Pacific War - A 1938 HoI2 Doomsday Japan AAR

The Hankou Pocket and Landing in the South – November and December 1938


Ishiwara Kanji had recently been posted in General Hata’s headquarters to help with the execution of the new strategy. He was now Hata’s chief of staff and had been promoted to Major General recently. He still disagreed with the goals of the war, namely to subjugate China, but he would do as commanded. Perhaps in his new more influential position he would be able to work towards his dream of a pan-Asian cooperative sphere. But enough with lofty dreams, for now, a war had to be won for the Empire. He asked a Lieutenant to give him the latest maps of the Hankou salient.

He watched the maps for a few minutes and scribbled down notes. It looked as if the pincers of Higashikuni’s Central China Area Army and Sugiyama’s Kwantung army made as much progress as he had planned. The operation had been a golden opportunity to encircle an entire Chinese army. They would never leave the rich and important Hankou and with their inferior communications they would be unaware of the danger of encirclement until it was too late. Or at least, they wouldn’t be able to react quickly enough. The pincers would meet south of the Yangtze River and make a huge pocket, trapping an estimated fifteen Chinese divisions. That would be a considerable blow even for the Chinese with their seemingly unlimited manpower reserves. It was probably not the men that they would miss but their equipment…if you could talk about equipment with regards to the Chinese divisions. Most were just having light weaponry and heavier artillery wasn’t encountered often.


So far his plan to commit more troops to the China theatre worked fine. But now they were increasingly forced to fight in rough or mountainous terrain and the Chinese numerical superiority was showing clearer. But so far the troops had steadily advanced. And in the end, the regular Japanese troops would beat the Chinese militia. But they already problems with overstretched supply lines. He wondered how that would be when they pressed even further into China. If they couldn’t supply the troops adequately anymore, their advantages against the Chinese militia would be negated quickly. But at least it looked as if they would soon cut off the Chinese from all shipping lanes in the South and would thus make it impossible for them to get foreign help. And with von Falkenhausen and his military mission having been recalled to Germany, the Chinese also lacked a lot of military expertise now. The war would be won, he was sure of that. Now it remained his task to identify where to strike next.


After they had annihilated the pocket of Chinese militia in South Eastern China, his division had been reassigned to General Terauchi’s South China Area Army. Today they would land along several beaches and in several ports in the South China, across from the island Hainan. He had to meet the commander of the naval taskforce, Admiral Yamamoto, now. He liked working together with the man. He seemed to be very intelligent, calm and determined. A real soldier, destined for greatness. Yamamoto was seen as the most brilliant among Japan’s fleet commanders from what he had heard. He walked from his quarters to the bridge of the freight ship that carried his headquarters staff and some radio equipment. He asked the captain to lower a boat so he could go to Yamamoto’s flagship, the battleship Nagato.

When he had arrived alongside the Nagato he climbed onboard and was greeted by the first officer of the ship who brought him to the bridge.

Yamamoto and he bowed towards each other when he entered the bridge.

“Ah, General Yamashita, welcome aboard. Glad to have you here. Sit down please. Tea?” They sat down at a small table in the back of the bridge and Yamashita sipped on his green tea. “The plans have not changed, right? Or have you gotten new intelligence?”

“No, everything should be as we planned it. There may be more fierce resistance in the area than we thought before, but my troops can handle that. Latest intelligence is still that we have to expect a concentration of Chinese troops around Zhanjiang and thus we will land our heaviest brigades there.”

“Excellent, my staff has finished all preparations for the landing and all commanders know what is expected of them. We will send destroyers or small cruisers to Wuchuan and Diachang to support taking the ports. Our heavier ships will bombard the Chinese positions that we have scouted in the last days around Zhanjiang here and here. And we will provide close air support with our carrier based fighters where necessary. We have trained for this quite a while, General. This landing will provide us with good observations in a combat situation. This will be essential to improve our tactics and our naval fire support. In the future, the navy will have its own specialized troops for opposed landings.”

Yamashita knew that it there had been considerable misgivings in the general staff about these plans, but he didn’t care much for inter-service rivalries. He was more oriented in results, not in politics. But he knew that many generals and admirals thought differently and he had learned to play their game. If Yamamoto wanted to provoke or test him, he wouldn’t give him the pleasure.

“Yes, I have heard about that. The British and Americans have similar units. I am a big supporter of specialized troops myself. It’s always an advantage to have a fitting tool for each task.”

“Yes, General, I agree. Many of your colleagues don’t seem to agree though.”

General Jac: Japan starts the 1938 with 5 level 1 tactical bombers, 3 fighters/interceptor, a transport plane and 2 (?) naval bombers. The Chinese don't seem to have any aircraft though so my bombers can bomb without any resistance.

rcduggan, KuzuX, RGB: Thanks.

Edge of a Knife, Roman_legion, Admiral Yamamot, KanaX: The images are made with Photoshop. Nothing fancy really. I am just cutting out the counters on the pictures, blend the HoI2 map with a paper texture and add some "dirt". The frontlines and arrow-lines are just paths stroked with different brushes. The arrow tips are standard Photoshop arrowheads. Quite a bit of manual work though... The animation in my latest update is made with Imageready.

Admiral Yamamot said:

Could you please post the first image, the one with Yamamoto and the flag, etc., without the text on it?

Click to expand...

Here you go: http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7783/titlewithouttextfz9.jpg

Edzako, Sir Humphrey, Simon-1979, Iron-Chef, Admiral Yamamot: Thanks.

KanaX: If you have some particular question, I'll gladly answer it...

General Jac: We'll see.

Cutting off the last Ports - January 1939


Red light flooded through the open window and Yamashita spent a moment to enjoy the sun settling in the west. When it had gone down, he went back to his table and continued to study maps of the region his corps was currently fighting in. The Pearl River was a formidable obstacle, but he was sure that they would be able to eventually force a crossing.

The war went well at the moment. After their landings last month they had been able to steadily widen the beachhead in all directions. They had reached the Pearl River in the north, but hadn’t been able to cross yet without thinning out their flanks too much. But the navy shipped a steady stream of reinforcements into the ports so their beachhead became stronger each day. At the moment, his men advanced eastward to help with establishing a corridor to the mass of the army further east. They would also cut off the last port access the Chinese still had. This was an important objective as intelligence had reported that the Chinese were still being supplied by Western powers. His corps would probe into the Chinese held territory across the Pearl River and try to distract them when the main force would attack from the east. If they were successful, they would also pocket a large number of Chinese troops that tried to hold the one of the last available harbors in the city of Zhuhai, south of Jiangmen.


The army was also advancing further north to shorten the frontlines considerably. The Chinese were able to concentrate ever larger armies despite fighting in mountainous terrain and it had become thus become necessary to shorten the frontline so that their own army could concentrate its troops better too. At the moment the army was almost overstretched and his supply officers had reported that it was also hard to get the necessary supplies from the harbors to the frontlines. This could become a problem as it tied up more and more of his men just to feed the fighting forces. His thoughts were interrupted when one of his officers knocked at the door and entered with a report in his hand.

“General, the vanguard of the second regiment has encountered Chinese positions and requests fire support. Shall I radio the fleet to launch aircraft?”

“Yes, Colonel, do that.”

The inter-service rivalries had been put aside for the last weeks and the fleet air arm operating from the carriers off the coast had been very supportive by giving close air support. He would have to meet Yamamoto again and talk to him about making it easier so that air support could be called without going all the way to the top of the chain of command. Officers in the field should be able to direct the aircraft. This was also true for the bombers of the army air force. They needed more radios and to enhance communication. Communication was half the battle and was still woefully underrated in the Japanese Army. When he met Terauchi or Hata next time he would ask them to lobby for that in Tokyo.