Operation Ichi-Go: Japan's Massive 1944 Offensive Across China

In mid-1944, despite their rapidly deteriorating position, the Japanese launched a massive offensive in China. They had three objectives:

Open a land and rail route across China to their southern conquests in Indochina and the Dutch East Indies (and bypass the US submarine blockade along the Chinese seacoast), and;

Eliminate all the US bomber bases in China from which B-29s were targeting the home islands, and;

At a minimum, severely degrade Nationalist Chinese capabilities and best case, maybe even knock the Nationalists out of the war.

Operation Ichi-Go (“Number One”) was the largest ground offensive in Japanese history, with 500,000 troops, 800 tanks and massive logistics and artillery support. They used their tanks in armored divisions – the only time in the war they deployed such concentrations.

Ironically, Japanese armies reached the goals that they set, but US airpower prevented them from using their land route to any great extent, and US victories in the Pacific gave the US plenty of other airbases to attack the Japanese mainland.