Kiangsi-Fukien Operation
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the Kiangsi-Fukien Operation was other Japanese Army annex plan at Siang-Kwei Operation,but with interest in destroyed or captured all American Airfields in Kiangsi and Fukien Provinces;for Army land operations or IJAAF air strikes also.
At the same time as the previous operations, Japanese Army units marched upon the American air-field complex in Kiangsi and Fukien provinces, from which Japanese shipping in the China Sea had been bombed. Suichuan air base was taken on the night of January 28, which marked the beginning of the capture of all the American airstrips insuccession. Elements of the Thirteenth Army captured Wenchow on September 9 and Foochow on October 4, lest American submarines use the Chinese shores.
On June 16, 1944, American air units based in China bombed northern Kyushu for the first time. About three weeks afterward (on July 8), the American Air Force raided Sasebo. Still later, on July 29 (another three weeks after the attack upon Sasebo), American bombers struck the Anshan Iron Works in South Manchuria.
The air field which the China-based American B-29's were using was located at Chengtu, in Szechwan Province. After July 29, the U. S. Air Force gradually shortened the intervals between air raids and increased the size of the attacking waves to about 100 planes. Strategic points in Kyushu, Korea, and Manchuria were often attacked now.
The appearance of B-29's over the China battlefront reduced the results achieved from the Siang-Kwei Operation. Although the Army had seized the Kweilin and Liuchow regions, they could not accomplish their operational objective: the elimination of bombings of Japan Proper by China-based American aircraft. It was quite impossible for the Army, by ground operations, to subdue the bases of the B-29 long-range heavy bombers, which had a range of approximately 4,000 miles. Aircraft should fight aircraft.
In order to break up the B-29 bombing offensive against Japan, the Fifth Air Army stationed in China under the command of Lieutenant General Takuma Shimoyama launched a sudden strike against Chengtu air field on the night of October 7. The few Japanese planes involved inflicted losses upon a large number of B-29's. Sudden raids of this type were often repeated afterward, and some degree of success was attained each time; but the activity of the B-29's could not be completely blocked.
Thus the source of headaches for the Japanese forces on the China front continued to be the China-based American Air Force. Later, when the Americans set up bases in the Marianas, the B-29's moved there from their China air fields, in June 1945.
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