Battle of Shanghai

From 13 August to 26 November 1937, Chinese and Japanese armies fought a vast and bloody campaign in and around Shanghai, China's largest city and chief port. It was one of the biggest battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War, eventually involving around a million troops, and some historians regard it as the opening battle of World War II. Japan won, but only after three months of fighting that destroyed much of the city and the best units of the Chinese army.

Japan had seized Manchuria in 1931 and fought in Shanghai in 1932, and in July 1937 the Marco Polo Bridge incident near Beijing turned the undeclared conflict into full-scale war. Chiang Kai-shek chose to open a second front at Shanghai. Historians believe he hoped to draw the Japanese away from the north, gain time to move industry inland and win sympathy from Western powers whose interests were concentrated in the city's foreign settlements, though there is no agreement on whether the strategy worked. Tension rose after a Japanese naval officer was shot dead near Hongqiao Airport on 9 August, and fighting broke out on 13 August.

In the first phase, until 22 August, Chinese divisions, including German-trained units, tried to drive the Japanese naval landing force into the Huangpu River. They came close, reaching the waterfront at points, but frontal attacks against fortified buildings under fire from Japanese warships cost them dearly. On 14 August Chinese bombs aimed at the Japanese flagship Izumo fell by accident into the International Settlement, killing hundreds of civilians; the day became known as Black Saturday.

From 23 August Japan landed reinforcements on the coast north of the city, and the battle became a grinding struggle through towns, villages and creeks. The Chinese often retook by night the positions they had lost by day, but Japanese air, naval and artillery superiority inflicted terrible losses. Luodian, Baoshan and other towns fell in September. By October Japanese strength in the area exceeded 200,000, and the loss of Dachang late that month forced the Chinese to abandon the city centre. A single battalion was left behind to hold the Sihang Warehouse from 27 October to 1 November, a stand watched from across the creek in the International Settlement.

On 5 November the Japanese 10th Army landed almost unopposed at Jinshanwei on Hangzhou Bay, threatening to encircle the Chinese from the south. Chiang had hoped to hold on while the powers met in Brussels to discuss the Nine-Power Treaty, but a general retreat was finally ordered on 8 November. The withdrawal became chaotic, fortified lines towards Nanjing were quickly breached, and the last of them fell on 26 November. Japanese forces pressed on to the capital, where the Nanjing Massacre followed.

Casualty figures vary widely. An official Chinese report of 5 November counted 187,200 killed and wounded, while other Chinese estimates reach about 300,000 and contemporary Japanese estimates were around 250,000. Japan officially admitted 9,115 killed and 31,257 wounded, but historians consider this too low; Japanese records for the five most heavily engaged divisions alone show more than 42,000 casualties. Japanese troops killed prisoners and attacked refugees, while Chinese forces carried out scorched-earth destruction.

Chiang lost a large share of his best-trained divisions and around 10,000 of the 25,000 junior officers trained at the Whampoa academy since 1929, losses from which his central army never recovered. Japan took Chinese Shanghai but left the foreign settlements alone until it went to war with Britain and the United States in 1941.

Our 1938 map shows the Republic of China after the fall of Shanghai and the Japanese advance into eastern China.