British regulars marched from Boston to seize colonial militia supplies at Concord. At Lexington, a small band of Minutemen faced them on the common — 'the shot heard round the world' was fired, scattering the militia. Reaching Concord, the British found little powder, but at the North Bridge they were repulsed by colonial farmers. The march back to Boston became a running gauntlet as thousands of militiamen fired from behind trees, walls, and houses.
The first military engagements of the Revolution shattered the myth of British invincibility and proved that colonial militia could stand against the world's finest army. The alarm spread throughout the colonies within days.
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Colonial militia surrounded the British garrison in Boston immediately after Lexington and Concord. Gen. Washington took command of the besieging Continental Army in July 1775 and spent months struggling to organize, supply, and discipline his raw force. The decisive stroke came in February 1776 when Col. Henry Knox arrived with 59 artillery pieces dragged 300 miles by oxen from captured Fort Ticonderoga. Washington secretly fortified Dorchester Heights overnight, placing cannon that commanded both the city and harbor. General Howe, recognizing his position untenable, evacuated Boston with 9,000 troops and 1,000 Loyalists on March 17.
Washington's first major strategic success established his command authority and demonstrated that siege operations could overcome British advantages in open battle. Knox's artillery train was a logistical feat of the first order. The evacuation of Boston gave the Patriots their first major city and an enormous morale boost.
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Operation Ichigo was Japan's largest land offensive of the entire war — 500,000 troops launched across Central and South China with the goal of destroying the US airbases from which Chiang Kai-shek had allowed General Claire Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force to bomb Japan. The operation overran all four targeted US airfields, linked Japan's continental holdings from Manchuria to Singapore, and dealt China's already weakened armies crushing defeats. It also destroyed the last illusions that Chiang's government was capable of effective military resistance.
Ichigo was a military disaster for China and a political catastrophe for Chiang Kai-shek's relationship with the United States. The offensive overran the airbases whose construction had cost enormous Chinese resources, destroyed American confidence in the Nationalist military, and accelerated US pressure on Chiang to give Stilwell command of Chinese forces — a demand Chiang refused, triggering Stilwell's recall. Ichigo's devastation of Nationalist forces gave the Communists a decisive long-term advantage.
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