May 2, 1945 - Chinese Forces Continue Campaigns Against Japanese Occupation During World War II

By May 2, 1945, you're witnessing China fight a war it started in 1931 — the longest anti-fascist resistance of any Allied nation. Chinese forces are actively pushing back against Japanese occupation across multiple fronts, including a fierce battle in West Hunan to defend Zhijiang airfield against 70,000–100,000 Japanese troops. Over a million Japanese soldiers remain pinned in China, unable to reinforce the home islands. There's much more to this decisive campaign ahead.

Key Takeaways

• By May 1945, Chinese forces were actively defending Zhijiang airfield during the Battle of West Hunan against 70,000–100,000 Japanese troops.
• Chinese commanders deployed 110,000–200,000 troops across 20 divisions, including Burma veterans airlifted specifically to reinforce defensive positions.
• Mountainous terrain enabled Chinese forces to conduct ambushes and mortar attacks, inflicting heavy casualties on advancing Japanese columns.
• Allied support through the Stilwell Road and Hump airlift had equipped 35 Chinese divisions, sustaining offensive and defensive operations by April 1945.
• China's resistance, ongoing since 1931, kept over one million Japanese troops pinned, preventing reinforcement of Japan's home island defenses.

How China's Spring Offensives Reshaped the War in Early 1945

By early 1945, China's military strategy had shifted dramatically from survival to reclamation. You can trace this transformation directly to General Wedemeyer's offensive plan, approved by Chiang Kai-shek on February 14, 1945. The strategy targeted recapturing lost ground in the Liuchow-Nanning area while pushing toward southeastern ports for better strategic positioning.

Logistical innovations proved essential. American airlift operations over the Himalayas kept Chinese forces supplied after Burma's ground routes closed, while international diplomacy secured continued U.S. material support. Chinese forces simultaneously launched counteroffensives in South China, repelled Japan's West Hunan invasion, and recaptured Guangxi province territories. Japan's China Expeditionary Army, commanded by General Yasuji Okamura, organized its occupation forces across 25 infantry divisions and 22 independent brigades, controlling eastern China's seaports and main rail lines.

These coordinated campaigns stretched Japanese defensive resources thin, tied down troops that couldn't reinforce the home islands, and fundamentally changed the war's momentum across the region. Years later, similar large-scale Chinese offensive doctrine would resurface during the Korean War, when the Chinese People's Volunteer Army mobilized 700,000 men across three field armies in what became the largest Chinese offensive since late 1950.

The Chinese Military Regions Leading the 1945 Offensive Push

China's spring offensives didn't emerge from a single command center—they drew strength from multiple distinct military regions, each contributing differently to the broader campaign. From Central Command in Chongqing to frontline rear areas, coordinated pressure mounted across several fronts:

• Nationalist forces in the Sichuan basin pushed counteroffensives from protected rear areas, leveraging Burma-trained 6th Army divisions redeployed to Chihchiang by late April 1945.
• Communist guerrilla bases in Shaanxi and north China disrupted Japanese supply lines and administration through sabotage operations.
• ALPHA Force targeted the Liuchow-Nanning corridor, aiming to recapture Guangxi and eventually advance toward Hong Kong-Canton.

You're watching a war where geography itself became strategy, and China's dispersed regions turned that geography against Japan. Critical to sustaining these operations was the flow of American supplies airlifted over the Himalayas, a route known as the Hump, which kept Chinese forces equipped after Japan had severed overland access through Burma. Supporting ALPHA Force's 36 divisions required an extensive advisory effort, with American teams ultimately providing about 3,100 soldiers and airmen as advisers and liaison personnel across all division, army, and group army commands.

The Battle of West Hunan and the Fight for Zhijiang Airport

The Japanese knew Zhijiang's airfield had to go. With 70,000–100,000 troops, they launched their April 1945 offensive to seize the airfield and cripple Allied air operations threatening their positions. Controlling airfield logistics meant cutting off USAAF and Chinese air forces from a base just 435 kilometers from Chongqing.

China didn't wait. He Yingqin deployed 110,000–200,000 troops across 20 divisions, airlifting battle-hardened New 6th Corps veterans straight from Burma. The mountainous terrain ambushes you'd expect proved devastating—Chinese forces used the high ground to hammer Japanese columns below with mortar fire. The completion of the Stilwell Road on February 4, 1945 had opened a critical supply route to Kunming, delivering enough materiel to equip 35 Chinese divisions by April. By June 1945, the Japanese had suffered 20,000 casualties, failing to break through Chinese defenses and abandoning their strategic push toward Sichuan.

How China's Summer Campaigns Kept Pressure on Japan After Germany Fell

Germany's surrender on May 8, 1945 didn't slow China's war machine—if anything, it sharpened the pressure. With Europe settled, China intensified operations, forcing Japan to keep over one million troops pinned in the theater rather than redeploying them to defend Kyushu.

Three factors sustained this relentless push:

• Airlift logistics over the Himalayas kept Nationalist forces supplied as Burma's Ledo Road reopened
• Homefront mobilization fed continuous counteroffensives recapturing Japanese-held Guangxi regions
• Magnetic warfare tactics drew Japanese units into costly ambushes, accelerating their exhaustion

Japan's Ketsu-go homeland defense plan couldn't absorb these simultaneous demands. By diverting resources inward, Japan weakened its China positions—directly contributing to the eventual capitulation of 1.5 million troops by August. The plan had envisioned mobilizing the entire population for last-stand resistance, relying on mass kamikaze strikes and terrain advantages to force high Allied casualties and negotiate a settlement avoiding occupation. China's war effort had been sustained across 22 major campaigns fought over eight grueling years on the main battlefronts, a scale of resistance that kept Japanese strategic ambitions perpetually overextended. Around the same period, Canada was advancing its own structural reforms, as Bill C-25 received Royal Assent in May 2018, modernizing federal corporate governance and transparency standards across federally incorporated entities.

Chinese Forces' Role in Accelerating Japan's Final Collapse

By mid-1945, China's relentless attrition strategy had bled Japan's forces to a breaking point. You can trace Japan's collapse directly to years of logistics disruption and psychological warfare waged across Chinese battlefields. Chinese magnetic warfare had trapped two-thirds of Japan's ground, naval, and air forces, preventing Tokyo from pivoting fully to the Pacific or confronting the Soviet Union. Disease alone claimed roughly 100,000 Japanese troops by late 1944, compounding combat losses.

The May 1945 Battle of West Hunan delivered the final blow on China's central front, eliminating over 3,500 Japanese troops and defending Zhijiang airport. This victory signaled China's shift from strategic defense to full offense, directly accelerating Japan's unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945. Japan had previously launched Operation Ichi-Go in 1944, mobilizing 500,000 troops alongside 800 tanks and 200 bombers in what historians described as the largest military operation in the history of the Japanese army.

China's sustained resistance across 14 years of conflict, beginning with the September 18 Incident in 1931 and culminating in Japan's 1945 surrender, established China as the earliest and longest-resisting nation in the global anti-fascist war, a prolonged struggle that tied down Japanese forces and prevented wider Axis coordination across multiple theatres.