The Pittsburgh Press (April 7, 1943)
Chinese fight Japs minus guns and food
By A. T. Steele
Almost a year before Pearl Harbor, Arch Steele, of the Chicago Daily News foreign staff, took a trip into Japan and dug up startling facts about Tokyo’s plans against the United States. Then, to avoid censorship, he slipped back into China, and filed his now-famous series on “Japan Takes Aim.”
Since then, Mr. Steele’s accurate and uninterrupted war coverage has carried him into many battle zones – including Russia’s. And now – back in the United States for the first time in four years – he has written a fact-filled series on the task that faces us before we can come to final grips with Japan. The following is the fourth article in the series.
We cannot close our eyes to the fact that the Japanese blockade is slowly draining China’s military and economic strength and that real relief is not yet in sight.
Though the flow of airborne supplies to China has nearly doubled in volume during the past few months, the Chinese are not receiving sufficient materials to maintain even the status quo. It would take a fleet of airplanes much bigger than is now flying the Himalayas to enable China just to hold her own.
Under the circumstances, there is little reason to hope that China can take the offensive on anything like an important scale until the Allies have reopened a satisfactory overland line of supply. That is still some time off. The best that can be done, in the meantime, is to nourish China to the maximum degree possible with the largest number of transport and combat planes that can be spared for that theater. An air offensive is possible even from a blockaded China.
Just a dribble
The materials which the Chinese Army is receiving from us by air consists chiefly of raw materials for Chinese arsenals and specialized equipment like radio sets and instruments. In the line of finished war materials, like firearms, ammunition and armament, the Chinese are getting considerably more from the Japanese than they are from their allies. Every so often, puppet Chinese forces surrender en masse to the Chungking government, bringing their Japanese equipment with them.
Since Pearl Harbor, the Japanese have withdrawn several divisions of troops from China, though their garrisons in that country still total well over 600,000 men. Against this, the Chinese have disposed an army of more than 4 million soldiers, with others in reserve. In view of this disparity, some people ask why the Chinese do not take the offensive. They do not remember that the Chinese are equipped only with rifles, machine guns, hand grenades and very limited quantities of artillery. They are practically without tanks or big guns. They are woefully short of motor transport and are lacking parts and fuel to maintain properly what they have. Their air force is small – much too small for sustained offensive action on a large scale.
Food shortage
Another distressing aspect of the Chinese military picture is that undernourishment is slowly undermining the vitality of many of China’s best divisions. An army cannot march and fight with full efficiency on a diet of rice. And yet that, with an inadequate addition of vegetables, is about all that most Chinese soldiers ever see. Meat, for the soldier, is a great rarity. Nutritional ailments and diseases like malaria are epidemic. Such deficiencies as these have never been uncommon in China, but they have been seriously aggravated by the blockade.
Of course, it is impossible to generalize about the Chinese Army. There are among China’s divisions a number of crack units which are fully equipped and well fed. They are in the minority. It is doubtless true, too, that China, with reasonable foresight, has laid away certain reserves of war materials and fuel as an insurance against possible emergencies in the future. This is a precaution which any country would take under the circumstances. The Chinese are willing to draw on these reserves for an offensive action that will get them somewhere, such, for instance, as a drive on Burma in collaboration with the Allies.
But they see no point in dissipating their precious – and very limited – stocks of operations of an indecisive nature. It would be easy for them to shoot away in a few days as much as they are receiving from us in a month. Something, they point out, has to be held back with which to defend the country against further Japanese invasions, should they come.
Drive costly
The most important offensive action which the Chinese have attempted since Pearl Harbor was the drive against the Mid-Yangtze port of Ichang. In the process, they paid a terrible price. Nothing could better illustrate the difficulties that blockade has imposed on the Chinese Army.
Ichang is a key point straddling the main supply line between Central and West China. If the Chinese could gain permanent possession of Ichang, their food problem would be considerably improved, for it would then be possible to ship rice and other products from Central China, where there is sometimes a surplus, to West China, where there is sometimes a shortage. Present connections between the two areas are roundabout and tenuous.
Displaying great gallantry, the Chinese captured Ichang from an enemy force inferior in numbers but vastly superior in equipment. It gave a momentary thrill in inspiration to the whole country, for China had waited long for victories. But it did not last long. The Japanese, favored by excellent lines of communication and unlimited reserves of armament, brought up reinforcements. They deluged the Chinese defenders with aerial bombs.
Officers killed
They bombarded them with gas shells. They brought up tanks and gunboats. The Chinese, after a brief but tenacious resistance against this mechanized onslaught, to which they could offer no barrier but flesh and blood, were obliged to withdraw. But not all of them came back. Most had died. A Chinese general told me afterward that this brief and bloody offensive effort had cost:
We used two divisions [between 10 and 15,000 men] in that action. All officers above the rank of regimental commander were killed. 60% of all battalion commanders were killed. All that was left to those two divisions were 2,000 men. Our losses were more than 10–1 in relation to Japanese losses. Do you wonder, after that, why we hesitate to take the offensive against such terrific odds?
Human life is cheap in China, but not so cheap that Chinese commanders are anxious to risk their under-armed manpower in suicidal maneuvers against a foe armed to the teeth with everything that modern science can produce.
Hidden arsenals
Hidden away in the fastnesses of West China are a number of small but excellently equipped arsenals. American military men who have visited them speak highly of the efficiency with which they are run. These plants are producing rifles, machine guns, ammunition, trench mortars, bombs, grenades and an occasional small artillery piece. They are able to provide a considerable part of China’s needs in the line of small arms – but by no means all of it. The shortage of raw materials is so acute that not all of even these plants are working at full capacity. Much of the Lend-Lease stuff which is being flown into China consists of materials for these arsenals.
Generally speaking, the military situation in China has been stagnant since Pearl Harbor. The Japanese have launched several fierce offensives of a limited nature, but generally for the purpose of breaking up concentrations of Chinese troops rather than to acquire new territory. The Japs have also vigorously pushed “mopping-up” operations in the guerrilla regions behind their lines, with only indifferent results. While the danger is ever-present, there is yet no indication that the enemy is preparing for any attempt at a knockout offensive in China. He has too much urgent business elsewhere.
There are those who criticize the Chungking generals because they have deployed a part of their crack forces along the frontier of the territory controlled by the Chinese Red Army. Whether the strength so immobilized would materially alter the strategic picture in Asia if it were stationed elsewhere is, however, very doubtful. There are others who ask why Chinese guerrillas are not more active. The Chinese reply that problems of supply and coordination are excruciatingly difficult. Moreover, they come back with the question:
What is the record of Allied guerrillas in Burma and in Africa? Is it any better than ours?
Maybe they have something there.