World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseXia Chuzhong was born in Wutang, Taojiang County, Hunan Province, China into a farming family. After completing technical school in Hubei Province, China, he enrolled with the first class of the Whampoa Military Academy in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China in May 1924. After graduation, he joined the Nationalist Chinese military, participating in the Northern Expedition against regional warlords and then serving as an instructor at Whampoa. In Apr 1935, he was promoted to the rank of major general, followed by the rank of lieutenant general in Oct 1936 when he was also placed in command of the 92nd Division. At the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, he commanded troops at Shanghai, Nanchang, Changsha, and other locations. Initially as a division-level commander (starting as the commanding officer of the 70th Division of the 32nd Army of the 3rd War Area at the First Battle of Changsha), he was named the deputy commanding officer of the 10th Army in 1943, commanding officer of the 4th Area Army in 1944, and then the commanding officer of the 20th Army in 1945. After the Chinese Civil War resumed after WW2, he commanded the 21st Army and the 5th Army in the late 1940s, while also serving as the deputy commander of the 2nd Appeasement Area. In 1949, he relocated to Taiwan with the Nationalist government after the defeat in the Chinese Civil War, where he was named the commanding officer of the Eastern Taiwan Defense Command. Xia retired from military service in 1963 after some time as a senior staff member at the Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of China and a member of the National Assembly. He passed away in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China in 1988.

Photographs

Xia Chuzhong Timeline