ABSTRACT
In 1945 the Nationalist government took title to regions of China that had been under Japanese occupation, in some cases, since 1931. President Truman named General of the Army George C. Marshall as his personal representative to China in December 1945. During May 1946 the Nationalist armies occupied the central region of Manchuria. Communist success in establishing themselves in Manchuria in 1945 extended the total territory under their control during the years 1945-7, but in fact the communists were hard pressed to hold all of the specific territories they had organized during the Sino-Japanese War. Yet, as in Manchuria and as in the civil war as a whole, the Nationalists' wounds were to a large extent self-inflicted. The Huai-Hai campaign was the most dramatic battle of the entire civil war. However, the last military operation strictly assignable to the Chinese Civil War was the communist conquest of Hainan in April.
