OSPREY CAMPAIGN 309 ISBN: 978 1 4728 1749 5
A glance at the map shows how much Japan had gobbled up China in the decades before the Second Sino-Japanese War. By 1937 belligerent Japanese generals wanted more. Navy Special Landing Force marines garrisoned in Shanghai were ready to fire the first shots. Chiang Kaishek’s “Germanized” Nationalist Army, deficient in artillery and tanks – handfuls of Vickers 6-tonners, Vickers-Carden-Loyd amphibians. Panzer Is, CV l3/35 tankettes – could not match the Japanese. He planned a delaying battle at Shanghai, then withdrawing to inland defence lines hoping the Western Powers would come to his aid.