“Even coast defense, however, although essentially passive, should have an clement of offensive force, local in character, distinct from the offensive navy of which nevertheless it forms a part.”— A. T. Mahan.
I
IN THE VERY NATURE of things, the war between Japan and China is militarily a struggle for the command of the China Seas. As one may be aware from the geographical situation, the gaining of command of the sea should serve as the fundamental principle guiding the strategy of both sides. In view of the defensive nature of the Chinese military aim and the significance of her imported munitions, her supreme naval strategy should be so drawn as to prevent her territory from being invaded by the enemy’s expeditionary troops, and to assure the security of her imported munitions. Meanwhile, as far as conditions permit, her fleet should make any possible attack on the enemy’s sea-borne trade.
On the Japanese side, with invasion in mind, she certainly would employ the seas for conveying her enormous expeditionary troops with supplies to the continent, at the same time blocking the Chinese seaports in order to cut off any foreign imports.
In the first phase of the war, therefore, the victory would belong to the side having the seas under control. But this is not a new thing. Past history has told the truth. First we may trace back more than a thousand years when China was in the Tang Dynasty. The Korean Peninsula, from the Tsin Dynasty (246-211 B.C.), had been under Chinese domination. It was then divided into three kingdoms, of which Koa- kou-li in the northern quarter was the largest and strongest. Pe-tsi occupied the southwest, Sin-lu the southeast. Koa-kou- li had been rebelling from the descending dynasty with Pe-tsi as her ally. Both were supported by their overseas neighbor, Nippon. Sin-lu remained faithful to China. Maneuvering between Koa-kou-li and Nippon, Pe-tsi tried to defy China by subjugating Sin-lu. To put down the revolt, China sent out a fleet with an expeditionary force across the Yellow Sea. The punitive forces seized Sin-hsien, the capital of Pe-tsi. At the latter’s request, Koa-kou-li sent an army from Pingyung, while Nippon dispatched her fleet across the Strait, in order to neutralize the Chinese forces. Liu-Zien-Kou, the acting Admiral of the Chinese Fleet, with the expeditionary troops under his supervision, at once ordered the army to meet Koa-kou- li’s reinforcements. He himself led the fleet down to the entrance of the “White Sea” (now in the southern margin of the Yellow Sea). There he came across the expected enemy. After four battles, Nippon’s fleet was totally destroyed in the year 663 A.D. with a loss of 400 ships and more than 27,000 lives. In recording this event, Chinese historians say: “The sky was clouded with flame and the stream reddened with blood.” This not only resulted in the reconquest by China of the whole peninsula, but also deadened Japanese ambition to invade China until the Ming Dynasty, a thousand years later. If, in that ancient war, the Chinese Navy had not first controlled the sea, then Nippon’s fleet would have accomplished her object to rendezvous with Koa- kou-li’s army and Chinese punitive forces would have been cut off from their main base and would have been in a very dangerous position. From this account, it may be seen that the Chinese Navy had, in the first Sino-Japanese War, won the battle with the strategy of the command of the sea, even though such strategy had not yet been formulated. (Many readers may not know that Sino-Japanese wars have occurred five times: In the Tang, Yen, Ming, and Tsing dynasties and the present conflict.)
Some 1,332 years thereafter, under the same conditions and approximately in the same field, a different strategy produced a different result on the Chinese side. That was the fourth Sino-Japanese War in the Tsing Dynasty (1894-95). Although, in that war, the decisive operation was in the peninsula, yet the destiny of both sides had already been determined by the Battle of the Yalu River. As it was recognized, a Chinese victory in Korea would depend on her navy having control of the sea, so that any Japanese reinforcement would be cut off and her forces in the peninsula isolated. But, in defiance of this truth, the Chinese commander, Li Hung Chang, knowing the superiority of the Japanese Fleet, forbade the Pei-yung fleet in Port Arthur to engage the enemy. Then, at the request of the naval command, he permitted a cruise off the Hai-yung Islands, instead of the southern waters off Port Arthur, which should have been encompassed as the main theater of naval action. As a consequence, command of the sea fell to the Japanese Fleet. This resulted in the sinking of the steamer Kowsing, with reinforcements to the peninsula.
The enemy navy, having its own way in the sea, gained the greatest freedom of action in choosing the time and place favorable to itself to defeat the Chinese Fleet.
The experience of the past has failed to benefit the present resistance, though in the course of the war, every Chinese has become aware of the importance of the navy to the nation. Control of the sea may be relative and may be accomplished with an inferior yet considerable fleet. If China, before the war, had possessed such a navy, then to send out any convoy would have been extremely difficult. With a fleet, China would be able to check Japanese movement on any occasion. Nor would it be easy for Japan to defeat such a Chinese fleet, especially in the seas with abundant islands. At least, Japan would only accomplish her mission with greater expense in materials and time. Both of these would greatly affect the development of the war on the Japanese side. If such had been the case, Japan would have found it impossible to freely reinforce her armies in the Battle of Shanghai. And her plan to land from Chin-San-wie would have been defeated by a Chinese fleet lurking in the safety of the numerous islands. It is because of the lack of such a fleet that Japan succeeded so easily in the early stages of the war.
II
When the war entered its second phase, luck no longer favored the Japanese Navy with any advantage. Strategically it made no progress and, in addition, committed many mistakes not normally made by a first-class naval power.
We must understand that the theory of the command of the sea is actually not a strategy for the Navy to operate independently, i.e., having no connection with other forces. On the contrary, in the very nature of the theory, it indicates the highest form of naval activity supplementing the efforts of all forces. For instance, the protection of convoys at once gives rise to its relation with the Army. It may be admitted that, in the military objective, the Navy possesses some independent activity, but any military objective without political aim would mean wasted effort. Therefore, naval strategy shows merely a relative independence and from time to time it should get in step with the whole military scheme.
Furthermore, the word “sea,” in the term “command of the sea,” is also relative in nature. Naval activity today has extended from “sea” to “ocean.” In the period of the American Revolution and the American Civil War, the meaning of the command of the sea was not as evident as in the European wars. But we cannot, because of this, deny that the Americans had a navy. From a geographical point of view the command of the sea became the control of interior waters which, nevertheless, bore the same importance to the objective as did the former. The Battle of Lake Champlain in the Revolution indeed opened a way for the victory of the Americans. Mahan says: “Never had any force, great or small, lived for better purpose, or died more gloriously. ...”
Later, in the Civil War, the operations on the Lower Mississippi produced the same results. About this, Captain G. R. Clark, U. S. Navy, has given a fair estimate, when he writes:
The importance of the naval operations on the Mississippi in 1862 and 1863 is not likely to be overestimated. At their termination, with the river in Union control, the Confederacy was split in two. The rich and fertile states of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas could no longer forward supplies across the Mississippi to the armies fighting in Virginia and elsewhere. The Confederate States that were particularly the scat of war could furnish little, and armies without food and clothing are doomed. . . . The capture of New Orleans . . . deterred France from action hostile to the United States. . . .
In the present Sino-Japanese War, conditions are much like those in the American Revolution and Civil War. Owing to the lack of a considerable fleet to guard the coast, China could do nothing but retreat militarily from the coastal provinces to the inner territory. The Yangtze River became at once of the utmost strategic importance. Indeed it may be said that this stream is to Chinese resistance what Lake Champlain was to the American Revolution and the Mississippi to the Civil War. But there was on the eve of the war some military weakness, which exposed this important waterway to infiltration by the enemy. No defensive scheme had been drawn for the entrance, nor were weapons adaptable for the river defense, such as mines, torpedo boats, shore batteries, etc., available for securing safety. With sufficient courage the Japanese Navy could break in upon the river and, with her planes and superior fleet, easily destroy the Chinese ships and battery at Kiangying, and would of course accomplish her aim of controlling the river. In such a case, Japan would be able to cut off communication between the two sides and capture Nanking and other important cities along the Upper Yangtze without a waste of time and men. Being split in two, China might find it impossible to carry on any effective resistance. Then the termination of the war would perhaps be as quick as Japan once dreamed.
But, in the course of events, what has astonished China is not the actual strength of Japan’s Navy but its unexpectedly poor plan of performance. Informed that the Chinese Navy would block the navigable waterway at Kiangyin, the Japanese naval authorities, instead of sending their superior fleet to thwart the Chinese Navy in the execution of its blockade, ordered their flotilla at Hankow to withdraw immediately, leaving the whole waterway so important to their invasion plan under the control of the Chinese Navy.
Chance, however, was still on the Japanese side. If, immediately after the completion of the Chinese blocking line, the Japanese Fleet had lost no time in overwhelming the defensive forces ashore and afloat, then it would have been much easier for Japan to accomplish her mission. This was indeed the most critical time of the Chinese resistance. Again Japan failed! Perhaps the Japanese naval authorities had not yet studied the lessons of the history of American naval operations before the year 1865 and ignored the importance of the operations on the interior waters. Acting as if the Navy had nothing to do with this matter, they confined their naval activity independently to the command of the open sea, and left the whole affair of dealing with the Chinese interior forces to their armies and air force. A fifty-day air raid on the Kiangyin defending line killed a lot of time with no other result than exposing their aerial inferiority to the world. On September 23, 1937, with more than 80 planes, Japan failed to deal any deadly blow to the Chinese small fleet composed of four 2,000 tonners with poor armor and armament.
Regarding this, Japan might excuse herself for such action by saying that the destruction, by Chinese, of the navigational aids on the lower river had obliged her to keep the fleet clear and that she would find it much cheaper to use planes instead of ships in dealing with the Chinese Navy. But, as is generally realized, in the August tidal period, the absence of such aids would not hinder navigation. At the same time, facts have shown what “cheap” at that time meant to Japan. It required the sacrifice of her military aim of the “Quick Warfare,” similar to the Blitzkrieg of her German ally.
During the four months of the Japanese runabout movement, China had enough time to prepare a second step of resistance. This has resulted in the unlimited prolongation of the war. From this viewpoint, it is not unlikely that the failure of the quick warfare is due not only to Chinese strong resistance but to the wrong employment of Japan’s superior naval forces.
III
The turtle-like movement of the Japanese Fleet has thus enabled the Chinese Navy to accomplish, step by step, her defensive measures upon which the continuation of the resistance has depended.
Knowing the impossibility of keeping up the coast defense, the Chinese naval authorities at once appreciated the strategic importance of the Yangtze River. They realized that, so long as the Chinese Navy could “lord the float,” the Japanese expeditionary forces would hardly push their way through the immense crowd of the Chinese armies to the inner lands. As we know, the time factor has played the most important role in this war. The longer the resistance can be maintained, the more Japan will suffer, and the quicker will come the time of the Chinese ultimate victory. It is on this principle of exhaustive warfare that the Chinese naval strategy has been planned and performed. And, in this process, the Chinese Navy, though weak, has in the long run lost no space under their supervision without success in trading a longer time.
The development of the Chinese naval strategy may fall into two distinct periods.
The first period began with the war and ended with the year 1939. In this period, the fundamental principle was to prevent, at any cost, the utilization of the river by the enemy fleet, which the co-operation of the latter with her armies required, and to support the facility of Chinese military communications between the two sides of the river and, if necessary, the erection of further defensive lines for security in the rear.
With the blocking line in Kiangyin, China was able to defend Nanking for four months. It may be stated that, after controlling the area between Shanghai and Soochow, the Japanese forces at once started an approach toward Nanking. Their left flank attacked Lung-Tan to cut off Chinese communications between Nanking and Chinkiang, their right flank descended upon Suang-Cheng and Wuhu to prevent any Chinese withdrawals in those directions, and with their main force they headed for Nanking from three directions, one part of which attempted to cross the river at Tsai-Shis-Chi and circuitously infiltrate Kiang-Pu and Pu-Kow to scatter any Chinese withdrawals by the Tientsin- Pu-Kow Railway. (Notice should be given here that this railway was in fact the main retreating door for the Chinese troops.) But owing to the hindrance of the blocking line in Kiangyin, the Japanese Fleet failed to co-operate with its armies and thus enabled the Chinese withdrawals to be completed before the invading force could cut off all lines of retreat.
This delay, at the same time, enabled the Chinese Navy to erect a second defensive line at Mar-Dan, of vital importance to the protection of Hankow and Wuchang. After the capture of Nanking, Japanese strategy called for a central penetration by the stream with her fleet and a simultaneous flank movement on both shores with their armies toward Hankow. But the Japanese Fleet once more met with a strong repulse by the Chinese naval force. Until the left flank had slipped through the Chinese defensive line ashore, she was still in a turtle-like step off Wukow and Tien-Chia-Chen. And the failure of the central penetration movement again enabled the Chinese to evacuate from Hankow and Wuchang, leaving two empty cities as a compensation for the exertions and expenses of the Japanese forces. The defensive work of the Chinese Navy produced an invaluable result in the campaign of the Northern Wu-Nang. As it is understood, when the war entered its fourth phase, Japanese strategy required a break through in the whole line of the Canton- Hankow Railway. The operation began with the Battle of the Northern Wu- Nang. With Changsha as her first objective, Japan attempted to drive her armies and fleet simultaneously toward this strategic city. But, while the van of her armies was repulsed by the Chinese force ashore at Chiao-Tou-I, distant about 10 miles from Changsha, her ships were hindered in the Tungting Lake. Lacking the latter’s support and held up by the Chinese armies, the Japanese troops had to withdraw and were decisively defeated with a loss of about 30,000 lives and countless ammunition. China thus announced another victory and this victory, as generally accepted, was partly due to the work of the Chinese Navy.
Recently, the blocking effort was valuable in the operations of Ichang and Shasi. The loss of these two cities not only opened a way for the rekindling of the Japanese ambition to capture Changsha but also threatened the Chinese situation in Chungking. But the enemy, after reaching the two points, could hardly make a further advance, on account of the fact that her navy was and is still hindered by the blocking line at the upper Kingckow. Without its support she dared not go farther, for fear of being cut from her bases of operation. As a consequence, the capture of Ichang and Shasi has not only failed but, what is more, has caused Japan much embarrassment in maintaining a large portion of her troops to protect those places and the communication line connecting her armies in Central Wu-Pei.
The account of the Chinese naval defense would be incomplete without recalling Shanghai. Three months of resistance in Shanghai created an international sensation. But the case would have been different if the Japanese ships could have sailed straight up by way of the Whang Poo through the Arsenal to Lung-Hua. Then the rear of the Chinese armies in Shanghai would have been threatened and would have required a retreat as soon as the war broke out. Knowing the danger, the Chinese Navy, immediately after the first shot, blocked the upper Whang Poo. This obliged Japan to take a roundabout movement by landing from King-San-Wie. Thus the War of Shanghai was prolonged.
IV
One may consider the activity of the Chinese Navy in the first period too passive and perhaps overestimated; for the best defensive strategy is offensive. But, so far as the Chinese situation is concerned, it is a matter of technique rather than strategy. To make a surprise or night attack with the ships at the Chinese disposal at the outbreak of the war might have seemed advisable. But for what purpose? They might sacrifice their ships, so necessary to the principle of exhaustive warfare. They might sink some Japanese ships in the attack at the expense of their own, but they would not be wise to give up the blocking work simply for the purpose of sinking some Japanese craft. Once the war had begun, they were never anxious for the time of its termination; because they understand, in their conditions, a quick and favorable peace would be as fantastic as a quick victory. The termination of the war would depend on how long they could maintain the resistance or how long Japan could continue her active invasion of China. Therefore, the application of their weapons, big or small, should correspond to the object of exhaustive warfare. The Chinese Navy lacked at the outset any offensive means. It failed technically to carry out any offensive action. But the case has been different since the development of her activity entered its second phase beginning with the year 1940.
After the evacuation of the Chinese people from Hankow and Wuhan, the situation on the river changed. Nearly two- thirds of the stream was in the enemy’s hands, but, on the other hand, its strategic importance had actually decreased. The Chinese armies in those provinces along the shores of the lower and middle stream dispersed and became numerous small guerrilla bands maneuvering in the captured Chinese districts. In this situation, it is not only impossible but also unnecessary for the Chinese Navy to protect any longer the river communications in that region. Her advisable activity should be so planned as to thwart the enemy using the stream for the support of her armies ashore with supplies and reinforcements and for the performance of combined action with the Chinese armies. On the other hand, she must destroy the enemy’s merchant ships carrying out a dumping policy to exploit the Chinese still in those captured districts as a compensation for her tremendous expenses.
As we know, water transport is still the cheapest. In the beginning of the present European War, with 500,000 tons of ammunitions conveyed from Britain to France, 100 transports were needed. But, after being discharged at the French port, to transfer the same amount to the Magi- not Line would entail 200,000 carts or, if by railway, some 10,000 trains. A considerable difference! Now let us turn our eyes to the conditions in China. From Wuhu to Hankow there is no railway. If the Japanese transportation depends on the highway, then the number of carts required cannot be supplied. We have learned from a remark in a Japanese document captured by Chinese in the field that the capacity of one Japanese military cart is limited to the following figures:
Rifle bullets................................... 5,766 rounds
Heavy machine gun bullets. 4,800 “
Field gun shells............................. 74 “
Cannon shells................................ 16 “
Grenades...................................... 150
Heavy throwers............................. 80
The daily amount of supplies required in the fields, about 600 miles from the Chinese seacoast, is considerable. River transportation has been and is of vital importance to the Japanese armies. Ships carrying ammunitions run daily between Shanghai, Nanking, and Hankow. From Hankow then, a distribution is made to various forces. It is said that the Japanese Eleventh Headquarters of Field Transportation at Hankow, with two stations at Yochow and Shih-Hui-Yui, respectively, superintends the whole arrangement of military transport in China. If Japan fails to keep the security of communications on the Yangtze, things would naturally be extremely critical to her. Her armies in the various fields would soon be without ammunitions and supplies, and any necessary reinforcement would be impossible.
Furthermore, we understand that the objective of Japan is not only to subjugate China but also to realize what she has called the “Far East Monroe Doctrine Policy," eliminating any foreign interest except her own. So far as the Yangtze River is concerned, one may still remember that, after the capture of Nanking, Japan forbade any foreign merchant ships to navigate on the river. At the same time, the Japanese transportation companies in Shanghai have openly advertised passage to the Chinese inner ports. After the capture of Hankow, Japan declared on March 10, 1938, the blockade of the ports on the Lower Yangtze. Thus the whole navigating enterprise of the Lower and Middle Yangtze has been monopolized by Japan. In 1938, many river transportation companies were established with 87 motor craft and the opening of 7 routes. They carry daily, in addition to military supplies, 3,000 tons of imported manufactured cargoes from Shanghai and 6,000 tons of exported raw materials from inner lands. The right of navigation on the river has become the Japanese “Tsing-Liang" (a meat for the Emperor only).
At the same time, we also know that in this war Japan has laid upon China with both military and economic oppressions. She attempts, on the one hand, to subjugate China brutally by force, and on the other, with any shameless means, to exploit Chinese natural resources, labor, and money in the captured region to meet the tremendous expansion of her military efforts. This is what she calls the policy to support war by war.
From the above two standpoints, military and economic, we at once become aware of what great importance the Chinese naval strategy in the second phase had in relation to the fate of the Japanese Militarists and the future of the Chinese resistance. From the nature of its performance, it is obvious that the Chinese Navy, even though in passive position, has started some offensive action.
V
But does the technical capacity of China permit such an offensive strategy? One should not think that the Chinese Navy has been reinforced with any offensive craft, such as torpedo boats, submarines, etc. Indeed, the Chinese technical foundation is still poor. But, with their effort and experience, Chinese naval officers have been able to manufacture a certain weapon which we may call the “Offensive Mine.” Knowing the urgent need for mines to defend the Chinese inner waters, Chinese naval authorities have made excellent progress in manufacturing this weapon since the outbreak of the war. The career of the mine warfare was opened by an explosion in the Whang Poo against the Japanese cruiser Idzume on September 29, 1935, following the destruction of the Japanese wharves at Pu Tung 21 days prior to the explosion.
The operation of mines has done well in the blocking activity. But, under present conditions, the fixed mine barrage has possessed some disadvantage. Generally speaking, fixed mines necessitate a defensive force, ashore or afloat. It has often happened that, owing to the Chinese evacuation for strategic reasons along the river, the sweeping work of the Japanese ships has made it impossible to maintain a permanent, effective mine barrage. Therefore, a certain type of floating mine which, driven by the current of the river, can easily reach the region where the Japanese ships anchor and navigate, was required. We may remember how the Italian, Lamballi, in 1585, and the American, Bushnell, in 1778, experimented with the same device and how the drifting mines in the last war exposed shipping in the European waters to considerable danger.
In the Chinese situation, compared with the fixed mines, the floating mines have the following advantages:
(1) The former stand passively, waiting to be contacted by the enemy, but the latter carried by the current can freely contact the enemy; (2) the former need a certain protecting force, while the latter, following the current, make sweeping ineffective; (3) the former are greatly influenced by the change of the river tide, but the latter are quite unaffected by tidal variation; (4) the latter cost very little and are more effective.
In 1940, the plan of the Chinese “mine- guerrilla warfare” has tended to divide the whole river under Japanese control into three districts: (1) from Kiangyin to Chiu- Kiang; (2) from Chiu-Kiang to Yuo-Chen; (3) between Whang-Ling-Chi and Chien- Li.
The employment of this weapon requires the utmost skill and boldness. It is needless to describe the many difficulties the Chinese mine-laying guerrillas have encountered in performing their duties. Table II indicates the effectiveness of their work.
In conclusion, we may see that a total of 1,229 mines were laid in a period of 13 months, causing a total loss of 129 Japanese vessels and the damage of many more. Despite the constant sweeping operations of the Japanese river fleets this method of naval warfare has proved effective and will be continued and accelerated in the months to come with some assurance of increased success.
Table I
Number of Mines Laid by Chinese
January, 1940—January, 1941
1940 1941
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan.
62 137 62 60 26 157 54 13 133 124 135 125 120
Table II
Number of Japanese Ships Sunk January, 1940—January, 1941
| 1940 Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | Apr. | May | June | July | Aug. | Sept. | Oct. | Nov. | Dec. | mi Jan. |
Destroyer.. | — | 1 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gunboat.... | 2 | 8 | — | — | — | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Transport.. | 3 | 11 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | — | 6 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 |
Merchant ship. | 3 | — | — | — | — | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Sweeper.... | — | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Motorboat.. | 2 | 7 | — | 1 | 6 | 23 | 1 | — | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | — |
Other......... | — | — | — | — | — | 6 | 2 | — | 2 | 1 | 1 | “ | — |