Surrounded in Shanxi

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• With the aid of significant air support, the Japanese North China Front Army and the First Army have surrounded elements of two Chinese Army Groups in the Chungtiao Mountains of southern Shanxi Province. The Chinese XXVII Corps has attacked from the northeast but is unable to dislodge the Japanese, but the shifting of Japanese reserves allows elements of the Chinese III and XVII Corps to break out to the northwest though the lines of the Japanese First Army. Chinese casualties are more than 100,000 while Japanese are approximately 20,000. North China Front Army commander Hayao Tada is awarded the Order of the Golden Kite, 2nd Class.



{This sequence is from the 1940 Japanese film “The Burning Sky” and depicts Mitsubishi Ki-21 bombers escorted by Nakajima Ki-27 fighters being attacked by Chinese I-15 biplanes, with obsolete Kawasaki Ki-10s standing in for the Polikarpovs.}

- The Nationalists, who had recently surrounded and slaughtered 7,000 men of the Communist New Fourth Army in violation of their agreement to cooperate against Japan, appeal for help from the Eighth Route Army, but the Communists are either unable or unwilling to assist. "