Battle of Changde
1943 battle
The Battle of Changde (Battle of Changteh; traditional Chinese: 常德會戰; simplified Chinese: 常德会战; pinyin: Chángdé Huìzhàn) was a major engagement in the Second Sino-Japanese War in and around the Chinese city of Changde (Changteh) in the province of Hunan.
The purpose of the Japanese offensive was to maintain pressure on the Chinese National Revolutionary Army to reduce its combat ability in the region and its ability to reinforce the Burma Campaign.
The Japanese were initially successful in their offensive operation by bacteria-infected bombs and captured parts of the city of Changde, which forced civilians to evacuate. The Japanese were pinned down in the city by a Chinese division long enough for other Chinese units to surround them with a counterencirclement. Heavy casualties and the loss of their supply lines then forced the Japanese to withdraw, which returned territorial control to the original status quo.
Some contemporary Western newspapers depicted the battle as a Chinese victory. American government film footage showed victorious Chinese troops with Japanese prisoners and captured Japanese flags and equipment on display after the battle. In addition, an American newsreel titled Chinese troops drive Japs from Changteh showed Chinese troops firing, with dead and captured Japanese on display. A British newsreel titled Japs Loose Changteh Aka Japs Lose Changte showed similar footage.
Japanese offensive
On 2 November 1943 Isamu Yokoyama, commander of the Imperial Japanese 11th Army, deployed the 39th, 58th, 13th, 3rd, 116th and 68th divisions—a total of around 60,000 troops—to attack Changde from the north and the east.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Battle of Changde” is 1943 battle. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Battle, Changde and battle, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “1943 battle” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q712505. Authority coordinates are 29.033, 111.683. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Changde” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.