An Oral History The Great Asia Pacific War Vol. I: Chinese Quagmire (Harper Publishing & Co. 1965).
What I remember most about the opening day of Operation Sian was the planes. Once Chaing Kai Sheck had been overthrown in January 1944 and replaced by General Sho-Nien we were promised all levels of support. Frankly, we had heard that all before and always run into a buzz saw of Japanese aircraft. At 5 a.m. the morning of our initial attack a large droning filled the sky and we were crestfallen. The Japanese airforce was back and they knew about our offensive. How many of our men would die due to the broken promises of the new regime. Bitter tears welled up in my eyes.
And then I heard the shouts "the stars, look at the stars!" And I saw them! American bombers with beautiful stars on their fuselage, wave after wave came in. Some low and some high up (I later learned that the big ones were B-24s). Bombs crashing down as our men whooped with joy. And then we saw Chinese planes as the pilots circled, bombed and strafe without mercy.
We were up out of our trenches and on the Japanese in a tidal wave. We crashed through their lines and sent them streaming south. I personally killed three of the bastards with my pistol and shouted to keep going and not let up. As we followed towards Sian we saw more and more Japanese corpses blasted apart and guns twisted into weird shapes by the allied airforce along the road. Finally we tasted sweet vengeance for all that we had endured. Would it be enough to get us to Sian with the Japanese airforce recovering (I learned that the same day allied airpower also struck the airfield at Sian to deny it to the enemy) we did not know. But, on that glorious day we did not care.
Major Biao (commander 3rd New Chinese Corps letter to author)
