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Originally Posted by Triple C
With all due respect, That was a bad slip. However, my issue is what you have said following that paragraph which completely misses my point.
The unit I spoke of were the Chinese 36th, 87th and 88th Divisions which were trained by the Wehrmacht circa 1934, following a pact between Jiang's Nationalist Party and the NSDAP. Those were the elites of the Nationalist Army under Jiang's direct leadership and were largely sacreficed in the early battles with Japan.
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I do not dispute the fact that German advisers trained about eight Chinese divisions in the early 1930's, and that these units later performed well in the defensive against Japanese forces.
What I object to is the implication that these German-trained units were the only "good" troops ever fielded by the Chinese during WW II. That is completely wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple C
When I speak of the Nationalist Army, I am using two terms very loosely: 1. Nationalists as broadly defined as those who are not communists and allied to the nationalist government, or narrowly, those who were Huangpu Military Academy cadets, i.e. the Nationalist Praetorian Guard.
Gen. Sun and his American friends sat badly with Jiang precisely because he was not regarded as "Jiang's own men". He was put under housearrest after the war and the Secret Police recieved orders to execute him on notice if any treachery was suspected.
The same case with General Lao; again, he was not graduated from the Huangpu Academy and therefore did not belong to Jiang's inner circle.
Without doubt those men fought well. But my comments were directed at Jiang's troops and those generals whom he trusted.
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By any reasonable definition of the term "Nationalist Chinese Army", the 22nd. and 38th. Chinese Divisions were part of that formation, regardless of how Chiang viewed the loyalty of the division commanders. And there is no disputing that these divisions fought well against the Japanese.
My point is that the supposed inferiority of Chinese troops had more to do with training, leadership, and most particularly, the political agenda of the high command, than any cultural or racial attributes of the private Chinese soldier. Furthermore, the German Army was not the only military capable of training effective Chinese Army units in the WW II period.