Post by shiftysgarand on Oct 25, 2021 15:30:19 GMT -5
I just finished reading "Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze" by Peter Harmsen. The Battle of Shanghai took place from August to November 1937, so it may or may not fall outside what you consider "WWII", but it was a pivotal battle that showed the world a sneak peek of the brutality and destruction clashes between armies in urban environments would cause a few years later. It also was unique in that took place in arguably the most international cosmopolitan area in the world at the time with the International Settlement remaining untouched throughout the battle, allowing foreign residents to witness the fighting mere yards away in relative safety, something almost unfathomable today. I guess the closest analogy today would be if the US military duked it out with an enemy in downtown New York City while leaving Chinatown untouched for the international press to report on the events unfolding in some cases literally next door. Yet for some reason the Battle of Shanghai is approaching "forgotten" territory, and it is not something the average American knows anything meaningful about. That is a shame, both for the details of the battle itself and how it shaped events later on.
Harmsen has done an incredible job with this book. It is divided into major sections, detailing the murky and confused events leading up (neither side wanted to fight in Shanghai, but the Chinese sought to provoke the Japanese into moving their forces southward to relieve pressure on the front in Northern China), the initial urban combat, the later rural fighting, and the eventual envelopment and rout of the Chinese Army. Sources are excellent, with information taken from first-hand accounts from both the Chinese and Japanese sides, as well as foreign observers, in addition to respected studies done after the fact by both Chinese and Japanese historians. Perspectives from privates up to Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese area commander Matsui Iwane are included, which provides a good understanding of how the battle unfolded in both the strategic and tactical sense and gives glimpses into the mindsets of Chinese and Japanese soldiers, which are almost never talked about accurately in the West. Harmsen packs an incredible amount of detail into 250 pages, and I think almost anyone picking the book up would learn a lot. This was a new kind of warfare, with aspects like wrestling for air supremacy (which the Japanese won early on), combined arms coordination, and amphibious landings proving of critical importance, exactly how they would in the following world war. The book of course discusses the many war crimes the Japanese military would become known for, but Harmsen also does not stray away from detailing the numerous atrocities committed by Chinese forces during the battle, with many of similar inhuman cruelty to the Japanese ones and many committed against their own populace. This was a true deathmatch with no holds barred, and it bore striking similarity to later Eastern Front of WWII; perhaps the German advisors and Soviet observers there should have taken better notes, as both the Wehrmacht and Red Army would have to learn on their own the hard lessons first learned in Shanghai.
Finally, the book features a great section of photos, most of which I had never seen before. Many were from the author's collection, and many more were interestingly from the University of Wisconsin archives (why UW has such a great collection of photos from this period I do not know.) Harmsen shows here he is not just an academic "big-picture" historian, pointing out interesting and unusual equipment present in the pictures, which will prove very valuable to anybody wanting to do an impression of either side around this period. I have never seen this level of commentary in a non-equipment reference book, and it was most welcome.
"Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze" is a gem, and I would recommend it without hesitation to anyone. Even if WWII in East Asia doesn't interest you, I still think this is worth you checking out to improve your general understanding and to help draw parallels to later events in Europe and elsewhere. It is available for $25 on Amazon here .
Harmsen has done an incredible job with this book. It is divided into major sections, detailing the murky and confused events leading up (neither side wanted to fight in Shanghai, but the Chinese sought to provoke the Japanese into moving their forces southward to relieve pressure on the front in Northern China), the initial urban combat, the later rural fighting, and the eventual envelopment and rout of the Chinese Army. Sources are excellent, with information taken from first-hand accounts from both the Chinese and Japanese sides, as well as foreign observers, in addition to respected studies done after the fact by both Chinese and Japanese historians. Perspectives from privates up to Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese area commander Matsui Iwane are included, which provides a good understanding of how the battle unfolded in both the strategic and tactical sense and gives glimpses into the mindsets of Chinese and Japanese soldiers, which are almost never talked about accurately in the West. Harmsen packs an incredible amount of detail into 250 pages, and I think almost anyone picking the book up would learn a lot. This was a new kind of warfare, with aspects like wrestling for air supremacy (which the Japanese won early on), combined arms coordination, and amphibious landings proving of critical importance, exactly how they would in the following world war. The book of course discusses the many war crimes the Japanese military would become known for, but Harmsen also does not stray away from detailing the numerous atrocities committed by Chinese forces during the battle, with many of similar inhuman cruelty to the Japanese ones and many committed against their own populace. This was a true deathmatch with no holds barred, and it bore striking similarity to later Eastern Front of WWII; perhaps the German advisors and Soviet observers there should have taken better notes, as both the Wehrmacht and Red Army would have to learn on their own the hard lessons first learned in Shanghai.
Finally, the book features a great section of photos, most of which I had never seen before. Many were from the author's collection, and many more were interestingly from the University of Wisconsin archives (why UW has such a great collection of photos from this period I do not know.) Harmsen shows here he is not just an academic "big-picture" historian, pointing out interesting and unusual equipment present in the pictures, which will prove very valuable to anybody wanting to do an impression of either side around this period. I have never seen this level of commentary in a non-equipment reference book, and it was most welcome.
"Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze" is a gem, and I would recommend it without hesitation to anyone. Even if WWII in East Asia doesn't interest you, I still think this is worth you checking out to improve your general understanding and to help draw parallels to later events in Europe and elsewhere. It is available for $25 on Amazon here .