Stilwell and the American Experience in China

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  ROAD-BUILDING, 1921: HAPHAZARD CONVERSATIONS, BY MAJOR JOSEPH W. STILWELL

  THE MESSENGER

  The Messenger has returned from (presumably) delivering a letter.

  Q. Did you deliver the letter?

  A. Yes.

  Q. To whom did you give it?

  A. I gave it to Mr. Oleson.

  Q. But Mr. Oleson was not there. He is here now. You could not have given it to him.

  A. Oh, no. I gave it to the interpreter.

  Q. But the interpreter is also here with Mr. Oleson, and says you did NOT give it to him.

  A. Oh, yes, I gave it to the cook.

  Q. What cook?

  A. The cook up there.

  Q. Up where?

  A. At Hsieh Kung Ling.

  Q. But there is no cook, or house, or anything at Hsieh Kung Ling.

  A. Yes, I really gave it to the cook.

  Q. But listen to me! There IS NO COOK there! To whom did you give the letter?

  A. I gave it to the ma-foo [groom].

  Q. What ma-foo?

  A. Mr. Oleson’s ma-foo.

  Q. But Mr. Oleson has no ma-foo, so you did not give it to him.

  A. Ma-foo?

  Q. Yes, ma-foo-ma-foo. Mr. Oleson has no ma-foo.

  A. Oh, I gave the letter to the other letter-carrier.

  About this time the average foreigner gives it up and either writes another letter, murders the messenger, or goes home by the next boat. The next morning the letter is probably found on the dining-room table.

  THE MAYOR OF CH’I K’OU

  The Ch’u Chang, or mayor, of Ch’i K’ou wished to make a decided impression at his first call on the visiting engineers. They might bring the road through his town, and strangely enough, in view of the feeling in other towns, they were most anxious to have it. Probably because if it went to Chun Tu, they realized that Ch’i K’ou’s fame as a Yellow River port would sadly dwindle. So behold the Ch’u Chang, five feet two in his stockings, marshalling his body-guard, a six-foot policeman, into position for an imposing entrance. The policeman carries a huge lantern with honorific characters painted on it, and precedes his chief, who smooths down his garments, opens his fan, coughs discreetly, bows three or four times and begins:

  THE CH’U CHANG: Your honorable name? (He knows, but he has to ask.)

  THE ENG.: How dare I? My unworthy name is Shih.

  C. C.: Your honorable country is America, is it not?

  ENG.: Yes, my barren country is America.

  C. C.: So. And when will the road reach Ch’i K’ou?

  ENG.: Oh, it is not yet determined.

  C. C.: Ch’i K’ou is a great port,—all the business of the Yellow River is done here. And Chun Tu is not a very desirable place,—no business, no houses, nothing. It would never do to take the road there.

  ENG.: But is the route shorter to Ch’i K’ou or to Chun Tu?

  The mayor, never having been to Chun Tu or seen the route, turns his head over his shoulder and with a deep frown and in a gruff voice shouts out the question to the policeman.

  C. C.: Is the route shorter to Ch’i K’ou or to Chun Tu?

  POL.: (In the timid voice of a three-year-old child) Old Grandfather, it is shorter to Chun Tu.

  The answer makes the Ch’u Chang furious, but he controls himself and says mildly to the Engineer who of course has already heard it,—

  C. C.: It is shorter to Chun Tu.

  ENG.: And is there any other road from Liu Lin direct to Ch’i K’ou?

  C. C.: (Shouting to the policeman) Is there any other road from Liu Lin direct to Ch’i K’ou?

  POL.: Old Grandfather, there is a road direct from Liu Lin.

  C. C.: (To Eng.) Yes, there is a road direct to Liu Lin.

  ENG.: How far is it from Liu Lin to here?

  C. C.: (Shouting to policeman) How far is it from Liu Lin to here?

  POL.: Old Grandfather, one hundred li.

  C. C.: (To Eng.) It is one hundred li.

  ENG.: But is it a good road?

  C. C.: (Shouting to the policeman) Is it a good road?

  POL.: It is a good road for camel, not much rock, mostly dirt….

  And so the double-relay conversation proceeds.

  THE CULVERT

  Enter a coolie, just the usual type, with his pants very evidently cut to fit him in the squatting position, sleeveless vest, straw hat, aimless look. He edges in slowly, as if we had as much time as he has, and after trying to size up the crowd and decide who is boss, gives it up and whispers to the interpreter. The latter, in a stage whisper, says: “There he is—the one with the muddy shoes and no shirt. But don’t call him Mushih (Missionary—the customary salutation). It makes him excited. He is an engineer.”

  John then shuffles over and addresses the Engineer as Hsien sheng or Before Born, an honorific title suggesting that the person addressed is older, hence presumably more learned and entitled to respect on account of seniority.

  JOHN: Before Born, the culvert…

  ENG.: What culvert?

  JOHN: Why, the culvert, of course.

  ENG.: But what about it? WHAT ABOUT IT?

  JOHN: Before Born, it is about the culvert.

  ENG.: Yes, yes. But what do you want? What did you come for?

  JOHN: I came about the culvert.

  John is now beginning to think that this foreigner must be considerably of an ignoramus. Chief engineer! Why, any old engineer should know more than a coolie, and yet, apparently, he doesn’t.

  ENG.: All right. But what do you want of me? What do you want me to do with the culvert?

  JOHN: I built the culvert.

  ENG.: Do you want to get paid for it?

  JOHN: What?

  ENG.: Do-you-want-to-get-paid-for-it?

  JOHN: Paid for what?

  ENG.: My God! For the culvert!

  JOHN: I do not understand.

  The engineer does not bite a radiator, because there are none handy. Instead he swallows four or five times, and then says sweetly,—

  ENG.: What stake are you working at?

  JOHN: Stake? Stake? What stake?

  ENG.: (Trying again) Where are you working?

  JOHN: I am not working.

  O-H-H-H-H-H-H-H ! ! !

  ENG.: Yes. But where have you been working? (A glimmer, a glimmer, sure!)

  JOHN: I have been working Mu Ts’un east side.

  ENG.: Ah! ! ! And did you build a culvert?

  JOHN: Yes, I built a very fine culvert.

  ENG.: And did you get paid?

  JOHN: Yes, but it was hardly enough for the men to buy food to eat.

  ENG.: Is that why you came? Do you want me to give you more money?

  JOHN: Oh, no.

  ENG.: What do you want?

  JOHN: The culvert. Hsieh Ts’un west side there is also a culvert. (We have it! We have it!)

  ENG.: Oh, you mean you want to build another culvert?

  John looks at the engineer pityingly, as much as to say, “You poor object, why didn’t you get that long ago instead of waving your arms, rolling your eyes, and frothing at the mouth? I knew it when I came in!” Then he answers gently: “Yes.”

  Of course, John gets the job.

  Acknowledgments

  THIS BOOK HAS had many contributors for whose help and advice and criticism I would like to express my gratitude and thanks. These go first to Mrs. Joseph W. Stilwell for permission to use and quote from all of her husband’s papers and family letters in her possession and for her friendly hospitality while I was engaged in their study; to Mrs. Bettye (the former Mrs. Benjamin) Stilwell for her devoted work in transcribing the diaries and arranging the papers in order; to Mrs. Nancy Stilwell Easterbrook, the General’s eldest daughter, and her husband, General Ernest Easterbrook, for their insights and information throughout the course of my work; to Mrs. Stuart Wilder, the General’s sister, for her recollections.

  I owe a special debt to Professor John King Fairbank of the East Asia Research Center, H
arvard University, for the gift of his knowledge and time in reading and commenting on the manuscript; to Brigadier General Frank Dorn, Stilwell’s senior aide and colleague in other capacities over many years, for the same, as well as for a constant and generous supply of information; to Colonel David D. Barrett, who served in China from 1927 to 1945, for most of the time in association with Stilwell, for his lively guidance and earnest endeavor to persuade me to “keep down the charisma”; to Dr. Forrest Pogue, biographer of General Marshall, for his ungrudging response whenever queried; to Lieutenant General Raymond A. Wheeler, former chief of the Service of Supply in the China–Burma–India theater, for his warm interest and help in arranging interviews and introductions.

  My thanks and appreciation are due also to many who participated in the events of this history and who personally answered my questions, supplied explanations, recalled experiences and provided other varieties of help, viz.: to Colonel Trevor Dupuy and General Samuel B. Griffith, who separately and coincidentally supplied the initial push to a project that was then only lurking in the back of my mind; to Shang Chen, former Chief of Foreign Liaison of the Ministry of War, Yü Ta-wei, former Director of Ordnance, Chang Kia-ngau, former Minister of Communications, Horace Eng, formerly with CBI Headquarters; to the four former officers of the Chinese 38th Division, veterans of the Burma campaign, who were good enough to give me in Taiwan their firsthand views and information, and whom with great reluctance I must leave anonymous to protect them from possible embarrassment; to the former foreign service officers in China, and on the China desk, Edmund Clubb, John Service, John Paton Davies, John Emmerson, Philip Sprouse and John Carter Vincent, for their intimate knowledge of circumstances and persons, and to Mrs. Clubb, Mrs. Service and Mrs. Vincent, who supplemented it; to President Roosevelt’s associates, Ambassador Averell Harriman, Judge Samuel Rosenman, Benjamin V. Cohen and the President’s daughter, Mrs. James Halsted; to Earl Mountbatten of Burma who spared a morning out of a very crowded schedule and filled it with sparkling reminiscence; to John Keswick and Peter Fleming for further views from the British side and hospitality in addition; to the journalists who served in China or CBI, Edgar Snow, Theodore White, Tillman Durdin, Brooks Atkinson, Eric Sevareid; and to the following fellow-officers, friends and other associates of General Stilwell: General of the Army Omar Bradley, Generals Jacob Devers, Matthew B. Ridgway, Maxwell Taylor, Albert C. Wedemeyer, Major Generals Frank Roberts, Thomas Timberman, H. L. Boatner, Brigadier Generals Thomas Arms, Thomas Betts, W. E. Crist, E. J. McNally, Frederick Munson, Ambassador Henry A. Byroade, Colonel George Demetriadi, Colonel Thomas Arms, Jr., Mrs. John Magruder, Mrs. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Mrs. James McHugh, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Jones, Dean Rusk, Joseph Alsop, Dillon Ripley, Richard M. T. Young, Roger Hilsman, and members of the family, Colonel and Mrs. Ellis Cox, Dr. Benjamin Stilwell and the late Mr. Charles Duell.

  I am particularly grateful to Ambassador Chester Bowles for making it possible for me to go to Assam and to Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Watt for their hospitality and Mr. J. Phookan for his escort while there. For assistance in Taiwan I am indebted to Colonel Harry Collier and Mr. Fox Butterfield, and in Hong Kong to Mr. Alan Whiting of the American Consulate and Colonel William Whitson.

  For assistance in research my primary thanks go to Mr. John E. Taylor of the Military Records Division, National Archives, and to Dr. Kenneth Glazier of the Hoover Library at Stanford. I am especially indebted to my predecessor on the Stilwell trail, Mr. Charles Romanus, co-author of the inexhaustible Army volumes on CBI, for his welcome and his elucidations; also to his colleagues in the Office of the Chief of Military History, Dr. Stetson Conn, Mr. Charles MacDonald and Mrs. Hannah Zeidlik; to Colonel Thomas Griess, professor of Military Art and Engineering at West Point; to Mr. Joseph O’Donnell of the Archives and History Section, USMA Library; to Mr. Leon Williams of the Film Division, National Archives; to Mr. Seymour Pomrenze and his staff of the Adjutant General’s Office, Department of Defense; to Colonel Fant, Colonel Webb, Miss Urban and Miss Sprigg of the Book and Magazine Division (in its various incarnations) of the Department of Defense; to Miss Elizabeth Drewry, former director of the Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, and her successor, Dr. James O’Neill, and their staff; to Miss Julie How and Mrs. Elizabeth B. Mason of the East Asia Oral History Project of Columbia University; to Dr. Herman Kahn, director of Manuscripts and Archives of the Yale University Library, and his assistant, Miss Judith Schiff, for searches in the Stimson Papers; to William Franklin, chief of the Historical Division, Department of State; to the staff of the Reference Division, New York Public Library; to Miss Dorothy Borg and Professors Theodore Ropp of Duke University, Doak Barnett of Columbia, James MacGregor Burns of Williams College and Lyman Van Slyke of Stanford.

  For indispensable readership of the work in progress, without which a writer—or this one—would dry up, and for valuable criticism, I am most sincerely grateful to my daughters and son-in-law, Lucy and David Eisenberg, Jessica and Alma Tuchman, and my husband, Dr. Lester Tuchman.

  Bibliography and Notes

  Bibliography and Other Sources

  ARCHIVES AND MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS

  STILWELL, JOSEPH W., Papers, Carmel, California, and Hoover Library, Stanford, California.

  General Stilwell’s papers, which were naturally my main source, are the extensive collection of a man who wrote constantly and saved everything, including football tickets of 1904. The primary document is the Diary, written in a clear hand in pencil in 50 pocket-size notebooks that cover, though haphazardly, the years 1900 to 1946. Some of these conform to the calendar year, others do not. Some contain consecutive dated entries, others are erratic. Some contain only undated random notes and sketches; others have diary entries and random notes on alternate pages. During periods of more intense activity and interest, or stress, the Diary is supplemented, as I have mentioned in the Foreword, by expanded notes, many undated, which I have called the Supplements. These are written on loose sheets of paper or, for the period from Pearl Harbor to December 1943, in four hard-cover school exercise books (called for convenience the Black and White Books I and II, the Black Book and the Data Book). The Diary, which begins with a few scattered entries in plebe year at West Point, was not continuous; the hiatuses generally coincide with Stilwell’s periods of residence in the United States. He made daily entries, however, during both wars and for most of the period of his service in China except for a blank space in his first year with the 15th Infantry. During his travel when he was sightseeing the entries became especially copious.

  In addition to the Diary and its Supplements, Stilwell kept letters written to him during most of his career, and Mrs. Stilwell kept the letters he wrote to her and to other members of the family during his long absences from home. The Stilwell Papers also include his formal writings—essays, sketches, short stories, articles and speeches—as well as photograph albums of pictures taken by him on his journeys through China, and scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. The contents of both albums and scrapbooks, to the torture of the historian, are undated and unidentified.

  The Diary and Supplements from Pearl Harbor to November 1944, as well as a major part, though by no means all, of the correspondence and records of the CBI command, are at the Hoover Library in Stanford. Since inter-Allied World War II documents, especially those pertaining to China, are not yet declassified, the Army has gone through the Hoover collection and removed a considerable portion, politely leaving a white slip in each instance in mute witness of its passage. Fortunately, in many cases copies of the removed documents are available elsewhere.

  The main body of the Stilwell Papers remains in Mrs. Stilwell’s possession at her home in Carmel (cited in my Notes as “Carmel”). These have been arranged by the family and myself, acting as amateur archivists, in four groups. The A, or career file, folders 1–40, covers the years 1911 to 1946. These contain official orders and correspondence, G-2 reports and other historical material during the tours of duty in China, lectures and tactic
al studies at Benning, the loose Supplements to the Diary for the 1920s and 30s, and letters received on professional matters or (during World War II) from the public. The B, or personal and family file, folders 1–19, covers the years 1883 (and previous family history) to 1946. This contains school and family records, correspondence to and from parents, wife, children and friends, and domestic records of various kinds. The C, or literary, file, folders 1–4, covering the years 1906–46, contains essays, sketches, poems, speeches, and many notes for or drafts of studies of various kinds. The D file contains photographs and newspaper clippings.

  It may be noticed by a close student of the subject that my quotations from the Diary and Supplements do not invariably exactly coincide with those of the same date selected and published by Theodore White in The Stilwell Papers and by Romanus and Sunderland in their volumes on the CBI theater in the official series, The U.S. Army in World War II. The reason for the discrepancies is that in some cases I have quoted from the daily Diary where they have quoted from the Supplements, or vice versa. Likewise my citations do not necessarily agree with those of Romanus and Sunderland because the papers are no longer in the order in which those editors arranged them.

  THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES, Army Records (now Modern Military Records Division), referred to in the Notes as NA. Documents are cited under RG (Record Group), MSO (Military Secretary’s Office), AGO (Adjutant General’s Office).

  OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY (OCMH). This is not a repository of documents, but it has on file interviews recorded by its historians (see under ROMANUS and SUNDERLAND). I am indebted to this Office and to the Modern Military Records Division of the National Archives for making available to me on request particular documents from the World War II archives which could be declassified.

  BINGHAM, SENATOR HIRAM, Papers, Library of Congress. Senator Bingham, who visited Peking in 1927, appeared from Legation documents to have been escorted by Stilwell for part of his visit. On further investivation, this proved to have been a cover (see Chapter 5); his papers, while containing nothing relevant to Stilwell, include some interesting contemporary material on China.