The underrated contribution of China in WW2

[82airborne]

Hi i'm new here, i've been lurking awhile and i've noticed there's hardly any perspective from the chinese front of the war. One of my relatives fought in that front so I thought i'd give a little biography to start..

My father enlisted and fought in WW2 as a KMT (Kuomingtan) soldier in 1945. He fought against the Japanese and then later on against the PRC during the Chinese revolution. He was promoted to the KMT equivalent of 2nd Lieutenant at roughly 19 years of age, he first joined the military when he was only 15 and had FOUR years of combat experience by the time he was promoted. This is just to give some perspective at how undermanned the officers in the KMT army were. They sustained a fair amount of casualities against both the Japanese and PRC because the army had little logistical or technical support. Most of the soldiers back then was hastily recruited from towns comparable to a Partisan force. Unfortunately the PRC received much more material support after the Japanese surrendered. The Soviets handed over most of the captured Japanese arsenal to the PRC and let's just say that was one of the key factors in why the Communists won in the far east.

There's not much mentioned about the Chinese allied forces at the time even though they still managed to stalemate a vastly superior Japanese land army. One of the reasons why the Japanese committed atrocities was because they suffered rather heavy casualities in the far east against PRC/KMT guerillas. I've read a few biographies of Japanese soldiers and they even stated that many of the officers were frustrated and decided to vent on the surrendering population. If the major Japanese forces weren't tied up in China it's very likely that they would have been able to procure vital oil and resources a lot sooner. You have to remember that the SINO-Japanese war started in China earlier than the war in the west.

One of the mistakes in WW2 was the lack of support for the KMT army. They were part of the allies but little was done POST 1945 to ensure that the Communists didn't take over. This is one of the things my father has always been a little bitter about. Basically the nationalist army could have easily defeated the PRC a year after the Japanese defeat if they had the proper material support. I believe history would have turned out very differently in Asia as a whole.

[Windward]

My hightes respection to a heroic Anti-Japanese veteran! My great grandfather (my mother's mother's father) was a KMT officer too. Lieutenant general Chang Chih Hsing (Zhang Zhi Xing). He was vice chief of staff of the 5th & the 11th war district during the Anti-japanese War, became vice commander and chief of staff of Nanking capital garrison in 1948. Regrettable he was an idealist and was deluded by some damned commies, stayed in Hongkong after 1950 and came back to mainland in 1956. But you must accept that the final collapse of KMT has its internal reasons. And that's part of reasons of why the theater of China was omitted by so much historians. KMT's corruption continued even during the Sino-Japanese War era and made western historians lost their interests on this Augeas' stable .

[Andy H]

I can only but agree with your assertion that this area of WW2 Combat recieves hardly any press. The reasons are many and well known and we can only hope that as time passes more info will come to light without it being drowned in political sentiment or personnel worship.

Andy H