The result of these innovations was a rapid reduction of the Jap stronghold. Assisted by 14^TH Air Force fighters carrying bombs, the Chinese took the hill, captured a considerable quantity of material, killed or wounded an estimated 600 Japs and, in addition, repulsed a 300-400 man Jap counterattack in the early hours of the 27^TH .

By the latter part of July, the Chinese had moved to within a half-mile of Tengchung on all sides, capturing a number of small villages and fortified positions in the process. Two days later they wee at the walls of the city.

This operation received considerable assistance from the 14^TH Air Force, which several times bombed and strafed the Jap garrison using bombers as well as the fighters which rendered the chief support in the Kaolikung.

Other Chinese forces moved south toward Lungling, capturing large stores of Jap ammunition at Shangmenglin, ten miles southeast of Tengchung and then continuing south to effect a juncture with the XI Army Group.

Guerrilla forces, operating to great advantage during the first two months of the campaign, occupied Chang Hsi, 26 miles west of Tengchung and only 25 miles from Sadon, held by advance elements of General Stilwell’s armies in North Burma.

Guerrilla operations were very successful in destroying Jap communications and supply lines and in general harassing the enemy.

During the fourth month of operations the assault on Tengchung continued with increasing fury. The U.S. 10^TH Army Air force joined the 14^TTH in air assault, breaching the 35-foot-high walls by skip-bombing and strafing the Japs within the city.

Through the breaches pored the Chinese, to join in bitter house-to-house, hand-to-hand fighting. The hundreds of pillboxes on the walls and in the compounds within the city were eliminated one by one, in some cases by pouring gasoline through tiny embrasures and then firing it with flamethrowers.

After a 51 day siege, Tengchung fell on September 14. Of an estimated 2,600 Japs, including 50 officers, only a few escaped to be tracked down and subsequently eliminated, and only 50 were captured. A number of Japanese soldiers committed suicide.

In addition to the soldiers, 13 women were taken. Fifteen pieces of artillery, including heavy mortar and anti-tank guns, were captured, as well as over 50 machine guns, more than 800 rifles, 14 trucks and seven radios.

During the period from the crossing of the Salween on May 11 to September 10 just before the fall of Tengchung, the XX Army Group had lost an estimated 8,000 men killed.

In the south, the other Army had been brought from the French Indo-China front to relieve the units of the XI Army Group attacking Sungshan. On August 20, Chinese engineers under direction of Y-Force officers had tunneled under the main Jap position in two places, planted 6,000 pounds of TNT, and blown the peak and its defenders into oblivion.

This was the opening blow in the final assault, which ended with the exterminating of the Jap garrison on September 7. Of the estimated 23,000 Japs on Sungshan nine were captured, ten escaped. The Chinese suffered 7,675 casualties on Sungshan and the adjacent peaks, owing to the exceedingly difficult nature of the terrain and the extremely strong defenses of the enemy.

A considerable amount of material was captured, including a large store of blankets discovered later in a covered pit. Several women were captured here as in Tengchung.

The reduction of Sungshan opened the Burma Road to Lungling, allowing direct supply by road of the Chinese forces in that area. During the siege of Sungshan supplies for Lungling were trucked to Sungshan, packed around the base of the mountain and then trucked on captured Jap trucks further forward.

By August 10 the troops at Lungling had contacted the XX Army Group forces moving 

The battle for the hill positions around both Lungling and Manshih seesawed, with the Chinese gradually pressing forward.On August 22 the old town of Lungling, just north of the city proper, had been taken by the Chinese.Strong Jap reinforcing columns began moving against the Chinese on August 26 from the Mangshih area and despite bitter opposition forced the Chinese back for the second time. At the end of the forth month of operations, the Japs had regained many of the mountain positions at terrific cost to themselves, and controlled a small sector of the Lungling terminus of the Lungling-Tengchung road.

There were literally scores of attacks and counterattacks and the entire Lungling Mangshi area was in a state of flux with the Japs suffering heavy losses because they were forced to attack the hill positions, strongly fortified which they had previously lost to the Chinese.

Fighting for the first few days of the fifth month, from September 11 to September 15 was exceedingly heavy around Hanchang, a village on the Tengchung road about three miles north of Lungling. Chinese resistance stiffened, and patrols entering Hanchang on September 15 found that the Japs, having suffered excessive casualties, had withdrawn, leaving over 400 bodies in that village alone.

Chinese reinforcements, flown to Paochan and then trucked or marched from there to Lunglind, arrived in the area and by the end of September the Chinese had regained all of the ground lost previously and held a general line just west of Hsiangta, eight miles east of Mangshih, and again were poised on three sides of Lunglind.

Pingka, surrounded since July, was taken during this period. On September 22 a column of 500 Japs was reported near the town and at 2 A.M. te next day, the garrison began to evacuate. The Chinese forces immediately moved into the town, and dispatched units to pursue the withdrawing enemy columns.

On September 25 the main Jap body reached Mangshih, after suffering some casualties.

From this date until October 24, there was little ground activity in the Lunglind-Mangshih sector although the 14^TH Army Air Force struck continually and persistently at the Burma Road beyond Mangshih, and at the Jap supply lines and storehouses from Mangshih to Wanting, causing an estimated 1,0000 Jap casualties in one ten-day period.

Except for minor skirmishes and patrol activity, the Chinese during this period regrouped their units, collected supplies and organized for the final assault on Lungling.

The attack on Lungling was launched October 29.Expertly supported by the 14^TH Air Force, the Chinese forces took a hill two and a half miles southwest of Lungling as well as three hilltops three miles southwest of the city. In the Mangshih area, all except one Jap position on Hungyuenshan, three miles northeast of the city, had been taken by night fall. This position was taken the following day.

American planes throughout the attack continued to fly bombing and strafing sorties against the Japs and on the night of November 2-3 the remaining Japs in Lungling withdrew. Chinese forces marched into Lungling early in the morning of November 3, 1944. They found a shattered city, with scarcely a building standing intact.

Bombers of the 14^TH Air Force continued their attacks on Manghih, Chefang and on Jap storage areas in Wanting, and there were minor sorties, attacks and counterattacks in the vicinity of Mangshih. Mangshih was taken on November 20 and Chefang on December 1, 1944. At year’s end the fighting was in progress on the very border of Burma, with Japs cleared from Yunnan province north of the border line.Wanting fell after midnight January 20, 1945. This was the virtual close of that phase of the combined Chinese-Burma operations known as the Salween Campaign.