Far East

1937–1945: The Sino-Japanese War

July 1937 – September 1945 · 8 battles

Shots at the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking on the night of 7–8 July 1937 began the full-scale Sino-Japanese War, which some historians regard as the beginning of the Second World War. The Japanese quickly took Peking and Tientsin, captured Shanghai after three months of bloody fighting and in December took Nanking, where they committed mass atrocities. Giving ground, the Chinese won the Battle of Taierzhuang and moved their government deep into the interior, turning the war into a war of attrition that tied Japan down until 1945.

13 August – 26 November 1937The Battle of Shanghai (1937)From August to November 1937 China and Japan fought for Shanghai. China lost some 200,000–300,000 men and its best divisions; Japan marched on Nanjing.
1–13 December 1937The Battle of NanjingIn December 1937 Japan took Nanjing, China's capital, in under two weeks. General Tang Shengzhi's garrison fell apart in a chaotic retreat to the Yangtze.
23 December 1937 – 19 May 1938The Battle of XuzhouFrom December 1937 to May 1938 the Japanese advanced on the Xuzhou junction from north and south. They took it on 19 May, but the main Chinese forces escaped.
14 September – 8 October 1939The First Battle of ChangshaIn September 1939 the Japanese 11th Army advanced on Changsha. Xue Yue’s troops halted it before the city and in October forced it to retreat.
26 November 1939 – 1 April 1940The Chinese winter offensive of 1939–1940In the winter of 1939–40 China attacked the Japanese along the whole front for the first time in the war. It retook no major cities, but shook the enemy.
20 August – 5 December 1940Hundred Regiments OffensiveFrom 20 August 1940 the Communist Eighth Route Army wrecked Japanese railways and outposts in North China. The answer was a bloody Japanese reprisal.
22–26 September 1940Japanese invasion of French IndochinaOn 22–26 September 1940, despite a signed agreement, Japan attacked Lạng Sơn and landed near Haiphong. Vichy France ceded northern Tonkin to it.
17 April – 10 December 1944Key battleOperation Ichi-GoFrom 17 April to 10 December 1944 the Japanese drove from Henan through Hunan to Guangxi, took US air bases and linked their front in China with Indochina.