Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  His reports were alarming. Before even reaching China he melodramatically informed Hopkins on the basis of talks with returned fliers that the American Air Force situation in China was “a national tragedy…a national scandal…grossly dishonoring to President, Army and country.” He begged to be recalled within two months to report in person. On arriving in Chungking, he went to see Stilwell, becoming, after one interview, “Alslop” in the diary. He was back in Washington in less than two months with the solution for the war in CBI, presented to Hopkins in 21 passionate and plausible pages. The gist was that in adopting the Burma campaign we had embarked on “grandiose, dangerous and doubtfully fruitful” ground operations while neglecting the “brilliant and easy opportunity in the air.”

  The solution was the removal of Stilwell, “a conventional infantryman of the high, narrow, old school” who “does not understand and grossly underestimates” air power and whose ground approach to the problem “can only end in something very close to disaster for all of us.” Stilwell’s attitude toward the Chinese was described as condescending. His training program was represented with total inaccuracy as designed “to substitute American for Chinese command in the field.” Alsop was correct, however, in reporting that Stilwell’s contemptuous remarks were carried back to the Generalissimo by Tai Li’s agents. He concluded that since Stilwell was holding down the air effort and had made it plain that he would keep control of supplies as long as Marshall was Chief of Staff, he should be transferred.

  Events reinforced the argument against ground operations when the British effort to take Akyab on Burma’s west coast was beaten back by the Japanese and petered out in a series of inglorious reverses and damaged morale. The result dimmed the prospects for ANAKIM. To Churchill the reconquest of Burma appeared like “munching a porcupine quill by quill.” Roosevelt was beginning to agree with him and suggested to Marshall that ANAKIM ought perhaps to be abandoned as conflicting with preparations for the Second Front in Europe. This would leave all the more reason for transferring the burden of activity to Chennault, with enough support to enable him to operate effectively. The idea appealed to Roosevelt as the easiest and most immediate way of showing activity in the China theater, to make up for having promised the major American effort against Germany. It was in any case his habit to give advisers with strong views their head and see what came of it. He was prepared to overlook Arnold’s restrained enthusiasm for Chennault and overrule the War Department’s demand for a quid pro quo approach to the Chinese, though not prepared to insist on the transfer of Stilwell or to divest him of control of Lend-Lease.

  His decision, like so many others in the complicated conduct of the war, was a compromise. On March 8 he ordered a separate air force for Chennault independent of the Tenth Air Force under Bissell though not independent of Stilwell. He assured Chiang Kai-shek of intention to build up toward 500 combat planes and 10,000 tons a month without a quid pro quo. At the insistence of the War Department, however, Chiang was reminded that air transport could never supply enough and that ground communications would have to be opened. Roosevelt made it clear to Marshall that while “still hopeful of the Burma operation,” he wanted emphasis on Chennault’s air operations in 1943. Construction and improvement of airfields was to be “pushed to the limit”; Chennault was to have a share of supplies “that will really keep his force operating,” at least 1,500 tons out of 4,000 and anything over 4,000 up to 2,500. He was to have “complete control” over his own operations and tactics, “with Stilwell’s approval,” an obviously inoperable condition.

  What motivated the President in his decision was policy not strategy. He was not concerned with making some historic choice between air and ground action but with pursuing his concept of China’s status as a great power. Support for Chennault was what China’s chief executive wanted, whereas Stilwell’s insistence on reforming the Chinese Army detracted from the great-power image. Roosevelt was basically not interested in the mission to “increase the combat efficiency of the Chinese Army” because, like most Americans accustomed to the victorious Chinese communiqués, he did not recognize the need, and even more because army reorganization was something Stilwell was pushing against the Generalissimo’s will. In this respect the President’s instinct was right, if not for the right reasons. In any fundamental sense the army could not be reformed against the will of the ruler; it could not be reshaped without reshaping the society of which it was the product. More disturbing, however, were things like “Peanut” which offended Roosevelt as a fellow-ruler. He felt that Chiang was entitled to the same dignity as himself, if not a little extra to make up for his difficult position.

  He made the point clear in a notable letter to Marshall explaining his reasons for overruling the War Department. Citing a message from Stilwell about the need for a sterner tone to, and a commitment from, Chiang Kai-shek, the President said this was going about it in “just the wrong way.” The Generalissimo was chief of state as well as Commander-in-Chief and “one cannot speak sternly to a man like that or exact commitments from him as we might do from the Sultan of Morocco.” Chiang had come up the hard way to become “undisputed leader of 400,000,000 people…and to create in a very short time throughout China what it took us a couple of centuries to attain.”

  Not intended as rhetoric for public consumption, this was a clear statement of the American illusion. Although the Chinese people, as Stilwell had said, had a “tremendous cohesion” that enabled them to withstand bad government, and a cultural unity older and stronger than anything in the United States, the idea that the Kuomintang in only 15 harassed and embattled years had obtained the same degree of national cohesion as the United States was a fantasy and not a harmless one. It allowed America to rest policy on a collapsible base.

  Stilwell fumed constantly at the comparable illusion about China’s military performance. Stolid Chinese troops were in fact defending their country as well as they were allowed to, but the daily communiqués reporting “furious Chinese counterattacks” on the Salween front and “heavy enemy losses” were, he estimated, at least 90 percent false; nevertheless they were given wide publicity in the United States. “This makes my job more difficult, of course,” he wrote to Marshall. “If the Chinese Army is so full of fight and so well led, what am I here for?” He continued to believe that he could require reform of the army if only he were given the authority to exact a quid pro quo for Lend-Lease weapons. This to him was the crux and he pleaded the point unceasingly. He never doubted the power of American matériel and know-how, directed by himself as one of the superlative professionals of military training, to accomplish the desired result. He too had illusions.

  Marshall’s reply to the President’s letter was a basic statement of Stilwell’s case for reform and supply of the ground forces. He defined the dependence of air power on the ground, and the consequent necessity of Stilwell’s program to raise Chinese combat efficiency. “As soon as our air effort hurts the Japs they will move in on us” and then protection for the airfields would have to come from the Chinese Army. “Here is the most serious consideration…we must build for that now.” He pointed out that the bases in Chekiang from which it had been hoped to bomb Tokyo had already been destroyed by Japanese ground action and had not been repaired. In order to increase air action against the Japanese a land supply route through Burma was necessary, and this too required Chinese ground forces. He became emphatic: “The present low combat worth of the Chinese Army must be reversed before we can fully realize the Chinese potential in this war. To correct this must be the primary objective of any representative dispatched to this theater to represent American interests.”

  In his last sentence Marshall was entering the sphere of policy and his version was not the President’s policy. Roosevelt did not want to insist on mobilizing China’s forces against the will of China’s leader. He opposed the quid pro quo approach because he believed that any promise extracted from the Chinese on that basis would not be kept. He preferr
ed to go along with Chiang Kai-shek’s clear preference for Chennault’s program, especially as it fitted with his own belief that Japanese merchant shipping was the vulnerable point. Defense of the airfields could be allowed to rest on Chennault’s various assurances that 50 or 100 or 150 airplanes would enable Chinese ground forces to fight successfully.

  At the President’s order, the Fourteenth Air Force under Chennault was duly activated on March 11 and its commander promoted to major general. The War Department, having been overruled, reacted promptly. Fearing that Chennault’s promotion would lower Stilwell’s influence in Chinese eyes, OPD (Operations Division) proposed to award Stilwell the Legion of Merit in the degree of Chief Commander*2 so that “Nothing should be left undone to convince China that General Stilwell enjoys full American confidence” and that we look to him in Chinese matters as “chief arbiter.” Although Marshall approved the award for Stilwell on March 16, it came to an end there (though not permanently) because Roosevelt wanted to make Chiang Kai-shek the first foreign recipient of the award and it was thought his appreciation might be marred if Stilwell received it in the same degree at the same time.

  Marshall duly conveyed to Stilwell Roosevelt’s implied rebuke about not treating Chiang Kai-shek like the Sultan of Morocco (cautiously altered for radio purposes to “tribal chieftain”). Mutterings about “tribal chieftain” periodically appeared thereafter in the diary.

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  Since the Black Friday in December when Chiang Kai-shek called off the Burma campaign, Stilwell had concentrated on trying to assemble, train and equip the Yoke force in preparation for renewal of the campaign in the coming November. The program had two parts: bringing the divisions up to full strength and training the officer cadres. General Ch’en Ch’eng, Stilwell’s candidate, had been named commander of the Y-force, a Chinese staff and American instructors appointed, the 30 divisions designated, physical arrangements for the training school established at Kunming, consent of Lung Yun, Governor of Yunnan, obtained, and an opening date for the schools set for April 1. Actual progress in carrying out the program was slow and discouraging but Ramgarh was evidence of what could be done. One regiment of the 38th Division from Ramgarh had already reentered north Burma to patrol ahead of the road-builders. John Davies predicted in March that Stilwell “may yet perform what has seemed impossible—cause the launching of a Chinese offensive against the Japanese.”

  The material was not promising. The eleven armies selected to provide the 30 divisions were all under strength, to a total deficiency of 185,000 men. They had only 50 percent of the normal requirement of weapons and half of those they had were unserviceable for lack of critical parts. Fillers repeatedly promised by the War Ministry, according to a definite schedule negotiated with Stilwell, never appeared, or straggled in prodded by bayonets in such sorry shape that it required a special program of five or six weeks with three meals a day, and mainly sleep and short walks the first week, to make them fit for duty. On the way to the depots recruits were not fed; they lived on what they could snatch from the villages at gun point, adding to the anger and misery of the country people. Surplus drafts were always ordered on the basis of expected loss. “Ho expects one third of replacements to die or desert en route,” Stilwell wrote. “And he calmly accepts the situation.” The rate of loss by death or desertion of all Chinese conscripts in 1943 was 44 percent, or 750,000 out of a total of 1,670,000—a “terrible indictment of China’s leaders.”

  Bursts of encouragement occasionally broke through the frustrations. “V FOR VICTORY,” Stilwell recorded on March 23. “Orders are out for fillers to report. All drafts start by end of April and should join units by end of May….March 24. Honeymoon continues. Dorn saw the T/O boys and everything is just the way we want it…100 per cent agreement…Pai Ch’ung-hsi reported in yesterday, offering to help. He wants to see Ramgarh now. Ho making speeches about Ramgarh and how wonderful it is!” To Stimson Stilwell wrote that he was getting “excellent cooperation” from the Chinese Ordnance and Communication departments. “The medical set-up should be the best the Chinese have ever had by far.”

  The Kunming Training Center was organized at the outset to give six-week courses to 450 officers in the Infantry classes, 300 in Artillery and 150 each in Signal and Medical services. Colonel Dorn was Chief of Staff with Colonel (shortly afterwards General) Arms as head of the training program, Colonel Barrett as executive officer of the center and Colonel Tseng Shih-kwei, who had been Stilwell’s liaison officer since the beginning of the Burma campaign, as executive officer of the Chinese administration. The center possessed buildings, firing ranges, faculty and equipment but never enough students because of the failure of the Chinese Army to fill the places. The Artillery class opened with 87 officers instead of 300; through 1943 it operated at about 25 percent of capacity and the Infantry center at about 60 percent of capacity. Of those who did come, many were of disappointing quality as officer material but many were eager and quick to learn. “They were really taking it in fast,” according to one American instructor. “It was a wonderful experience. I never got a response like that from Americans.”

  A strike was called soon after the opening by the 23 interpreters, who as members of the scholar class suffered severely from the inflation. Colonel Tseng demonstrated to an American friend how these matters were settled in China. He issued ammunition to a platoon of school troops whom he assigned to guard the interpreters’ barracks with orders to shoot anyone leaving, even for meals. When the interpreters sent word the next day that they were willing to negotiate, he had them brought to his office under armed guard, placing a loaded pistol and a prepared statement on his desk, and ordered each to sign the paper stating they were satisfied with their pay, otherwise “I will shoot you dead.” When they had returned to work he explained to the American that during the battle of Shanghai he had been forced to shoot nine officers for “so grossly exaggerating the tactical and logistical situation that I couldn’t make sound decisions.” Their replacements had then been “motivated to do a good job.” He was not proud of such measures but under the current conditions in the Chinese Army, he said, it was the only way to get results.

  Backstage the struggle continued. General Ch’en Ch’eng, Stilwell believed, was genuinely cooperating but the War Minister was dragging his feet. “Ho Ying-chin realizes that if Ch’en succeeds he’ll be a big name, and Ho will slide down into the discard. So Ho will accept the failure of the effort with great equanimity and will perhaps actively try to sabotage it.” In addition, Ho was afraid of arousing the animosity of Lung Yun by the concentration of Central Government divisions in his province. The opium traffic in Yunnan was still active, Stilwell wrote, and “our presence here threatens to affect the enormous smuggling racket.” Lung Yun’s resources for raising money were infinite. In one case he ordered that all two-wheeled carts, the common vehicle of the area, must be equipped with rubber tires. He then opened his warehouses to sell the tires he had confiscated during the days of traffic on the Burma Road. After that he passed a new law taxing all carts with rubber tires.

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  At Ledo, on the other side of Burma, work on the Road inched forward against obstacles of terrain and climate as drastic as those of the Hump. Mountains, canyons and torrential streams marked the path, the thick cover of trees and vines made accurate survey of the ground impossible, the annual rainfall amounted to 150 inches with an intensity at times during the monsoon of 14 inches in 24 hours; mud, leeches and malaria were daily hazards. Explorations and experiments over the past year of alternative routes to China through Iran, Afghanistan and Tibet had proved these impractical, leaving the Hukawng valley route the only choice. The Japanese had not occupied the extreme northwestern corner of Burma but rumors and alarms of their presence were frequent. General Wheeler as an Engineer disapproved of the road project but nevertheless laid out the trace with 13 culverts to a mile to carry the runoff of heavy trains. U.S. Army Engineers including a battalion of Negro troops
began the work along with Indian contract labor furnished by the British. Ultimately 80,000 men, of whom 50,000 were Americans and the rest Chinese and Indians, were to share in the work. The trace as far as Shingbwiyang in the Hukawng valley, where combat could be expected to begin, covered a distance of 103 miles which Wheeler hoped to complete by June. The construction rate during good weather was three quarters of a mile a day of single-track roadway with turnouts. Forward units crossed the frontier 43 miles from Ledo on February 28, 1943, and erected a sign saying, “Welcome to Burma! This way to Tokyo!” Dr. Seagrave and his staff, who accompanied the Chinese patrol units from Ramgarh, hiked back over the refugee trail past skeletons lying in groups around every waterhole and at the foot of every ascent. Tattered remnants of clothing, civilian and military, English, Indian and Burmese, clung to the bones, witness of the awful exodus of the year before.

  Work slowed after the frontier had been crossed owing to a variety of troubles. Only four miles beyond the frontier had been completed by the time the rains came on May 11 to add to the difficulties.

  From February to April Stilwell was constantly moving from Kunming to Ledo to Chabua in Assam (Headquarters of the ATC), to Ramgarh, to Delhi and back to Chungking, inspecting, conferring, hearing complaints, dealing out priorities, negotiating with and prodding his allies. At Chabua he arrived unheralded to test reports of foul conditions at the Polo Ground Mess, one more affliction of the ATC. Conditions had become an open scandal which senior officers, who could eat elsewhere, had done little to remedy. After going through the mess line with the GIs and sitting at filthy benches to share the “slop,” Stilwell announced, “All right boys, let ’em have it.” The place exploded in a flying melee of food, tin plates and overturned tables. Stilwell then called in the base commander, said, “There’s your mess,” and told him that unless he found decent conditions at his next unscheduled visit, the commander would be relieved and sent home.