Operation Alpha

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Operation Alpha was a late-1944 U.S.-led plan to defend Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, from another Japanese attack. Japan was meanwhile pushing along overland routes to Vietnam in its Ichigo operation. The Allies wanted China to stay in the war to keep pressuring Japan, but hostility between Nationalists and Communists reduced resistance and made unity hard. American advisers urged cooperation, but supplies were not enough.

Alpha aimed to reinforce southeastern Chinese forces with two divisions from Burma and the Chinese 53rd Army in Yunnan, retrained and re-equipped under American direction. Chiang Kai-shek neither accepted nor rejected the plan. U.S. commander General Wedemeyer redirected air supplies to Alpha and merged advisory and training staffs into the Chinese Training and Combat Command under Frank Dorn. Allied efforts in 1944 to break the Japanese blockade and reopen the Burma road culminated in the first convoy reaching Kunming on February 4, 1945.

With the supply situation improving, Wedemeyer pursued building the Alpha Force into about 36 Chinese divisions by September 1945. The Japanese attacked the U.S. air base at Chihchiang on April 8, but, reinforced by new Alpha Force units, Chinese forces halted and then pushed them back by June. The Chihchiang attack was the last Japanese offensive in China; afterward Japan began withdrawing to defend the homeland while the Chinese went on the offensive.