Battle of West Hunan

Battle of West Hunan
Part of the Second Sino-Japanese War
Date 9 April–7 June 1945 Location West Hunan, near Zhijiang Result Allied victory
Belligerents
China  United States	Japan
Commanders and leaders
He Yingqin Wang Yaowu Tang Enbo Liao Yaoxiang Zhang Lingfu	Ichiro Banzai
Strength
110,000 in Hunan 200,000 in total 400 aircraft	80,000
Casualties and losses
7,737 killed 11 pilots	Japanese figures: ~27,000 killed and wounded Chinese claim: 12,498 killed 23,307 wounded Total: 35,805
8,563 civilians

The Battle of West Hunan (湘西會戰), also known as the Zhijiang Campaign (芷江作戰), was the Japanese invasion of west Hunan and the subsequent Chinese counterattack that occurred between 6 April and 7 June 1945, during the last months of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japanese strategic aims for this campaign were to seize Chinese airfields and secure railroads in West Hunan, and to achieve a decisive victory that their depleted land forces needed.

This campaign, if successful, would also allow Japan to attack Sichuan and eventually the Chinese war time capital Chongqing. Although the Japanese were able to make initial headways, Chinese forces were able to turn the tide and forced the Japanese into a rout, recovering a substantial amount of lost ground.

This was the last major Japanese offensive, and the last of 22 major battles during the war to involve more than 100,000 troops. Concurrently, the Chinese managed to repel a Japanese offensive in Henan and Hubei and launched a successful attack on Japanese forces in Guangxi, turning the course of the war sharply in China's favor even as they prepared to launch a full-scale counterattack across South China.

By April 1945, China had already been at war with Japan for more than seven years. Both nations were exhausted by years of battles, bombings and blockades. From 1941-1943, both sides maintained a "dynamic equilibrium", where field engagements were often, numerous, involved large numbers of troops and produced high casualty counts, but the results of which were mostly indecisive. Operation Ichi-Go in 1944 changed the status quo, as Japanese forces were able to break through the inadequate Chinese defenses and occupy most of Henan, Hunan and Guangxi, connecting Japanese-held areas from north to south in a continuous front.

However, the Japanese victory resulted in very little actual benefit for them: the operation drained Japanese manpower and a weakened Japanese army had to defend a longer front with more partisan activity in occupied areas. The opening up of north-south railway connections did little to improve Japanese logistics, for only one train ran from Guangzhou to Wuhan in April 1945, and due to fuel shortages the primary mode of transportation for Japanese troops was on foot.

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