Stilwell and the American Experience in China

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  The frustrations and difficulties rattled Hurley who began to exhibit increasingly explosive behavior, raging and cursing, disrupting every Embassy routine and alienating the staff to the point of complete and mutual mistrust. Hurley considered that the reports of Service, Ludden and others urging a realistic policy more independent of the Kuomintang and more cognizant of the Communists were undermining his efforts. Convinced of a conspiracy against him, he conducted complicated negotiations with the Chinese with only a sergeant as stenographer, and reported to Washington without consulting his staff. Their conviction in turn that his reports were dangerously one-sided and misleading led to their filing reports of their own which were not submitted to him as chief of mission, and led finally to the group telegram of February.

  Upholding Hurley against the staff, the President ruled that America could not aid the Communists unless Chiang Kai-shek consented. The decision was grounded on the same issue of sovereignty on which he had recalled Stilwell. American policy remained fixed in the proper position of refusing to deal independently with, or aid, a dissident group in domestic conflict with the sovereign government. This was correct but unreal. The sovereignty of the Central Government was a husk, just as its democracy was an illusion. The Communists were not, as Hurley maintained in a statement to Chou En-lai, merely one of the political parties of China different from the rest only because it was armed, but a virtually independent body with the de facto attributes of statehood—political organization, territorial control and an army. The Communist pretense, for the time being, that they were merely an element within the state and willing to negotiate unification on certain terms helped to confuse the issue but not the facts. They were dynamic and growing while the Kuomintang was eroding.

  This was not hidden from Washington. Secretary Stettinius (who had succeeded the ailing Hull in November 1944) advised the President in January 1945 that Chiang resisted coalition because it would mean the end of Kuomintang domination and open the way “for the more virile and popular Communists…who are daily growing stronger” to extend their influence, possibly to the point of controlling the Government. Failure to settle with them, on the other hand, could invite “the danger of eventual overthrow of the Kuomintang.”

  The Generalissimo was not that worried. Consistent American support made him feel stronger than he was and defeated its own purpose by assisting him to be adamant instead of moving him toward concessions. He underestimated the strength of the Communists and misunderstood his own situation because, as Stilwell had so often complained, no one told him the truth—or otherwise admitted it. Ho Ying-chin’s “ridiculous” estimates of Communist strength, revealing his “utterly unscrupulous disregard of truth,” indicated to an exasperated officer of the China desk “the hopelessness of efforts to effect unity in China as long as men of this type exercise important influence.”

  The American Government, by nature nervous of the new, was unable to summon the resolution to loosen its support of Chiang and risk his fall. Following the decision to uphold Hurley, the dissenting foreign service officers in fairness to the Ambassador were reassigned to other posts. The Communists drew the indicated conclusion that American policy was not coming their way. They began to move toward suspicion which later events were to deepen into hostility. It lay anyway not far below the surface in basic antiforeignism and in ideological enmity to an “imperialist” state. On the American side the no less intrinsic fear of Communists as property-takers was certainly an element in the making of policy. Whether or not Roosevelt shared it, he was well aware of its dangerous potency in domestic politics. Probably his determining reason above all the rest was fear that he could not afford to let Chiang crumble now although he himself had little illusion left that China under Chiang’s Government could fill the role of great power that he had planned.

  This was made clear by his disposal without Chiang’s knowledge or consent of certain of China’s interests to the Soviet Union at Yalta. The Yalta Agreement of February 1945 was a hard-driven bargain to secure Soviet combat—in default of Chinese—against Japan. The concessions to Stalin, apart from issues in Poland, involved Soviet resumption of the old Czarist rights to Dairen and the Chinese Eastern Railway. These were coupled with Soviet acknowledgment of China’s “full sovereignty” over Manchuria and of readiness to conclude a pact of friendship and alliance with Chiang Kai-shek as head of the recognized government. It was not the concessions but the invited reappearance of Russia in Manchuria that was to make Yalta a red flag of future controversy.

  What determined the need was the Chinese vacuum. It had long been taken for granted that Russian ground forces were required to defeat the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria. This was an absolute for which the President had to rely on the advice of the military. At this time the atomic bomb had not yet been tested, the war in Europe not yet won, and owing to miscalculation by military intelligence of Japan’s capacity to prolong resistance, the war against Japan was expected to last for 18 months after the defeat of Germany. Despite some opinion to the contrary, the prevalent view of the strategists was that direct invasion of the Japanese home islands would be necessary, with the possibility of as many as a million American casualties. Beyond that was the fear of the Kwantung Army, an almost self-sustained force, joining with the Japanese armies in China proper to continue the fight and perhaps, as General Deane, chief of the Military Mission in Moscow, envisaged, “set up a new Japanese state.”

  Roosevelt’s concessions at Yalta were reckoned in terms of American lives. He had to give something, for as Stalin frankly said, why should Russia join the war against Japan if she were not to get anything for it? If the Chinese had been able to play an active military part the need to bring in the Russians would have been correspondingly less. Had Stilwell’s program for an effective combat force of 90 divisions been accomplished there might have been no Yalta.

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  On February 10, 1945, the belated Legion of Merit for “constancy of purpose and untiring zeal” was awarded to Stilwell along with the Oak Leaf cluster of the DSM in recognition of the “tremendous magnitude and complexity” of his achievement in opening the Road. As he pinned on the medals Secretary Stimson said he had never awarded any decorations that gave him more pleasure. They were no compensation to Stilwell for missing action that was taking place elsewhere. He hated Washington which seemed to him “as big a pile of manure as Chungking was.” To Win he wrote, “Unless something active comes my way I am going to do what I told you (ask for a division) and put the onus on the W.D.”

  In the back of his mind was the hope of commanding the eventual landing on the China coast. The triangle Luzon–Formosa–south China still figured in strategic plans. On February 7 he noted a speculative article by the United Press which listed candidates for Commanding General of the China invasion as himself, MacArthur and Nimitz, in that order. Stilwell had never been a man content to wait for fortune to drop in his lap. When Nimitz came to Washington he called on him and whether or not the subject was broached, recorded the meeting as “very cordial.” Accompanying a group of soldiers to the White House on March 8, he found no evidence that the President would be an impediment. “FDR held on to me after the session and talked about the shortage of men and seriousness of attack on Japan. Said he was pleased the Ledo Road was named after me. He looked terrible but not as bad as the Yalta pictures.” To his aide on the way out Stilwell even expressed a grudging approval as if, now close to the weary end, he had felt for a brief moment a ray of the Roosevelt charm. A little over a month later, on April 12, the President was dead. The most consistent supporter of China as a great power and, whatever his illusions, the most determined to align the China of the future on America’s side, he died too soon to know—unless he had a glimmer—what would be the fate of his efforts.

  Return to China seemed not impossible to Stilwell. Merrill came in from the theater to report that he was missed, that “not ten people were with CKS in my affair,” that Sun Li-
jen had proposed a petition to FDR from Chinese officers for his return. According to reports, Wedemeyer and his staff “are making a case that we messed it up so badly that even they will have trouble putting it straight.” When, however, a Japanese attack on Kunming seemed imminent, the recourse of the Generalissimo and Wedemeyer was to demand the recall from Burma of the two original divisions, the 22nd and the 38th, which had trained and fought with Stilwell. The 22nd and 14th, another Ramgarh-trained division, were airlifted back to China for the emergency, unnecessarily as it proved. Owing to increased American air attack and the need to protect the Canton-Hankow Railway and guard the coast against a possible American landing, the Japanese offensive in south China was not renewed.

  As Stilwell had before him, Wedemeyer planned a drive to the coast at Canton by Chinese divisions, based on resources far greater than had been available to his predecessor. Hump deliveries reached the unprecedented total of 46,000 tons in January 1945, supplemented by the Road and pipeline which Stilwell’s campaign had opened. The Generalissimo agreed to the campaign but despite harmony in Chungking performance proved as elusive as it had for Stilwell. Wedemeyer made a handsome show of cordial relations with the Generalissimo and of the ease with which respect for the amenities won his cooperation, but his reports to Marshall had a familiar ring. “If only the Chinese will cooperate!” he wailed. The Generalissimo and his adherents were “impotent and confounded,” the high command stultified by “political intrigues and false pride,” staff commanders “incompetent to issue directives,” the Chinese SOS “terrifyingly inefficient.”

  Free of these troubles, Stilwell kept alert to the struggle that was taking place over command in the Pacific. A friend in the War Department after a long talk “says it will boil down to me. The Administration can’t take Doug.” On the contrary, MacArthur like the Himalayas could not be avoided. He considered himself the natural choice for command of the entire war in the Pacific but until now this had been divided on a geographical basis between him and Nimitz. In April as the focus narrowed toward Japan the command was reorganized with MacArthur designated Commander-in-Chief of all U.S. Army forces in the Pacific on a par with Nimitz in command of all naval forces.

  On April 1 Okinawa, largest of the Ryukyu chain lying between Formosa and the southern tip of Japan, had been invaded and was currently being fought for in the fiercest, costliest and most savagely defended of all the island battles. Possession of the island 350 miles from the center of Japan would allow the B-29s to mount a more intensive attack on Japanese industry and lines of communication with the mainland than was possible from Guam and Saipan in the Marianas. With their fleet outmatched, the Japanese brought out a last desperate weapon—the kamikaze suicide planes. Day after day the screaming pilots flung themselves in fatal dives upon the assembly of American ships supporting the invasion and achieved fearful destruction. On shore the greatest concentration of artillery the defenders could assemble, in contest against the guns and planes and flamethrowers of the American Tenth Army, tore the island into a chaos of mud and ruins but was unable to throw off the invaders. Since the Japanese could not reinforce, there was little doubt of the outcome.

  On May 8 victory was won in Europe. For the last phase against Japan the advocates of direct invasion prevailed over those who argued that bombardment, blockade and encirclement would suffice to bring surrender. The plan now adopted was for a two-phase invasion beginning with attack on Kyushu, southernmost of the home islands, with a target date of November 1, 1945, followed four months later by invasion of Honshu, the main island. The first phase, named OLYMPIC, would be carried out by the Sixth Army consisting of twelve divisions, and the second phase, named CORONET for the crowning attack, by the Eighth and Tenth Armies totaling 25 divisions. The First Army, transferred from Europe, would be in reserve. MacArthur was charged with the conduct of the campaign on land and Nimitz with its naval and amphibious phases.

  That Soviet entry into the war would pin down the Japanese armies on the mainland was a precondition assumed by MacArthur notwithstanding the beclouding of this issue in later years by the hot air of the cold war. The expected difficulty of the invasion was reflected by the official estimate, even after V-E Day, despite a body of more optimistic opinion within the War Department, that the defeat of Japan was still 15 months distant.

  The capture of Okinawa obviated the need for the China coast. It was expected that the Japanese army in east and south China would probably be withdrawn to hold the Yangtze valley or reinforce the home islands, leaving entrance to the ports of south China unopposed. No plans for a forced landing in China were drawn. That long-expected climax which had shimmered on the horizon throughout Stilwell’s years in China faded away. Subsequently in June the Japanese began evacuating the region captured in the east China campaign of 1944. Burning and demolishing Kweilin, Liuchow, Nanning and other cities before they left, they withdrew to the coast and to the north. The Chinese forces were able to reenter the wasted area without a battle.

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  Stilwell had known MacArthur since cadet days when they were only a class apart at West Point. If there were to be any openings, he judged the source would be where the MacGregor sat and he determined to go to the source if he could. Marshall was cooperative. A mission to the Pacific fronts to survey the needs of Army commanders in relation to the functioning of the Army Ground Forces was arranged. At a final talk on May 10 Marshall “had nothing to offer except that I could go and make my own arrangements….Doug obviously out of control; W.D. afraid of him. So I’ll go out and look around. Talked to Dorn, Bergin and Jones about it. They all say GO.” Without formal orders Dorn and Bergin arranged to go along as the nucleus of a staff for Stilwell, just in case. He left on May 21 and after tours of the islands en route reached Manila on May 25. MacArthur greeted him cordially and in character: he made a speech. “Says he wants a friend to speak up for him.” He urged Stilwell to go everywhere, see everyone, talk to Krueger and Eichelberger, commanders of the Sixth and Eighth Armies, make suggestions and give him ideas.

  A month was passed in this occupation including a visit to Okinawa where Stilwell’s own 7th Division from Ford Ord was fighting as part of the Tenth Army. Caves, holes and tombs from which the Japanese were flushed by flamethrowers were everywhere. “The poor Okinawans have had even their ancestors blown to pieces.” Men were pinned down in mud two feet deep for days under incessant fire. Both sides fought in a daze of death and misery. Ultimate casualties for the 60-mile island were 12,000 Americans killed, 36,000 wounded, over 100,000 Japanese killed and 8,000 prisoners.

  On June 18, the day before Stilwell was due to leave, MacArthur asked him if he would serve as his Chief of Staff. “Told him No, I fancied myself as a field commander.” MacArthur asked if he would be willing to take an army despite his four stars. Stilwell replied he would take a division to be with troops. “Pooh pooh,” said MacArthur, “if you would take an Army I would rather have you than anyone else I know.” He discussed the Tenth Army which was an apple of discord between himself and Nimitz who retained command of operations on Okinawa. The commander of the Tenth, General Simon Bolivar Buckner, leaned toward Nimitz. MacArthur said that if he could get the Tenth Army away from the Navy he would like to have Stilwell command it, if Marshall agreed. Stilwell started for home the following day. At Guam, his first stop, he learned that General Buckner had been killed by a shell on Okinawa. He sent a radio to MacArthur telling where he could be reached and continued eastward. On arriving in Honolulu, he found the hoped-for message: “Command Tenth Army. Return to Guam at once.”

  On June 23 Stilwell took over command of the Army he could expect to lead in the crowning attack on Japan. Ten days earlier the Joint Chiefs had ordered plans to be made for the possible contingency of Japan’s sudden collapse or surrender. In New Mexico the operation called Manhattan Project was nearly ready for the first test of its product. What would come of it was unknown nor did commanders in the field know of its existen
ce. Operations in Okinawa had reached the mopping-up stage. The task of developing the island as a base and rehabilitating and preparing the Tenth Army for the ultimate battle remained. Stilwell found it a high-pressure 24-hours-a-day job hampered by a lack of coordination and drive. “I have got to be an s.o.b. or risk disaster.” The greatest compliment he ever received, he said later, was when 7th Division men, looking up from a hole as he passed in a jeep, called “Hey guys, Joe’s back!” in voices that sounded pleased.

  His notes filled up with plans and ideas for the invasion including the increased use of tactical aviation which, with obvious reference to an old colleague, he wanted under ground control, assuring better teamwork than in the past and worthwhile results “if properly coordinated.” On July 6, about the time these remarks were being written, their target, General Chennault, angrily resigned his command of the Fourteenth Air Force. He was pushed by Marshall and Arnold who, in the course of a reorganization, named Stratemeyer over his head as air chief in China. Chennault’s energetic fighting record could not cancel the mistrust which his resort to outside channels and pressures induced in his superiors. In a mammoth letter of resignation composed for him by Alsop, whose hyperactivity was part of its cause, Chennault closed his military career “with bitterness” and deposited the blame for all that had gone wrong in China on Stilwell.

  On July 16 the atomic bomb was successfully but still secretly tested in New Mexico. From July 17 to August 2 Truman and Churchill met with Stalin at the Potsdam Conference and summoned Japan to surrender unconditionally or face “prompt and utter destruction.” The ultimatum was rejected by Japan’s military rulers although civilian efforts to reach a negotiated peace through Russia had already been opened with the Emperor’s consent. In the meantime the Joint Chiefs warned MacArthur and Nimitz that preparations for a possible Japanese capitulation had become a “pressing necessity.” The plan of action in case of surrender, code-named BLACKLIST, which reached Stilwell on August 3 provided for the Tenth Army to occupy Korea. “Manila is optimistic about it,” he noted. At the same time planning for the invasion continued. He learned that the British were to participate in CORONET with a corps of one Canadian, one Australian and one Indian division. “To be under my command. My God.” The arrangement had been approved by the War Ministry. “They said they knew where they stood with me….Mountbatten has to give up units for this operation! Life is funny.”