Battle of Shanghai

Battle of Shanghai
Part of the Second Sino-Japanese War
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Special Naval Landing Forces troops in gas masks prepare for an advance in the rubble of Shanghai.
Date August 13, 1937 – November 26, 1937 (3 months, 1 week and 6 days) Location Shanghai, China 31°13′56″N 121°28′08″E / 31.2323°N 121.4690°E / 31.2323; 121.4690 Result Japanese victory Shanghai heavily damaged Territorial changes Japanese capture of Shanghai (excluding the Shanghai International Settlement and the Shanghai French Concession)
Belligerents
China	Japan
Commanders and leaders
Chiang Kai-shek Chen Cheng Zhang Zhizhong Feng Yuxiang	Heisuke Yanagawa Iwane Matsui Kiyoshi Hasegawa
Units involved
National Revolutionary Army	Imperial Japanese Army  Imperial Japanese Navy
Strength
700,000 troops[1] 70 divisions 7 brigades 180 aircraft 40 tanks	300,000 troops[2] 9 divisions 1 brigade 500 aircraft 300 tanks 130 naval ships
Casualties and losses
Chinese Report dated November 5, 1937, to the War Council: 187,200 dead and wounded[3][4][5] Japanese Estimate: 250,000 dead and wounded[6]	Official Japanese war records: 61,000+ (42,202+ including at least 11,072 killed in action before November 8. After that, there is additional 18,761 casualties for the 9th division alone before December 1); this figure does not include the sick, the repatriated and those who died because of injuries[7] [8][9][10][11] Osprey Publishing 2017 data: 18,800 dead (c. 17,000 combat deaths plus about 1,800 illness-induced deaths), 35,000–40,000 wounded, and 40,000 sick, KIA figure seconded by General Iwane Matsui's Speech in 1938[7] Chinese record: 98,417+ killed and wounded[12]

The Battle of Shanghai (Chinese: 淞滬會戰) was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) of the Empire of Japan at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It lasted from August 13, 1937, to November 26, 1937, and was arguably the single largest and longest battle of the entire war,^[13] with it even regarded by some historians as the first battle of World War II.^[14] The Japanese eventually prevailed after over three months of extensive fighting on land, in the air and at sea. Both sides accused each other of using chemical weapons during the battle, with Japanese forces confirmed to have illegally deployed poison gas at least thirteen times.^[15][16] Historian Peter Harmsen stated that the battle "presaged urban combat as it was to be waged not just during the Second World War, but throughout the remainder of the twentieth century" and that it "signalled the totality of modern urban warfare".^[17] It has also been called "one of the most incredible defensive battles ever waged on this planet".^[18] It is considered to be the single largest urban battle prior to the Battle of Stalingrad.^[19]

Since the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 followed by the Japanese attack of Shanghai in 1932, there had been ongoing armed conflicts between China and Japan without an official declaration of war. These conflicts finally escalated in July 1937, when the Marco Polo Bridge Incident triggered the full advance from Japan.^[20] Shanghai was China's largest and most cosmopolitan city, with it being the world's fifth largest city at the time.^[21][17] Shanghai was known as the "Pearl of the Orient" and "Paris of the East", with it being China's main commercial hub and largest port.^[22][23] Dogged Chinese resistance at Shanghai was aimed at stalling the Japanese advance, giving much needed time for the Chinese government to move vital industries to the interior, while at the same time attempting to bring sympathetic Western powers to China's side. During the fierce three-month battle, the forces of China and Japan fought in downtown Shanghai, in the outlying towns, and on the beaches of the Yangtze River and Hangzhou Bay, where the Japanese had made amphibious landings.

Chinese forces were equipped primarily with small-caliber weapons against much greater Japanese air, naval, and armor power.^[24] In the end, Shanghai fell, and China lost a significant portion of its best troops, the elite Chinese forces trained and equipped by the Germans,^[25] while failing to elicit any international intervention. However, the resistance of Chinese forces over three months of battle shocked the Japanese,^[26] who had been indoctrinated with notions of cultural and martial superiority, and largely demoralized the Imperial Japanese Army, who believed they could take Shanghai within days and China within months.

The battle can be divided into three stages, and eventually involved around one million troops. The first stage lasted from August 13 to August 22, 1937, during which the NRA attempted to eradicate Japanese troop presence in downtown Shanghai in bloody urban fighting.^[27] The second stage lasted from August 23 to October 26, 1937, during which the Japanese launched amphibious landings on the Jiangsu coast and the two armies fought a house-to-house battle,^[28][29] with the Japanese attempting to gain control of the city and the surrounding regions. The last stage, ranging from October 27 to the end of November 1937, involved the retreat of the Chinese army in the face of Japanese flanking maneuvers, and the ensuing combat on the road to China's capital, Nanjing. In addition to the urban combat, trench warfare was also fought in the outskirts of the city.^[30][17]