Part 7 (1/2)

If U.S. casualties in this first Philippines campaign seemed painful, they were in truth modest, either by the standards of the j.a.panese or by those of the European war. It was impossible to beat such a formidable enemy without suffering some attrition. Leyte proved a worse defeat than the j.a.panese need have suffered, a more substantial victory than MacArthur deserved.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

China: Dragon by the Tail

1. The Generalissimo

YAMAs.h.i.+TA in the Philippines recognised that his struggle against MacArthur's armies could have only one outcome. If the Americans found the campaign tough, they were always advancing. Even during this last phase of the Second World War, however, in one theatre j.a.pan's armies continued to gain ground, and to win victories. In China, a million j.a.panese soldiers sustained and even enlarged their huge, futile empire. Neither Mao Zedong's Communists in the north nor Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists in the west and south proved able to frustrate j.a.panese advances. The killing and dying, the rape and destruction which Hirohito's armies had unleashed in Manchuria in 1931, persisted and even intensified on the Asian mainland in the last months of the war. in the Philippines recognised that his struggle against MacArthur's armies could have only one outcome. If the Americans found the campaign tough, they were always advancing. Even during this last phase of the Second World War, however, in one theatre j.a.pan's armies continued to gain ground, and to win victories. In China, a million j.a.panese soldiers sustained and even enlarged their huge, futile empire. Neither Mao Zedong's Communists in the north nor Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists in the west and south proved able to frustrate j.a.panese advances. The killing and dying, the rape and destruction which Hirohito's armies had unleashed in Manchuria in 1931, persisted and even intensified on the Asian mainland in the last months of the war.

Thirty-six-year-old John Paton Davies, a U.S. Foreign Service officer born in China, the son of missionaries, knew that country's vastnesses as intimately as any man. He witnessed the j.a.panese seizure of Manchuria. For much of the war he served as political adviser to Lt.-Gen. Joseph Stilwell, until October 1944 Allied chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek. Afterwards, with the bitterness of a man whose diplomatic career was destroyed by Senator Joseph McCarthy for his alleged role in the American ”loss” of China, Davies described the country as ”a huge and seductive376 practical joke, which defeated the Westerners who tried to modernise it, the j.a.panese who tried to conquer it, the Americans who tried to democratise and unify it-and Chiang and Mao.” He likened China's condition in the 1940s to that of fourteenth-century Europe. He was an intimate observer of twentieth-century America's t.i.tanic and wholly unsuccessful attempt to impose its will upon a society impossibly remote in circ.u.mstances as well as geography. practical joke, which defeated the Westerners who tried to modernise it, the j.a.panese who tried to conquer it, the Americans who tried to democratise and unify it-and Chiang and Mao.” He likened China's condition in the 1940s to that of fourteenth-century Europe. He was an intimate observer of twentieth-century America's t.i.tanic and wholly unsuccessful attempt to impose its will upon a society impossibly remote in circ.u.mstances as well as geography.

China's wartime sufferings, which remain unknown to most Westerners, were second in scale only to those of the Soviet Union. It is uncertain how many Chinese died in the years of conflict with j.a.pan. Traditionally, a figure of fifteen million has been accepted, one-third of these being soldiers. Modern Chinese historians variously a.s.sert twenty-five, even fifty million. Ninety-five million people became homeless refugees. Such estimates are neither provable nor disprovable. Rather than being founded upon convincing statistical a.n.a.lysis, they reflect the intensity of Chinese emotions about what the j.a.panese did to their country. What is indisputable is that a host of people perished. Survivors suffered horrors almost beyond our imaginings. Ma.s.sacre, destruction, rape and starvation were the common diet of the Chinese people through each year of j.a.pan's violent engagement in their country.

Historians of Asia a.s.sert that the Second World War properly began in China, rather than Poland. In 1931 j.a.pan almost bloodlessly seized Manchuria-the north-eastern Chinese provinces, an area twice the size of Britain, with a population of thirty-five million people, ruled by an old warlord-to secure its coal, raw materials, industries and strategic rail links. The Nationalist government based in Nanjing was too weak to offer resistance. The following year, Tokyo announced Manchuria's transformation into the puppet state of Manchukuo, nominally ruled by the Manchu Emperor Pu Yi, in practice by a j.a.panese-controlled prime minister, and garrisoned by j.a.pan's so-called Guandong Army. The j.a.panese perceived themselves as merely continuing a tradition established over centuries by Western powers in Asia-that of exploiting superior might to extend their home industrial and trading bases.

As a sixteen-year-old in 1941, Souhei Nakamura was dispatched by his family from j.a.pan to work for an uncle's motorcycle-repair business in Manchuria, where he was introduced to the delights of colonial mastery. ”It was wonderful there-an easy life with lots of good food, much better than being at school. All I had to do was keep an eye on the Chinese doing the real work.” He had money in his pocket, and used it to pleasant purpose. After being sent packing by the first local brothel he visited-”You're much too young”-he was introduced to a twenty-four-year-old geisha, who solaced the teenager's life for the next four years. ”In Manchuria in those days377, every j.a.panese was a privileged person. I will tell you just how privileged. One day in town, I watched a Chinese policeman book a j.a.panese woman for crossing a road against a red light. A j.a.panese soldier who saw them told the Chinese to release the woman and apologise. When the policeman refused, the soldier shot him dead.” There was a frontier atmosphere about Manchuria, soon overflowing with j.a.panese peasant immigrants who were supposedly obliged to buy land from local Chinese, but who in reality sequestered what they wanted without payment.

The j.a.panese annexation of Manchuria, and their progressive advance into China thereafter, involved rapacity and brutality on a scale which shocked the world, and inflicted untold misery on those in their path. ”For me, the war started on 18 September 1931, when the j.a.panese seized my home town,” said Wen Shan, a Manchurian lawyer's son who fled south to Yunnan to escape the occupation. ”We were victims of those gangsters378 for the next fourteen years.” He was reared on Nationalist propaganda about j.a.panese barbarities, much of it true. In 1937 j.a.pan extended its mainland empire, occupying most of the Chinese coastline with its ports and industrial cities, chief sources of wealth in a chronically starving land. ”The j.a.panese forced my father for the next fourteen years.” He was reared on Nationalist propaganda about j.a.panese barbarities, much of it true. In 1937 j.a.pan extended its mainland empire, occupying most of the Chinese coastline with its ports and industrial cities, chief sources of wealth in a chronically starving land. ”The j.a.panese forced my father379 to become a traitor, by joining one of their business syndicates and working for them,” said Jiang Zhen, a landlord's son from Shanghai. ”When he would no longer do so, they made him a slave labourer, and when he became too sick to work, they sent him home to die.” to become a traitor, by joining one of their business syndicates and working for them,” said Jiang Zhen, a landlord's son from Shanghai. ”When he would no longer do so, they made him a slave labourer, and when he became too sick to work, they sent him home to die.”

As the j.a.panese armies moved inland, millions of Chinese fugitives fled west, including the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. He abandoned his capital, Nanjing, in favour of Chongqing. The Nationalist army's resistance to the invaders cost much blood and achieved little success. Xu Yongqiang, an engineer's son who lived in the British concession at Tianjin, south-east of Beijing, a precarious island of safety amid the rising j.a.panese tide, said: ”Every morning we watched corpses380 drifting downriver to the sea. Out in the countryside, the j.a.panese were using peasants to build pillboxes for their positions. When the pillboxes were completed, they shot the peasants.” drifting downriver to the sea. Out in the countryside, the j.a.panese were using peasants to build pillboxes for their positions. When the pillboxes were completed, they shot the peasants.”

China is larger than the United States, and characterised by extreme variations of climate and topography. In 1944 only around 12 percent of its surface was cultivated, because the remainder was too high, dry or steep-around half the country lies more than a mile above sea level. Hundreds of millions of Chinese eked out primitive lives in conditions of chronic misery. Zhu De, for instance, commander of Mao Zedong's Communist armies, was born fourth among thirteen children of his parents. He was the last one to survive, for his younger siblings were drowned at birth in the absence of means to feed them. Although there were frequent outbreaks of plague-some deliberately propagated by the j.a.panese through their biological warfare Unit 731-there were no medicines. It became a commonplace prophylactic against infection to tie a live c.o.c.kerel to the chest of a convenient corpse, to ward off spirits. Most of the population lived in huts built of mud and rubble. The average farm was less than four acres. Foreigners who visited China were enchanted by places of extraordinary beauty, ”of lacquerware and porcelain381, embroidered silk and bridges over still pools, courtyards pierced by moon gates.” The dominant images, however, were of tragedy and dest.i.tution.

Photo Insert One The president as U.S. commander-in-chief: in July 1944, in the midst of his re-election campaign, Roosevelt summoned MacArthur and Nimitz to meet him on Hawaii, allegedly to expound their plans for victory over j.a.pan.

Admiral William ”Bull” Halsey on the flag bridge of the battles.h.i.+p New Jersey New Jersey as he led his Third Fleet towards the Philippines in September 1944. as he led his Third Fleet towards the Philippines in September 1944.

THE B BRITISH E EMPIRE IN B BURMA.

Sikhs charge a foxhole.

Elephant transport played a significant role in enabling the Fourteenth Army to build bridges and move supplies amid some of the most intractable terrain on earth.

One of thousands of river crossings during the 194445 campaign.

The indomitable Bill Slim, probably the ablest and certainly the most sympathetic British field commander of the Second World War.

War in China, where at least fifteen million died. Scenes during the j.a.panese invasion, which inflicted untold suffering and destruction without giving Tokyo a decisive victory.

CHINESE L LEADERS.

Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.

The puppet emperor Pu-Yi.

Chiang Kai-shek.

AT S SEA.

A s.n.a.t.c.hed glimpse of the j.a.panese Combined Fleet on its pa.s.sage towards destruction in September 1944.

USS Gambier Bay Gambier Bay bracketed by j.a.panese fire during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. bracketed by j.a.panese fire during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

The cruiser Birmingham Birmingham aids the stricken aids the stricken Princeton Princeton after a crippling air attack. after a crippling air attack.

Commanders Nimitz, King and Spruance photographed aboard the cruiser Indianapolis Indianapolis.

COMMANDERS.

Krueger and Kinkaid.

Kurita.

Ugaki.

ISLAND A a.s.sAULTS.

Men crouch, tensed aboard a landing craft.

Marine amphibious vehicles approach Peleliu.

”FLYBOYS”

A task group led by some of almost one hundred U.S. carriers at sea in late 1944.

A pilot in the ”ready room.”

Launching a h.e.l.lcat.

One of the U.S. Navy's foremost Pacific aces, Commander David McCampbell.

ASh.o.r.e IN THE P PHILIPPINES.

U.S. soldiers taking cover on Leyte in November 1944.

U.S. soldiers fighting through the wreckage of Manila in February 1945.

The Marines land on Iwo Jima.