Operation Ichi-Go

Belligerents

Japan

China

United StatesCommanders and leaders

Hirohito
Hideki Tojo
Yoshijirō Umezu
Shunroku Hata
Yasuji Okamura
Isamu Yokoyama
Hisakazu Tanaka

Chiang Kai-shek

He Yingqin

Chen Cheng
Jiang Dingwen
Tang Enbo
Hu Zongnan
Xue Yue
Bai Chongxi
Zhang Fakui
Joseph Stilwell
Albert C. WedemeyerStrength

Japanese record:

In the Henan battlefield: 148,000 troops
33,000 horses
269 artillery pieces
691 tanks
6,100 vehicles
In the Hunan-Guangxi battlefield: 362,000 troops
67,000 horses
1,282 artillery pieces
103 tanks
9,450 vehicles
Total: 510,000 troops
100,000 horses
1,551 artillery pieces
794 tanks
15,550 vehicles
200 bombers

Western Claim: 1,000,000

Chinese Claim:
In the Henan battlefield: 300,000 troops
In the Hunan battlefield: 286,000 troops
In the Guangxi battlefield: at least 100,000 troopsCasualties and losses 100,000 combat and non-combat deaths
heavy materiel lossesWestern Claim:
500,000–600,000 casualties (according to "China's Bitter Victory: War with Japan, 1937-45")
Armies totalling 750,000 'destroyed' or put out of action according to Cox

130,000 killed in action

Chinese Claim: 300,000+ combat casualties

Operation Ichi-Go (Japanese: 一号作戦, romanized: Ichi-gō Sakusen, lit.'Operation Number One') was a campaign with several battles between the Imperial Japanese Army forces and the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China, fought from April to December 1944. It consisted of three battles in the Chinese provinces of Henan, Hunan and Guangxi.

These battles were the Japanese Operation Kogo or Battle of Central Henan, Operation Togo 1 or the Battle of Changheng, and Operation Togo 2 and Togo 3, or the Battle of Guilin–Liuzhou, respectively. The two primary goals of Ichi-Go were to open a land route to French Indochina, and capture air bases in southeast China from which American bombers were attacking the Japanese homeland and shipping.

In Japanese the operation was also called Tairiku Datsū Sakusen (大陸打通作戦), or "Continent Cross-Through Operation", while the Chinese refer to it as the Battle of Henan-Hunan-Guangxi (simplified Chinese: 豫湘桂会战; traditional Chinese: 豫湘桂會戰; pinyin: Yù Xīang Guì Huìzhàn).