The Battle of Changde, Let me name it "A little Stalingrad"

Hi,
I am sincerely pleased that the topic I started "November 2012 - 70 years since Operation Uranus" aroused interest and many replies.

The Battle of Changde started a year later in China, and resembled in many ways with the Battle of Stalingrad - of course on smaller scale.
Even the Marshall Chiang Kai-shek, when in a personal message he asked to the commander of the city to defend it "at any cost", reminded him of Stalingrad.
And it was like at Stalingrad: while the garrison sacrificed itself in street fight, with reinforcements not able to reach them due to Japanese encirclement (and they lacked ammunition, food and water), that gave time to various Chinese units in the surroundings to regroup and drive the Japanese out after they hold the city few weeks. The city's Chinese garrison, at the end of engagement, had less than 4 percent of initial strength. Unlike Stalingrad, the city was surrounded by strong defense walls built in the Middle Ages, and for a short time they mattered, even against the weapons of WWII.
3 Chinese generals were killed while commanding their divisions - outside the city.
300,000 civilians of the city died.
The Japanese spread bubonic plague and also used mustard gas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changde

You can see this movie - for me it was good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8NhpMD5FOw
Do not forget to click on "CC" to get the English subtitles.

This ended with Japanese defeat, at the very beginning of 1944, but guess what...
Over 1944 the Japanese launched in China a land offensive which was by far the biggest offensive of Axis in 1944 - and it ended with tactical succes! (For short time, also a strategical succes, but due to the disasters they had in Pacific, eventually did not matter.)
This was Operation Ichi-Go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ichi-Go

They advanced (and hold it) from Central China until they reached French Indochina (theirs since 1940). They advanced over 1200 kilometers in straight line! The Germans were not able to do that since 1942.

This post has been edited by Florin on December 18, 2012 07:06 am

Very interesting! I've only read about Chang-De in the context of the biological warfare attempted by the Japanese Army. Must read more into it... Thanks, Florin!

You are welcome!
On my behalf, I learned with surprise about the Operation Ichi-Go - considering its magnitude, and the fact that the Japanese advanced 1200 km on land in 1944, it is almost unnoticed today.
P.S: How did I get the 1200 km: I looked on the operational maps, then in Google-Earth I used "Ruler - Path".

Huge advance! More than the Wehrmacht did in a similar timeframe after 1941... however, even for the "secondary theater" which was China, it's quite forgotten!

This post has been edited by MMM on December 19, 2012 10:04 pm

This quoted text is taken from the book "Krieg der Panzer 1939 - 1945" by Janusz Piekalkiewicz, Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg, 1999.

ANDREAS, the book from above is in English? I've googled it, but I don't seem to find the language. The author is Polish, the title is in German, but the book is in English?!

This post has been edited by MMM on February 04, 2013 07:39 pm

No, of course not MMM! The book is in german but I translated the quoted text as good as I could! There are described battles fought by tank troops of the powers involved especially Germany, UK, USA, USSR, Japon...