ACTIVITIES OF THE JAPANESE NAVAL FORCES ON LAKE TUNGTING
PUBLICITY BUREAU, NAVY DEPARTMENT
Following its successful entry into Hankow on October 25, 1938, the Japanese naval force which pushed up the Yangtze River pursued the Chinese forces which fled upstream. On November 11th, it reached Yochow (Yoyang) on the northeastern shore of Lake Tungting, thus commanding the mouth of the lake. The naval force, which had been standing by for nine months until September 21st, 1939, started a drive toward Lake Tungting and the Siang River in concert with the clean-up campaign launched by the military forces against the Chinese troops in Northern Hunan Province.
Lake Tungting and the Siang River, which flows into it, are among the most difficult of China's inland waters to navigate, because of the complexity and sinuosity of the waterways. Lake Tungting is indeed a large lake, but in the low water season, it is dry with waterways remaining in the form of creeks, which intersect one another here and there. The bottom of the lake then presents a vast expanse of green fields. On the other hand, when the high water season sets in, the lake is full of water. Even then there are shoals which defy the skill of veteran pilots who must cautiously follow a series of nautical marks. The navigable channels are sometimes less than 100 metres in breadth, and once the wrong course is taken the unfortunate vessel is almost invariably stranded.
The River Siang rises in northeastern Kwangsi Province and flows northward via Hengyang, Chuchow, Changsha and Siangyin. It flows into Lake Tungting near Leishihshan and Lukio, and its upper reaches are connected by canals with the North River, which is a tributary of the Pearl River. Thus it forms part of an important waterway system connecting Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces in South China, with the Yangtze River. The lower reaches of the Siang River, however, are extremely difficult to navigate, due partly to the sinuosity and partly to its narrowness, which accounts for the existence of whirlpools.
If even in peacetime, the veteran captains of Japanese gunboats find it difficult to sail through Lake Tungting and up the Siang River to Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, it can be imagined how much more difficult such an attempt would be under wartime conditions.
Terror-stricken by the swift Japanese advance on Yochow in November, 1938, the Chungking Government resorted to its usual "scorched earth" policy and reduced the greater part of Changsha city to ashes. The Japanese forces, however, showed no indications of launching a further drive southward from Yochow. This heartened the Chungking Government, which gave up its policy of abandoning Changsha and Ichang and instead
decided to defend them. Since early in 1939, the Chungking Government has laid thousands of mines not only in the Yangtze River, but in Lake Tungting and the Siang River. In addition, the waterways were blocked with booms and other obstructions, while all nautical marks were removed. Both banks on the Yangtze and Siang Rivers were strongly fortified.
Information received by the Japanese navy showed that many mine-fields were laid in Lake Tungting and the Siang River, especially above Lukio,—more than 2,000 mines had been used for this purpose. The Chinese military authorities boastfully declared that not a single Japanese warship should be allowed to pass through these mine-fields and booms.
To do justice to the Chinese military authorities mention should be made of their strenuous efforts to block the waterways with booms, mines and other obstructions and also to fortify the shore of Lake Tungting and the banks of the Siang River. Such obstructions and fortifications, however, failed to check the advance of the Japanese naval forces, which had already pushed up the Yangtze River from Shanghai to Yochow, a distance of 740 miles, by sweeping mine-fields and removing booms. Within a week of the start of its operations, the Japanese succeeded in reaching Yingtien, 40 miles upstream from Yochow, by breaking through six mine-fields, and silencing a large number of pill-boxes on the eastern shore of Lake Tungting.
The Japanese naval force was mustered near Chenglingchi below Yochow on September 21st to cooperate with the military forces in their clean-up campaign in Northern Hunan Province. The naval force, which was divided into the vanguard and main units, started operations on the following day. The naval vanguard, leading a flotilla of boats containing the Japanese Kamimura detachment, took the enemy by surprise, and, under cover of darkness, successfully passed through the "long waterway" on Lake Tungting, which was believed by the Chinese authorities to be good only for small-sized junks. This unit led the Japanese military boats to Yingtien, via Tsingshan, on Lake Hoyeh and enabled the Kamimura detachment to effect a surprise landing at Yingtien at 6 o'clock on the morning of September 23rd.
The Kamimura detachment immediately drove eastward along the Mi River to Sinshih, where it succeeded in dealing a crushing blow to the Chinese troops which had been fleeing southward from the River Tsiang before the southern onslaught of the Japanese military forces. The splendid success achieved by the Kamimura detachment was certainly due to its daring, swift drive eastward along the Mi River, immediately following its landing at Yingtien, but it also owes much to carefully laid plans, the successful landing at Yingtien, and the passing through of the "long waterway" at night by taking advantage of the valuable reconnaissance work previously carried out by the naval force.
At 9:30 a.m. on September 23rd, the main naval unit reached a point off Chiumatsui. This unit, together with naval air-units covered the operations of Japanese blue-jackets at Chiumatsui. An attack was immediately started on the enemy positions near Lukio. Cliffs 3 to 4 metres high, standing along the shore of Tungting Lake, where the Japanese forces landed, and a creek running in front of Lukio, added to the
difficulty of the Japanese advance. The Japanese landing party, however, covered by air-units and naval boats operating freely off Lukio, took the pill-boxes which formed the outpost of Lukio. By nightfall, September 23rd, the landing party reached a hill north of Lukio, which town it completely occupied at 9:30 o'clock, the next morning.
Following the occupation of Lukio, the Japanese naval unit successfully swept two mine-fields off the town of Lukio at 2:30 p.m., September 24th, and reached a point below Leishihshan, a strategically important place, the same evening. A landing-party from the main body of the naval force went ashore at Leishihshan at 9 a. m., September 25th. Following the capture of Leishihshan, the naval force swept the mine-fields off Leishihshan and disposed of more than 400 mines. After clearing mine-fields off Shenshachiang and Pohwachow and removing booms at Paiyuchih, the Japanese arrived off Yingtien at 4:15 p.m., September 29th, when it effected a junction with the vanguard. Thus the waterway from Yochow to Yingtien, a distance of 40 miles, was re-opened.
In this campaign, the Japanese naval force disposed of over 500 mines, destroyed 35 Chinese military boats and 31 mines and disposed of 5 ground mines. A fairly large number of embedded mines, were located on Tungting Lake.
Except for the large number of mines discovered and disposed of, the Japanese naval force, in its operations on Lake Tungting, has inflicted no heavy material losses on the Chinese forces. But there is no denying that the successful 40-mile advance upstream from Yochow has dealt a severe blow to the morale of the Chinese forces, particularly as this brilliant thrust was accomplished in the face of the Chinese boast that mine-fields, other obstructions and fortifications would frustrate any Japanese attempt to sail upstream beyond Yochow. This Japanese naval success provides excellent proof of the determination and ability of the Japanese Navy to proceed upstream, if necessary even to Changsha or other Szechwan towns, despite seemingly insurmountable difficulties.