Operation Ichigo and China Withdrawal

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Episode fourteen Long road to Tokyo For over two years, the United States has been building the B twenty nine bomber The super Fortress When it's ready to roll off the assembly line, the B twenty nine will be one of the most potent weapons in the American arsenal The B twenty nine Super Fortress is the most expensive program in World War two three billion dollars to go ahead and build an aircraft. The B twenty nine is a stunning leap in aircraft technology The B twenty nine will incorporate a pressurized cabin airborne radar It has ten miles of wiring It had a remote controlled turret, It had the most powerful engines in the history of the world The critical thing about the B twenty nine was range They could carry bombs Fther higher, faster than anything else that had not just been built but ever imagined The complexity of its design, however delays its manufacturer It's been riddled with problems. It ends up behind schedule Bombing the Japanese home islands is a crucial part of the American strategy in the Asian Pacific War Allied air commanders want to launch the same kind of air offensive against Japan that they've been carrying out against Germany they want to destroy ries, shipyards, infrastructure. Bring the Japanese war economy to its knees in addition to strategic considerations President Roosevelt understands that the American people expect retribution against the Japanese If you'd have done a public opinion survey of Americans There was a palpable sense of wanting to get these people back for Pearl Harbor. By nineteen forty three, it's payback time And so the B twenty nine is going to become the first weapon system that can really attack the Japanese homeland and military targets. The probleroblem is where are your airfields going to be? They have to be within range of the Japanese home islands. US. Marines have been fighting their way across the Pacific But it will take months before they can secure an area suitable for launching B twenty nine' s The B twenty nine it's got one sixteen hundred mile combat range. So Roosevelt's looking at several options as to where to base these things. They don't have an island close enough But they do have an ally within range of the Japanese home Islands And that ally is Jhon Kai Sheek in China. Xiang Kai Shek emerged as the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party in nineteen twenty eight He's ruled China ever since She is the General Lisimo of China. He's a general, but he's also a dictator The problem he's got is since the early nineteen thirties, there is rising communism under Mao Zedung. s fact you've got civilar In addition to internal conflict, China faces external threat Japan invaded China in nineteen thirty seven and seized Xiang's capital, Naning as well as all major Chinese coastal cities. The Japanese control ninety five percent of China's industry, ninety percent of China's railways, half of China's population. They control a quarter to a third of China's landmass And they closed off all the Chinese ports Svered from Chinese port cities Chiang established a new capital. John Ken and constructed a route that connected China port of Rangoon in the British colony of Burma Cut through more than seven hundred miles of mountainous jungle terrain The Burma Road was China's main route for receiving supplies primarily from the United States until Japan seized Burma too. The final piece of this Japanese imperial puzzle was the conquest of Burma in nineteen forty two the Japanese sees the Burma Road. and make it impossible for the Allies to supply China's armies The Chinese have lost their umbilical, they've lost their artery, all their supplies flowing in Chiang Ka Sk has maybe four million men available for military service, but only a million rifles. So he's desperate for Western material to flesh out his army and pose some kind of serious obstacle to the Japanese In November of nineteen forty three, President Roosevelt confers with Chiang and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Cairo At the top of the agenda how to keep the Chinese in the fight. Franklin Roosevelt is worried that if China is without resources, Chen Ka Sia could make a separate peace with Japan, which would be hugely problematic for the Americans China is where the vast majority of the Japanese army is currently being tied up. And let's not forget that Roosevelt has this big new weapon B twenty nin. He wants to base them in Southern China. Keeping China in the war is absolutely essential to FDR Chang goes to Cairo with a big shopping list He needs aircraft, fuel, shells, guns. He'll take anything that the Allies will give him. He's pretty desperate Wes to Churchill, this is all a bit alarming to him. He just doesn't trust Chank Kai Shek in his bones. Chenka Shek has a reputation for being corrupt, not particularly reliable There are valid concerns that instead of using the supplies that FDR is promising Siankgai Shek for the purposes of fighting Japan He might instead board those supplies and then use them to fight the communists FTR knew he wasn't running a boycout troop. And so he didn't examine too closely the morals of those who shared his interest And that wasn't how you could fight a global war Cairo, FDR and Chiang agree that the Chinese will build runways for the B twenty nine s and that the U. S. will send even more supplies to China That requires mind boggling scales of logistics L for a single bullet to get to a single Chinese rifle. It's got to come from a factory, let's say in a Midwest So you send it all the way across the Pacific, the British still hold India So it would then get into Hcutta Th then be putull onto a train then sent up to at Northeast India Fly them over the Himalayas to the nationalists in China Flying the India China ferry over the highest mountain range in the world is extremely hazardous The men ordder to do it. Call it the Hup Fpplying supplies into China is something that's never been attempted on this scale These were just transport aircraft But the missions were as challenging as bomber raids over Germany These aircraft are takaking off with incredibly high weights because we are trying to get as many supplies in as we can The route is only about five hundred miles, but the difficulty is the altitude. These pilots are flying in unpressurized aircraft. over peaks that are sixteen thousand feet high And then back down again to their Chinese bases I've got this hot moist air bubbling out of the Indian Ocean meeting with this Siberian air blowing down from Tibet, causing some of the most difficult weather conditions on the planet You get these incredible changes in air pressure And pilots who flew the humump say the plane would lurch like one hundred feet in the air and then drop two hundred feet and lurch back up a one hundred feet It's hard to imagine for the pilots who do it. The aircraft is proven, but not in these conditions. So every time they go up, they're learning. But there's a cost to learning this real time five hundred and ninety four aircraft are loss and fifteen hundred air crew. The problem is you have to deliver eighteen tons of fuel and other supplies to get one ton of stuff to the Chinese arrmy It was a trickle of what was needed China remains a priority for President Roosevelt. There is another option The Allies need to reopen the Burma Road. By late nineteen forty three, China has been at war with Japan for six years. engaging the majority of the Japanese army President Roosevelt and his military leaders are determined to defend China includluding using B twenty nine' s to strike the Japanese home islands The U. S. plans to build four air bases around Chengdu that will accommodate the B twenty nine The B twenty nines Super Fortress is a heavy bomber And that means it needs a runway that's strong enough to land on. The problem is there's no way to bring in a bulldozer or a truck or heavy equipment into China They simply won't fit in the aircraft that are flying over the hump The upside for running a bomber campaign out of China is that the Americans know that they will have access to all the Chinese labor they could ask for hundredundreds of thousands of people grinding out a runway by hand No bulldozers or complicated machinery available, only manpower and hard work Just the sheer scale of human labor It looks like ancient history. Men, women, children, pulling the rollers, working side by side Their country in jeopardy. Chinese civilians defend against the Japanese any way they can builduilding roads, constructing airfields Loading supplies China is an agrarian econom in a time period where industrial warfare has taken over So how do they produce all these weapons that you need, for example? How do you produce tanks? So part of the problem here for Chang is that he needs everything The only way to bring the tanks and the artillery that Jang needs in China is to reopen the Burma Road. The Allies have more than a quarter of a million troops based in Eastern India. fromr Calcutta to Letedo in a song planled two prong defensive The British fourteenth Army will push into central Burma to expel the Japanese An American led force will cross into northern Burma and fight their way through to reestablish the Burma Road General Joseph Stilwell commands the American forces personal and professional connection to China spans three decades Joseph Stillwell Well known as Vinegar Joe, he's cranky and acerbic and sarcastic. Stillwell speaks and reads Mandarin. He's a great lover of China, and he has nothing but good things to say about the Chinese A respected commander Stilwell has trained thousands of soldiers in his long career. Stilwa's task is to take a handful of Chinese divisions thirty thousand of Jhang Kai Shehek's troops and train them up to Western standards. It takes over an old British POW camp in India And he's able to give them the training, the weaponry so that they turn themselves into relatively solid units General William Slim Uncle Bill to his troops leads the British fourteenth Army. A multinational force comprised of units from Britain, India and Africa Many have been battling the Japanese since the invasion of Burma Sim says bl We got beaten in Burma because we couldn't fight in the jungle like the Japanese can. They're not superhumans, wed have to learn how to do it The Japanese were considered to be these amazing jungle fighters We should remember Japan iss not a jungle country Great jungle fighters because they grew up in it This is about training Cplete rethink is needed Slim starts training everybody.'s not just frontline infantrymen, everyone needs to be able to handle themselves with their weapons The bottle washers and the cooks and the truck drivers and everyone needs to know that the Japanese are not these supermen, they're not bogey men. actuallyctually they are completely defeatable By this point, the war is going very badly for Japan. You've had the battle of Midway in nineteen forty two W Japan lost Now as a result, Japanese shipping is struggling to get through So you've got rationing tightening in Japan And then back in Europe, you've had the German loss at Stalingrad Forather the topping of mussolini So I think at this point Japan doesn't expect it's going to get any help really from the Axis powers Hideki Tojo who has been Prime minister since nineteen forty one. is the dominant force in the Japanese government and military By early nineteen forty four There's a feeling for Tojo and for others get the high command that something can be done elsewhere in the war to try and offer Japan a little bit of progress. And some kind of dramatic success for the Japanese might force the Americans to come to the negotiating table One idea is to put some pressure on the Allies in Northeast India I'm on Sang Kaisek in China Prime Minister Tojo approves Operation Ygo an invasion into India H generals prepare to attack the British bases of the fourteenth Army and to capture the American hump airfields Tojio understands that at this point These flights across the hump are the last remaining connection point with the West that the Chinese national government has And if you can cut those air bases off, that will then be the straw that breaks the nationalists back for the Allies This is rife with portents of disaster Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. 'Twas a lovely SUV, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it Polite, We feast An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carmana Pick up theseailly. Sometimes historic events soot But what shouldn't suck is learning about history I do that through storytelling History That Doesn't Sck is a chart topping historyteing podcast chronling the epic story of America decade by decade, from the eighteenth century to the twentieth. Original music and immersive sound design accompany us on our storytelling journey Listen to and follow History That Don't Sck an Odyssey podcast available now on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine you finally have a free day out on the town. You're about to enjoy nice lunch when you get the alert that a window's been broken at home and you're miles away. These are the wake up calls that remind us in one second Everything can change. ADT security systems are built for those moments. They help keep your home safer with twenty four seven monitoring. 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Operation You goo begins Japanese troops move across the Burmese jungle into India British basis and the American airfields The Japanese commander is General Rinya Motaguchi Motaguchi thinks he is a creature of destiny And he's got a plan He believes that right there on the very very western frontier of the Japanese Empire, he could strike a blow that could save the war for Japan Muraguchi hopes his invasion will inspire the Indians to overthrow the British and join Japan in the war The Japanese are banking on speed and surprise that they're going to move three divisions across these eight thousand foot high mountains in the space of just a few days As such, cuts the rations for all of his attack soldiers to just twenty days worth of food The Japanese soldiers carry very small amount of food supply like dried rice and they do not carry many heavy weapons. So the Japanese cannot get locked into an attritional battle Because they're traveveling light, they're going to have to rely on capturing British supply dumps as they go along Damber. get to the air basases in India. Mudaguchi will need to cross the IfAall plane sight of a large British forward base The infile plane It's kind of like a bigri valley surrounded by mountainous jungly terrain The Brits have used this like got a bread basket They've got airfields there. they've got supply dump, food. everything the Japanese need Based in Nimfal are three British Indian divisions from General Slleim's fourteenth Army. They're about to push into enemy territory when they receive reports that Mudaguchi's Japanese troops are moving towards them. Bill Slim's new plan is to withdraw slightly killing zone the Japanese attack through this difficult terrain Pound them with artillery and aircraft is going to relinquish ground. All the time he's going to a trit, grind down the Japanese This is a high risk strategy. and you can only do that if you're extremely confident that your men are sufficiently trained. 's force arrives quickly and is far larger than Slim was expecting. So when these Japanese divisions start sort of materializing out of the jungle, ucker moment for the British The Japanese encircle infall and cut off its supply roads There is this just brutal battle. The fighting is incredibly close quarter And it is absolutely touch and go But Mudaguchi is mired in mental models that were applicable in nineteen forty two and are no longer applicable in forty four Back then, if you hit an Indian division in the face with a frontal attack, a lot of the time it fell apart But Slim's army is better trained, it is more resilient And from a morale standpoint They believe in themselves. They think that they can fight the Japanese toe to toe Fighting is relentless around him fall But General Slim has a plan to bring in reinforcements and supplies All this time, infile itself is completely cut off If you're going to make a stand, you're going need supplies What Slim recognizes with his American colleagues is that air power is Keith the whole thing there's only one way to supply this Allied pocket, and that is by air The Americans have already got a very efficient, well trained transport air force in the north of India, the hump And they turn that airlift ninety degrees aside and aim it towards himfall then the British troops there When you're flying low and slow You are one big fat target These cargo planes have no defensive armament. They don't have any guns And if you push the cargo out four seconds late, it's going end up in the Japanese hands But astonishingly works. These transports air dropped and landed about fourteen million pounds of food, ammunition, heavy equipment, and thousands of fresh troops. And That means that Slim can keep his forces fighting Mudaguchi had hoped to take him fall within days, right off the march. Instead, what he gets is a meat grinder For weeks, divisions of General Sleim's fourteenth Army have been receiving supplies by air There, the front line resisting Japan's invasion of India But Mudaguchi's men are running out of time The Japanese have gone into the offensive without much equipment. They don't have an established supply line So every day that they don't achieve success, it becomes more and more desperate Of course, the big problem they face is Rsians Bees start to run out, hunger starts to become a big issue. They're picking up snakes, they're trying to eat monkeys They are literally starving Denal Tozo famously issued instructions for the soldiers in the battlefield that to be taken by an enemy as a prisoner of war is unacceptable Facing defeat things should makeake a final suicidal charge and die. O Sicide The survivors are forced to retreat Japanese soldiers are dropping dead along the route. The retreat becomes hellish The Japanese words are translated as the road of bones. The survivors' accounts are of mass suicides all along the way their stories are Japanese buddies getting together and hugging each other and then detonating a grenade between the two of them Up to this point in the war This is the largest defeat the Japanese army has ever suffered on the ground. Around sixty thousand casualties Mudaguchi had a vision of this operation to destroy the Allied efforts in Northeastern India and foment an insurrection All of those dreams are shattered at the end of this In spring of nineteen forty four, President Roosevelt is focused on Operation Overlord the upcoming invasion of Normandy But he's frustrated by the delays in East Asia And the fact that the B twenty nine' s are still not in action America is in Burma and in this theater to supply China with weapons and to supply their B twenty nine bases in Southern China Roosevelt has been told time and again by his military men that they're devoting precious resources on an effort that looks increasingly futile. And yet, Roosevelt simply doesn't see another horse to back in May of nineteen forty four, there is no alternate place from which B twenty nine bombers can operate in Northern Burma General Vinegar Joe Stilwell is preparing troops to push to the Burma Road. If the Americans can reopen that road, it's going to completely transform not only the ground campaign in China for Shang, but also the aerial campaign for the American B twenty nine s that arere going to be based in China because they will be able to drive over the heavy equipment that they can't fly across the hump steam shovels and steam rollers, and so it transformed these bases into the sort of bases that Americans like to build. B, sprawling, and full of warehouses Stilwell's plan is to move across northern Burma attack the Japanese military base at Michina. then Push forward to create a new route to the Burma Road He sent seven thousand men including Chinese troops and a veteran American deep penetration force named Merril's Marauders on a three week march through the jungle towards Michina Certain fighting environments kill you all by themselves. You don't need bullets, you don't need shells If The jungle kills you, it destroys armies day by day The American and Chinese troops that are inserted there, they're just absolutely devastated by illness They've all got amoebic dyssinary, severe diarrhea. They've all got, you know dengu and other tropical fevers There was nowhere to rest. There was nowhere to recuperate, and nowhere to get the resources for war onn may seventeenth Stillwell's troops launched the attack on Michina It's a really hard fought battle There's more Japanese there than they expected. And the Japanese fight doggledly for it The Americans call in air support from their bases in India. and take Michina Airfield The US. Giders Land. Bringing reinforcements And General Stilwell. So with the fall of Michina, that now enables the Americans to play their strong suit, which is construction. Army engineers and local laborers start to build a new route from India to the Burma Road. It's hundreds of miles long, scraped out of the jungle, and it's a major construction program It's gonna take months From the British and American standpoint, it's all looking good It's going to take a while to rebuild that road, but we can rebuild it now. And it seems that the tea leaves are now propitious for a B twenty nine offensive out of China The problem is that the Allies don't know that the Japanese have an even bigger land operation up their sleeve. General Stilwell's victory in Michina will enable the Americans to reconnect to the Burma Road But it's a slow and arduous process And the road won't be operational for months. In june nineteen forty four. B twenty nine s begin to arrive at the airfields in China. The Army Air Forces have been waiting for the B twenty nine for years. Finally, here they are ready to fly their first missions out of China. The idea is to put up a sustained bombing campaign over Japan And the key is being able to fly missions over and over and over again The probleblem is logistics B twenty nine is an enormous fuel hog runs on about nine thousand gallons of gasoline per sort They also need a lot of bombs And the only way you're going to get bombs and fuel to those airfields is they got to fly over the hump until they open up a new Burma road It takes eight airlift missions flying over the hump for every B twenty nine combat mission just to bring in the bombs and the fuel In mid June, the first B twenty nine combat mission to Japan sets off from Chengdu sixixty eight super forortresses attack the Iperial iron and steelworks at Yawata in southern Japan But because they don't have enough supplies coming into China They're only flying a few missions at a time It's just not going to add up to the sustained pounding campaign that Roosevelt wants Meanwhile Prime Minister Tojo has launched an offensive in China It's called Operation Ichigo, which means operation number one. And this is the largest operation that the Japanese undertake during the war The offensive has two goals secure land access to Japan's occupied possessions in Southeast Asia. capture U. S. air bases in China. The Japanese attack with about a half a million troops, several thousand artillery pieces, hundreds of tanks, a lot of aircraft as well The big surprise of this campaign is how poor Chiang Kai Shek's forces are At this point, some of them are starving. There've been lots of desters from that army. And with that level of morale, some of these forces under Japanese pressure simply melt away. The Japanese push south overpowering Chinese forces Millions of Chinese attempt to flee caaught between a foreign invader and their own corrupt leaders The U. S. is forced to abandon bases and airfields This is a huge embarrassment for Chang Kai Sk, particularly in the face of his allies All this time he's been trying to talk up what he's capable of if only the Americans give him what he needs And yet in the face of Operation Ichigo, his forces just seem to crumble. For the Americans looking at the wreckage of the aftermath of Ychigo They recognize that the Chinese can't defend American bases no matter where they are. On top of that, the increasing logistical headaches of trying to get supplies over the hump means that They decide just cut their losses And they've pack up those B twenty nine' s The Army Air Forces have put everything into making these Chinaese spaces work up they're done with China The Americans may now have a new option for basing B twenty nine' whichich is a better option Since nineteen forty three. American forces have been fighting their way across the Central Pacific. Now a combined Marine and army force is on the verge of invading the Mariana Islands Tinian, Guam, and Saiipan only sixteen hundred miles from Japan So if the Americans can capture the Marianas The B twenty nine bomber will now be within range of almost all of Japan The expectation for the Americans is that this should be a relatively easy operation. the reality is going to be utterly different Summer Bak is here. I want my kids to have fun, but I also want them to keep their skills sharp. Between vacations and sports, I need something that fits our busy schedule without adding stress. That's why we use IXL. IXL is an award winning online platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning, whether they're building math confidence, strengthening reading and writing skills, or reviewing science concepts From pre K through twelfth grade, IXL offers personalized interactive learning that adapts to each child's level and pace. 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Save up to fifty two percent off with code podcast at groons.co That's code podcast at gR Uns. C You keep meaning to move your savings somewhere better. Today's the day. My Reserve savings from Apple Bank. openpen online in minutes and your money starts working right away. Visit Applebank dot com slash my reseserve. Aount available online only and requires a one thousand dollars minimum deposit of new money. Rember FIC Just after D day the Allied invasion of Europe American forces attack Saipan in the middle of the Pacific This is really an unprecedented display of American power projection that the Americans are able to launch these two massive operations overlord first in Europe and then Sipan They're separated by half a planet. They're thousands of miles apart