by David Rooney
As usual they are dogging it. General Liao, 22nd Division’s commanding general, is a colourless bird. He wants to wait for the 96th division and I suppose the commanding general of the 96th for the 55th etc. Full of excuses – how strong the Jap positions are, and how reinforcements are coming to them etc. Two days ago it would have been easy, but now … They’ll drag it out and do nothing unless I can somehow kick them into it … Hot as hell. We are all dried out and exhausted. I am mentally about shot. Merrill* back at 9.00. Limeys will attack in force with tanks. Good old Slim. Maybe he’s all right after all.
By the end of the battle for Taungoo, Stilwell was at the end of his tether:
By Jesus I’m about fed up … Alternatives now at hand. Let it ride and do nothing. Resign flatly. Ooze out and demand own forces … Liao and Tu have dogged it again. The pusillanimous bastards. No attack at all. Front quiet, no Jap reaction. Just craven. Miao moved command post back a mile. Tu ordered him not to attack.
The results of Tu’s obstruction became clear on 30 March when 200 Division, having suffered 3,000 casualties, was completely surrounded by the Japanese, was forced to abandon its vehicles and heavy equipment and broke out through the jungle in small parties. This good division was sacrificed by Tu and Liao in spite of all Stilwell could do.
The British forces were having an equally hard time. The force sent to help the Chinese at Taungoo – three battalions, a squadron of tanks and a gunner battery – was surrounded at Schwedaung and, in the attempt to break out, suffered very heavy losses. The Japanese, not for the last time, took some of the British prisoners, tied them to trees and used them for bayonet practice. The Japanese attacks at Taungoo, Schwedaung and around Prome clearly illustrate their general tactics. Whenever their advancing troops met opposition, they immediately sent out aggressive fighting patrols on both flanks. These patrols moved swiftly and attempted to join up and set up a road block behind the defenders’ position, subjecting them to fire from two directions. This often caused chaos and panic.
After the defeat at Taungoo, Stilwell saw that the crucial issue was that the Chinese commanders would not accept his orders. On 1 April, saying ‘Am I the April Fool’, he went to Chungking and threw down the gauntlet to Chiang. In the course of many stormy interviews Stilwell’s humour did not entirely desert him. ‘I have to tell Chiang Kai Shek with a straight face that his subordinates are not carrying out his orders, when in all probability they are doing exactly what he tells them … however it is expecting a good deal to have them turn over a couple of armies in a vital area, to a goddam foreigner they don’t know.’ Madame, who was present at these discussions, was more sensitive to these issues and, more able to understand the western viewpoint, suggested that Chiang went down to Maymyo to deal with the matter. As a result, Chiang appointed a tough character, General Lo, to enforce Stilwell’s authority. Stilwell appreciated Madame’s support, but ultimately he realised that the whole presentation by Chiang to back up his authority was a great charade.
At the time of his visit to Chungking, Stilwell produced a memo which he entitled ‘THE SYSTEM’ and which gives a clear outline of his thoughts:
Chiang Kai Shek says ‘J.W. Stilwell can command the Fifth and Sixth Armies.’ Then I get a lengthy harangue on the psychology of the Chinese soldier, and how the Fifth and Sixth must not be defeated or the morale of the Army and the nation will crumble, together with a cockeyed strategical conception based on the importance of Mandalay … Then the flood of letters begins. To Tu. To Lin. To me. All of them direct. I never see half of them. They direct all sorts of action and preparation with radical changes based on minor changes in the situation. The Chinese commanders are up and down – highly optimistic one minute; in the depths of gloom the next. They feel, of course, the urgent necessity of pleasing the Generalissimo, and if my suggestions or orders run counter to what they think he wants, they offer endless objections. When I brush off these objections they proceed to positive measures – for instance, stopping the move of a regiment until it is too late to bring it to bear – or just fail to get the order out, or getting it out with a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘ands’ in it, or when pushed, simply telling lower commanders to lay off and not carry it out. Or just put on a demonstration and report opposition too strong. I can’t shoot them, I can’t relieve them; and just talking to them does no good. So the upshot of it is that I am the stooge who does the dirty work and gets the rap.
The memo on The System was accompanied by a shrewd description of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, whom he called Madamissima:
A clever, brainy woman. Sees the Western viewpoint. (By this I mean she can appreciate the mental reaction of a foreigner to the twisting, indirect and undercover methods of Chinese politics and war making.) Direct, forceful, energetic, loves power, eats up publicity and flattery … Great influence on Chiang Kai Shek mostly along the right lines too. A great help on several occasions.
On Chiang himself he was blunter: ‘He is not mentally stable … My only concern is to tell him the truth and go about my business. If I can’t get by that way the hell with it; it is patently impossible for me to compete with the swarms of parasites and sycophants that surround him.’
In the confused fighting around Taungoo and Prome there was more inter-Allied co-operation than one might have imagined from the caustic and critical comments, and this was the start of a firm relationship between Stilwell and Slim that lasted until the eve of final victory. Slim recorded that on one occasion during the retreat they were sitting down conferring when Stilwell said, ‘At least you and I have an ancestor in common.’ Slim asked, ‘Who?’ ‘Ethelred the Unready.’* Slim, in his own book Defeat into Victory, paid a balanced and thoughtful tribute to Stilwell:
These were my first active contacts with Stilwell, who had arrived in Burma a few days after me. He already had something of a reputation for shortness of temper and for distrust of most of the rest of the world. I must admit he surprised me when, at our first meeting, he said, ‘Well General I must tell you that my motto in all dealings is buyer beware,’ but he never as far as I was concerned lived up to that old horse-trader’s motto. He was over sixty, but he was tough, mentally and physically; he could be as obstinate as a whole team of mules; he could be, and frequently was, downright rude to people whom, often for no very good reason, he did not like. But when he said he would do a thing he did it … He had a habit, which I found very disarming, of arguing most tenaciously against some proposal, and then looking at you over the top of his glasses with the shadow of a grin and saying, ‘Now tell me what you want me to do and I will do it.’ He was two people, one when he had an audience, and a quite different person when talking to you alone. I think it amused him to keep up in public the ‘Vinegar Joe Tough Guy’ attitude especially in front of his staff. Americans, whether they liked him or not – and he had more enemies among Americans than among British – were all scared of him. He had courage to an extent few people have, and determination, which, as he usually concentrated it along narrow lines, had a dynamic force. He was not a great soldier in the highest sense, but he was a real leader in the field. No one else I know could have made his Chinese do what they did. He was, undoubtedly, the most colourful character in South East Asia – and I liked him.*
When Stilwell returned from Chunking and masterminded the conference at Maymyo (7–8 April) with Chiang, Madame, the Chinese generals and Alexander, his entourage included Clare Luce, the distinguished journalist from Life magazine. Her reports went far to create the public image of Vinegar Joe. Despite grave setbacks, the military issued reports that were as up-beat as possible. The press seized on these and, as in the Iraq war of 2003, produced inaccurate and unhelpful headlines. Barbara Tuchman, in her admirable book Sand against the Wind, neatly summarises how Stilwell was being presented to the newspaper-reading public:
Vinegar Joe’ was becoming a public personality. He made good copy and the press made the most of it, developing a picturesque stereotype, the crusty cracker-bar
rel soldiers’ soldier, tough, leathery, wiry, down-to-earth, wise-cracking, Chinese speaking, a disciplinarian loved by the troops, with lack of swank and a warm smile, an American ‘Chinese Gordon’, an ‘Uncle Joe’.*
Stilwell’s own comments were less flattering. He wrote: ‘Deathly afraid of this damn publicity; what a flop I’ll look if the Japs run me up in the hills.’
In the days after the conference Stilwell had serious discussions with General Kan, commander of the Sixth Army in the Eastern Shan states, and with General Tu, commander of the Fifth Army They planned for the Fifth Army to concentrate at Pyinmana and the Sixth Army at Loikaw to defend the eastern flank and the approaches to the Burma Road. There was now almost unrestricted Japanese bombing of all the major Burmese towns. In the weeks before the start of the monsoon – usually in mid-May – the towns with their predominantly wooden buildings were tinder dry and the carnage caused by the fires was horrifying. Stilwell in his daily, staccato jottings often mixed high strategy with the humdrum, the horrifying and the bizarre. On 11 April he wrote, ‘Kan put on a good dinner serving crème de menthe as wine. Good sleeping.’ And two days later: ‘All day playing rummy. Hot night. Ants all over me.’
The military setbacks continued. On 15 April Alexander called Stilwell to Maymyo for an urgent conference to discuss tactics. Two days before this, Chiang had promised that 96 Division from the northern sector of the Fifth Army area would hold the small but important town of Taungdwingwi. At the last moment he reneged on this undertaking and Alexander ordered Slim to try to hold it. This failed because the Japanese moved too quickly. In his diary Stilwell continued to be caustically critical of the British. On 14 April he merely noted that the British were pulling out of Taungdwingyi but omitted to say that the Chinese had promised to defend it. His comments on the conference with Alexander are equally pungent. ‘Did Aleck have the wind up? Disaster and gloom. No fight left in the British … Alex calls me “Joe” now. Letter from G-mo full of crap and nonsense.’
By now hordes of terrified Burmese and Indian refugees were clogging up the roads and adding substantially to the military problems. The Japanese used the situation to their advantage and infiltrated their forward troops among the refugees. The Japanese advance was so rapid that on the day Alexander and Stilwell were conferring at Maymyo (15 April), Slim was facing a strong attack on the main Burmese oilfield at Yenangyaung. As the Japanese forces approached, Slim had the dismal task of blowing up over a million gallons of oil to deny the enemy its use.*
Slim’s destruction of the Yenangyaung oilfields was the prelude to a fiercely fought battle involving close Allied co-operation. To help Slim in a crisis situation Stilwell sent the Chinese 38 Division under General Sun. Sun’s help was crucial, and Slim paid him a high tribute by putting part of the available artillery and armour under the General’s direct command. In spite of the help from the Chinese, the Burma Division faced dire peril and had to fight its way out of the Japanese encirclement and abandon much of its transport and heavy weaponry. For four days a bitter battle raged in temperatures well above 100°F amidst the smoke of the burning oil wells. The Chinese intervention resulted in the rescue of a main part of the Burma Division and freed over 200 British prisoners, but it was not enough to halt the Japanese advance.
The situation in the western sector was grave enough, but now Stilwell faced an even greater threat on his eastern flank. The Sixth Army had already infuriated him, and he had demanded that its commander, General Kan, should be reprimanded for incompetence in failing to control his divisional commanders, for failing to obtain intelligence about Japanese movements, and for failing to supply his forward troops. Stilwell had gone further and demanded the dismissal of General Chen, who commanded 55 Division. Chen had withdrawn from a vital feature in the face of a very weak Japanese attack, and he had refused to attack a Japanese position despite having six battalions facing one enemy battalion. Stilwell ordered 93 Division to move south, but the commander refused. Meanwhile 55 Division, after conducting an unnecessary retreat, settled into bivouacs without even posting sentries.
Security in the Chinese divisions was notoriously lax and, during the fighting around Taungoo, the Japanese managed to obtain details of the Chinese strategic plan to concentrate their main defence around Mandalay. This was Chiang’s plan, which Stilwell had substantially changed, and the Japanese response on discovering it was swift and effective. They had five effective divisions – now well-supplied through Rangoon – and, keeping three divisions to maintain the momentum of their central attack, they detached 56 Division, substantially reinforced with tanks, artillery and additional motor transport, to wheel around the eastern flank of the Chinese forces and make a swift thrust towards Lashio. If it succeeded, this brilliant strategy would not only cut the vital Burma Road but would also make possible a wide pincer movement to surround and destroy most of the Chinese and British forces in Burma. The clear command decision of the Japanese and its speedy execution are in stark contrast to the baffling and frustrating situation faced by Stilwell. In theory, he had six divisions under his command, but because of Chiang’s machinations, the defeatist attitude of the Chinese divisional commanders and their refusal to obey Stilwell’s orders he was powerless to stem the Japanese advance.
The Japanese made their first move against the Chinese 55 Division, ineptly commanded by General Chen. Chen’s troops were still sitting idly in their undefended bivouacs when the Japanese struck. The main body of the Japanese 56 Division moved rapidly through the jungle east of the road, while another group, more than a battalion strong, made a pincer movement to the west. Then the whole of the division attacked the unsuspecting Chinese and all but wiped them out. Chinese troops fled into the jungle and Chen’s division effectively ceased to exist. They had paid a very heavy price for their commander’s incompetence. When the fighting was nearly over the Chinese 93 Division approached, but when they saw the situation they quickly retreated without fighting. In three days of carefully controlled and aggressive fighting, the Japanese had destroyed a Chinese division and advanced nearly 80 miles north of Loikaw. Lashio and the Burma Road lay within their grasp.
Stilwell’s appalling situation was further illustrated by the behaviour of the other Chinese commanders during that critical battle. General Tu simply disappeared, and General Lo, who should have been cracking the whip over the divisional commanders, had gone off to Maymyo, ostensibly to confer with Alexander. Stilwell’s diary notes explain his feelings. ‘Someone has to control the mess and I am the goat. … If C.K.S. [Chiang Kai-Shek] continues his tactical masterpieces the mess will merely get worse. He has made it impossible for me to do anything and I may as well acknowledge it now.’ He described Tu as ‘a crybaby, not a commander’, and added, ‘That bastard Tu came in. Same old crap. Can’t take the responsibility … Christ, he’s a headache.’ When on 20 April Stilwell heard the first rumours of the defeat of Chen and 55 Division, he wrote, ‘Wild tales of the Jap tank division at Loikaw. Aiming at Lashio? Jesus. This may screw us completely.’
Stilwell’s anguish at the Japanese advance towards Lashio reflected his fundamental belief that the whole campaign should focus on defending the Burma Road and the crucial supply route to Chiang’s forces – and, later, the attempts to reopen it. He and most American officials were highly critical of the British attitude and assumed that the British never seriously intended to defend Burma. They pointed to the thousands of Indian Army troops, who could have been sent in to defend Burma had the will and determination been there. They also expressed strong feelings about their forces being used to prop up the pre-war British Empire.
Even in the crisis situation that faced the Allied troops in Burma in April 1942 there was far more co-operation between Slim and Stilwell than would appear from his diary entries. Before the news of the total defeat of 55 Division under Chen reached him he offered to send 200 Division, which had already fought so well, to help Slim and the beleaguered Burma Division. Slim went personally t
o welcome the Chinese troops, only to discover almost immediately that they were packing up to leave. Stilwell had sent Slim an urgent message, which did not reach him, explaining that a new crisis had arisen and that he had therefore had to recall 200 Division. There followed one of Stilwell’s really outstanding achievements during the miserable days of the retreat. He rapidly concentrated most of 200 Division and a few other units and, although he was the overall commander of all Chinese forces – and was nearly sixty – he personally led a counterattack against the Japanese who had captured Taunggyi and defeated them. Even then his vigour, leadership, rank and personality were not enough, and he had to offer the Chinese a bribe of 50,000 rupees to retake Taunggyi. The battle lasted through 23 and 24 April, Taunggyi was taken and he drove his forces on and recaptured Loilem. This was a fine achievement and illustrated what happened all too rarely in the Burma retreat, that the Japanese could be halted and driven back if they were opposed resolutely. Stilwell later received the Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership and bravery in this action, which throws an interesting light on his situation and his character. He was not always popular with fellow American generals, his achievement at Taunggyi is hardly mentioned in American war histories and he did not mention it in his diaries. In contrast, there is a full account in Slim’s Defeat into Victory, and Slim paid tribute to Stilwell’s bravery and leadership. In further contrast to Shin’s generous tribute, Stilwell could not resist another dig about the Limeys running away.
During this time of crisis, Stilwell found time to write a letter to his wife. He had to be rather vague, and explained that he had been very busy, without much sleep, though food was plentiful. He added, ‘Carmel! I don’t dare think too much about that, or even about the family. But I am happy in knowing you are all there together. Enjoy it and someday I’ll be back and look you up. With a long white beard and a bent back!!’