Stilwell and the American Experience in China

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  Return to Chungking brought “papers and grief” and a dinner at the Chiangs’: “Very simple food and little ritual or ceremony, but oh! the atmosphere. In the presence of the Most High no one dares to make a remark or venture an opinion….You can see from the rigid postures and strained expressions that the sweat is running down the boys’ backs.” On March 19, his sixtieth birthday, he let “the terrible date ooze by” without writing home.

  At all times and hours and places Stilwell scribbled his notes and memos, the tracks of a mind constantly twisting and turning in search of a solution. “Take a port and put a U.S. force in south China? Amalgamate with the south Chinese. Invite the Reds to join….Am I through in China?”

  “CKS is blind….Solution—Open the Road? For What? If CKS handles supply, this means only hoarding for maintenance of KMT.”

  “CKS not a free agent: zone commanders, political influences, Red obsession. Won’t (can’t) reorganize.”

  There was a note on his own situation: “No strings to pull.” There were notes on his reading: Walter Lippmann’s Foreign Policy, Lattimore’s book and a list of books on China. There was a five-page essay on China’s situation, an essay on “The Problem of India,” notes on the Oriental, on Lend-Lease, on the Russian soldier, on the Taoist doctrine of nonresistance to events and external forces, on the dangers of a too-close tie with Britain, on the United States and Russia as the two great postwar powers.

  Beginning in March the Japanese launched a renewed offensive up the Yangtze into the Hupeh-Hunan rice-bowl area of central China. The military purpose was uncertain but the objective appeared to be Ichang where the Yangtze gorges form a natural barrier on the way to Chungking. Ho Ying-chin insisted the drive was designed to capture Chungking and forestall the Allies’ Burma campaign. He wanted to withdraw the Y-force troops to defend Chungking, which was exactly what Stilwell believed the Japanese intended him to do because they were becoming concerned about the presence of this force in Yunnan. On April 19 Stilwell had “a hell of a session with the Gmo…sneers and complaints….Talks of a counteroffensive and ‘morale at low ebb.’ Acts scared.” Later Ho Ying-chin did divert two armies and 70,000 fillers from the Y-force, further delaying the training program. A greater loss was the recall of Ch’en Ch’eng, zone commander of Hupeh, whom the Generalissimo ordered back to Hupeh to defend his province against the Japanese.

  —

  In April came “the famous call to Washington,” as Stilwell afterwards described it. The call was a direct if unintended result of action by the Generalissimo who “has had a brainstorm with the help of Chennault.” Independence had not solved Chennault’s problem. He was not getting the priority in supplies which the President had ordered for him but had left operationally ambivalent. Stilwell still had control of Hump tonnage, and since he was still committed to preparing the Y-force for the Burma campaign on which all parties had agreed, he continued to allot three eighths of supplies to aviation and five eighths to the ground forces and all other purposes. These included material for China’s small-arms arsenals as well as tons of paper money which, owing to shortages of mills and materials in China, had to be printed abroad and flown in to meet the appetite of the inflation.

  Frightened by the Japanese drive, the Generalissimo determined that a major offensive must be launched by the Fourteenth Air Force and he asked Roosevelt to call Chennault back to Washington for consultation over Stilwell’s head. Roosevelt was willing since he had had the same idea himself, but Marshall, who in his turn had been considering bringing Stilwell home to argue with the President, instantly warned that interference by an ally in the chain of American command could set a dangerous precedent. He suggested that the difficulty could be met by calling Stilwell back at the same time, permitting both Generals to be present for the forthcoming conference with Churchill and the Combined Chiefs in May. Accordingly Stilwell and Chennault left China together on April 23 and arrived in Washington on April 28. The determined euphoria of the press concerning anything to do with China was extended to the return of Uncle Joe, whom The New York Times editorialized as a diplomat beloved in Chungking: “From the Generalissimo down they all like him.”

  After a reunion with Win who came to Washington to join him, Stilwell’s first visit was to Marshall and Stimson who informed him he had an appointment at the White House for the following day where he was expected to present the arguments to the President against the major air offensive wanted by Chiang Kai-shek and Chennault. The plan brought to Washington by Chennault called for a six-month program of combat action to wrest air superiority from the Japanese, and of bombing action against river and coastal shipping gradually extended over the South China Sea and by the end of the year to Japan itself. To supply the program he wanted the entire air transport tonnage for May and June, 4,700 tons a month from July through September and just over 7,000 tons a month thereafter.

  The War Department opposed the plan as premature because unless accompanied by a ground offensive in Burma it would provoke the Japanese to wipe out the airfields in China and attack the Assam bases as well. Chiang Kai-shek gave his “personal assurance” to Roosevelt at this time that if the enemy moved against the air bases, such action could “be halted by the existing Chinese ground forces.”

  Stilwell prepared a memorandum of what he wanted to say to the President. In addition to all the basic arguments made in Marshall’s letter for reopening Burma and raising the combat efficiency of the Chinese Army, it fastened on the great empty space in the direction of the war in Asia and urged that a “general strategic plan” be prepared to tie in future operations in China with the campaign in the Southwest Pacific. It repeated his hope, never relinquished, of a U.S. Army corps for action in China. It stated the case against the air offensive and predicted that if the Japanese launched a systematic attack against the air bases as they had in Chekiang, the Chinese would be no better able to stop them than they had been then. This was why his program for preparing 60 divisions was necessary and why it needed a land supply route through Burma. It was a cogent and forceful brief which was to be fumbled in argument.

  At the White House on the following day, April 30, Stilwell was unable to speak his thesis effectively to Roosevelt; instead, according to Marshall, he sat humped over with his head down and “muttered something about China not fighting.” Roosevelt seized on his attitude to wonder if he were ill and to ask Marshall if a sick man should not be relieved. Marshall replied that the “sick man” could put on a better physical performance than any two men in the White House; nevertheless he was chagrined and disappointed. Stilwell afterwards said he realized he had let him down.

  What blocked him may have been the feeling that in arguing for his own program he would be promoting himself. This was something Stilwell constitutionally could not do. His entry for Who’s Who at this time was stated in six terse lines (in comparison with 15 for Eisenhower, 33 for Patton and 55 for MacArthur). The recapture of Burma and the commitment to enable the Chinese soldier to fight effectively had a profound personal meaning for him which in effect closed his lips, the more so as the importance of both seemed to him obvious. Like Cordelia he would not speak what should have needed no explaining. His own hostility to the President, and the knowledge that it was to some extent returned, played a part. Roosevelt’s pronounced inclination to gratify the Generalissimo’s wishes, his glossy view of Chiang and Chennault, his obvious intention to try out the air force no matter what, all combined to make Stilwell inarticulate. He did not have the tact or capacity to deal with opinions which he held in contempt, and contempt came to him easily. He might have but did not try to explain to Roosevelt that Chiang’s “personal assurance” was hardly more than a Chinese formality. He was unable to say what he had put so well in writing: that the creation of an effective ground force would be of far more lasting and effective benefit to China than “increased air activity without a foundation….Air coverage over nothing is in my opinion of little value.”

&n
bsp; He had no difficulty in putting the case to Secretary Stimson that evening when he and Win and the McCloys were invited to dinner. While talking of the last war the three men discovered that they had all been at Langres at about the same time. In an effort to help put across Stilwell’s argument, which was that of the War Department, Stimson telephoned Roosevelt to tell him “how strongly I admired Stilwell and thus to answer the evident doubt he had of him.” He embroidered a little to say he had known Stilwell since the last war “when he and I were classmates at Langres” and followed the call with a letter recalling his responsibility in selecting Stilwell for China. “We knowingly gave him the toughest task in this war….He has convinced me in the last few days that he is the only man I know who can carry that big job through.”

  It did not help, for Roosevelt had already on May 2 informed Marshall of his decision that nothing must be allowed to delay the proposed air offensive. The Japanese drive up the Yangtze had raised once again the nine-lived specter of China’s collapse, dramatized by the Generalissimo’s evidently genuine fright. At a meeting with Hopkins and the Joint Chiefs Roosevelt said the “situation of Chiang Kai-shek was critical and there was a possibility of the collapse of his whole government.” He was determined to give Chiang Kai-shek as far as possible what he wanted, without a quid pro quo, and on this issue, despite his great reliance on and trust in Marshall, he was prepared to overrule his military advisers. He told Marshall that “politically he must support Chiang Kai-shek,” that he agreed on the necessity of supplying the Y-force and would “handle Chiang Kai-shek on that,” but that otherwise Chennault must have first priority. He favored a modified ANAKIM in north Burma only, without the Rangoon objective, but this too must take second place to the air offensive.

  Informed by Marshall, Stilwell summed up the decision as based on “total misapprehension of the character, intentions, authority and ability of Chiang Kai-shek.” Privately he thought Madame had “put it over FDR like a tent.” Chiang’s Government was “a one-man joke. The KMT is his tool. Madame is his front. The silly U.S. propaganda is his lever. We are his suckers.”

  —

  The fate of ANAKIM and the future strategy of the war in the Far East were still to be settled at the full-dress conference code-named TRIDENT which was about to convene. It was the largest of the strategic meetings held so far and the first one at which field commanders from CBI appeared. Wavell, Stilwell and Chennault were the center of interest although the European theater supplied the principal issue. This was the choice between a Mediterranean approach favored by the British and a cross-Channel attack by the Americans. To gain their way the Americans periodically threatened a “Pacific alternative” to Europe. In the Far East Churchill had as always the political end in view and wished frankly to “by-pass” Burma in favor of operations leading eventually to Singapore, “the only prize that will restore British prestige in this region.” This was not an American aim. Both Roosevelt and the military, though disagreeing as to means, wanted action leading to China as a base of operations against Japan.

  A fundamental divergence underlay the strategic issue: the United States for reasons of policy as well as strategy wished to aid China; Britain did not. The vision of China as one of the four great postwar powers had no appeal for the British. They were not anxious to see the war end with China in the strong position once held by Japan. The British flag in that event would not fly for long over Hong Kong. Nor did they agree with Roosevelt’s view that China had no aggressive or imperialistic ambitions. She claimed Tibet, thereby posing a threat to India as well as Mongolia, and unofficially north Burma. As Anthony Eden put it to Roosevelt during a visit preparatory to TRIDENT, he “did not much like the idea of the Chinese running up and down the Pacific.” On the other hand he expected China to undergo revolution after the war, a development which the British regarded with equanimity as it was expected to leave China divided and weak.

  In the face of American insistence at TRIDENT on lifting the siege of China, Wavell and his staff were as pessimistic as ever. But rather than commit their resources to ANAKIM and the opening of a land route to China, they took Roosevelt’s side against the War Department in favor of putting greater effort into support of the Hump and air supply. The Navy led by Admiral King sided with Marshall. When King’s formidable temper was aroused, according to an associate, “he could even raise holy hell with FDR.” King felt strongly that China’s manpower, given munitions and equipment, could be applied against Japan and this was his reason for favoring the recapture of Burma and, in his words, for “unceasing endeavor to reach China by sea.” Holding these views, he “always believed in Stilwell and trusted him.”

  Marshall was angered by Roosevelt’s decision in favor of the Chiang-Chennault strategy. In his dealings with the President he took pains to be formal and official, would not let himself smile when Roosevelt cracked jokes and sat frozen-faced when others laughed. His conscious purpose was to avoid an easy relationship in order that any agreement reached between them should be an official War Department commitment that could not be overturned “with a wave of the cigarette holder.” Marshall was a formal person even when he was not trying—Stilwell was said to be the only officer ever heard to call him George—and when annoyed he was icy. His annoyance in the matter of China extended to Hopkins, with whom on every other issue he was on terms of mutual respect. By the time of TRIDENT, as far as China policy was concerned, their quarrel was such that they had ceased to speak to each other. The Chennault affair, Marshall said afterwards, caused the only serious dispute he ever had with Hopkins. Marshall considered Chennault unfitted for independent command because, as he told Roosevelt, though “probably a tactical genius” he knew nothing of logistics and had been “for many years a paid employee of the Chinese Government and hence under the undue influence of the G–mo.” He despised Chennault’s machinations and told him to his face that he did not trust him. When he spoke of him to Army historians after the war, “down would come that VMI ring on the desk.” His especial anathema was Alsop whom he knew to have tried to persuade T. V. Soong to have the Chinese withdraw from their share of the Burma campaign and who not unnaturally earned some of Marshall’s harshest remarks. As a consequence of these divisions the President’s two most important advisers—Hopkins on policy and Marshall on strategy—were too far apart on China to discuss it, with the result that the President was left to settle matters his own way.

  After a flying five-day holiday at home (“Better an hour of Carmel than a cycle of Cathay”) Stilwell returned to Washington for the opening discussion of ANAKIM on May 14. The refrain of the imposing array of British brass at the long table was “can’t—can’t—can’t.” The visitors were headed by the Chief of Imperial General Staff, Sir Alan Brooke, a small, dark, unamiable man who disliked Americans and vice versa. He was the kind to stimulate Stilwell, who recorded with pleasure that he had “locked horns with Brooke to King’s delight,” but this was on specifics rather than general policy. When the conference moved to the White House in the presence of President and Prime Minister he failed again to summon any eloquence. Marshall was more than ever irritated. “Apparently Stilwell shut up like a clam and made therefore an unfavorable impression,” Stimson sadly recorded after hearing Marshall’s report. “Hard to say my piece,” Stilwell’s diary acknowledged.

  If he had been Cicero it would not have made much difference, for both Roosevelt and Churchill were opposed to putting the major effort into Burma that ANAKIM would require. King tried to insist that it was indispensable. Churchill said he was not going to do anything “silly” just to pacify the Chinese. Stilwell became vocal enough to say that Britain and the United States were pledged in good faith to the north Burma campaign in the current year. At one point in discussions after the formal session the President, who was intensely interested in the character of Chiang Kai-shek, asked Stilwell and Chennault for their opinions. “He’s a vacillating tricky undependable old scoundrel who never keeps
his word,” Stilwell replied. Chennault nobly offered, “Sir, I think the Generalissimo is one of the two or three greatest military and political leaders in the world today. He has never broken a commitment or promise made to me.”

  While the conferees continued to argue for another week, the Chinese agitated. Madame, who to Roosevelt’s vexation had resumed residence in the White House for the period of the conference, called in McCloy, the highest official she could reach, to insist on full compliance with the Generalissimo’s demands. He was, after all, she said, Supreme Commander of the China theater. T. V. Soong, now back in Washington, made the same point when called in to present China’s views to TRIDENT. He also stated specifically that Chiang would not enter the Burma campaign unless Rangoon were included and would make a separate peace with Japan unless wholehearted operations for the relief of China were undertaken. Roosevelt told the conference he did not think this was crying wolf and that the Allies “must not be put into the position of being responsible for the collapse of China.”

  After heated discussion over what form military action should take, Roosevelt’s view, supported by the British military, prevailed in favor of putting the major effort into increased and enlarged service over the Hump. In the end ANAKIM was put aside without a decision; it remained on the books, to be resurrected and reinterred at each future conference. At the insistence of the War Department, which claimed that the Hump route could not deliver more unless Myitkyina were retaken to shorten the flight and that a land route to China was in any case essential, the north Burma campaign was saved and given a code name of its own—SAUCY. The War Department agreed to invest the effort required to deliver 7,000 tons a month over the Hump beginning in July and 10,000 by September. The President specifically ordered that starting July 1 Chennault was to have the first 4,700 tons a month flown into China, with the next 2,000 tons going to “all other purposes including the ground forces,” and the next 300 again to the air force.