China's Forgotten War: Siege of Hengyang

In April 1944 Japan launched Operation Ichigo - an ambitious campaign to seize control of all eastern China, and open up a land link between Manchuria in the north and Indochina in the south.
By May, the Japanese Imperial Army had reached Hunan province, south of the Yangtze river, and the Chinese-held city of Hengyang. Though the defending force was greatly outnumbered, Hengyang held out for 48 days - one of the longest city sieges of WWII.
Rao Pingru came from a family of scholars - but he had chosen to fight, and was soon a platoon commander. He was stuck 20 kilometres outside Hengyang, unable to relieve the city. His memories of the battle of Hengyang are of the suffering of his men. They had poorly-made uniforms, old-fashioned military equipment and, despite the intense summer heat, not even bottles to carry water. They were forced to drink water direct from the paddy fields around.
Though Japan won the battle of Hengyang, the huge losses incurred and the bitter resistance of the Chinese made Hengyang a symbol of resistance for China and a blow to the morale of Japan.
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Find out more about China's WWII story via our website: www.chinasforgo...
International Distribution: tvfinternational.com

[@Kabutoes]

What’s interesting about this battle was that the KMT general that was captured after the Japanese successfully scaled the walls of Hengyang, was praised by the enemy for his tenacity. As time passed by, Chinese special forces, the loyal and patriotic army (LPA) under General Dai Li, lead a daring raid successfully busting him out of POW status.

[@antoinesilva1527]

All the more interesting by the fact that the surviving Japanese veterans later (years later…) organized a trip to Taiwan to attend his funeral.

[@LuckasMS]

Very nice to see more of this war, thank you for the videos!

[@WWIIChinasForgottenWar]

+LuckasMS Glad you're finding it interesting. There will be more videos coming and also more background information on our website www.chinasforgottenwar.org

[@skymaster4743]

Keeping making these videos. Second Sino Japanese War is the most underrated theater of WW2.

[@5h0rgunn45]

I'd love to see an in-depth documentary or book about the Battle of Hengyang. I think it's my favourite battle of the war, but I haven't been able to find much about it. From what I've read (which is almost entirely from Wikipedia, so not all that reliable, admittedly), it was one of the few battles in which the Chinese inflicted significantly more casualties than they took, despite being outnumbered and outgunned. When they finally did surrender, the Japanese were quite impressed to find that about 9/10 of the survivors were wounded, and most of those were still in their bunkers with their units because the Japanese had been bombing the field hospital.

[@yaqinwang539]

作为一个衡阳人，对于楼下那位对日本入侵中国表达敬意的网友，爸妈是不是没教过你法西斯伤害了世界上多少的人，多少人在二战中死去，这时候你怎么不政治正确了？ Giving props for the Japanese for invading China? That truly is crazy.

[@curtismes]

My Grandfather served with the 14th Air Force under Chennault in Kunming China...he never talked about it...glad to learn a bit...

[@jayliu6076]

A movie based on this battle is coming out this June. The title is "Heng Yang 1944".

[@look007456]

Very nice to see more of this war

[@yanpinghuang8154]

thank you .

[@007woodruff77]

Nice job, would like to see all the videos. How many are there?

[@laukreuzer4242]

funny facts on battle for hengyang (June 22-August 8, 1944) (Republic of China)10th Corps, 17,000 vs (Empire of Japan)11th Army, 110,000+ men Republic of China side: 4,700 killed in action 2,900 died from wounds, disease, starvation, and other causes 9,400 captured (including 8,000 wounded) Empire of Japan side: Japanese source: 19,000 dead and wounded Chinese source: 48,000[1]-60,000 dead and wounded pretty much the Chinese version of battle for Iwo Jima

[@Chinareport]

way cool. Thank you for uploading and providing us this essential historic information. We will surely include a link to the url of this video and others from our web-ste and maps of China. Education and understanding plus travel is our theme. Greetings from The Netherlands.

[@WWIIChinasForgottenWar]

+ChinaReport.com Greetings to you too! We're very glad you found these stories as interesting and powerful as we do. If you're interested in all things to do with China - including some much less serious topics - please take a look at our KZbin channel China Icons (kzbin.info) - where you will find lots of stories about life in China today

[@Chinareport]

will do! Sure we are interested in China!

[@Chinareport]

Ok-following on youtube and twitter, plus took the chance to announce your existence to all the so called China Experts out there - lol ; we will just continue with visually mapping China and will notify when we get to link up 1 of your video's from our map of Asia & China (ongoing effort of course) - AsiaReport.com - Mastermap of Asia (entire). - www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zrBsTGvmpn1A.kgb7NwYs6f6c&hl=nl&usp=sharing /// Our goal is mutual understanding through the creation of this self travel road map of China's landmarks and monuments. Politics is nice especially when it is in the form of a historical lesson about some location, town or people. Please go on giving us that too. The other thing we love is cooking lessons, hehe - surely will use them in our upcoming stories. If any of you have an idea for us, feel free to pitch in!

[@WWIIChinasForgottenWar]

This sounds fantastic! If you want more cooking videos, kzbin.info just released a new one last week!

[@Chinareport]

Thank you - we''ll be hooking up. Hoping to find more such gems.

[@brndonlu9635]

The Asian Front of WW2 seems more interesting than the Western Front.

[@Henners1991]

I'm curious about the veterans that they interview for this series - are they all exclusively Communist troops or are they actually interviewing the Nationalist soldiers of the KMT who did the bulk of the fighting during the war?

[@WWIIChinasForgottenWar]

+Bumbling Brit Almost all the veterans interviewed for this series were fighting with KMT troops during the war, not with troops led by the Communist party.

[@Henners1991]

Wow I'm surprised that's the case... I'll have to watch more. It'll be interesting to see if anything is omitted about the KMT (such as directly referring it or its formations) for political reasons (pardon my cynicism please)

[@SuperZFunkey]

+Bumbling Brit 99% troops should be KMT really, the communist where still the small population, an insurgency. More importantly, it dosent matter rather if men were nationalist or communist WW2 was a struggle for the extince of China and its people rather communist or nationalist agreed to stand togther to fight to a collective cause.

[@Aka123ization]

+Bumbling Brit While it is true that the KMT did a lot of the work during WWII, there was something that neither Chiang Kaishek (KMT leader) and America could never do: Unite China as a whole

[@SuperZFunkey]

Aka123ization Um...I honestly I think the KMT and the Communist with the rest of the others (warlords etc.) banned up together, so I guess the KMT kinda should take credit, but uniting China. (Personally, I feel the Communist might have been the ones who did it, sense the KMT could have done some much better in defending China from the Japanese invasion, but instead the said to focus on taking out the communist. )

[@alad1199]

please make more.

[@WWIIChinasForgottenWar]

+Danny Ocampo We're currently in the process of editing our next set of videos. Remember to subscribe to our channel and you won't miss a single one!

[@Bernardoferia1994]

battle of hengyang NRA is both chinese and korean

[@mitismee]

i gotta give props to the Japanese a small country that take over the great big country like China along the world... just crazy... anyway lest we forget .

[@Ducksonqrack]

Japan mobilized their army and industrialized their nation. While China is transitioning from a falling dynasty to a warring states period known as the age of the warlords.

[@Hoo88846]

I got to give credits to the US for throwing two atomic bombings and interned Japanese Americans.

[@mistermax3034]

The Japanese soldier was a first class fighting man, fighting for a third rate army.

[@mistermax3034]

Dennis Shih It's called having essentially unlimited territory to withdraw back into, and a bottomless supply of manpower.

[@Dominique9325]

@@Hoo88846 Oh great, another freedomboo, please spew your horseshit somewhere else.

[@cyanfloy2473]

It the soldier didn't put the shell wrong then he wouldn't be that tragic

[@Eila_Ilmatar_Juutilainen]

Tenno Hekka Banzai for the anime, but good work for the perspective.

[@axelNodvon2047]

+TheWorldIsSoWrong Heika*

[@chaser29mty2009]

very stupid mistake, poor Chinese Quality labor.

[@ambassadorofcorruption3276]

+Mario Perez lol

[@vincenthuang729]

fucking idiot

[@chaser29mty2009]

Vincent Huang haha

[@zhijiang7853]

lol another keyboard warrior. I can imagine how you will piss on your pants when facing the enemy.

[@ornature5324]

Mario Perez it was probably made out of a railroad

[@iwanematsui8592]

BANZAI!

[@jhi3384]

+Iwane Matsui Go to hell with your fucking Showa Tenno

[@jhi3384]

+임지혁 Oh right he is in hell already . I forgot it. Then go to hell with your Abe where atomic bomb explosion endlessly

[@jhi3384]

+Iwane Matsui We will stand with all asia which without NK. but japan will be Bully of all asia with japans only friend - TAIWAN. hahaha.

[@jhi3384]

+Iwane Matsui Your English skill is so bad that I can't understand what are you fucking saying. are you attending in Elementary school? I heard that japanese people very can't speak english. and you prove it.

[@iwanematsui8592]

koreans can't even speak English. I heard you speak konglish. lol

[@DeLaCruz878]

Glory Nipon!