World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseChen Changjie was born into a poor peasant family in Fuzhou, Fujian, China in 1892. His parents thought they were not able to care for him due to their economic status and abandoned him at a local ancestral temple, but his older siblings brought him back to the home and convinced his parents to keep him. He studied under the teacher Tian Chunchien, who thought he had potential to succeed in the future and eventually married his daughter to him. When the Chinese revolution began in 1911, he joined a militant student activist group to aid the revolution. In 1917, he enrolled in the Baoding Military Academy in Hebei Province, graduating with the 7th class in 1919 and was commissioned a cavalry officer. In Oct 1919, at a friend's urging, he joined the warlord forces in Shanxi Province, assigned to the 7th Regiment of the 4th Mixed Brigade. In Jan 1925, he was assigned to the 2nd Regiment of the 1st Brigade. In Aug 1926, he was promoted to the rank of colonel and served as the chief of the staff of the 18th Brigade. In Mar 1927, as the 18th Brigade was reorganized into the 10th Division, he became the new division's chief of staff. In Jul 1927, he joined the Chinese Nationalist Army and was assigned the commanding officer of the 15th Brigade at the rank of brigadier general. Between Mar and Sep 1928, he was the commanding officer of the 9th Division of the newly established 3rd Field Army; between Apr 1930 and Jan 1931, he was given command of the 12th Division of the 3rd Area Army; between Jul 1936 and Aug 1937, he was the commanding officer of the 72nd Division at the rank of lieutenant general. In between the divisional commands between 1928 and 1937, he commanded brigade-sized units.

ww2dbaseAfter WW2 officially began in China, Chen was named the commanding officer of the 1st Reserve Corps in Aug 1937, which was renamed the 61st Corps in Oct; in this role he saw action against the Japanese in the Beijing area and achieved many small tactical victories when other Chinese units were being routed, thus earning him the nickname Ever Victorious General of the Second Sino-Japanese War. In Mar 1939, he became the deputy commander of the 13th Army while still retaining command of the 61st Corps. In May 1939, Chen held his first army-level command as he was given the 6th Army. In Jul 1939, he was made the deputy commander of the 11th Army Group, followed by being given the command of the 6th Army Group. In 1940, he had a fallout with the Nationalist leadership, resulting in his dismissal. In Apr 1941, Chiang Kaishek courted him back into Nationalist service, naming him deputy commanding of the Suiyuan area garrison. In Nov 1941, he was named the commanding officer of a reserve corps. Implicated in an incident during which units under his command committed atrocities against Chinese civilians suspected of harboring Communists, he was relieved of his command. In Oct 1943, he was assigned to the Chongqing Military Academy in Sichuan, China for further studies, and would remain there until Mar 1946.

ww2dbaseIn Mar 1946, Chen was named the commander of military forces in Wuhu, Anhui, China. In 1947, he was named commander of the 8th District. In Dec 1947, at the urging of General Fu Zuoyi, Chiang Kaishek named Chen the commanding officer of police and military forces of the city of Tianjin. On 2 Jan and again on 13 Jan in 1949, while defending the city against Communist advances, he received surrender demands from the Communist forces; he rejected both. At 1000 hours on 14 Jan 1949, Communist forces began the assault on Tianjin, and by 0900 hours on 15 Jan, his headquarters was overrun, leading to his capture. He would remain imprisoned until Dec 1959 and was given a job at the historical archives of the city government of Shanghai. In 1968, he was repeatedly denounced during the Cultural Revolution, which led to Chen and his wife to commit suicide together. He was exonerated by the Communist Party of Shanghai in 1979 and his ashes were relocated to the Longhua Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery in Shanghai.

Photographs

Chen Changjie Timeline