Battle of Wuhan 1938
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 27 October 1938 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1938 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | Interwar (1919–1938) | derived from year |
| Location | China | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Second Sino-Japanese War | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 30.5667, 114.2670 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Wuhan (traditional Chinese: 武漢會戰; simplified Chinese: 武汉会战; Japanese: 武漢作戦 (ぶかんさくせん)), popularly known to the Chinese as the Defense of Wuhan (traditional Chinese: 武漢保衛戰; simplified Chinese: 武汉保卫战), and to the Japanese as the Capture of Wuhan, was the largest, longest, and bloodiest battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Engagements took place across vast areas of Anhui, Henan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and Hubei provinces over four and a half months. More than one million National Revolutionary Army troops from the Fifth and Ninth War Zones were put under the direct command of Chiang Kai-shek, defending Wuhan from the Central China Area Army of the Imperial Japanese Army led by Shunroku Hata. Chinese forces were supported by the Soviet Volunteer Group, volunteer pilots from the Soviet Air Forces.
The battle ended with the capture of Wuhan by Japanese forces. China took up to one million casualties, military and civilian. Japan, which suffered its heaviest losses of the war, diverted its attention north, prolonging the war until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The end of the battle began a strategic stalemate in the war, shifting from pitched to local battles.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Wuhan (revision 1379240529), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Other battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War
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- Battle of Shanghai 1937
- Battle of Taiyuan 1937
- Battle of Xinkou 1937
- Marco Polo Bridge incident 1937
- Battle of Taierzhuang 1938
- Battle of Xuzhou 1938
- Battle of Changsha (1939) 1939
- Battle of Nanchang 1939
- Battle of South Guangxi 1939
All 27 battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War →
Browse more: battles in China · Asia · Interwar battles