by David Rooney
His diary entries in these hectic days record his desperate efforts to force the Chinese divisions to fight, or even to obey his direct orders. In the confusion of the retreat northwards towards Meiktila and Mandalay he had a brief, hurried meeting with Alexander. ‘Alexander will do anything I tell him to. Had him radio Wavell for two reconnaissance planes.’ Confused fighting continued around Taunggyi and Meiktila. As Stilwell tried to move his units to halt the Japanese advance, he found that Chinese civilian contractors had commandeered most of the transport and were loading the trucks with rice, petroleum and other valuable items and were hurrying to get them back to China to sell at a huge profit. The group of Chinese contractors caused the one serious rift between Stilwell and Slim. The Chinese had requested a British unit to guard a train in case another Chinese gang attempted to take it away. Stilwell did not know of this request and, when a British unit took over the train, he assumed that the British were moving out. As his diary shows, he was too ready to believe that the Limeys were running away, and he sent a bitterly critical message to Slim. At the time the British were fighting a difficult rearguard action further south and Slim replied with, in his words, ‘a very astringent refutation’. Shortly afterwards Stilwell withdrew his remarks, and Slim commented that this was the only time they fell out.
Under the pressure of the Japanese advance, discipline in the Chinese divisions rapidly crumbled. This added to the chaos of a situation in which Japanese planes, almost unchallenged, bombed at will, civil administration broke down completely, and roads to the north were blocked by thousands of terrified refugees.
On 25 April Alexander agreed to send part of 17 Indian Division to assist Stilwell at Meiktila, but at the same time news came that the Japanese had advanced 40 miles north of Loilem and were now less than 50 miles from Lashio, the key terminal of the Burma Road. There were few Chinese units to oppose them. On the same day, Stilwell noted that the commanding officers of units increasingly refused to follow orders from headquarters. He tried to galvanise 96 Division, but found that the commander, Yu, ‘is a pitiful object. Entirely oblivious of his troops he was drinking tea and fanning himself. Cried all over the place. I got disgusted and left.’ Increasingly, both the Americans and the British contemplated the dire necessity of withdrawing north of Mandalay. On 29 April Stilwell heard a report that the Chinese garrison was leaving Lashio. If Lashio fell, the key to the massive Allied withdrawal to the north would be Mandalay, the Irrawaddy and the Ava bridge. Stilwell heard that the British were going to blow up the bridge on the night of 30 April in order to delay the Japanese advance.
On that dramatic night when the Ava bridge was blown, an intrepid British officer, Mike Calvert, who later, as a Chindit commander, came to have a close relationship with Stilwell, was involved in a brave but hare-brained attempt to confuse and mislead the Japanese. Calvert, accompanied by Wavell’s ADC and Peter Fleming (later to gain fame as an author) carried out the exploit. They were provided with a briefcase, purporting to be Wavell’s, full of orders to British units and giving details of large army and naval reinforcements that were about to arrive. Calvert drove the staff car southwards over the Ava bridge until they came under Japanese fire. He then quickly turned the car round, sped off and overturned the car on a corner. Purposely leaving the briefcase in the car, the three officers hurried off over the bridge just before it was blown up.*
Conferences between Stilwell and Alexander, or with his Chinese commanders, now concentrated on how to prevent the complete surrender of their forces and on whether the surviving units should aim to reach China or India. With Lashio in the hands of the Japanese, the route to China would be via Myitkyina, a town that was to feature largely in Stilwell’s plans for the rest of the war. Nominally there were now three Chinese armies – the Fifth, the Sixth and the Sixty-Sixth – amounting to over 100,000 men in eastern Burma under Stilwell’s command. By the end of April 1942 the Fifth and Sixth Armies had virtually disintegrated. The Sixty-Sixth, which so far had not been fully involved in the fighting – except for 38 Division under General Sun, which had been sent to support Slim – now moved to Lashio with orders to hold it at all costs. Troops of the Sixty-Sixth Army manoeuvred tentatively around Lashio, but they were strongly imbued with Chiang’s defeatist attitude and had no desire to become too heavily involved. When the Japanese advanced towards the town with a few squadrons of tanks and two battalions of motorised infantry, more than 3,000 Chinese troops made a rapid withdrawal. Their task had been made more difficult by the undisciplined rabble of the Fifth Army which, refusing to stay and fight, poured through the town in a desperate effort to get away from the Japanese. The rest of the Burma campaign illustrated, whether from the Japanese or the Allied perspective, the great advantage of defence over attack – notably at Imphal, Kohima, Mogaung and Myitkyina – making even more remarkable the craven defeatism shown by the Chinese divisions. It seems surprising too that, after all the Japanese atrocities of the 1930s, such as the attack on Shanghai and the rape of Nanking, the Chinese troops appeared to have little urge to wreak revenge on the Japanese aggressors.
In a final conference between Stilwell and Alexander they faced two alternatives: to retreat northwards up the Irrawaddy valley, which was also the approximate route of the railway from Mandalay to Indaw and Myitkyina; or to take a route further to the west, following the valley of the Chindwin, which led up to Assam, northeast India and the centres of Imphal and Kohima. Even at this stage Stilwell had some sanguine moments. After Chiang agreed to Chinese troops being trained in India, Stilwell wrote, ‘God, if we can only get those 100,000 Chinese to India, we’ll have something.’ In addition to his direct responsibility for the Chinese divisions, he never wavered from his basic view that the main purpose of the CBI campaign should be to keep open, or to reopen, the Burma Road to supply Chiang Kai-Shek and the proposed 30 Chinese divisions around Chungking.
His thinly veiled contempt for Alexander continued. ‘Alex has 36,000 men to take out. Where the hell have they been?’ After their final meeting, Alexander left in a staff car to go over to the Chindwin valley, where the battered remains of 17 Indian Division and 1 Burma Division – now with few heavy weapons and little transport – continued to retreat. Stilwell had determined that he would stay loyally with his Chinese divisions, even refusing to fly out in an aircraft that had been sent especially to collect him. He sent out most of his staff and then started on the long march towards Myitkyina, realising that the Japanese might reach it before him.
His group of about 100 included more than 20 Americans, the redoubtable Dr Gordon Seagrave and some Burmese nurses from the doctor’s mission hospital. Leaving Shwebo, his party soon found that the railway was completely blocked. There had been a serious train smash, when a Chinese general had taken over a train at gunpoint for his personal use. Stilwell noted that ‘Unfortunately he was not killed.’ After realising that the track was blocked he decided to move across country, initially making northwards parallel to the railway He now reckoned that his group would have to make for the Chindwin and, ultimately, India, so he chose to take a difficult and rarely used route mainly in order to avoid the struggling mass of desperate Indian and Burmese refugees. After many privations his group reached Indaw, where there was complete pandemonium, with Chinese soldiers looting everywhere and killing civilians who tried to stop them. At Indaw he had his last contact with the outside world. After commenting on the ‘dumb Limeys sitting around’, he referred scathingly to a report from the BBC in London: ‘“General Alexander, a bold and resourceful commander, has fought one of the great defensive battles of the war,” and a lot of other crap about what the Limeys have been doing.’
After Indaw he led his party grimly forward, trying to keep ahead of the deluge of refugees. As the road petered out, all transport had to be abandoned and the heavy wireless destroyed. Final messages were sent to the American HQ in Delhi requesting that food and help should be sent to the area of Homalin, which they hoped eventually
to reach.
Stilwell’s whole philosophy in the military training he had given, from West Point and Fort Benning onwards, had emphasised the responsibility of the officer on the ground to lead his troops and to make decisions. Rarely can a full general of nearly sixty have been set such a severe practical test. He addressed the assembled group and gave clear orders. All food would be pooled and put under the charge of a senior American officer. Personal belongings were to be reduced to an absolute minimum. He told them that they faced a march of about 140 miles over daunting mountains, the formidable Chindwin river and through the most hostile terrain, with the imminent threat of monsoon. He calculated that they must cover fourteen miles a day if they were to reach their destination before the food ran out. He emphasised that the only way they could survive was through the discipline which he established, and he concluded with the observation that they would probably hate his guts but they would survive.
He set off and led the column personally, setting the pace and strictly controlling the time of daily marches. He was appalled at the poor physique and stamina of most of the westerners, and his disjointed jottings bring alive much of the tension and suffering. ‘May 7 Start ordered for 5.00. Easy pace down river. Till 11.00. Holcombe out. Merrill out; heat exhaustion. Lee out. Sliney pooped. Nowakowski same. Christ but we are a poor lot. Hard going in the river all the way. Cooler. All packs reduced to ten pounds.’ Always on the lookout for help for his people, he hired sixty carriers when they passed a friendly village, and on another occasion he took on a large team of mules under Chinese drivers.*
Stilwell’s grimly determined leadership kept the party moving despite fatigue, sickness and suffering. Morale improved slightly when an aircraft appeared; this they at first assumed to be Japanese, but it turned out to be an RAF Dakota, which flew low over them and dropped food and medical supplies. The air drop kindled the hope that some messages had got through and that they might actually survive. On 10 May they reached the River Chindwin; here they obtained rafts to help them move down the river, which it was hoped would make travelling easier. They still had some of the mules, and these were sent on ahead under their Chinese muleteers. While the group assembled, the Burmese nurses put up matting roofs on the barges to shelter the sick and exhausted. On 10 May the first rafts were launched, but formidable problems still remained. ‘Nice ride but too damn slow. Swim. Nap. At dark supper, then at 10.00 off again. All night poling and pushing.’ After the encouragement of the air drop, the party had high hopes of finding help and relief at Homalin, but when they reached the town it was deserted and morale fell to an all-time low. There was increasingly bitter criticism of Stilwell, but discipline held and on 14 May they were greeted by a British official from Imphal, who had organised food and medical supplies and a large number of mules. The help was welcome, but there remained five days of hard climbing and walking, although the sick were now able to ride on mules or ponies, and food was often available from friendly Naga villages. In one village the party arrived at a crowded camp where there were supplies of horses and mules and 200 bearers. Stilwell wrote, ‘Soaked feet in brook. Rocky hillside in gorge. Tangkhuls squatting around their rice pots and fires. Lean-to shacks. What a picture, if only we had a movie camera. Thatched covered bridge. Chinese soldiers, Burmese girls, Americans and Limeys all in the brook washing and shaving and soaking feet.’
As the going got easier the party passed more villages, where they were greeted by the villagers with rice wine, red blankets, cider and chicken. Comments on Limeys continued to feature. On a day when they had covered twenty miles he noted, ‘Two thirds of Limeys on ponies. None of our people.’ On 22 May the group reached Imphal, and he commented tersely, ‘Cordial reception by the Limeys.’
Stilwell was relatively fortunate to receive a cordial welcome at Imphal. When General Slim, who had brought his exhausted and emaciated troops up the Chindwin river and through the notoriously unhealthy Kabaw valley, reached Imphal the arrogant and abrasive Corps Commander, General Irwin, was extremely rude to him. When Slim complained, Irwin replied, ‘I can’t be rude. I am senior to you.’ Similarly, General Punch Cowan, who had led 17 Indian Division through the retreat, was shown a bleak, empty hillside with monsoon rain pouring down it as the billet for his troops. Slim and Cowan protested most vigorously about their reception, and possibly their protests benefited Stilwell when he and his group arrived a few days later.
The reception accorded to retreating American and British units at Imphal and in the hill towns of northeast India, while deplorable, can be partially explained. These hill-stations were rather sleepy, provincial places full of generally well-to-do people, usually in the army or retired from the army. They had kept up their usual social life of dinner parties, dances, tennis and flirting, and they were almost completely unaware of the avalanche of sick and wounded military personnel and destitute refugees that was about to engulf them. Back in 1942 they were not able witness the day’s military action on television in the evening. Even as far away as Ranchi, which was also deluged with wounded, Slim and Calvert, both of whom had survived the retreat, obtained the help of a formidable hospital matron. This lady made an announcement at the garrison’s fancy dress ball, and help was immediately forthcoming.
Another grave problem arose at this time. For centuries, Burma and Assam had been suspicious of Chinese aggrandisement – as they still are in the twenty-first century – and when 38 Division under General Sun arrived near Imphal, the Indian authorities initially wished to disarm them. Stilwell sent one of his senior colleagues to resolve the problem. General Sun had been fortunate not to receive Chiang’s order to move north to Fort Hertz, and by superb leadership he had brought his division out of Burma intact. Under vigorous pursuit by the Japanese, one of his regiments had conducted a classic rearguard action that won high praise from both Americans and British. Sun and his division demonstrated what the Chinese could have achieved with sound leadership.
While Stilwell was making his way to Imphal, the Chinese divisions left in Burma had mixed fortunes. As 38 Division moved up the Chindwin valley, having failed to receive Chiang’s order, 22 Division and 96 Division from the now disintegrated Fifth Army moved slowly north towards Myitkyina and Fort Hertz. During July and August 1942, 22 Division and the remnants of 96 Division reached the area of Ledo, the northern terminus of the Assam railway, which later was to become the key to the supply of the entire British Fourteenth Army as well as the American and Chinese CBI forces. Valiant attempts were made to set up stores of food along the route taken by these divisions, and initially they and the refugees managed fairly well. They were also generously supplied by the hospitable Kachin tribesmen, but when supplies dried up looting began and the Chinese troops – particularly 96 Division – gained an appalling reputation for looting and for murdering refugees as well as local villagers and their families. In Through the Jungle of Death Brookes describes the suffering of the refugees, and also the menace of the marauding Chinese, through the area from Myitkyina and the Huckauwng valley. Despite its bad reputation, 96 Division left the area of Ledo, moved east and north to Fort Hertz and, showing remarkable powers of endurance, eventually reached China.
While the remnants of the Allied forces were arriving in Imphal, Ledo and Fort Hertz, there were still six Chinese divisions in eastern Burma, most of which were retreating before the Japanese advance. During May 1942 it appeared that the Japanese were going to launch a major attack up the Burma Road, thus cutting off China completely from western help. After the war Japanese officers denied that there were plans to advance so far up the Burma Road, but at the time Chiang and General Chennault, who commanded the American Volunteer Group of trained American pilots, prepared for a major attack. As part of the Japanese advance a strong force with tanks and motorised infantry did move up the Burma Road past Lashio and Lungling, but they were halted by Chinese forces at the Salween gorge, where the Burma Road crosses the Salween river.
The initial Japanese advance
had been held up at Taunggyi by the stout resistance of the Chinese 200 Division. Determined to keep up the momentum of their advance towards Mandalay and the north, the Japanese more or less bypassed Taunggyi, and during May the Chinese started to move from there north towards Myitkyina. They reached Bhamo, but then turned east, and by using minor roads and tracks reached China without further major military action. In spite of the success of the Chinese in holding up the Japanese at the Salween gorge, Chiang remained extremely apprehensive about further advances by the Japanese. He therefore concentrated two divisions – 28 and 29 – which had not been involved in the main fighting and directed another army, the 71st, to move down the Burma Road from Yunnan. These forces engaged in some fierce fighting in and around Lungling, and the Japanese advanced no further.
Having reached Imphal on 22 May, Stilwell, after a very brief pause, went by road to the nearest airfield and flew to Delhi, arriving there on 24 May. He gave a memorable press conference, finishing with the words, ‘I claim we got a hell of a beating. We got run out of Burma, and it is as humiliating as hell. I think we ought to find out what caused it, go back and retake it.’ This admirably blunt statement, which was widely commended, was a necessary antidote to the wildly exaggerated claims that appeared in most American newspapers. Referring to a clash on the Burma Road, one paper claimed, ‘Invading force crushed by Stilwell’, when in fact Stilwell was just completing his weary march to Imphal. Providing slightly more detail on the causes of the defeat, Stilwell wrote: ‘Hostile population; no air service; Jap initiative, inferior equipment (arty, tanks, machine guns, trench mortars), inadequate ammunition, inadequate transport (300 trucks mostly in the Fifth Army), no supply set up; improvised medical service; stupid gutless command; interference by Chiang Kai Shek; rotten communications; British defeatist attitude; vulnerable tactical situation; knew it was hopeless.’