The 88th Division () was a German-trained and reorganized division in the

National Revolutionary Army The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in China ...

First Battle of Shanghai

The division was present at the First Battle of Shanghai in 1932 under the command of General

Yu Jishi Yu Jishi (; 1 May 1904 – 25 January 1990) was a Chinese Nationalist military general from Fenghua, Zhejiang. He served with distinction during the Battle of Shanghai The Battle of Shanghai () was the first of the twenty-two major engagemen ...

as part of the Fifth Army, fighting alongside the

19th Route Army 19th Route Army () was an army in the Republic of China (1912-49), Republic of China led by General Cai Tingkai. It gained a good reputation among Chinese for fighting the Japanese in Shanghai in the January 28 Incident in 1932. In 1933-34 it wa ...

Order of Battle (1932)

*5th Army -

Zhang Zhizhong Zhang Zhizhong or Chang Chih-chung (27 October 1890 – 6 April 1969) was a Chinese military commander and politician, general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China and later a pro-Communist politician in the People's Rep ...

(張治中) **88th Division - General

(余濟時) :**262nd Brigade -

Qin Lungti Qin may refer to: Dynasties and states * Qin (state) (秦), a major state during the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China * Qin dynasty (秦), founded by the Qin state in 221 BC and ended in 206 BC * Daqin (大秦), ancient Chinese name for the Roman Em ...

( 錢倫體) :**264th Brigade -

Yang Bufei Yang may refer to: * Yang, in yin and yang, one half of the two symbolic polarities in Chinese philosophy * Korean yang, former unit of currency of Korea from 1892 to 1902 * YANG, a data modeling language for the NETCONF network configuration p ...

(楊步飛)

The 88th Division as a German-trained division

In 1927 after the dissolution of the

First United Front The First United Front (; alternatively ), also known as the KMT–CCP Alliance, of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was formed in 1924 as an alliance to end warlordism in China. Together they formed the National Revo ...

between the Nationalists and the

Communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...

, the ruling

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

(KMT) purged its leftist members and completely eliminated

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

influence from its ranks.

Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...

turned to Germany, historically a great military power, for assistance in the reorganization of the

. The

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...

sent advisors to China, however due to restrictions imposed by the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

, these advisors could not serve in military capacities. When

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

became

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

in 1933 and disregarded the Treaty, the National Socialist Party and the KMT united by their shared anti-communist ideals began closely cooperating with Germany training Chinese troops and expanding Chinese infrastructure while

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

made its markets and natural resources available to Germany. In 1934 General

Hans von Seeckt Johannes "Hans" Friedrich Leopold von Seeckt (22 April 1866 – 27 December 1936) was a German military officer who served as Chief of Staff to August von Mackensen and was a central figure in planning the victories Mackensen achieved for Germany ...

, acting as advisor to Chiang, proposed a '60 Division Plan' for restructuring the

Chinese Nationalist Army The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in Chin ...

into 60 divisions of highly trained, well-equipped troops along German doctrines. The 88th Division was one of the first divisions to be reorganized and alongside the 36th Division and 87th Division became the cream of the crop of the

The Battle of Shanghai

In 1937, though still not completely trained and fully equipped with German weapons, the 88th Division under the command of

Sun Yuanliang Sun Yuanliang (; March 17, 1904 – May 25, 2007) was a Chinese military general of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China. Sun was the last surviving member of the first graduating class of the Whampoa Military Academy, as well ...

was rushed to the Second Battle of Shanghai alongside the other German-trained divisions. The elite, German-trained division performed admirably, pushing the Japanese marines back to the very shores of Shanghai.''Taipei Times'' "Nationalist general Sun Yuan-liang dies at 103" June 12 2006
/ref> While the

Chinese Air Force The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF; ), also known as the Chinese Air Force (中国空军) or the People's Air Force (人民空军), is an Air force, aerial service branch of the People's Liberation Army, the regular army, regular ...

provided much air-interdiction and

close-air support In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movem ...

early-on in the battle of Shanghai, pressing demands for air force units in the northern front at the

Battle of Taiyuan The Japanese offensive called 太原作戦 or the Battle of Taiyuan was a major battle fought in 1937 between China and Japan named for Taiyuan (the capital of Shanxi province), which lay in the 2nd Military Region. The battle concluded in a vi ...

and southern front at

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

, plus heavy attrition in the Shanghai-Nanjing theater of operations eventually overwhelmed the Chinese Air Force units, the eventual absence of air and naval support, poor coordination between units, and the lack of

defence in depth Defence in depth (also known as deep defence or elastic defence) is a military strategy that seeks to delay rather than prevent the advance of an attacker, buying time and causing additional casualties by yielding space. Rather than defeating ...

, resulted in the division suffering heavy casualties towards the end of the three-month battle. On 25 November 1937, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek ordered the division withdrawn to join the ill-fated

Battle of Nanjing The Battle of Nanking (or Nanjing) was fought in early December 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War between the Chinese National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army for control of Nanking (Nanjing), the capital of the Rep ...

. This led to portions of the 524th Regiment remaining at the

Sihang Warehouse The Defense of Sihang Warehouse () took place from October 26 to November 1, 1937, and marked the beginning of the end of the three-month Battle of Shanghai in the opening phase of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Defenders of the warehouse he ...

for several days, where they successfully covered the retreat of the division while beating back numerous Japanese assaults on the warehouse. After the

Battle of Nanking The Battle of Nanking (or Nanjing) was fought in early December 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War between the Chinese National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army for control of Nanking (Nanjing), the capital of the Repub ...

, the 88th Division never recovered its former strength and was of limited significance later in the war. In 1938 the 88th Division participated in the

Battle of Wuhan The Battle of Wuhan (武漢之戰), popularly known to the Chinese as the Defense of Wuhan, and to the Japanese as the Capture of Wuhan, was a large-scale battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Engagements took place across vast areas of Anhui ...

as part of the 71st Army. In 1942 the 88th Division was again reorganized and redeployed into Burma as part of the

Chinese Expeditionary Force (in Burma) The Chinese Expeditionary Force () was an expeditionary unit of China's National Revolutionary Army that was dispatched to Burma and India in support of the Allied efforts against the Imperial Japanese Army during the Japanese invasion and occup ...

Order of Battle (1937)

*88th Division - Total strength: 14,000 men :*2 infantry brigades ::*1 artillery company ::*1 light artillery company ::*1 signal company ::*1 SpcOps company ::*3 infantry battalions :::*3 infantry companies ::::*3 infantry platoons :::::*3 infantry squads :::*1 heavy weapons company :*directly under divisional command ::*1 artillery battalion :::*3 artillery companies ::*1 anti-tank company ::*1 anti-air company ::*1

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

company ::*1 signal company :::*2 "wired" platoons :::*1 wireless platoon ::*1 heavy transport company ::*1 SpcOps company ::*1

field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile A ...

team :*2 reserve regiments

References