China Marines

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The United States Marine Corps had served with distinction in many parts of the world, but those serving in China in the 1930s faced a unique set of challenges. From 1937 to 1941, as relations between the United States and Japan steadily deteriorated, the ‘China Marines’ became the subject of heated debate between the State Department, the diplomatic corps and the military. The disagreements were in part a reflection of the deep divisions that plagued the U.S. government and the nation at large.

In the final years prior to Pearl Harbor, Marines were stationed in several parts of north and central China protecting U.S. interests as they had done since the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Perhaps the most famous of these isolated detachments of leathernecks, at least in terms of popular imagination and historical association, was the Embassy Guard Detachment at Peking.

In addition to that assignment, after the departure of the Army’s 15th Infantry Regiment in early 1938, Marines could be found in Tientsin, about 83 miles or so from the capital and the traditional gateway to Peking. An additional 20 were stationed at Chinwangtao, a major port 140 miles northwest of Tientsin where much of the China Marines’ support arrived from the States.

The largest detachment was the 4th Marine Regiment, which had been stationed in Shanghai since 1927. Its assignment was to safeguard American lives, property and commerce, not only in the great city, but in the Yangtze River valley as well.

First called to the area when China was overrun by warlords, by the 1930s the Marines were still performing the same mission as Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang — fighting warlords and Communist forces under Mao Tse-tung in a country that seemed forever beset by chaos. A fervent anti-Communist, Generalissimo Chiang seemed so obsessed at times with destroying Mao that he ignored an even more ominous threat.

In 1931 ultranationalist officers within the Japanese army hoped to expand the borders of their country’s empire at the expense of China, which they saw as weak and unable to defend itself. They staged an explosion along the Japanese-funded South Manchurian Railway near Mukden and used the incident as a pretext to seize Manchuria from China. Still obsessed with his anti-Communist campaign, Chiang did little to prevent the takeover. Other than delivering a few verbal protests, Western governments were silent, and many people believed that it would not be long before the Japanese continued their expansion.

While it did not noticeably raise the ire of Chiang or the interest of Western leaders, the Japanese seizure of Manchuria outraged ordinary Chinese citizens. An active anti-Japanese resistance movement soon sprang up. The center of that resistance was located in Shanghai. Fighting broke out in 1932 between Japanese troops guarding their settlement in Shanghai and Chinese troops at Chapei, a district of the city just north of the International Settlement.

The International Settlement was a foreign enclave that was home to thousands of diplomats, businessmen and their families. Although technically Chinese soil, it was governed by the multinational Municipal Council. The Shanghai Volunteer Corps had been created to protect the settlement, but real security was provided by the troops sent out by their respective home governments. For the Americans, that meant the 4th Marine Regiment.

When the fighting between the Japanese and Chinese nationalists intensified, the Marines helped maintain a defensive perimeter around the foreign delegations and kept the warring parties from entering until the fighting subsided somewhat.

By 1937, however, the relative calm of the previous five years began to fade. In July the Japanese military accused the Chinese of kidnapping one of their privates in Peking. The charge was patently false, and the missing man was found in a brothel, but the Japanese used the incident to launch a full-scale war against China.

Thousands of Japanese troops poured into northern China, quickly occupying Peking and Tientsin and crushing all opposition. Finally motivated to act, Chiang Kai-shek ordered two of his best divisions to Shanghai to try to stop the Japanese. The Chinese leader knew that the city’s foreign community would guarantee a large international audience once battle was joined.

With heavy fighting in Shanghai’s Chapei district, the commander of the 4th Marines, Colonel Charles F.B. Price, met with American Consul General Clarence Gauss and Maj. Gen. A.P.D. Telfer-Smollett, commander of the British Shanghai Area Force, to discuss the best course of action. Price could consult with officials within the perimeter, but the colonel ultimately took his orders from Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, the commander of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet. The admiral told Price in no uncertain terms that armed troops from either side would not be allowed into the American sector of the International Settlement and that if any foreign troops tried to breach the perimeter, the Marines were authorized to use force if need be.

The Chinese fought courageously, but they were finally forced to withdraw from Shanghai in mid-November 1937. The International Settlement and neighboring French Concession became small isolated enclaves of Western governance. Despite Japanese control of the city, the Anglo-American portions of the settlement were inviolate — at least for the moment. Protected by its neutrality, the Chinese government was free to operate within the confines of the settlement — a fact that made the Japanese grind their teeth in frustration. Chinese customs, post, radio and telegraph offices and Chinese banks all conducted business safe from Japanese interference. Patriotic Chinese newspapers within the settlement were free to report the war and publicize the plight of ordinary Chinese by exposing Japanese atrocities, which occurred with frightening regularity. Such reports only served to secure increased public support in the West for Chiang and his forces.

Anxious to continue their war of conquest without raising the ire of the international community, the Japanese wanted to seize control of the nettlesome Anglo-American settlement. They knew that any overt aggression might lead to war, so they instead relied on a series of confrontational moves that increased tensions and made life for the foreigners increasingly uncomfortable. On December 12, 1937, Japanese planes attacked and sank the gunboat USS Panay, killing two sailors and wounding many others. Americans were outraged, but strong isolationist sentiments coupled with a quick Japanese apology and generous reparation payments averted armed conflict.

Another crisis had passed, but the basic problem remained: How should the United States respond to Japan’s brutal conquest of China? In 1935 Congress had passed a series of neutrality acts that rigidly controlled American trade with belligerents in foreign wars. Many isolationist politicians in Congress believed that only strict neutrality would keep the United States from finding itself in another war.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was sympathetic to China, and he got around the neutrality laws by simply ignoring them. He refused to acknowledge that a state of war existed between China and the Japanese empire. It was a legal fiction helped by the fact that no formal declaration of war had ever been made by either side. Roosevelt was therefore free to send arms to China — some $9 million worth in 1938 alone. This was a boon not only to Chiang, but to the American economy as well.

Even within his own administration there were diverse opinions of the president’s actions. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau believed that U.S. interests in China must be protected by a military and economic buildup. He thought that, like the proverbial schoolyard bully, Japan would back down when faced with firmness and resolve. Others were not so sure. Secretary of State Cordell Hull and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew believed a hard line would only weaken the position of Japanese moderates and would ultimately lead to war.

While the debate continued, the Marines in Shanghai were forced to carry on in an increasingly difficult situation. Since they could not openly seize the International Settlement, the Japanese military kept up the pressure on the remaining foreign delegations through intimidation and veiled threats. In December 1937, they announced that they were going to stage a victory parade though the International Settlement. The Municipal Council protested but, with no real support available from the Chinese government, had no choice but to permit the intrusion.

Chinese citizens within the settlement were told to stay off the street, and the municipal police were placed on full alert. As the Japanese parade tramped into the international area, a Chinese man tossed a hand grenade that killed three soldiers and wounded three policemen. A Chinese constable shot and killed the attacker, but the Japanese used the killings as an excuse to search for more ‘assassins’ within the International Settlement. After creating a good deal of unease with these searches, Japanese authorities announced that they wanted to take control of the settlement to restore order. At this Colonel Price protested and warned the Japanese off in no uncertain terms.

As before, the immediate crisis passed but tension in the city increased as everyone prepared for the next emergency. By 1940, with Europe again at war, the situation for the Marines in Shanghai had become even more precarious. The garrison was about 1,000 men. In the past, this force could have been supplemented with reinforcements from the other delegations in an emergency, but the international situation now meant this was no longer the case. There were 750 Italian troops, but their Fascist government’s warm relations with Imperial Japan made any cooperation with American interests unlikely. The French had about 4,000 troops; that force, however, was unreliable following the defeat of France and the establishment of a pro-German Vichy government. That left the British, but after a string of defeats in Europe, all but a small portion of that force was withdrawn from Shanghai on August 26, 1940. If tempers flared, a mere 1,000 Marines now found themselves defending the settlement from the nearly half million Japanese troops operating in the region.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II

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