Defense of Hengyang - The Battle

The Battle

After Changsha was lost to the Japanese, the Chinese army had a difficult time to reestablish their line of defense due to overwhelming Japanese advantages in manpower and materiel. The two-star Lieutenant General Fang Xianjue(zh:方先覺) had one single understrength Tenth Corps, although it had four divisions of 3rd, Reserved 10th, 190th, and Temporary 54th, the entire unit was made up of seven understaffed regiments of 17,000 men.

The Chinese commander ordered a mandatory evacuation for 300,000 inhabitants of the city, abandoned some defensive positions south of the city, and began to construct earthworks, trenches, pillboxes and bunkers. The city was protected by two rivers to the north and east and marshlands to the west. As a result, the Japanese armored and mechanized units could only advance from the south. The Chinese created man-made cliffs of 6 meters high, and covered the place with well-placed mortar and light artillery. In addition, they positioned their machine gun nests in a way that they complemented each other, creating wide, overlapping fields of fire. This meant that the Japanese only had two ways to advance. The first way was to scale the cliffs with ladders. The second way was to brave the machine gun fire and run across the open fields.

The 10th army had done all that they could to prepare themselves in their limited timeframe. At the very last moment, the NRA HQ was able to spare some American artillery for the defense of Hengyang. But the condition was that the 10th army had to send its artillery battalion to Kunming to collect it. The battalion traveled to Jincheng Jiang via train, and marched to Kunming from there. En route back to Jincheng Jiang after collecting the equipment, the road was flooded with civilians. The battalion could only abandon some of the equipment and hurry back to Hengyang. By the time they arrived, the battle had already started. The battalion managed to bring back 9 37mm anti-tank guns, 6 75mm field guns, 26 mortars, and 2 bazookas. These weapons would play a major role in the Chinese defense.

If the Japanese army wanted to take the city, they would sustain large casualties. On June 22, 1944, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service began dropping incendiary bombs on the city, and a 30,000 strong force made up of the Japanese 68th and 116th divisions of the 11th army attacked the city at eight o'clock that night, with the 68th attacking from the west and the 116th attacking from the south. General Yokoyama planned to take the city within 2 days.

Although faced with concentrated heavy artillery fire, the Chinese continued to hold the line. Only when the Japanese troops began assaulting the positions did their commanders realize something was not right as their troops rapidly fell to small arms fire from the Chinese. Unable to make any progress, a Japanese division commander personally inspected the battlefield from a hill on the 28th. At that time, an explosive shell fell onto his position. The Japanese commander and a few of his staff were crippled. The shell had come from the Chinese 28th regiment's mortar battery.

Because the Chinese had a shortage of ammunition, they adopted a 'Three Don't's Policy': 'Don't shoot at what you can't see', 'Don't shoot at what you can't aim at,' and 'Don't shoot at what you can't kill'. As a result, they could still cope in the early stages of the battle. But for a target to be able to be seen, aimed at and killed, it had to be in close quarters, making the combat very intense.

During the 7 days and nights of continuous assault, the Japanese suffered heavy casualties. As a result, General Yokoyama called a halt to the attack on the 2nd of July. Since the beginning of the battle, the Japanese air force had continuously bombed the city, which was almost completely turned into rubble. However, the Chinese air force also strafed the Japanese positions, and this helped in maintaining the ground troops' morale.

On the morning of July 11, the Japanese launched their second try, and did not score any major success despite some small gains. On the other hand, the Chinese army originally only had 10 days' worth of ammunition, but they had been defending the city for half a month already. The situation was becoming increasingly bleak. The NRA troops could only engage the Japanese in close quarters. Faced with hand grenades and rocket launchers, the IJA took heavy casualties.

In the middle of July, the Japanese troops no longer used ladders to climb up the cliffs. Instead, they used the piles of their corpses as ramps to scale the cliffs. According to an NRA veteran, the bodies had piled up so much that he couldn't even see through the firing port of his bunker. He had to shoot the corpses to pieces in order to see through.

On the 18th of July, the IJA were still unable to break through the Chinese southern defensive lines. Pressured with increasingly high casualties, Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama(橫山 勇) once again halted the offensive. On August 4, he ordered three divisions to reinforce the 68th and 116th divisions, increasing the total manpower to 110,000 troops. The 40th division attacked from the northwest, while the 58th attacked from the north and the 13th attacked from the east. After four days of intense bombing and artillery shelling, the Chinese garrison was reduced to 2,000 wounded men, less than a regiment (3,000).

On the 6th of August, the Japanese 57th brigade killed around 1,000 wounded Chinese in the Hengyang hospital before engaging in negotiations. As the NRA continued to fight back after more than 40 days of siege, they nearly completely ran out of ammunition. Hengyang was now almost entirely made up of rubble and corpses. On the 7th, General Fang sent a telegram to Chongqing headquarters. In this message, he said "The enemy is breaking in from the north. We are out of ammunition and replacements. I have devoted my life to my country. Goodbye." After sending the message, Fang ordered his staff to destroy all communications equipment.

The next day, the Japanese army broke into the city and captured General Fang. Fang actually tried to commit suicide, but his officers stopped him and tried to negotiate a truce with the Japanese. After the Japanese agreed not to harm the civilian population and to treat the Chinese wounded humanely, General Fang ordered the remaining Chinese soldiers to lay down their arms. The day was August 8, 1944.