Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  Stilwell did his best, however, to open the eyes of a group of five Senators on a tour of Allied countries who reached China in August. He kept telling himself that if the truth about the Kuomintang regime were made known, the resulting disillusion in America would frighten Chungking into taking action for fear of losing American aid. He escorted the Senators through Kunming and Chungking and “poisoned their minds as much as possible in the brief time I had but May [Mme. Chiang] turned on the glamor and I don’t know who won.” He believed that “at least they learned enough to be suspicious” and left “with their assurance shaken.” When the Senators returned to the United States they reported that the British were using Lend-Lease to promote imperial interests, but at the urging of the State Department they said nothing openly critical of China. When Senator Lodge in a talk to the National Press Club went so far as to say that it was time “this sugary propaganda about China” was stopped, his remarks were filed by Hornbeck at the State Department under the title “Belittling China.”

  Talk was circulating in Washington to justify this title. Through enforced cooperation Americans were discovering how little China matched her myth. The new appreciation was reflected in the planning and strategy section of the War Department which began to reexamine the role of China in the overall strategy for the defeat of Japan. In comparison with developing prospects in the Pacific, the effort that would be required to utilize China’s potential appeared not worth the expenditure. The cost of keeping China in the war for use against Japan, reckoned in the number of air force and service troops in CBI, had increased 500 percent in 1943 to a total of 95,500. Although these were few in comparison to 700,000 in the Pacific and 1,400,000 in Europe, they were where tradition was against putting them—on the mainland of Asia. In a paper entitled “Re-Analysis of our Strategic Policy in Asia,” OPD put forward in October a tentative thesis: that little more be spent in China than was necessary to keep her in the war, that the bomber offensive base be limited, that only 30 divisions be trained, that Burma be bypassed and that excess service troops be withdrawn from CBI and used in other theaters. This drastic proposal, virtually embracing the British position, was not adopted, but the idea that China was strategically—if not politically—dispensable had been implanted.

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  On his return to Chungking from India at the end of August, Stilwell suddenly found himself the object of a peculiar tug-of-war that was to last through two months of mysteriously motivated maneuvers. It began with his first proposal involving the Communists. After consulting with a Kuomintang General, Teng Pao-shan, commander of the 22nd Army in the north, and with Davies and John Service of the Embassy, on the possibility of cooperating with the Communist 18th Group Army (formerly the 8th Route Army), he submitted a plan for a joint Kuomintang-Communist military action in the north as a diversion to forestall any plan the Japanese might have to renew the campaign up the Yangtze or the threat to Changsha. He suspected the enemy was contemplating such a move as a diversion to upset concentration of the Y-force. As Chief of Staff to the Generalissimo he advised that it was better to seize the initiative and keep the Japs guessing rather than let them “throw us off balance by just such a diversionary attack as the one proposed against them.” He outlined a precise plan of action “based entirely on military considerations,” urging as an added argument that it would provide a test case of the Communists’ professed willingness to operate under the Generalissimo’s orders against Japan. “It will be ignored,” he wrote in his diary.

  Stilwell had made no contact with Chou En-lai or other Communists and, except for Davies, had not allowed any of his staff to meet with them. “Don’t let me hear of your trying it,” he warned when Dorn suggested it; “we’re here with the Government.” Six months earlier Chou En-lai had reiterated his invitation to American military observers to come to north China to study the ground for future operations at first hand, but the suggestion was not pursued.

  During the summer in the course of reopened negotiations between Chungking and Yenan, Chiang had made it a condition of legal status for the Communists that they give up separate government in the north and put their armies under Central control. This was refused. A section of China’s Central Executive Committee was pressing for a showdown now with the Communists, while Russia was still occupied against Germany, and the rumor spread that Chiang was planning an attack in September. Stilwell suspected this might be Chiang’s diversion to avoid participating in the Burma campaign. He heard reports of Kuomintang troop movements to the north and asked Marshall to consider a directive on the role of U.S. forces in the event of civil war. His own advice was a strictly hands-off policy. The Embassy too grew alarmed by the reports. Setting foot on what was to be a long and tortured road, American diplomacy began exerting pressure for a coalition. For the time being the crisis lapsed. In a statement to the Central Executive Committee on September 13, Chiang Kai-shek disavowed the intention to use force against the Communists and affirmed that the problem was a political one to be settled by political means.

  On the day of this announcement Stilwell was surprised to find himself invited by Mme. Chiang to a meeting at her home with herself and her sister, Mme. Kung. It was the beginning of a puzzling alliance with conspiratorial overtones promoted by the sisters through many meetings thereafter. Ella and May (for Ei-ling and Mei-ling) told Stilwell they were alarmed about the state of military preparations and anxious to do something about Chinese inaction. They agreed with him that Ho Ying-chin was the main obstacle and even that he must be removed. It was pathetic evidence of how restricted was the Generalissimo’s area of trust, or how scant the supply of talent, or both, that the replacement for Ho suggested by the sisters was Madame herself. They urged Stilwell to keep up his pressure and promised to work on the Generalissimo on behalf of his efforts. “We signed an offensive and defensive alliance,” Stilwell wrote without being too sure what it meant, but whatever the cause of this strange development, he believed his new allies meant business. “Isn’t it a hell of a way to fight a war?” he wrote to Win.

  The sisters told him that a campaign for his removal was under way (which he attributed to Ho Ying-chin) and of the grounds of complaint against him: that he had called Yu Fei-p’eng “that bandit”; that he signed memoranda as “Lieut.-Gen. USA” instead of “Chief of Staff to the Generalissimo”; that “I am ‘haughty’ and anti-Chinese…and say the Chinese are no good and look upon them with contempt.” By now there was just enough half-truth to the complaint to give it life. In his diary, and doubtless in occasional speech, Stilwell was in the habit of referring to Yu Fei-p’eng and his kind as “tramps” if not “gangsters.” It was undeniable that he regarded the military bureaucrats with contempt, though no more so than did many Chinese. As Gauss reported, they were a group renowned for “mismanagement and corruption.” Stilwell’s fault was his usual one of dispensing with euphemisms. He had been assigned to, and insisted on carrying out, a mission which its clients were doing their best to resist and the effect of being consistently thwarted did not improve a disposition difficult to begin with.

  Stilwell imagined that the sisters’ advocacy was owed to T. V. Soong who, he supposed, as a result of Marshall’s prodding, must have told them “they had better get behind me and cooperate.” The reverse was the case. The overture by Ella and May was a direct rebuttal of their brother who had initiated in Washington the campaign for Stilwell’s recall, with the same vigor he had previously invested in his support. Claiming that Mountbatten’s appointment eliminated the need for Stilwell’s command, he submitted to Roosevelt on September 15 a new plan for CBI involving the replacement of Stilwell by a Chinese who should have authority over the ATC as well as over all other military units of whatever nationality operating in the China theater. This was accompanied by a renewed demand for placing China on the Combined Chiefs and Munitions Control Board. Soong’s motive was the primary urge for control of Lend-Lease. His influence was high so long as he could produce A
merican aid for China’s purposes, but Stilwell’s insistence on making the Burma campaign a reality, thus absorbing supplies, threatened his position; hence Stilwell must go.

  The sisters’ counteroffensive reflected the fierce Soong family feud which was essentially a struggle for position and power. T.V.’s ultimate ambition was to lead China in Chiang’s place. He represented the choice Emperor Meiji had made for Japan—adaptation of the techniques of the modern Western world to needs of his country—and as China’s would-be Meiji he hoped to forge a power base from which to oust his brother-in-law, sweep out the reactionary faction and install a government that could modernize the country. Chiang Kai-shek had been turned back, by circumstance and a sea of troubles and disillusion with the West, more and more upon the past, to the values of Confucius and the mood of the Boxers. Palace rivalries, however, were more concerned with status than ideology. Ella and May were fighting for their husbands’ and therefore their own positions against the challenge of their brother—the same grim in-fighting of a reigning family that led to murdered heirs and poisoned nephews in the days of the dynasties.

  Stilwell’s position carrying with it control of Lend-Lease became for a while the focus of this struggle—for reasons not entirely clear. Doubtless with Stilwell gone, T.V. expected to gain greater control of Lend-Lease; perhaps, by accomplishing for the G–mo the removal of his bane, he intended to demonstrate his own influence and move himself up the rungs of power closer to his target. This was what the sisters were determined to block.

  T.V. was the most unembarrassed and untiring lobbyist of his time. He used every conceivable channel to the President including James Roosevelt, Archibald MacLeish and innumerable others who, moved by his impressive powers of persuasion, undertook to convey his letters on the desperateness of every situation under the Presidential eye. Suffering from the family weakness for royal privilege, he asked in July for a White House No. 1 priority to fly to England and return with seven additional people and 500 pounds of excess baggage. (The answer is not on record.) In September when Soong presented his request for Stilwell’s recall, the President, who had attempted it often enough himself, turned the matter over to Marshall with a note, “Dear George, will you talk to Dr. Soong about this? FDR.”

  The repeated maneuvers to remove Stilwell whether by the White House or Chungking or the Chennault claque or now Soong infuriated Marshall who felt they were in a sense a reflection on himself. He had selected Stilwell for the post and felt responsible for having consigned him to an ill-supported mission*1 and wasted the talents of an officer he respected as one of America’s ablest field commanders. In his remote way he liked Stilwell and wrote to him some of his rare personal letters, with a note of muted banter missing from his other correspondence. He informed T. V. Soong that no change in the command structure was contemplated. Undeterred, Soong thereupon left for China with intent to accomplish his purpose another way. According to what he told associates, he had the President’s promise (probably in the form of an assurance received from Hopkins) that if the Generalissimo officially requested it, Stilwell would be recalled.

  Marshall and Secretary Stimson considered at this time whether it might not be advisable, after all, to withdraw Stilwell and offer him (as Stimson was later to write him) “some less impossible task.” Marshall thought of giving him command of the Fourth Army, in which he had been serving at the time of Pearl Harbor. It was now in Alaska, with Stilwell’s own 7th Division designated for the Marshall Islands operation. To replace Stilwell, General Marshall contemplated sacrificing the invaluable Somervell, then en route to China as a troubleshooter. But the change was not made, perhaps because the problems of China were too intractable. The Assam line of communications was clogged as usual, the ATC was hampered in consequence, Chennault’s damage to the enemy was disappointing. Roosevelt was now less interested in Chennault than in the plan to mount long-range bombers in China, and this too was suffering the delays and obstacles that afflicted every effort in the theater. “Everything seems to go wrong,” the President complained to Marshall in disgust. It was the classic complaint of CBI.

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  Each time the Chinese agreed to consolidate divisions, Stilwell was unfailingly encouraged. “VICTORY,” he wrote on September 1 when he received a list of divisions for the second 30 which were to go into training as the Z-force at Kweilin. Taking this to mean that he was at last making headway, and encouraged by Ella and May who appeared genuinely to want action, he once more presented to Chiang Kai-shek a formal eight-point program for reform of the army over his signature as “Joint Chief of Staff for the Generalissimo.” To meet the real cause of the Generalissimo’s fears he urged that two 30-division groups properly constituted and trained would “assure the Central Government of obedience to its orders” and enable China to “emerge at the end of the war with the means of assuring her stability.” He did not really expect an answer and none was vouchsafed. Madame warned at this juncture that he was in trouble with the Generalissimo because of his proposal about the Communists, and he left for a week to inspect his forces and meet Mountbatten who had now arrived in India.

  In obedience to Marshall, Stilwell meant to be agreeable and nobody made this easier than Mountbatten whose notable charm was expected to be a tonic for a dispirited theater. Encouragingly he had chosen a phoenix rising from the ashes as his emblem for SEAC and by way of a cheerful start brought a bevy of WRENS in his entourage and even persuaded Marshall to send 50 WACS despite Stilwell’s rule of no women in the theater. He was anxious for success but the pessimism and inertia he met in India would have been enough to discourage Candide. Staff and line officers of his new command had no faith in offensive action in Burma and regarded the promised junction with the Y-force as Stilwell’s hallucination. Mountbatten was told by General Irwin, retiring chief of the ground forces, that he was taking over a hopeless command and that morale among soldiers and airmen was so low that they could not fight again without two years of rehabilitation. Snubbing his rank, the air, naval and ground chiefs of SEAC (Air Marshal Peirse, Admiral Somerville and General Giffard) communicated over his head to London. Mountbatten impressed Stilwell as “a good egg” who was “energetic and willing to do anything to make it go” and “a nice informal guy.” “This fellow seems all right,” Stilwell said to Wedemeyer, who was to be Mountbatten’s American Chief of Staff. “I think he’s fair and I think he wants to do something.” But he finished warily, “You watch him, Wedemeyer, keep your eye on him.”

  Characteristically, though senior in age and rank, Stilwell felt no resentment at serving under Mountbatten. This was not something that ever bothered him, perhaps because in his heart he was not ambitious or desirous of the top command; even, in his inmost heart, did not think he deserved it. Stilwell had many small ways of denigrating himself: in frequently not wearing medals or insignia of rank, in standing in line for mess or the barber’s chair, in never using rank to obtain even normal privilege, in his living arrangements at the front in Burma which seemed to General Slim “unnecessarily primitive.” A friend once overheard him in Washington as a four-star general telephoning for a pullman reservation without giving his name and meekly accepting an upper. He was one of those individuals who, though conscious of their quick intelligence and superior ability, for some reason do not think highly of themselves and even more lowly of most other people. This makes for being cantankerous. Yet Stilwell was basically optimistic and cheerful and happy when with his family or people he trusted.

  Omens were somber as the Ramgarh force prepared to reenter Burma. A new fracas arose when Sun Li-jen, commander of the 38th Division, demanded the removal of General Boatner, Stilwell’s deputy in command of the Forward Echelon, and his replacement by a Chinese. Sun had been claiming for weeks that Boatner underestimated Japanese strength in the Hukawng valley and was ordering Chinese patrols forward to certain disaster. Though himself one of the more aggressive Chinese commanders, Sun had no wish to suffer losses in his
division which would cause his own position to dwindle in proportion; or it may have been that Chiang Kai-shek did not want losses and was acting behind Sun to hoard the now valuable Ramgarh force for purposes after the war. In any event Chiang supported Sun’s demand for the removal of Boatner. As events were to prove, Boatner’s estimate of Japanese strength in the valley was seriously at fault, but Stilwell took Sun Li-jen’s maneuver as one more example of Chinese reluctance for the offensive. He wanted a Chinese-speaking officer (which Boatner was) to command the NCAC, and he felt a debt of loyalty to those of his officers like Boatner who had stuck by him and not run off to the richer opportunities of the European theater. In a decision that was to have unfortunate consequences all around, he refused to relieve Boatner on the ground that his post included command of American service forces supporting the offensive, and that there was no Chinese officer qualified to fill this position. Sun Li-jen and the Generalissimo had to acquiesce, with no accretion of good feeling.

  Facing return to the cabals of Chungking, Stilwell had reached a low point and hated the prospect of going back to the begging and endless run-arounds. “If things don’t look up in the next few months,” he wrote to Win on October 15, “I’ll be tempted to ask for a division or a regiment or even a squad somewhere else where the mental wear and tear is less.” He longed for escape to action in the Hukawng valley. Reporting to Stimson all the failed promises to make ready the Y-force, he finished with profound sincerity, “I am awaiting impatiently the beginning of operations. It will be a heavenly surcease to get out with the troops and have a part in shooting at someone.”