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Battle of Wuhan (Wuhan Campaign) — 1938

A major 1938 campaign in the Second Sino-Japanese War in which Japanese forces sought to capture Wuhan, a strategic river and rail hub; Chinese forces withdrew after prolonged fighting, relocating key institutions inland.

Author: Leandro Alegsa Creation date: November 13, 2022 Last updated: May 24, 2026

simple.wikipedia.org · Public domain

Overview

The Battle of Wuhan, often called the Wuhan Campaign, was a major military effort in 1938 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It involved a sustained Japanese attempt to seize central China’s key transport and industrial center, with fighting concentrated around the wider Wuhan area. The campaign lasted several months and ended with Japanese forces occupying the city areas after Chinese units conducted an organised withdrawal to continue resistance inland.

Geography and strategic importance

Wuhan lies at the confluence of the Yangtze and Han rivers and historically comprises three adjacent towns: Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang. This junction made the area a vital rail and river hub connecting northern and southern China. Control of Wuhan promised the attacker improved lines of supply, the disruption of Chinese logistics, and a psychological blow by threatening China's wartime industrial and administrative capacity.

Forces, tactics and scope

Both sides committed very large formations. Chinese defenders concentrated roughly on the order of a million soldiers and militia together with local fortifications, while Japanese forces committed multiple army and navy units supported by air power. The fighting combined frontal assaults, encirclement attempts, artillery bombardment and aerial attacks. The Japanese campaign was a coordinated offensive involving ground columns, naval control of river approaches and intensive air operations; it is sometimes described in sources simply as a large-scale Japanese offensive.

Course of the campaign

The battle unfolded through protracted engagements over key bridges, railheads and urban districts. Cities and suburbs were heavily shelled and bombed, and both sides fought for control of river crossings. Despite serious losses, Chinese commanders avoided total encirclement by conducting phased withdrawals, evacuating industry and moving government functions and refugees farther inland, allowing Chinese armed forces to escape destruction and continue the war from new bases.

Outcome and significance

The Japanese capture of Wuhan was a tactical success that gained territory and disrupted Chinese logistics, but it did not deliver a decisive strategic victory: Chinese forces remained intact and the central government preserved its capability to resist by relocating. The campaign is notable for its scale, its urban and riverine combat, and its demonstration of modern combined-arms operations in East Asia. It also influenced wartime industry dispersal and civilian evacuation policies.

Notable distinctions

The term "Battle of Wuhan" refers to a wide-ranging campaign rather than a single, short engagement.
It involved strong use of air power and naval assets on inland waterways as well as large ground armies.
The campaign affected subsequent Chinese strategy, including relocation of government and industry to safer interior areas.

For further reading on the wider conflict and detailed operational maps, see related articles on the Second Sino-Japanese War and summaries of operations around Wuhan.

Background

The Second Sino-Japanese War, which began in July 1937, had initially brought the Japanese rapid successes in northeast China as well as against the then capital Nanjing and against Shanghai in the year of the war. The Chinese seat of government was then temporarily relocated to Wuhan in central China's Hubei province.

After the fall of Xuzhou in May 1938, the Japanese military leadership began to draw up concrete plans for a quick end to the war. At a cabinet meeting in July, the decision was made to attack the provisional Chinese capital of Wuhan and overthrow the Kuomintang government there. A simultaneous attack on Guangzhou (Canton) was intended to demonstrate to the Chinese that the Japanese military had the power to attack at any point and that further resistance was futile.

After the end of the Battle of Xuzhou, the Japanese had initially advanced further west along the Longhai Railway to take possession of Zhengzhou, the next important railway junction on the way to Wuhan. Here the Longhai Railway crosses the north-south railway line from Beijing to Wuhan. After reaching Kaifeng, some 70 kilometers from Zhengzhou, and threatening to continue their advance, Chiang Kai-shek, on the advice of Chen Guofu, ordered the destruction of the YellowRiver dams at Huayuankou in early June. The resulting floods affected three Chinese provinces (Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu) and killed up to one million residents. The measure was justified on the grounds that it would avert an imminent threat to Wuhan. In fact, the capture of the city was only delayed for several months. In this way, the Japanese were prevented from advancing south along the Peking-Hankou railway. They chose instead to attack further south, in the Yangtze River valley. Here the action of the land troops could be supported by warships.

Preparations

The Japanese 2nd Army was withdrawn from operations at Zhengzhou and moved to Hefei. It was to advance north of the Yangtze River overland through the Dabie Shan area to reach the Zhengzhou-Hankou Railway north of Wuhan. The Chinese defenders, consisting of the troops of the 9th Military Region (General Chen Cheng) and the troops of the 5th Military Region (General Li Zongren) who had escaped from Xuzhou, numbered an estimated 800,000 men. South of the Yangtze River in southern Anhui Province and in northern Jiangxi Province, troops of the 3rd Military Region also opposed the Japanese.

The Battle of Wuhan was initiated on May 31, 1938, with an air battle over the city. In July and August the bombardment increased and finally led to the destruction of Chiang Kai-shek's headquarters. The German military advisors in China under Alexander von Falkenhausen left the city in early July.

The Japanese 11th Army was regrouped in early July from troops of the Central China Expeditionary Army; it was to advance farther south along the Yangtze River. By mid-July, the Japanese had about ten divisions, most of which were split into two armies (11th and 2nd Armies) for the attack on Wuhan. In total, this amounted to about 350,000 men, who received support from about 500 aircraft:

11th Army, Lieutenant General Yasuji Okamura

6th Division, Lieutenant General Shiro Inaba
101st Division, Lieutenant General Masaki Ito
106th Division, Lieutenant General Matsuura Junrokurō
Hata Detachment, Major General Juichi Hata
Taiwan Infantry Brigade, Major General Senshuu Shigetou
27th Division, Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma (from 15 July)
9th Division, Lieutenant General Ryousuke Yoshizumi (as of August 22)
(Reserve) 116th Division, Lieutenant General Kiju Shimizu.

2nd Army, Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko

3rd Division, Lieutenant General Susumu Fujita
10th Division, Lieutenant General Yoshio Shinozuka
13th Division, Lieutenant General Rippei Ogisu...
16th Division, Lieutenant General Kesago Nakajima, from 15 July Keisuke Fujie
22nd Division, Lieutenant General Ichiji Dobashi (from 15 July)

National Chinese Army

9th Military District - Chen Cheng

3rd Army Group - Xue Yue

20th Army Group - Shang Zhen
9th Army Group - Wu Qiwei
29th Army Group - Li Hanhun

2nd Army Group - Zhang Fakui

30th Army Group - Wang Lingji
3rd Army Group - Sun Tongxuan
31st Army Group - Tang Enbo
32nd Army Group - Guan Linzheng
Wuhan Garrison - Lo Cho-ying

5th Military District - Li Zongren

3rd Army Group - Sun Lianzhong

29th Army Group - Wang Tsan-hau
26th Army Group - Xu Yuanquan
21st Army Group - Liao Lei

4th Army Group - Li Pinxian

11th Army Group - Li Pinxian (simultaneously)
24th Army Group - Han Deqin
27th Army Group - Yang Sen

Japanese advance along the Yangtze River on Wuhan, June 1938.

Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Cheng at the inspection of troops

History

Operations of the 2nd Army

The Japanese 2nd Army opened its offensive in August with an attack on Lu'an. In mid-September it reached Shangcheng and Huangchuan in southern Henan Province, and on October 10 it reached the railway line to Wuhan at Xinyang. From there it turned south toward Yingshan on the Hubei-Anhui border, which it reached in late October. By this time, Wuhan had already fallen to the troops operating in the Yangtze River valley.

Operations of the 11th Army

The 11th Army had begun their offensive on June 12 with attacks on Anqing. The city fell into their hands after only one day, and they gained access to an airfield here. In the last week of June, the heavily fortified Chinese position at Madang, which the Japanese had bombarded from the river with their warships and covered with poison gas, fell. Then, in late July, the important railway junction and river port of Jiujiang farther upriver, defended by 80,000 men under Generals Xue Yue and Zhang Fakui, fell to the Japanese after five days of fighting. There was a nervous tension among the Chinese defenders of Wuhan in the face of the unstoppable Japanese advance. Among the population, there was fear of a repetition of events like those that followed the capture of Nanjing, as repeated on a smaller scale in Jiujiang. A particularly hot summer and the humid river climate led to numerous casualties on both sides from diseases such as malaria and dysentery.

In late August, the 11th Army attacked along the shore of Lake Poyang and toward Yichang, capturing Ruichang. The Chinese soldiers stubbornly defended their positions despite the incessant Japanese bombardment and counterattacked as they did at Huangmei. The Japanese 106th Division was badly battered in the Battle of Wanjialing, which lasted until after the fall of Wuhan. It took the Japanese a full three weeks to gain 15 kilometers of space in September. The 106th Division was trapped in the Lushan Cauldron, and two more divisions, the 27th and 9th, had to be brought up to relieve those still able to fight, numbering about 1000. The fortress of Tianjiazhen held out for two weeks before it was captured by the Japanese, again by the use of poison gas. Although the Japanese army was victorious in terms of the entire operation, it suffered a Pyrrhic victory, suffering almost 30% casualties (over 100,000 men). In October, the two Japanese divisions operating furthest south succeeded in cutting the railway from Wuhan to Guangzhou (Canton). This sealed the city's fate. The Japanese 9th Division was able to break through the defenses of the Chinese 53rd and 32nd Corps and advanced into the Heshengqiao area south of Wuchang on October 24. The city of Wuhan, threatened from three sides, surrendered on October 25, four days after Guangzhou in southern China.