Stilwell and the American Experience in China

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  Temperamentally Roosevelt was predisposed against the quid pro quo management of Lend-Lease although the War Department, at Stilwell’s urging, favored it. Roosevelt did not like haggling and thought it would be ungenerous to exact terms from a beleaguered ally. In August he received the War Department’s recommendation that the Burma campaign be undertaken in the coming spring and that Lend-Lease be allocated on the basis of China’s participation and on the introduction of army reforms as recommended by Stilwell. Meanwhile Currie on his return early in August had supported Stilwell’s policies, but without the teeth. “I do not think we need to lay down any conditions or tie any strings to our support,” he told the President. He also reported on the “personal” difficulties between Stilwell and the Generalissimo which he ascribed to Stilwell’s unconcealed resentment of Chiang’s interference in Burma and Chiang’s resentment of Stilwell’s refusal to obey his orders. In a bold sweep he suggested the replacement of Stilwell, Gauss and T. V. Soong (failing which he recommended as a precaution that Stilwell in the future receive a copy of all the President’s communications to the Generalissimo).

  Roosevelt seized on Currie’s explanation as an easy or at least feasible solution for the nagging problems of China. “I cannot help feeling that the whole situation depends largely on the problem of personalities rather than on strategic plans or even on Sino-British relations or on the Indian situation,” he wrote to Currie in a characteristic flight of optimism. He agreed to consider a number of changes, “until we get the right people.” Stilwell’s noticeable personality with its rasping edges was an obvious place to begin, but Roosevelt’s feelers were rejected by Marshall and Stimson. They insisted that Stilwell was the necessary man to reopen Burma and obtain military action from the Chinese.

  A limited campaign in Burma, in the north only, with the object of pushing a road through from Ledo in Assam to reconnect with the Burma Road was agreed on by the Allied planners in September. The full campaign that Stilwell had proposed with Rangoon as objective and with naval support—called ANAKIM in Allied planning—was put aside. In competition with North Africa and the Second Front and Russia’s demands, the resources were considered not available. The British, who throughout the war were to spend enormous effort on planning ANAKIM and even more on avoiding it, undertook instead to launch a small operation to regain Akyab on the strip of Burma coast called the Arakan for the purpose of establishing a fighter base for a future campaign. They agreed to join the north Burma campaign, but without enthusiasm since they did not share the American sense of urgency about the need to funnel aid to China. In a “reappraisal” of the situation, the British took the view that China could go on for another year without further aid.

  The United States, however, agreed to satisfy a modified version of the Generalissimo’s Three Demands, but without American divisions. Roosevelt informed Chiang Kai-shek in October that beginning in 1943, 100 transport planes would be assigned to deliver 5,000 tons a month over the Hump and 265 combat planes would be assigned to China. No quid pro quo was required of him, although the President’s message urged that military reorganization “would be of the greatest importance in obtaining our mutual objectives.”

  Before the final reply Roosevelt approached Marshall again with the suggestion “to recall General Stilwell leaving General Wheeler as acting chief.” He used Currie as his messenger. “A little gnome-like man,” as Marshall later recalled, came into his office, curled one leg under him and said the President wanted Stilwell relieved. “He does, does he?” said Marshall. Currie replied yes, he did.

  “Is he sending you around to tell me?” asked Marshall. Currie agreed he was.

  “How long were you in China?” asked Marshall.

  “Three weeks, Sir,” replied Currie, and, facing the bleak silence of the Chief of Staff, departed.

  Roosevelt did not give up. “What is the situation with regard to Stilwell in China?” he wrote to Marshall directly. “Apparently the matter is so involved between him and the Generalissimo that I suppose Stilwell would be more effective in some other field.” Marshall and Stimson persuaded him that it would be impossible to find anyone better than Stilwell as replacement. The person to carry out the reopening of Burma must be an American and a troop leader, Marshall wrote, rather than a negotiator or supply man “who would only serve to promote harmony in Chungking.”

  Marshall’s phrase fixed on the theme that was to pursue Stilwell during his tenure in China and his reputation thereafter. “Harmony in Chungking” would have made all the problems less obtrusive. It could have been achieved by a more gracious and less exacting personality who did not insist on raising the problems that threatened the Generalissimo and on telling him truths he preferred not to hear and requiring performance in which he preferred not to engage. Stilwell himself was aware of the problem when, bogged down in delays and jockeyings with the Generalissimo, he wrote to his wife in August, “It’s a hell of a way to fight a war from my point of view, and makes me feel like a complete slacker. Now if I were in addition a slicker, I might make some headway.” A slicker might indeed have obtained harmony in Chungking, but harmony was not the purpose of Stilwell’s mission.

  * * *

  *1 General Hans von Seeckt, former chief of the Reichswehr in the 1920s, when military adviser to China in 1934 presented a program in which he stressed quality as against size and recommended the training and equipment of 20, later enlarged to 60, divisions and a purge of the officer corps. A chief failure, he noted, was the choosing of officer candidates for patronage value without reference to merit, record, ability or leadership.

  *2 The buildup in England for the Second Front.

  *3 The Manchu dynasty.

  13

  “Peanut and I on a Raft” August 1942–January 1943

  THE ONE PLACE where Stilwell had control and was free to train Chinese soldiers for the return to Burma was at Ramgarh. Here he had the beginnings of the task force which he had begun to plan for even in the midst of defeat, and here he could put into operation the methods which he had always claimed would give the Chinese a combat efficiency equal to any. When the endless objections and disapprovals of the Government of India were finally overcome (“The bastards will sabotage the scheme yet”), the program at Ramgarh was officially inaugurated in August with about 9,000 survivors of the Burma campaign who had walked out to India as the initial group. A large proportion of them were in the hospital. The remnants of the 22nd Division, slowed by the vacillating orders of the Generalissimo, had failed to keep ahead of the monsoon and had straggled out of Burma in pitiful condition, ragged and half-starved, with ruined and rusty rifles, weak from malaria and dysentery and with flesh rotted by Naga sores. Caused by infected leech bites or leech heads left under the skin, the Naga sores were often fatal. The sick were treated at the Ramgarh hospital, staffed at the outset by Seagrave’s unit, later supplemented by an American Station Hospital. Vaccinated against cholera, typhoid and smallpox, fed three meals a day (which produced an average weight gain in the first months of 21 pounds per man), outfitted with new uniforms, helmets, boots, packs, rifles, bayonets, trucks, artillery and all the lavish American equipment, the Chinese were physically quickly transformed.

  Stilwell came down to India for three weeks in August and again in October when the airlift of the additional Chinese divisions at last got under way. Despite the promise to send troops in good physical condition, American medical officers at the China end rejected an average of 40 percent for underweight and disease over the next two years. Sometimes, for a particularly sorry group, the rate reached 89 percent in one month. More were rejected than flown over. Disapproving the wasteful habits of the West, the Chinese passed on the rejectees to the Y-force. For the airlift to India, the meager bodies were packed 35 to 40 in a cargo plane; some planes which had been used for airdrops lacked doors. Lo Cho-ying, full of enthusiasm, said, “Put 50 in a plane naked. It’s only three hours!” This was done by the Chinese command on the th
eory that it would be foolish to waste uniforms if the men were to be given new ones anyway. The squads were flown from Kunming in nothing but a pair of shorts with a paper bag in case of airsickness as their only baggage. Several died of the cold. The Ramgarh staff asked that quilted cotton jackets be provided on the planes for the successive use of each load like coats on a ski-tow, but the Chinese authorities did not think this necessary. The arrivals deplaned chilled and airsick but after an hour of sitting in the Indian sun usually recovered quickly.

  Stilwell specified an initial transportation of 400 a day and this figure was met in October and surpassed in November when 16 planeloads brought in 650 a day, causing the usual glut on the languid Assam-Bengal Railway. It found itself unable to move the troops down to Calcutta by rail at the rate the airlift could fly them over the Hump. By the end of December 32,000 were in training at Ramgarh. Stilwell’s object was to create a force of two full-strength divisions plus three artillery regiments and other auxiliaries to be ready for combat by February 1943 when the campaign to regain Burma was to begin. He wanted also to keep replacements coming in and to train 1,500 Chinese instructors for the Thirty Division program in China. Altogether over the next two years a total of 53,000 were to pass through the Ramgarh schools.

  Distinct from the British system of white officers in command of native troops, Stilwell as adviser to a sovereign nation planned a system of American liaison teams or single officers acting in advisory capacity alongside Chinese commanders at each level. Based on his experience in Burma, this was chiefly designed to ensure that a unit was where it said it was and would move into action or into a given position as ordered. His method was the intensive training of small units in accordance with his belief that if two platoons could be well trained individually, when put together they would know what to do. Films taken at Ramgarh show a scrawny figure in shorts, open-collared tunic and stiff-brimmed World War I hat moving along a row of prone Chinese soldiers, patiently lying down next to each to demonstrate or correct the sighting of each rifle. He worked personally among the soldiers with more than one purpose in mind. An American sergeant who was amazed to watch the General down in the dust at rifle practice only realized afterwards that what Stilwell was trying to do was not only to teach, but to set an example to Americans of how to teach.

  Because of the language barrier and paucity of interpreters, training was largely by demonstration. The Chinese knack for imitation made it effective. “Thank God we don’t speak Chinese and don’t have enough interpreters,” said General Sliney. “We demonstrate and they copy. They are the greatest mimics in the world and are learning very, very fast.” Peasants from the fields who had never seen a machine mastered the use of the pack howitzer and machine gun in a week and learned with delight to operate field telephones and radios. Later, in combat, individuals were decorated, the first decorations Chinese enlisted men had ever received. “The limies are watching us with considerable interest,” Stilwell wrote to Win. “It’s something brand new to them to see colonels actually working.”

  Colonel McCabe, who had been chief of Operations at Ford Ord, served as commandant of the training center. Colonel Boatner, with the experience of a former Chinese-language officer and veteran of the 15th Infantry, became chief of staff of the task force, called Chi Hui Pu. The name, which meant literally Command Headquarters, was understood to stand for the Chinese Army in India. Colonel Arms, who had planned the training course at Ford Ord and had since organized training for the National Guard, was summoned from America to join the staff.

  Chinese officers at Ramgarh were trained in tactics and combat techniques and the men in the handling of rifles, machine guns, mortars, rocket-launchers, antitank guns and other equipment for specialized combat duties. After mastering the weapons they were given an eight-day course in jungle warfare. The six-week artillery course taught the handling of pack artillery and the use of howitzers and assault guns in jungle conditions. Line officers and noncoms were trained in field sanitation and medical care and colonels and generals of the Thirty Division program were flown to Ramgarh for a six-week staff and command course modeled on the wartime course at Leavenworth. Spirit, especially in the new artillery units, was strong. One of Stilwell’s primary concerns was to increase the ratio of artillery to infantry from one company in nine to one in three. Spurred by the knowledge that they would now have firepower equal to that of the Japanese, the Chinese worked eagerly at the task of transforming infantrymen into artillerymen in four months.

  Ramgarh was not a cozy paternalistic family; cultural clash was sharp and quarrels frequent, especially with the Chinese officers. They resented criticism by Americans who had never been under fire and insisted that, since they themselves had to give orders in the field, they could not allow their authority to be undermined in the course of training. The Americans in their turn believed that the Chinese officers, being imbued with the spirit of the defensive, would impede training for the attack, and so tended to bypass them. More disruptive was the American endeavor to bypass the private arrangements for squeeze involved in Chinese military organization by distributing pay individually to the men by public roll call instead of by lump sum to the commanding officer. This quarrel reached its peak in a prolonged dispute with General Lo over pay and the assignment of replacements. Lo had not expected to be number two in fact as well as name. “He was counting on the old by-pass game—I to be ts’an mou chang [Chief of Staff] again.” Not to be caught twice in the same mistake, Stilwell had taken care this time to have his authority made explicit. In negotiations with the War Ministry he had insisted on authority to shoot officers up to the rank of major for disobedience of orders and to relieve officers above that rank. In the end, since General Lo refused to adapt to American interference with his administrative authority which was believed to be netting him 100,000 rupees a month at Ramgarh, he parted company with Chi Hui Pu.

  Stilwell’s strict orders against any American laying hands on a Chinese soldier caused considerable griping when it proved not reciprocal. In sudden eruptions Chinese soldiers more than once drew their guns. The Americans were also under orders not to interfere in discipline and were often sickened or enraged to see a Chinese soldier casually shot for using a hand grenade to catch fish, or another beaten with 125 strokes of a pole until the muscles were torn and the bone exposed as punishment for losing his blanket. At staff meetings Boatner was shocked when he handed over reports to the Chinese commanders of the number of soldiers who had died on the way to Ramgarh to see them tossed into the wastebasket while meticulous accounting of supply lists continued.

  General Sun Li-jen, lean and handsome and slow of speech with a slight stutter, and General Liao Yao-hsiang, short, stocky, bespectacled and loquacious, remained in charge of their respective divisions, the 38th and 22nd. Liao turned out to be better than he had appeared in Burma although he lacked the drive and character of Sun who was stubborn and assured and would stand up to anyone, including Stilwell. Working and planning with them on his visits, inspecting motor school, drum corps, hospital and firing ranges, Stilwell was satisfied once more to be making soldiers.

  Standing under the Chinese flag on August 23, and again on October 25 at a Sun Yat-sen memorial service, he addressed the troops in Chinese, impressing them immensely by talking in their language and telling stories from their own history. He flavored his speech with appropriate quotations of Ch’eng-yu, the classical proverbs, invoking for instance, when he spoke of loyalty to country, the example of Yüeh Fei, a Sung dynasty official proverbial for resistance to the invading Mongols, or citing the King of Wu who slept on boards and ate poor food to remind himself of humiliating defeat. He told the troops he was representing Chiang Kai-shek and they must fight well, otherwise he would lose face with the Generalissimo who had honored him by the appointment. He reminded them what they had to do for their country and promised that they need have no worry about weapons and equipment as he would personally guarantee them equipment as good
as the Japanese.

  “I’m too busy to mope,” he wrote home and reported that he was feeling better and putting on some weight. “If I could get some new teeth and eyes and some hair dye, I wouldn’t look a day over 70.” Though a doctor in Calcutta diagnosed his eye trouble as a mild cataract in one eye, his sight was still sharp enough to notice details. He saw a movie in which Lewis Stone played an Army officer “with stomach sticking out. Why don’t they catch such things?”

  In New Delhi, where he went for conferences and “poisonous paper work,” he was “oppressed by the magnificence and grandiose style” of Headquarters, both American and British. The gleam of brass hats in Delhi, it was said, lit the way for airplanes to land in a fog. Stilwell found himself bogged in all the administrative and personnel problems of the theater whose American forces he commanded. There were jealousies, resignations, “jaundice campaign ribbons, booze parties,” participation in smuggling over the Hump, various peculations and other scandals which required the visit of an Inspector General from Washington to investigate. Bored by inactivity, the staff kept office hours from 9 A.M. till noon, griped about sacrificing their military careers and in many cases criticized Stilwell for pursuing a hopeless mission from what they could only see as personal ambition to create for himself a bigger command. Not everything was negative. Wheeler, chief of the American Service of Supply (SOS), “is a joy,” and CBI Roundup, the theater newspaper, was functioning without inhibitions. Founded by Stilwell with “If you can prove it, print it” as his only instruction, and with Fred Eldridge as editor, Roundup was the first Army paper overseas and because of its freedom to criticize remained one of the liveliest.