Hello everyone and thank you once again for listening to the saga of World War

2 a Cassus belly project. To start we have a correction from Scott who informed me that the

USS Phoenix had six inch guns not eight inch guns. It was in fact a Brooklyn class light cruiser

and thus had 15 six inch guns. I'm not sure why I thought the Phoenix was a heavy, but thanks for the correction

nonetheless.

So in this episode, we're talking about China.

We're in nearly 50 episodes in, and I think I've spent a total of maybe 10 minutes talking

about one of the largest theaters in the war in terms of both land area and people involved.

The only real mention China's gotten was back in episode 15 and 16 when I

talked about Japan's rise in early war. The war in China was absolutely massive. It lasted

eight years and 14 million Chinese died during the conflict with Japan. Not only that,

the Chinese played a material role not only in defeating Japan, but ensuring the survival of the

Soviet Union

to defeat Nazi Germany. For many in the West, the role China played in the war is often

downplayed, or treated like an afterthought, when in reality, they were regarded as a major ally

in the war, and Chiang Kai Shek was treated as something like an equal between Roosevelt, Churchill,

and Stalin.

For some reason, in the post-war reckoning of the war, China's story faded, likely due to Cold War politics and the eventual triumph of Mao Zedong and the communists, who themselves

wanted to downplay the nationalist achievements. At the time, however, China was given

greater credit for its part, I think.

Going back to the late 1930s, China's fight against Japan was considered a part of the global

struggle against authoritarianism, spiritually linked to the Spain of Civil War and the fight

...