Part 14: And If They Lay Us Down To Rest...
I Corps digs in around Tientsin, August 2nd 1937
I Corps digs in around Tientsin, August 2nd 1937
I Corps had an unenviable task ahead of it, and it began to set about completing it as soon as it was off the ships at T’ang-ku. Along with two divisions of Chinese regular infantry and another three of militia, America’s finest was expected to resist an onslaught from 80,000 well-armed and expertly led Japanese troops, many of them veterans of the Manchurian campaign. Few expected that they would be up to the job, with both numbers and battlefield experience against them, but Lt. General Lamar Freeman, commander of I Corps, claimed that he never doubted the ability of his troops. In 1965, shortly after the uncovering of what became dubbed the “China Incident”, he said of the troops of the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions:
“They were the finest men I ever served with, and I actually mean that; it’s not one of those damp-eyed, gushingly nostalgic phrases that other men might come out with. Twenty thousand strong, they were expected to hold their ground against a force at least four times their size, with old men armed with farm tools as their only backup. I knew it would be hard, they knew it would be hard, we all knew it would be hard, but when trouble comes looming down on you, eighty thousand strong, a Marine hefts his rifle and eyes that trouble from the other end of a gun barrel. It’s what he’s trained to do”.
The Marines dug into positions in and around Tientsin, using the sea as a natural barrier on their right flank and the Chinese on their left. Freeman had expressed concerns about leaving his left exposed; there was no way that peasant soldiers armed with spears and vintage muskets could ever hope to hold off the might of the Japanese Kwantung Army. The circumstances, however, dictated that he make do with what he had. The first order of business was to disguise the Marines, since their discovery by the Japanese (or by a perceptive Chinese farmer) could expose the whole operation and have disastrous consequences for the United States. Later, more politically correct generations would be mortified by the measures taken by the Marines to disguise their identities; they applied yellow makeup to their faces, penned Chinese facial features on themselves, squinted their eyes whenever possible and donned peasant clothes over their uniforms. Regardless of the thoughts of historians later on with regards to the racial sensibilities of the troops, their ruse worked. Apparently safe from discovery, they set about digging in and preparing for the onslaught. It would not be long; on the morning of August 3rd, the Japanese struck at the Chinese front line 4 miles southeast of Beijing.
Japanese troops enter Beijing
The arrival of the Kwantung Army was signalled by a hour-long artillery bombardment of Chinese positions around the Grand Canal, followed by a quick, co-ordinated advance by infantry and cavalry. The Chinese troops, disoriented and panicked by the barrage and lacking strong leadership, were cut down in their thousands by the brutally efficient Japanese troops. Field Marshall Terauchi had committed the full strength of his army group, seven divisions, in a drive to take China’s ancient capital and deal the morale of the Chinese a crushing blow in the process. General Ma Chen-shan, commander of the Chinese VII Corps, was caught completely off-guard by the Japanese advance and could only watch in horror as his troops, supposedly some of the finest in the Chinese army, were torn to shreds. His order to regroup in the mountains to the west of the city was not disseminated effectively to his officers, and as a result thousands of soldiers died needlessly. Freeman only learned of the collapse of the Beijing front from retreating Chinese cavalry, who pulled back towards Tientsin in panic during the morning offensive. Sensing trouble, Freeman attempted to strengthen his left flank by pulling Chinese troops from their positions in the Hsin-chen area, but his requests were denied by Chiang Kai-Shek, who refused to weaken what he saw as a vital part of the frontline. The Marines stood alone, facing down 8 Japanese divisions.
Field Marshall Higashikuni was an experienced and determined commander
Freeman’s counterpart in this struggle was Field Marshall Prince Hirashikuni Naruhiko, uncle of Emperor Hirohito and a skilled commander, having obtained his rank through personal skill rather than family connections. He commanded a significant part of the Kwantung Army, and was fully expecting the campaign against China to be little more than a walk in the park, especially with the highly trained troops at his disposal. Artillery was the order of the day in Hirashikuni’s army; no less than three artillery brigades were attached to his force, although this was partly to compensate for the lack of close air support he expected to receive throughout the campaign.
Man for man, there was little separating the Japanese and American soldiers. Both were equipped and trained to a similar standard, with the US Marines perhaps having slightly more in the way of esprit de corps. This small advantage, however, was offset by the disadvantage of fighting in unfamiliar terrain, with lacklustre supply lines and communications. The Japanese were amply supplied and led, and outnumbered the Americans by 4 to 1; there was little chance of them repulsing the Japanese advance.
This was not the aim of Operation Dauphin, though. The idea behind it was to undermine Japanese ambitions in Asia through gradual, piecemeal attrition, not through the utter defeat of its armies in the field (seeing as such a task was far beyond the capabilities of the United States at the time). By buying the time needed to build China into an effective bulwark against Japanese aggression, the threat to the United States would be contained and American interests in the Pacific region would be secured. That, at least, was the plan. For the time being, the 20,000 men of the USMC’s I Corps sat in trenches, soaked by the light but persistent rain, contemplating their collective fate. Would they ever return to America, or was it their destiny to die thousands of miles from home, for reasons never explained to them?
A Japanese artillery crew in action
Some would not have to wait long to find out. At 11am, the Japanese began another artillery barrage, this time on the positions of the Marines around Tientsin. They survived the bombardment with few casualties; testament to their skills and to the haphazard nature of the Japanese attack. After the hour-long barrage ceased, the Marines braced themselves for the battle ahead. In the distance, they could see the advancing Japanese columns; officers barking commands and whistles sounding the start of the advance signalled the need for the Marines to prepare for not only their first combat, but the first combat action by American troops in some years. It would not be the last.
