Showa Steel Works

The nihongo|Shōwa Steel Works|昭和製鋼所|Shōwa Seitetsusho was a Japanese government-sponsored steel mill that was one of the showpieces of the industrialization program for Manchukuo in the late 1930s.

Shōwa Steel Works began as the "Anshan Iron & Steel Works", a subsidiary of the South Manchurian Railway Company in 1918. [Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka, "The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932" (2001), p.222-3.] . The city of Anshan in Liaoning was chosen for its proximity to the Takushan iron ore deposits and rail works at Mukden. The company used low grade iron; in 1934 it mined 950,000 tonnes. In 1933, after a reorganization, it was renamed the "Shōwa Steel Works".

Shōwa Steel produced pig iron and steel, and the steel mill was soon surrounded by a large industrial complex of other factories to produce a variety of metal products. Sumitomo Steel Pipe established a plant to produce steel pipes, and Manchurian Roll Manufacturing Company to produce steel mill rolls. To feed the furnaces, coal mines were established at Fushun, 35 kilometers to the east, which also led to electric power plants, coal liquefaction plants, cement works, brick kilns. By the end of the 1930s, there were over 780 Japanese industrial plants in Fengtian province. [Young, Japan's Total Empire, pp, 203 ]

In 1937, under the direction of the Kwangtung Army, Japanese industrialist Yoshisuke Aikawa organized a holding company called the Manshu Jukogyo Kaihatsu KK, ("Mangyō") a Manchukuo "zaibatsu" with major shareholdings in the South Manchuria Railway and in Nissan. The new "zaibatsu" invested heavily in Shōwa Steel, and took a controlling interest. [Beasley, Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945 pp.216 ]

As part of the new business plan, Shōwa Steel licensed the Krupp-Renn process from German steel makers, and sent people to Germany for training from September 1937. Equipment received from Krupp was installed by 1939, greatly increasing production efficiencies. [ Kudo, Japanese-German Business Relations, pp.93 ]

Total production of processed iron in Manchuria reached 1,000,000 tonnes in 1931-32, of which almost half was made by Shōwa Steel; iron production grew to 7,000,000 of tonnes in 1938. In 1941, Shōwa Steel Works had a total capacity production of 1,750,000 tonnes of iron bars and 1,000,000 tonnes of processed steel. By 1942, Shōwa Steel Works total production capacity reached 3,600,000 tonnes, making it one of the major iron and steel centers in the world. [Beasley, Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945 ]

It was therefore of strategic importance in the Pacific War, and was subject to constant attack by B-29 Superfortress strategic bombers of the USAAF. Japanese Army detached the 1st "Chutai" (unit) of 104th "Sentai" (squadron) of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force, to Anshan, with other air squadrons for industrial defense purposes. Although this unit was equipped with modern Nakajima Ki-84 Ia (Manshu Type) Hayate "Frank" fighters, manufactured by Manshūkoku Hikōki Seizo KK, the plant suffered heavy damage from the air raids, losing up to 30% of its capacity. [ Astor, The Jungle War, pp. 312]

After the end of the war, Soviet Red Army forces looted the ruins of Shōwa Steel Works for anything that could be taken back to the Soviet Union. The Chinese communists then occupied the ruins, and rebuilt the factory into the Anshan Iron & Steel Works, which remains one of the major steel producing plants in modern China.

As a side note, on one of the B-29 missions, an aircraft commanded by Captain Howard Jarrel suffered engine damage through a Japanese antiaircraft burst over the Anshan target zone. Rather than crash-land in Japanese-held territory, he decided to land in Vladivostok, two hours to the northeast, in the Soviet Far East. As the Soviet Union was still neutral in the Pacific War, when the bomber landed, all crewmen were immediately arrested and the aircraft confiscated. This incident led to the development of the Soviet Tu-4 "Bull" bomber, a reverse-engineered copy of the B-29. [Daso, U,S, Air Force, pp. 253 ]

References

*cite book
last = Astor
first = Gerald
year = 2004
title = The Jungle War: Mavericks, Marauders and Madmen in the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II
publisher = Wiley
location =
id = ISBN 0471273937*cite book
last = Beasley
first = W.G.
authorlink =
coauthors =
year = 1991
title = Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945
publisher = Oxford University Press
location =
id = ISBN 0198221681
*cite book
last = Daso
first = Dik
year = 2006
title = U.S. Air Force
publisher = Universe
location =
id = ISBN 0883631148
*cite book
last = Kudo
first = Akira
year = 1998
title = Japanese-German Business Relations: Co-operation and Rivalry in the Interwar Period
publisher = Routledge
location =
id = ISBN 0415149711
*cite book
last = Matsusaka
first = Tak
year = 2003
title = The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932
publisher = Harvard University Asia Center
location =
id = ISBN 0674012062
*cite book
last = Young
first = Louise
year = 1999
title = Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism
publisher = University of California Press
location =
id = ISBN 0520219341

Notes