Craig Watson
speaker
4,699 appearances
13 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 17 Aug
Craig Watson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 13 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 5.
Appearances
One element of the 3rd Division had even moved south by truck to Zhuzhou, 50 km away, and occupied the abandoned city.
Yet these outward signs of success concealed a serious weakness.
The Japanese rear was fraying.
Ammunition and food was running low.
Divisions operating that deep into hostile territory could not sustain a prolonged campaign under such conditions.
More than ten days of uninterrupted movement and fighting had also produced rising non-combat casualties.
Men were collapsing from fatigue along the march.
Sickness increased steadily.
Units that had looked formidable on the offensive were beginning to wear thin from inside.
At the same time, Chinese remnants from earlier defeats, new reinforcements and formations that had regrouped after being thrown back were all watching for signs of weakness.
Even if the Japanese divisions in Hunan still had the strength to fight several more actions, another question overrode everything else, and that being Yichang.
Yichang was not simply another point on the map.
It was a strategic stronghold on Yangtze and one of the key places from which Japan threatened Chongqing.
The city also carried institutional memory.
After its capture in June of 1940, the occupying troops had initially been ordered to withdraw for rest and reorganization, but Imperial General Headquarters had reversed that decision almost at once and demanded that Yichang be held after all.
Troops already on the road had to turn back and retake a city that had been burned, stripped, and rendered difficult to occupy.
Amongst those who had insisted most strongly that Yichang must be retained was Anami Kurachika, the vice minister of the army at the time.
Now, Anami faced the consequence of that earlier instance.
However attractive the gains in Hunan might appear, Yichang could not simply be sacrificed.
Uchiyama's 13th Division was not strong enough to hold indefinitely without any relief.
Showing 781–800 of 4,699 · page 40 of 235
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