Stilwell the Patriot

by David Rooney

  The Japanese took some time to realise what was happening, but then they were able to concentrate all their forces on the destruction of the Chindits. In March the Chindits crossed the Irrawaddy and moved eastwards, but there the supply problem became acute and, early in April, the whole force was ordered to return to base. Wingate and the Chindit leaders decided that their best hope of returning safely was to move in separate columns. Most columns retraced their main route; one went north towards Ledo and one went due east until they reached territory held by the Chinese. Here they were treated as heroes, taken to Kunming and given a lift in an empty aircraft that was returning after a trip over the Hump – accomplishing in a couple of hours what had taken weary weeks of walking.

  By the end of April 1943 the surviving Chindits began to arrive back in Imphal, most of them sick, exhausted and emaciated, with many too shattered ever to serve again. Wingate, whose iron determination brought his group through the ordeal, wondered if, having lost about 1,000 of his 3,000 men, he might face a court martial. In May 1943 he was taken to Delhi and on the 20th gave a press conference, at which he claimed the expedition had been a success. The western media, hungry for any success among the dismal record of failure and defeat in Burma, seized on the Chindits’ achievement. Reuters wrote: ‘Led by a relative of Lawrence of Arabia, a British ghost army made sabotage sorties from the depths of the Burmese jungle … The Japanese were harassed, killed, bamboozled and bewildered.’ Louis Allen wrote that Wingate had infused a new spirit into the services, claiming that his first expedition ‘had panache, it had glamour, it had cheek. It had everything the successive Arakan failures lacked.’* GHQ Delhi did not share this euphoria, but then an unexpected element appeared.

  On 4 August 1943 Wingate was called to London to see Churchill. There followed a succession of events that would be too far-fetched to appear in fiction. Churchill, who intended to give Wingate no more than a pat on the back, invited him to dinner and asked him to outline his theory of long-range penetration. Churchill was so impressed that he decided to take Wingate with him when he left next day to travel on the Queen Mary from Glasgow to attend the Quadrant Conference in Quebec with Roosevelt, Marshall, Arnold and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Wingate looked crestfallen and explained that he had hoped to see his wife Lorna while in Britain. She was travelling overnight from Aberdeen, so Churchill had the train stopped, Lorna Wingate was taken off, and she too travelled on the Queen Mary to Quebec. She had a son, born after Wingate was killed, who was clearly conceived on the Queen Mary.

  While these dramatic events were taking place, Stilwell went through a dismal and worrying period coping with all the frustrations of life in the manure pile in Chungking and the almost endless stream of promises and broken promises that flitted between Washington, Chungking and Delhi. Stilwell’s warning of the danger of a Japanese attack if they were provoked appeared to be supported when they made a strong foray with five divisions on the upper Yangtze river. The attack put Chiang in a panic, and crucial troops and weapons were withdrawn from Yoke Force. When the Japanese withdrew down the river with ships and loot it was hailed as a great Chinese victory. More significantly, it was presented as such to Roosevelt in an attempt to prove that Chinese forces could handle any ground attacks made against them. This false claim was to have disastrous consequences. At the same time Stilwell flew to Ramgarh, where the training was proceeding well but where he had frequent and prolonged disputes with Wavell over supplies for the Chinese troops and dates for a possible attack in Burma. Stilwell wrote: ‘“Can’t” is his best word. Everything else is so goddam “difficult”.’

  He had become increasingly concerned at the apparent impact on the American administration of Chiang’s support for the Chennault thesis and the suggestion that Chennault should go to Washington to put his case to Roosevelt. Marshall and Stimson continued to back Stilwell firmly against the increasingly fanciful claims of Chennault, and because of their stand both Stilwell and Chennault were called to Washington in May 1943 to attend what became known as the Trident Conference. Chennault saw Roosevelt first, and he developed his plan to drive out the Japanese in six months if he received 10,000 tons of supplies over the Hump. This he claimed would enable him to sink one million tons of Japanese shipping. Roosevelt appeared to be impressed with the idea and, at the interview, gave Chennault permission to correspond with him direct without informing Marshall or Stilwell. Churchill was later to give this same dangerous privilege to Wingate.

  In preparation for the Trident Conference Stilwell produced a memorandum which summed up the China situation. In it he claimed that Roosevelt had a total misapprehension of the character, intentions, authority and ability of Chiang Kai-Shek. He repeated the argument that if Chennault began to damage the Japanese by bombing raids, they would advance rapidly and destroy the air bases – as indeed they had already done. Without effective Chinese ground troops there would be nothing to stop them. He warned, ominously, that Chiang wanted to get rid of him and replace him with a ‘yes’ man. Stilwell’s answer to these problems was clear and blunt. He proposed that all dealings with China should be through military channels, that the back door to the White House should be closed, that he should be able to bargain with Chiang, that he should be the President’s representative and that the Willkies and his like should be kept at home. A clear strategic plan should be made, complete with dates, and Chiang should be held to it.

  As President of the United States Roosevelt wanted to see China as a major world power, and he reminded Stilwell that you cannot talk severely to the leader of 400 million people. Despite the almost contemptuous view of Roosevelt that appears in his diaries, when it came to his turn with the President Stilwell appeared to be almost overcome, and he failed totally to present his case effectively Roosevelt even asked if he was ill, and whether he should perhaps be relieved of his command. Afterwards Marshall appeared to think that Stilwell had let him down, but he continued to give him strong support because he believed that the Chennault policy was dangerously and absolutely wrong. Marshall and Stimson’s firm stand behind Stilwell caused a serious rift with Roosevelt and Hopkins. As the conference continued the Chinese realised that things were going in their favour, and Soong went so far as to tell the Chiefs of Staff that China would make a separate peace unless supplies over the Hump were increased substantially Stilwell believed that Churchill had Roosevelt in his pocket, and he was sneeringly dismissive of a gushing final tribute from Churchill to Roosevelt – ‘Frank lapped it up.’ In contrast to his meeting with the President he had a successful interview with Churchill, and on his way back to China after a brief leave at his beloved Carmel he travelled via London and was feted by the British government. When he reached Chungking he wrote: ‘Back again on the manure pile after that wonderful trip home … Back to find Chiang the same as ever – a grasping, bigoted, ungrateful little rattlesnake.’

  The Trident decision of May 1943 to give Chennault priority had other dangerous repercussions. The vital American construction companies had to be switched from building the Ledo road to constructing forward airfields in order to meet the July deadline of four new airfields with twenty hard standings on each. Stilwell found building operations on the road at a complete stop, and in the period March to August 1943 only three miles were built.

  In the period after the Trident Conference not only did Stilwell feel the President had let him down but it also became increasingly obvious that Chiang intended to take advantage of the situation. In addition, Chinese internal problems threatened to wreck the tenuous provisions for Yoke Force. The promised new divisions never came because the local warlords ignored Chiang or because they were needed to guard the rice trains. Weapons that had been assembled for Yoke Force were even scattered among divisions facing the Communists in the north. It appeared that Chiang was sabotaging the creation of an effective army because its commander would be a threat to him. In addition, nearly 70 per cent of the so-called ‘picked reserves’ for Yoke Force wer
e rejected because of trachoma or other diseases. Stilwell commented bitterly, and with shrewd prescience: ‘With whom did the Peanut take counsel? With the cook perchance, or with his old pal God … The little squirt, on his own initiative will decide the fate of nations.’

  The Allied plan to attack Burma, known as ‘Saucy’, was submitted to Chiang, but he delayed and criticised and demanded details of naval preparations in the Bay of Bengal. At this Stilwell gave vent to his real feelings about the Generalissimo, uncovering the depth of his antagonism that was, in the end, to cause his downfall:

  This insect, this stink in the nostrils, superciliously inquired what we will do, who are breaking our backs to help him, supplying everything – troops, equipment, planes, medical, signal, motor services, setting up his goddam SOS, training his lousy troops, bucking his bastardly Chief of Staff, and he the Jovian Dictator who starves his troops and who is the world’s greatest ignoramus, picks flaws in our preparations and hems and haws about the Navy, God save us.

  He also wondered whether Chiang was going to use his increasing involvement with the Communists in north China as an excuse to pull out of the Burma operation altogether, but then on 12 July 1943 Chiang agreed to take part. Stilwell commented: ‘What corruption, intrigue, obstruction, delay, double crossing, hate, jealousy, skullduggery, we have to wade through. What a cesspool. What bigotry and ignorance and black ingratitude. Holy Christ, I was just about at the end of my rope.’

  Following fairly closely on Chiang’s tentative agreement in July 1943 to go ahead with the attack in north Burma, Roosevelt and Churchill met once more – again without the Kuomintang leader – in Quebec in August 1943. Wingate, who had carefully prepared his brief during the voyage on the Queen Mary, was invited to present his proposals for long-range penetration to the President, the Prime Minister and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  Unlike Stilwell, who stumbled in the presence of Roosevelt, Wingate – not at all overawed by the occasion – produced a brilliant and lucid plan. He proposed that three groups of Chindits should operate in Burma: one to link up with the advance of Stilwell and the Chinese division from Ledo; a second to back up the planned attack by Yoke Force from Yunnan; and the third to concentrate on the area of Indaw, which was the main communications centre for road, rail and river traffic taking supplies and reinforcements to the Japanese divisions facing Stilwell in the north and those facing the British in Imphal and Kohima. Wingate’s impressive presentation convinced the Chiefs of Staff, and more importantly Marshall and Hap Arnold, who had so recently been involved in the discussions with Stilwell and Chiang. Reflecting to some extent Stilwell’s jaundiced view of the British, they decided to support Wingate because ‘here was a Limey who actually wanted to fight the Japanese’. Arnold added another significant dimension. Convinced of the effectiveness of Wingate’s plans, he offered him the support of 1st Air Commando under the command of two outstanding young USAAF colonels – Cochran and Alison. The Commando was a large force: 100 gliders, 100 Sentinels, the brilliant light aircraft so vital for landing and taking off from jungle strips, thirty Mustangs, twenty-five Mitchells, twenty Dakotas and twelve larger transport aircraft. This amazingly generous offer meant that the Chindits could fly into the jungle and be supported by air throughout their next campaign. Arnold wrote of Wingate, ‘You took one look at that face, like the face of a pale Indian chief, topping the uniform still smelling of jungle and sweat and war, and you thought, “Hell, this man is serious.”’

  Churchill’s spur of the moment decision to take him to the Quadrant Conference certainly paid dividends for Wingate, and this, with other decisions taken at Quebec, was to affect Stilwell’s position dramatically. All the commanders at Quebec agreed (though in milder language than Stilwell’s) that Wavell was played out, and they agreed that the command structure in South East Asia needed a drastic overhaul. The names of some very senior army, naval and RAF commanders were suggested, but all were for sound reasons rejected. At that stage Churchill proposed Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. He was young, ambitious, impetuous and imprudent, but he had flair and charisma, and most of the Americans welcomed the suggestion. Marshall was delighted, but some considered it a deliberate move to keep out General Douglas MacArthur. Roosevelt agreed to the setting up of South East Asia Command (SEAC), but privately he still suspected Britain of wanting to recapture her pre-war possessions.* Thus SEAC was created with Admiral Mountbatten as Supreme Commander and Stilwell as Deputy Supreme Commander. The image of defeat and lethargy in India even prompted Churchill to signal Field Marshall Alan Brooke (later Lord Alanbrooke), the Chief of Imperial General Staff, from Quebec to suggest that Wingate should replace Slim – a proposal for which the British military establishment never forgave Churchill.

  Quebec brought together many of the tangled skeins of the Burma campaign, and another decision – attributed to Marshall – was to affect Stilwell directly. The enthusiasm for Wingate’s idea of long-range penetration resulted in a decision to call for volunteers for an American long-range penetration group under the name Galahad, also to be supported by 1st Air Commando. Dogged by an unfortunate official title – 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) – they were later universally known as Merrill’s Marauders.

  Stilwell heard of the Quebec decisions in August 1943 and made just a brief comment:

  East Asia Command is set up. India, Burma, Singapore, Malaya, Sumatra and Ceylon with Lord Louis Mountbatten at the top. I am deputy and have to kid the Peanut into using the boys. But George is leaving me in command of all U.S. troops, air and ground. The command set-up is a Chinese puzzle, with Wavell, Auk,* Mountbatten, Peanut and me interwoven and mixed beyond recognition … George has read the riot act to Soong and maybe Peanut will come across.

  Stilwell retained his deep suspicion of the Limeys, but he was soon to discover an unexpected ally.

  In the weeks before Mountbatten’s visit, Stilwell noticed a substantial change in the atmosphere in Chungking. He was approached by Madame and her equally formidable sister, who was the wife of the Chinese prime minister. He subsequently referred to them as May and Ella. In mid-September he had lunch with May who, referring to a senior Chinese general, said, ‘Why in God’s name, that goddam old fool doesn’t do something, I don’t know.’ Stilwell did not entirely understand this sudden change but went along with it, thinking that it might have been the result of Marshall’s showdown with Soong. Early in October he flew to Delhi for an initial brief meeting with Mountbatten and recorded, ‘Louis is a good egg … full of enthusiasm and also of disgust with inertia and conservatism.’

  Mountbatten, catapulted over the heads of many senior commanders, had serious and acrimonious clashes with many of them – ‘cantankerous old bugger’ and ‘young whipper snapper’ were just two of the phrases that were bandied about. Mountbatten, whose biographer refers to Stilwell as ‘an acidulous misanthrope’, knew of Stilwell’s reputation and expected serious trouble, but surprisingly the two men achieved a considerable rapport. As one of his first tasks as Supreme Commander, Mountbatten went to Chungking in October 1943 to visit Chiang and improve relations after Wavell’s previous blunders. Mountbatten was immediately drawn into the complex and dubious political machinations of Chiang’s court, and his arrival coincided with the climax of Chiang’s attempt to get rid of Stilwell. He had been well briefed before his visit and, with his royal connections, was more easily able to cope with the stuffy and face-saving etiquette of the Chinese court. He was amazed at the ‘awesome reverence’ for Chiang, but at the same time – with his own background in the louche, upper-class bed-hopping set of the 1930s – he recorded that Madame ‘had the most lovely legs imaginable’.

  Even before he met the Chiangs, Mountbatten had been told by Soong that Stilwell had to go. As Stilwell was now Deputy Supreme Commander this was clearly an embarrassment. It is not certain whether Mountbatten played a decisive part, but shortly afterwards the decision was reversed and Stilwell’s position was confirmed.

&
nbsp; The reversal was, in fact, the result of a serious power struggle involving Chiang, the two sisters May and Ella and various senior Chinese generals. May and Ella arranged what was an extremely tense meeting between Chiang and Stilwell, who had to repeat that he sought only the good of China and regretted any misunderstandings. All may have appeared well, but for Chiang it was a grave loss of face which he was unlikely to forget, and Stilwell lost any last shred of respect for the Generalissimo. Mountbatten and the Chiangs exchanged lavish gifts, and when he left he felt that he had made real friends, a feeling that was reciprocated. Roosevelt was pleased at the greatly improved atmosphere.

  On 21 October 1943 Stilwell wrote to his wife and uncovered his feelings: ‘It has been a nasty damn experience, and I was on the point of telling them to go to hell.’ He referred discreetly to the settlement, which included Chiang’s agreement to Stilwell’s command of all Chinese forces in Burma, including Yoke Force, and a promise that these forces would be ready by January 1944.

  He soon left for Delhi and SEAC headquarters. He wrote: ‘How do you like our stationery. It’s about all we’ve got so far.’ His hatred of bull quickly emerged:

  Everyone is ‘conferring’, looking serious and important and thinking in big numbers … What gets me is the enormous set-up considered necessary to launch a relatively small operation and the tremendous fuss and blah that is going on … My trouble is that I can’t say 2 and 2 are 4 in a sufficiently ponderous and pontifical manner and can’t think up a thousand words to use in saying it. I’m just fed up to the gills with delay, pretence, inaction, dumbness. Also with intrigue, manoeuvring, double-crossing and obstruction. I will be happy when the real shooting starts: it will be a welcome relief from bickering and recrimination and throat cutting.