Battles for the Yangtze: the riverine defence of China, 1927-1945

Thesis

This research is a military-strategic history on the Kuomintang’s riverine defence against Imperial Japan along the Yangtze River during the Second World War. While challenging various views regarding actual military operations, this research emphasizes the importance of the riverine environment and offers a new interpretation to the main historiography of the Second World War in China. It does so by filling an important gap the historiography of riverine and amphibious warfare and by providing the essential story of the defending side. In 1932, the Shanghai Incident made the Kuomintang realise that China was threatened by the Japanese from the land, sea, and the Yangtze. The Kuomintang, advised by German and Italian advisors, prioritised the defence of Central China and formulated a strategy to turn Central China into a bulwark. However, the military preparations guided by the strategy was problematic. The escalation of the war in Shanghai in 1937 was the result of the offensive war plans of both China and Japan. Before the fall of Madang, China’s riverine defence focused primarily on the riverine front. After Madang, China realised the importance of the landward front, but its adaptation was nullified by their own unconventional method of making artificial floods. During the war, China and the Allies tried conventional, unconventional, symmetrical, and asymmetrical methods to deny Japan from using the Yangtze. The air interdictions succeeded in damaging Japanese riverine transport and contributed to the collapse of the Japanese wartime economy. Based on archival and published materials from China, Japan, Britain, the US, and Germany, this research aims to demonstrate that the Chinese hybrid riverine defence, meaning the combination of conventional, unconventional, symmetrical, and asymmetrical methods with the militarisation of terrain, was an essential part of the Second World War in China.

Authors: Wu, D

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Diffusion of military power; Riverine Defence; the Yangtze River; the Sino-Japanese War; Amphibious Warfare; the Second World War
• Subjects: Geopolitics; Amphibious warfare; Guerrilla warfare; Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945; Warfare, Conventional; Sino-Japanese Conflict, 1931-1933; Sea-power; Riverine operations; China--History--Republic, 1912-1949; Air power; World War II Recorded History Collection