Battle of Mount Song

Battle of Mount Song/ Battle of Ramou
Part of the Second Sino-Japanese War

Chinese Nationalist soldiers fighting near Salween River
DateJune 4, 1944 – September 7, 1944
LocationMount Song, Yunnan
24°18′19″N 98°59′54″E / 24.3053°N 98.9984°E
Result Decisive Chinese victory
Belligerents
Taiwan National Revolutionary Army
United States United States Air Force		 Japan, Imperial Japanese Army
Commanders and leaders
Taiwan Li Mi Hisaichi Terauchi Keijiro Kanemitsu, Major
Strength
40,000 1,400
Casualties and losses
4,000 killed
7,774 injured		 1,393 - 1399 killed[1]
7 captured

The Battle of Mount Song　or Battle of Ramou (Chinese 松山战役, Japanese 拉孟の戦い）in 1944 was part of the largest campaign in southwestern China during the Second World War. Chinese Nationalist forces aimed to retake control over the Burma Road. The Japanese were losing the war in Burma and aimed to block off the highway connecting China with Burma for as long as they could. Using slave labour from Thailand and Burma they constructed a series of tunnels and bunkers in order to turn the mountain into a fortress.

Mount Song, or Songshan, belongs to the southernmost part of the Hengduan Mountains, and is located on the right bank of the Salween River (Nu Jiang in Chinese), in Longyang District, Baoshan prefecture, Yunnan province, China.

The Chinese forces were unaware of the depth of the Japanese defenses, and their underestimation led to heavy casualties. Chinese artillery strikes and US bombing runs had little effect against Japanese forces underground. After initial defense the Japanese command in Northern Burma ordered the majority of the garrison out and left 1,400 men (including 300 wounded and 20 comfort women) to defend the mountain top. This encircled group under the command of Major Kanemitsu Keijirou held out and denied the use of the Burma Road to the American-Chinese forces for a further three months.

Japanese attempts to resupply the unit by air on two occasions led to most of the supplies falling into Chinese hands. This was the only occasion where besieged Japanese troops were supplied by air.

Chinese forces finally retook Mount Song through continual bombardment, American airpower and overwhelming numbers of Chinese infantry. In the end every single Japanese defender had to face about 50 Chinese attackers.

Fall and Aftermath

The Japanese listed only one survivor, Captain Kinoshita, an artillery officer ordered out to communicate to Japanese high command the night before the fall of the outpost. Chinese sources say 7 soldiers were captured out of the total garrison. About 12 Japanese comfort women committed suicide towards the end of the siege, and another five or six Korean comfort women were captured by Chinese and US forces. [2]

After the capture of the stronghold the Burma Road could be used once again.

Although defeated, the small Japanese force, unsupplied and lacking air power or heavy artillery, held up the entire Chinese Expeditionary Army for over three months considerably lengthening the war in Burma.[3]

Significance

Accounts of the battle exist only in Japanese and Chinese. There has been virtually no recorded reference to this battle in any detail in English sources outside of initial battle reports. It remains a largely forgotten event of the Burma War.

From the Chinese side though it represented an important event, being the first place retaken by Chinese forces during the struggle against the Japanese aggression. That's why the Chinese government built a memorial park on top of the mountain where 402 sculptures representing soldiers from the Chinese Expeditionary Army were spread in an area 190000 sq. feet wide.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Article about War of Resistance http://www.china1931.cn/China/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=7648
  2. ↑ The Chrysamthemum and the Dragon, Sagara Jyunsuke, Kojinsha Press, Tokyo 2004, 菊と龍祖国への栄光の戦い、光人社、東京、２００4
  3. ↑ Reflections on War in Burma, Noguchi Seiki, Kojinsha Press, Tokyo 2000, 回想ビルマ作戦，野口省己、光人社、東京、２００２
  4. ↑ Ranran, Liu, ed. (September 4, 2013). "Sculptures of China Expeditionary Force Completed in Yunnan". CRIENGLISH.com.