Stilwell the Patriot

by David Rooney

  By the middle of May 1942 the Japanese had won a remarkable victory. They had driven the British, American and Chinese forces out of the whole of Burma and were poised on the border of northeast India. They had cut the Burma Road, thus denying western supplies to Chiang, and were able to threaten the tenuous air link from India to Chungking. Calcutta, where most American and British supplies were now concentrated, was within easy bomber range. From their position in Burma they could attack either China or India. Their serious strategic plans included an advance into India, headed by the Indian National Army (which consisted of captured Indian soldiers, who were prepared to fight against the British). There was strong anti-British feeling across much of Bengal, and the Japanese assumed that their advance would spark off a major revolution that could overthrow the British Raj.

  On 20 May, a couple of days before the end of his heroic trek, Stilwell wrote that it ‘Rained all night’. As they struggled through the jungle he and his party had dreaded the onset of the monsoon, but it was the monsoon rain more than any American, British or Chinese forces that was responsible for halting the Japanese advance. So from May 1942 the focus of the war in Burma changed. Slim, who later was to lead the successful recapture of Burma by the Fourteenth Army, summed up Stilwell’s performance during the retreat. Compared to Stilwell’s view of the British it was a generous assessment.

  Stilwell had a dogged courage beyond praise … He was constantly on the lookout for an aggressive counter-stroke, but his means could not match his spirit. He could not enforce his orders, nor could his inadequate staff keep in touch with his troops. When he saw his formations disintegrate under his eyes, no man could have done more, and few as much as Stilwell, by personal leadership and example, to hold the Chinese together, but once the rot had set in, the task was impossible.

  * Major Frank Merrill, who later commanded Merrill’s Marauders.

  * R. Lewin, Slim, Leo Cooper, London, 1972, p. 141.

  * Field Marshal Viscount Slim, Defeat into Victory, Cassell, London, 1956, p. 51.

  * B. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, Macmillan, New York, 1970, p. 281.

  * After the war the oil company tried, unsuccessfully, to sue Slim for damages.

  * David Rooney, Mad Mike, Leo Cooper, London, 1997, p. 36.

  * An admirable and vivid account of the suffering endured by the refugees, who travelled the same route at the same time as Stilwell, has recently been published (Stephen Brookes, Through the Jungle of Death, John Wiley, New York, 2000). It was written by a man whose parents were medical missionaries in Burma, and who as a boy went through the whole ghastly retreat and survived.

  CHAPTER 5

  Taking Stock

  With his arrival in Imphal in May 1942 and subsequent rapid moves to Delhi and then to Chungking, Stilwell left behind not only the daily struggle to survive in the retreat through the Burmese jungle but also the fierce struggle he had relentlessly pursued to force the Chinese divisions under his command to accept his orders and face the Japanese enemy. From June 1942 he was engaged in a different task. At the highest levels, in Delhi, Chungking and Washington, he fought his corner in the global strategic allocation of priorities and supplies to make possible the creation of effective fighting divisions from the Chinese troops who had retreated into India and were estimated to number between 9,000 and 13,000 men. He expected to lead these troops, retrained and re-armed, to achieve what had been, and remained, his unchanging goal – to recapture northern Burma and reopen the Burma Road. This in turn was to enable the Chinese to launch a major campaign to drive the Japanese out of southwest China and make possible the destruction of mainland Japan by American bombers based in the recaptured territory.

  Even before the retreat Stilwell had drawn up a detailed plan, which he submitted to Chiang Kai-Shek in April 1942. His plan assumed that the Japanese advance could be stopped and contained somewhere in mid-Burma, and he proposed that 100,000 Chinese soldiers should be assembled in India. There they would be trained, equipped and formed into two corps each of three divisions. Chinese officers and NCOs, carefully selected by Chiang, would be given command up to regimental level, but higher commanders and staff officers would be American until Chinese with suitable ability, training and experience emerged. The plan intended to start moving the troops to India in the months after May 1942 to give them up to six months of intensive training, and then to launch a counterattack from the Indian base to recapture Burma. Chiang considered this plan and accepted it with certain modifications. He argued that half the senior commanders should be Chinese and insisted that Chinese troops must not be used to suppress civil disobedience in India. This was a wise precaution, for during the next two years the British military authorities had to deploy vast numbers of troops to protect military installations in Calcutta and across Bengal against the Congress campaign for independence. The writing on the wall was ‘Jai Hind’ – ‘Get out of India’.

  As soon as he reached India, Stilwell reported to Marshall and Stimson and urgently requested an American division to be placed under his command to spearhead the recapture of Burma. He argued strongly that an American division in India would be a major factor in the crucial issue of keeping China in the war. He strongly criticised the policy of allowing Chiang to distribute the American supplies across vast numbers of ineffective divisions instead of concentrating it on just a few. He was equally pungent in his criticism of senior Chinese officers who never went to the front, never undertook reconnaissance and never supervised their troops. In both Washington and Chungking he demanded that some of the Chinese army and divisional commanders should be shot for criminal incompetence during the retreat. He backed up this demand with the suggestion that all the American and Chinese forces should come under one commander in whom Chiang had confidence. Washington did not accept all these arguments, and in any event by June 1942 the whole situation had changed dramatically for the worse.

  In the few brief days Stilwell spent in Delhi he wrote a short letter to his wife that illustrates his real feelings.

  May 26 (7 A.M.), New Delhi: LETTER TO MRS. STILWELL Ole Pappy calling from India, and reporting in from Burma. Everything O.K. I’m a little underweight – to be quite truthful I look a good deal like the guy in the medical book with his skin off, showing the next layer of what have you. However, I’m eating is [sic] on again fast. I was damn glad to get my gang out of the jungle. Most of them now consider me more of a mean old s.o.b. than ever, because I made them all play ball. Rank or no rank. We had quite a trip, which I suppose will now be exaggerated, as usual, till it’s unrecognisable.

  Tomorrow or next day I’ll be going back to report to the G-mo and I sure have an earful for him. He’s going to hear stuff he never heard before and it’s going to be interesting to see how he takes it.

  I have hopes that someday we can step on these bastards (Japs) and end the war, and if I am lucky enough I can go back and have a few days at a place called Carmel, where there are a few people I know who will welcome a vulgar old man, even though he has proven a flop and has been kicked around by the Japs. Meanwhile the vulgar old man is trying to think up a scheme to kick them around.

  On 29 May, within a week of emerging from the jungle at Imphal, Stilwell left for Chungking. He was close to complete exhaustion and his emaciated figure showed the ravages of dysentery and jaundice. He had lost 20 pounds in weight. His journey via Assam was delayed at Kunming for three days by bad weather – it was now the height of the monsoon – but because of his temperament these were days of frustration rather than rest or recuperation. He reached Chungking on 3 June after travelling over the Hump, the route that became synonymous with the massive American airlift of military supplies to Chiang that continued until the end of the war.

  On arrival in Chungking he was taken to a large house that was to serve as his home and office until he returned to the USA. There were 29 servants, who he quickly realised were there to spy on him as well as look after him. He had fairly modest personal qua
rters, with a large, gloomy bedroom, a bathroom with antiquated plumbing and a small office, where he spent most of his time. His staff lived in other parts of the rambling house. Considering the disasters of the previous months, Stilwell received an immediate and cordial welcome from Chiang and Madame. He was given a quick medical check by the American embassy doctor, who confirmed serious jaundice, and he was then invited to spent the weekend with the Chiangs.

  Chiang was angry – and with reason. As he saw it, his philosophy of not attacking, and of not involving his divisions too heavily, had been vindicated. He had given in to Stilwell’s arguments and as a result had lost most of the Fifth Army, the only army with both artillery and transport. Chiang carefully quoted the great Chinese military thinker Sun Tsu who, in 400 BC, in The Art of War, laid down precepts which have rarely been bettered. Chiang seized on one of Sun Tsu’s aphorisms, ‘Ten victories is not the best. The best is to win without fighting’, to justify his approach. Unfortunately Chiang misunderstood both this and almost all the rest of Sun Tsu’s advice on waging war – with disastrous results.

  In practical terms, whatever the argument or philosophy, Chiang had suffered cruel reverses. He had lost his best-trained army. The Japanese had blocked the Burma Road and cut him off from American supplies. In retaliation for the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo they had launched another attack on southwest China and were dangerously close to Chungking. By June 1942 Chiang realised that he was being excluded from top-level discussions with Roosevelt and Churchill, and this increased his hatred for the British, whom he increasingly saw as filching supplies that were rightly his. Chiang’s view that he should be receiving as much backing as possible from America and the Allies, in the form of money and military supplies, was widely supported in Chungking. He wrote personally to Roosevelt threatening to pull out of the war. It was part of a deadly game of bluff. He threatened to pull out while at the same time calculating that he had to take sufficient action against the Japanese to keep American supplies flowing to his HQ. Chiang’s two top priorities were to ensure that supplies continued to come over the Hump and to obtain more support for Chennault and the American Volunteer Group.

  Stilwell and Chennault were to fight a long, deep and bitter feud, which was made worse by the lack of mutual understanding and almost complete contempt each felt for the policy of the other. Stilwell, with his passion for building up an effective Chinese army in order to counterattack and recapture north Burma, was openly contemptuous of Chennault’s constant claim that with a few more wings of American bombers he could quickly knock Japan out of the war. Many of their disputes centred on the allocation of the supplies coming over the Hump, which was under Stilwell’s control. During the Burma retreat Stilwell had been abrasively critical of Chiang, and their relationship remained stormy; he was, perhaps, unaware of the close, warm and long-standing link between Chennault and the Chiangs.

  So far as fighting the Japanese went, by the summer of 1942 Chennault had admirable achievements to his credit. He had learnt to fly in 1917, but he missed the action on the western front. Having, as he said, ‘tasted the air’, he became a passionate supporter of flying, and during the 1920s and 1930s he organised air shows with his Flying Trapeze. All his aerobatics were designed with an eye to the development of future fighting aircraft. He watched apprehensively the huge Russian production of aircraft and the Nazi development of the Heinkel bomber and its use in the Spanish civil war.

  Chennault had become deaf, and in 1939, doubting his prospects for further promotion in the USAAF, he retired and left for China to run an aviation school. By then China had suffered years of indiscriminate attacks by Japanese planes – notably the Mitsubishi Zero – against which it had no defence. Chennault had been personally invited to China by Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, and he witnessed a devastating Japanese air attack on Chungking. He was immediately plunged into fighting against the Japanese and was presented with his own plane by Madame. During 1940, with the example of the Battle of Britain fresh in his mind, Chennault went to Washington to lobby for American support for the air defence of China. Roosevelt gave some support to the idea of the American Volunteer Group, which Chennault organised, and which was allowed to recruit USAAF pilots with offers of generous bonuses. The first AVG units arrived in Chungking in 1941 armed with the Tomahawk P40, a strong aircraft with heavy fire power but less nimble than the Japanese Zero it was to face.

  By the time of Pearl Harbor Chennault was commanding a force of more than eighty pilots in what became famous as the Flying Tigers. Early in 1941 the Flying Tigers were leased an airfield in southern Burma, and on 20 December 1941 they had their first successful clash with Japanese bombers. From then on the Flying Tigers were in constant and effective action against the waves of Japanese bombers that attacked Rangoon, and in February 1942 they shot down twenty-five enemy planes in one day They co-operated with the RAF, but this had obsolete Buffalo fighters and was rapidly knocked out. Then the Flying Tigers, like all other units, were swept back by the Japanese advance, but they moved adroitly and managed to return to China intact while at the same time helping to halt the enemy advance at the Salween bridge on the Burma Road.

  During 1942 the Flying Tigers were absorbed into the USAAF and Chennault became a major general. With very few casualties, and helped by his excellent training, the Flying Tigers destroyed nearly 300 Japanese aircraft. Madame observed that ‘Chennault performed the impossible’. His achievement and his close, warm relationship with Chiang and Madame were significant factors in his long-standing feud with Stilwell. As the clash continued Chennault made more and more extravagant claims. It was unfortunate both for them and for China that these two brilliant, able and outstanding characters were from the start almost totally at loggerheads over the fundamental issue of whether to recapture northern Burma in order to open the Burma Road or whether to bomb Japan into submission from airfields in southwest China.

  Stilwell took with him to this first meeting with Chiang and Madame a very detailed memorandum which set out his plans for reforming the Chinese army. He said that all available material should be concentrated on a few, dependable, well-equipped and well-supported divisions that should be brought fully up to strength. Junior officers and soldiers were willing, disciplined, inured to hardship and responsive to leadership, but the divisional and army commanders were the real problem. They were not efficient, seldom went to the front and rarely supervised the execution of their orders. They accepted reports from the front without checking them, and these were often exaggerated or entirely false. They ignored the need for reconnaissance and seemed to think that issuing orders from fifty miles behind the line was all that was required of them. Many were personally brave but lacked moral courage. He recommended a rigid purge of inefficient commanders.

  For a man as blunt as Stilwell he treated the matter of Chiang’s interference with marvellous delicacy:

  The system of command must be clarified and unity of command insisted upon. The Generalissimo must pick some one man in whom he has confidence, give him a general directive, and then let him handle the troops without interference from anyone. This man must not only control the tactical direction of the troops but also their transport, supply, communications and medical service. During the Burma campaign letters and instructions from various sources reached various commanders who, as a result, were confused as to their action. The Generalissimo himself writes to various commanders making suggestions based on his knowledge of the situation and giving advice as to courses of action in certain contingencies. These commanders, in their high regard for the Generalissimo’s experience and ability, invariably interpret these suggestions and this advice as orders and act on them. (The Generalissimo gets unquestioned loyalty from his officers.)

  The memorandum continued by recommending the complete reorganisation of transport, supply and medical services, prompt rewards for gallantry and prompt and ruthless punishment for offenders of any rank. The situation could only be saved by the vigorou
s and immediate overhaul of the entire organisation.

  During the next ten days Stilwell was ill with jaundice, which medical treatment did little to help. As late as 17 June he wrote grimly, ‘Two weeks of this goddam jaundice.’ During his illness he had some conferences with his American colleagues, including Chennault, and also wrote to his wife:

  When I got here I was met by letters from you and it sure was good to have them. Your letters are the only bright spot in a drab existence, so send me one occasionally I am enclosing a few photos taken at Dinjan just after I had gotten out of the jungle to prove to you that I am not nearly dead yet, although I am a bit skinny. Dorn and I dropped about 20 pounds apiece, but we’ll get it all back. I didn’t waste much time in India. Took three days to polish off the paper work at Delhi; then shoved off.

  We are oppressed by the magnificence and grandiose style of the Delhi headquarters. Both American and British. The Limey layout is simply stupendous, you trip over lieutenant generals on every floor most of them doing captains work or none at all. Came to Kunming in a bomber and then got stuck there for five days on account of bad weather here at Chungking. We finally got here on June 3, and next day I made a report to the Big Boy. I told him the whole truth, and it was like kicking an old lady in the stomach. However, as far as I can find out, no one else dares to tell him the truth, so it’s up to me all the more. He has of course kept an eye on me all the time through certain agencies which I know are always present, but which I cannot identify very well. In fact, I pay no attention to them at all – just go ahead and let nature take its course. There are several things cooking now which will take a lot of talk: I hope some good will come of them, but my recommendations are so radical that it will be a wrench for him to put them into effect. Very cordial welcome from both him and Madame. Whether it means anything or not I of course don’t know as yet.