Maochun Yu - The Dragons War: Allied Operations and the Fate of China, 1937-1947

Maochun Yu

NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS

Annapolis, Maryland

The latest edition of this work has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press
291 Wood Road
Annapolis, MD 21402

2006 by Maochun Yu

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-61251-437-6 (eBook)

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Yu, Maochun, 1962

The dragons war : allied operations and the fate of China, 19371947 / Maochun Yu.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Sino-Japanese Conflict, 19371945Participation, Foreign. I. Title. II. Title: Allied operations and the fate of China, 19371947.

DS777.532.Y8 2006

951.042dc22

2006015599

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First printing

CONTENTS

MILITARY HOSTILITY BETWEEN CHINA AND JAPAN famously started on 18 September 1931, when the Japanese army invaded and quickly occupied the Chinese northeastern region of Manchuria. Since the Manchuria Incident, the Chinese and Japanese had engaged each other in frequent military skirmishes along the North China and Manchuria border regions, which eventually escalated into an all-out war nearly six years later. On 7 July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident ignited a full-scale war between China and Japan, which, in the opinion of many, marked the real beginning of World War II in Asia. During this period, against overwhelming odds, China was fighting for its own survival against a formidable military force that had no match in East Asia. Despite Chinas determination to defeat the invading enemy, the glaring lack of parity in modern weaponry and defense industry between China and Japan created a dire need for China to acquire foreign military aid and defense assistance of various forms. These ranged from massive acquisition of weapons, to substantial financial loans to buttress a wartime economy, to readiness training, and to political reassurance of support from allies. It was obvious that China could not carry out a war against Japan alone. Acquiring foreign support became a vital factor in Chinas strategy of winning the war.

Conversely, the belligerence between China and Japan was not simply a war between two regional powers. Over the years, the conflict created a powerful impetus for virtually all the major powers in Western Europe to get involved one way or another in the fighting in China. Throughout the prolonged conflict between China and Japan, all major Western powers conducted significant military and intelligence operations inside China.

This is a book about military and intelligence operations in China and foreign aid conducted or sponsored by various countries (the USSR, the United States, Britain, and France, in particular) during Chinas long war against Japan. It deals with the extraordinary intrigue, command, and operational manipulations, international espionage, high and low politics, and generally peculiar circumstances surrounding military and intelligence operations in wartime China among the Allies. Topics include various military aid programs to China by Germany, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States; special intelligence initiatives conducted by the British, the Free French, and the Americans; the massive joint intelligence organization of the Chinese secret police and the U.S. Navy; The secret cooperation of British and American intelligence organizations with the Chinese Communists; Americas first covert overseas military operation (the Flying Tigers); and the command and control issues surrounding British, Soviet, and American military personnel in the China theater. It also illustrates the remarkable ramifications of these foreign operations in the Chinese theater of military campaigns and political drama, as well as how these operations exerted a profound influence on Chinas nationalism, wartime politics, and overall military campaigns.

In essence, this book attempts to illustrate how these foreign operations served to challenge the authority and legitimacy of the Chinese Nationalist government and how the failure of the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek to successfully handle and control foreign operations during World War II greatly contributed to its own demise four years after the war ended.

Scattered accounts about foreign military and intelligence exploits in wartime China have been written. But most of these accounts exist in the form of memoirs, interviews, and newspaper accounts about an isolated nations experience with the China theater. A single-volume, research-based scholarly monograph covering all major countries operations and the remarkable ramifications of these foreign operations in the Chinese theater of military campaigns and political drama has been needed.

An overwhelming majority of the existing body of works on wartime military and intelligence in Western languages suffers from a severe lack of any meaningful Chinese-language materials. In the past several years, voluminous new sources have appeared in Chinese about wartime China. A large portion of these new sources deals with foreign military and intelligence operations, a topic that has been previously considered so partisan in nature that little scholarly value could be found in it, or in many cases it has been a taboo or restricted area in the Chinese scholarly world. As readers will see, I have used a significant amount of newly available sources in Chinese.

In the past several years, I have written articles and essays for conferences and journals in the general neighborhood of the subject covere by this book. These articles and essays deal with military and intelligence operations in wartime China by such countries as the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States. I have incorporated some relevant portions of these short pieces into this book. These short pieces include In God We Trusted, In China We Bustedthe China Commando Group of the British SOE, and The Chinese Code-Breakers, 19271945, both of which were published by the journal Intelligence and National Security