan to the west, and Jiangxi and Shanghai to the east. The city proper sits where two rivers merge into the Xiang River, a major tributary of the Yangtze. Such a unique geographical position destined Hengyang to be a strategic crossroads throughout China's history, a must for industrial and commercial enterprises to use as a home base and for military forces to control.
In the 1930s, the Japanese occupation of major East Coast cities such as Shanghai, Nanjing, and Wuhan forced China's industries to relocate inland. The Chiang Kai-shek government chose Hengyang to be a light industry center. By the beginning of 1944, both banks of the Xiang River for ten miles had been built up with mills and factories. The bustling commercial activities brought the city the nickname "Little Shanghai".
That same decade, two major railway lines, Wuhan-Guangzhou and Hunan-Guangxi, were built that met in Hengyang, further elevating the strategic importance of the city as a gateway to Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan. A Chinese failure to hold the city could result in the Japanese crossing into Guilin and driving west towards Guizhou, from where they could directly attack Chongqing, thus placing the Chinese wartime capital and military headquarters in imminent danger.
Ichigo plan By the summer of 1943, American military forces on the Pacific front had won a great victory against Japan in the Guadalcanal campaign and continued to advance into the western Pacific. On November 25, the US Air Force, from a base in eastern China, bombed a Japanese naval base in Taiwan. All this caused great anxiety in the upper echelon of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces. They realized that Japan must now set up an overland transport route through central China and destroy the American air bases there. In January 1944, the Japanese military plan "Ichigo" was drawn up and approved by the emperor. Two phases were projected: Henan Campaign aiming at the control of Beijing-Wuhan Railway, and Hunan-Guangxi Campaign to take over Wuhan-Guangzhou and Hunan-Guangxi Railways.
Ichigo was formally put into action on 17 April. Japanese troops met with hardly any effective Chinese resistance during the subsequent six weeks, and on 26 May Japan launched the offensive on Hunan with forces growing to "80,000 to 90,000". Changsha fell on June 18, and two days later, when the order came to take Hengyang, Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama (橫山 勇) expected the battle to last no more than a day.
Allied leadership As Japan was launching its daring Ichigo Operation in China, Chinese supreme commander Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was mired in struggles on almost every front. A memorandum by the Office of Strategic Services on April 4, 1944 describes Chiang as being "under great strain", and even "half crazy".
Even before Pearl Harbor, the US government had started quietly helping China by sending the American Volunteer Group (AVG) of aviators and technicians, led by Claire Chennault and popularly known as the Flying Tigers. Once the U.S. had entered the war, American General Joseph Stilwell became chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek and U.S. Commander of the China-Burma-India Theater (CBI). Tensions soon began to rise. A defeat of the Allied troops in Burma, including the Chinese 5th and 6th Armies, said by Chiang to be China's crack troops, made Stilwell obsessed with avenging his failure. In most of his tenure in the CBI, only Burma was his priority.
In the months leading up to the epic Battle of Hengyang, Americans stepped up their pressure on the Chiang government for two things: sending his Yunnan forces to Burma and allowing American observers to go to Yanan to make contact with Chinese Communist leaders. Roosevelt's April 3 letter was quickly followed by General Marshall's instruction to Stilwell that air supplies over "The Hump" from British India would cease if Chiang did not order his Yunnan forces to move into Burma. The pressure finally became unbearable, and on April 15, 1944, two days before Ichigo began, the Yunnan forces, one of Chiang's best-equipped and best-trained armies, left China.
Chiang Kai-shek's only consolation and trust lay in Chennault, who by now had become the head of the newly established U.S. 14th Air Force in China. Chennault's antagonism towards Stilwell was fully displayed in his letter to Roosevelt on 26 January 1944, urging that Stilwell be replaced. As the 14th Air Force exerted every bit of its strength but failed to halt the aggressively advancing Japanese troops, Chennault blamed Stilwell for not allocating enough materials to his forces.
The total collapse of Chinese armies in the Henan Campaign and rapid fall of Changsha exposed Chiang Kai-shek's perilous state on the home front. The military was rife with corruption, low morale, disobedience, lack of discipline, top officers deserting their command posts, and even high-ranking commanders disobeying his orders. While losing control of his own armies, the Generalissimo also was losing the trust of the U.S. On 6 July, with the Battle of Hengyang raging, President Roosevelt telegraphed Chiang Kai-shek, requesting him to make Stilwell the commander of all Chinese and American forces.
In the meantime, the supreme commanders of China's Ninth, Seventh, and Fourth War Areas, together with high-ranking politician Li Jishen, were also plotting to seize power from Chiang Kai-shek. The idea of setting up a sort of separate government was thrown out early in 1944 and fermented through spring and summer. Those initiators informed Stilwell and asked him for American equipment, to which Stilwell agreed.
It was in the middle of this conflict among the leadership that the Battle of Hengyang was fought.
American involvement By the Lei River on the east side of Hengyang lay an airfield, first built in 1934. In March 1943 when the American 14th Air Force was formally established, the airfield was significantly upgraded for heavy bombers and became a base for the Chinese-American Composite Wing (Provisional), who inherited the nickname "Flying Tigers". At its peak, Hengyang Airfield held 400 planes including bombers, fighters, and photo reconnaissance, with more than 2,000 pilots and ground personnel.
As early as 6 May 1944, when the Allies became better aware of the Japanese military goals, the Hengyang squadron pilots started extensive and intensive bombing and strafing missions. For six weeks, they bombed Japanese military storage areas, supply barges and gunboats; strafed Japanese troops; and engaged in dogfights. On June 17, the Japanese bombed the Hengyang air base heavily, and the squadron was ordered to evacuate. They flew back to bomb the base on June 22, the day before the Battle of Hengyang formally began, so it could not be used by the advancing Japanese troops.
The 14th Air Force continued to fly missions all through the Battle of Hengyang, attacking Japanese supply lines along the Yangtze and Xiang rivers and supporting Chinese defensive positions around Hengyang, taking a heavy toll of Japanese. Japanese air strength had to be dedicated to defensive activity, denying air cover to front line Japanese forces. The Chinese defenders agreed: "The American-Chinese Air Force dominance in the air during the daytime gave Japanese troops no choice but to attack at night, which made offensives more difficult. ... Hengyang would not have held out for 47 days without Chennault and his Flying Tigers."
The ground troops defending Hengyang especially credited Brigadier General Earl S. Hoag, who commanded the India–China Division, Air Transport Command. Visiting Hengyang a week before the battle on a supply inspection tour, Hoag put the Chinese in direct radio communication with Zhijiang Airport (), which could relay their messages to Chongqing.
Also active and contributing to the city before the battle were American missionaries and medical staff working at Ren Ji Hospital, run by the Presbyterian church. The hospital evacuated at the beginning of June 1944, when Hunan Campaign had already begun and roads and transportation facilities were extremely congested. The equipment and medicines left behind, particularly sulfa drugs, greatly helped wounded soldiers to recover fast, an indirect factor in Hengyang holding out for so long.
Tenth Army, Chinese National Revolutionary Army Ordered to defend Hengyang was the 10th Army of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, formally established in 1940. (The Chinese word "军" is usually translated as "army", although it is only the size of an army corps in the military of other countries. The Kuomintang Order of Battle entry in the Pacific War Online Encyclopedia has a discussion of this.) The Army was built on the foundation of the 190th Division that had won the title "Division of Bravery and Loyalty" in the Battle of Wuhan in 1938. Having played a decisive role in the victory at the Third Battle of Changsha at the end of 1941, the 10th Army was awarded the honorary title "Mt. Tai Army". Mt. Tai, one of the Five Sacred Mountains in China, symbolizes reverence and respect.
Lieutenant General Fang Xianjue, commander of the 10th Army, was also well known to Hunan people. In the fiercest life-and-death moment during the Third Battle of Changsha, Fang, then a major general commanding the 10th Reserve Division, wrote his "last" letter to his wife after promising the Supreme Commander of the Ninth War Area, General Xue, to hold his battle lines for a week. The letter was published under the heading "Determined to Defend Changsha to his Death, Commander Fang Made his Will" on the first page of Changsha Daily on 2 January 1942.
Fang's promotion in 1942 was resented by 190th Division Deputy Commander Zhu, a General Xue confidante. This sowed seeds of trouble for Fang. In the Battle of Changde the following year, the 10th Army failed in a rescue mission mainly because Zhu delayed carrying out Fang's orders. Flying into a rage, Fang threatened to execute Zhu. This offended Xue, who then convinced Chiang Kai-shek to remove Fang from his command. But when Japan launched the Hunan Campaign, Fang's replacement changed his mind and declined the new appointment. Xue had to ask Fang to resume his post, but Fang refused. On the night of 29 May 1944, Chiang Kai-shek called Fang directly from Chongqing, ordering him to resume his command and deploy to Hengyang immediately. He should prepare to defend the city for ten days to two weeks.
At the time of its deployment, the 10th Army was still undergoing the process of replenishment. It had suffered immense losses, including the death of the commander of its 10th Reserve Division, in the Changde battle. The 190th Division was being reorganized, with only one regiment complete and the other two waiting for new recruits. One regiment of the 54th Division that happened to be stationed in Hengyang was ordered to take part in the defense under Fang's command. However, the commander, said to be close to General Xue, allowed two battalions to leave after Hengyang airfield was lost on the third day of the battle, leaving only a single battalion in Hengyang.