On September 8, 1944, twenty Japanese Ki-43 Oscars from the 64th Sentai attacked the airfield at Baoshan, China. Air Transport Command had been airlifting soldiers from the Chinese 200th Division to the field to reinforce the Chinese Expeditionary Force on the Salween Front. While most of the Japanese fighters strafed the field, Sergeant Toshimi Ikezawa…
This week I had the opportunity to visit the grave of Lieutenant Colonel George B. McMillan at Arlington National Cemetery. McMillan was one of the original fighter pilots with the mercenary American Volunteer Group, Flying Tigers, in 1941-42. He shot down three Japanese bombers over Burma and one over China during the darkest days of…
On September 5, 1944, the Japanese begin a counteroffensive at Longling. Though the Chinese XIth Army Group had surrounded the city, General Song Xilian could not be persuaded to attack. He continued to overestimate the strength of the enemy and told his superiors he needed more men. His inaction left the initiative to the Japanese.…
On August 20, 1944, American engineers detonated two mines filled with six thousand pounds of explosives under Japanese positions on Songshan (Pine Mountain). The Japanese 113th Regiment, 56th Division, had thoroughly fortified the mountain, from which it could rain down artillery on the Burma Road. The Chinese 8th Army had been fighting to take it…
On August 18, 1944, Major Toyoki Eto, commander of the 64th Sentai, led twelve Ki-43 “Oscars” in two attacks on the Huitong Bridge. The Allies had only recently rebuilt the bridge where the Burma Road crossed the Salween River. Major William Moore, the chief engineer, was actually hammering the last planks in place when the…
On August 2, 1944, American warplanes breached the walls of Tengchong. Six B-25s from the 22nd Bomb Squadron flew through the valley at tree-top level, sending their 1,000-pound bombs into the ancient stone wall. The bombs opened up five breaches, the largest of which was just over fifteen feet wide. Chinese troops charged forward, but…
On July 26, 1944, Chinese soldiers of the XXth Army Group attacked Laifengshan, a mountain rising five hundred feet above the southwest corner of Tengchong. The Japanese had stationed their artillery on the mountain, making its capture an essential prerequisite to action against the city. At 1200 hours on the twenty-sixth, the first of four…
On June 28, 1944, Japanese aircraft arrived over the Salween Front for the first time in the campaign to resupply their besieged troops as Songshan. The Japanese Army Air Force had been preoccupied by the Allied offensive in Burma and the Ichi-go Campaign in central China. By late June, however, the supply situation of the…
The Salween River raged through a narrow canyon at 2,100-feet above sea level. Once across this dangerous, rapid river, however, the Chinese Expeditionary Force had to cross the Gaoligong Mountains. Rising up to twelve thousand feet above sea level, this monolithic range was the highest battleground of World War II. Captain Kenneth Scott, an American…
The Japanese 113th Regiment under the command of Major Kanemitsu Keijiro transformed Songshan into a multi-peaked mountain fortress, with trenches, pillboxes, caves, tunnels, and fortified artillery positions. The Americans called it “the Gibraltar of the Burma Road,” because it appeared unassailable. Yet on June 17, 1944, the Chinese New 28th and New 39th Divisions attacked…