The Sightless Giant
TIME, Monday, Oct. 16, 1944
Through most of the dreary months while China/> waited for the western Allies to finish the job of beating Hitler first, two seaports on the East China Sea/> had remained free of the enemy. They were like eyes, through which China/> could look out to the Pacific, straining for a glimpse of the topmasts of a relieving U.S./>/> fleet. The Japanese had closed each eye for a few months in the past, but the Chinese had reopened them. Not until this year did the Japs decide to deprive China/>/> again of what was now its last outlook to the east. Early in September, they put out the northern eye, Wenchow, in Chekiang/> Province/>/>.
Two weeks ago, a Jap invasion fleet from Formosa/> nosed up to the mouth of the Min, downstream from Foochow/> (see map). Assault troops swarmed ashore and drove swiftly to the suburbs of the port, whose garrison had held out in hope of welcoming an Allied invasion force. Last week a second landing was made on the south bank of the Min, catching Foochow/> between the two Jap columns.
The enemy lost no time in ballyhooing the discomfiture thus visited upon the elsewhere victorious United Nations. Berlin/>/>, hungry for a crumb of comfort though it fell 5,000 miles away, proclaimed: "Japanese military authorities are busy making the necessary preparations to forestall an eventual American landing on the Chinese coast. . . . The bolstering of the defenses of Formosa/>/> is one of them. . . . The area of Foochow/> ... is likewise being furnished with a powerful defense system."
Nor was that all. Through eastern China/>/>'s vitals, the armored worms of Japanese conquest gnawed greedily. Disintegration was apparently inevitable. When it came, it would take with it the system of air bases from which China/> once hoped to see U.S./> and native airmen fly to beat down the defenses of .Formosa, hack deep into Japan/>/>'s vital seaborne traffic.
Scorched City. Kweilin/>, the city of 300 hills, was put to the torch. All but a few aged standpatters and lost children had fled three weeks earlier; its ring of air bases had been burned and blasted (TIME, Sept. 25). Now the Lo-chun-she Hotel, famous for its roast chicken and Peking duck, was gutted by flames; so were stores, cinemas, offices and factories.
Kweilin's defenses were the best the Chinese had mustered since Hengyang/>/> (which withstood siege for 41 days). The city had miles of barbed wire entanglements; pillboxes fashioned from torndown buildings. It had the best fed, best armed, best uniformed soldiers remaining among China/>/>'s tattered legions. For commander it had bald, white-gloved General Pai Chung-hsi, one of Kwangsi/> Province/>/>'s best, fresh from talks with Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek. To aid Pai, General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell sent every ounce of U.S./>/> small arms, mortars and ammunition that could be spared from the tonnage flown over the Hump.
Chungking did not seriously expect to hold Kweilin/> indefinitely. But Chungking knew that another debacle, as at Changsha/>/> in June, would have domestic political as well as international and military repercussions. The agonized fight had to go on.
Sources: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,885756,00.html
