The Battle of the Salween Gorge, China, May 1942: The Fourth Operational Turning Point in the Second World War and Its Relevance to Effects-Based Operations

For the Allies in the Second World War, three events find general acceptance as operational-level "turning points," all occurring in 1942. They are the Battle of Midway in the Pacific (4 Jun); the British breakout from El Alamein, Egypt (Oct-Nov); and the Soviet counteroffensive at Stalingrad (Nov-Dec). Study of these clearly indicates their importance; however, history has often overlooked a fourth event fully as much an operational turning point as the others, with consequences equally as weighty. This is the American Volunteer Group's (AVG) action against the Japanese 56th Division at the Salween River gorge in western China (5-7 May). There, a handful of Claire Chennault's "Flying Tigers," piloting P-40Es equipped with bombs, executed a series of heavily damaging strikes on an enemy armored column along the Burma Road's 35-mile descent to the Salween, permanently ending the Japanese advance from Burma into China. Although seemingly a mere tactical victory, the significance was enormous: no effective Chinese resistance remained between the Salween and the wartime capital of Chungking. That city's capture, added to defeats that already saw China hard-pressed to the point of exhaustion, would likely have led to her collapse and surrender. Japan would thus have eliminated one of the Allied Powers, changing the face of the war in at least three theaters.