by David Rooney
Although Stilwell sounded disenchanted, Mountbatten’s visit and the rumpus in Chungking improved the situation and strengthened his hand. He had received solid support from Mountbatten and Roosevelt’s agent General Brehon B. Somervell, and he received personal letters of gratitude from Marshall and Stimson. The latter wrote saying he felt that in fairness Stilwell should be given some less impossible task, but that whatever bludgeonings of fate he suffered there was confidence, always, in his courage and ability.
In India the decisions taken at the Quebec Conference began to take effect. The Allies set out to implement the plan to launch a campaign in north Burma, the main purpose of which was to reopen the land route to China to keep the country in the war and to allow the build-up of massive support for the increasing air attacks on Japan and Japanese shipping. A crucial part of the land attack was an advance from Ledo down the Hukawng and Mogaung valleys towards Myitkyina. This was Stilwell’s constant theme, and it is greatly to his credit that it now emerged as Allied policy.
It had been realised at the Conference that drastic changes would have to be made to the supply system both to Ledo and for the increasing traffic over the Hump. The Indian authorities agreed to American railway units taking over and operating several parts of the tenuous Assam railway where the bottlenecks were worst. Army units also took over the operation of barges and ferry boats on the Brahmaputra river where the Ledo traffic crossed. At the same time, driven on by American vigour and determination, work started on an oil pipeline to take fuel from Calcutta to Kunming.
After the decision at Quebec to create an American long-range penetration unit based on Wingate’s Chindits, Roosevelt sent out a presidential request for volunteers with experience of jungle fighting. Nearly one thousand veterans of the fighting in Guadalcanal and New Guinea came forward and another two thousand from the jungle warfare training camps in the USA and the Caribbean. By October 1943, 3,000 men under the command of the admirable Colonel Charles N. Hunter, a regular West Point graduate, had landed at Bombay and started training at a camp in central India, which was dry and arid and bore little relation to the conditions of the jungle in which they were to fight. Here, initially, they came under the command of Wingate, and they certainly came under his rigorous Chindit training regime.
The decisions made at Quebec had a direct effect on Stilwell and the situation in Burma and South East Asia, but before the frustrating year 1943 was over he was to become deeply involved with preparations for an even more momentous occasion – the Cairo Conference, where, at last, Chiang would appear as the equal of Roosevelt and Churchill. There was still the question of Stalin, who was not at that time involved in the war against Japan. There was serious doubt about the role of Russia in the Far East, so it was tactfully planned that Chiang would meet with Roosevelt and Churchill at Cairo, after which they – without him – would go on to confer with Stalin at Teheran.
* She continued her dramatic career until 2003, when, known as the dragon lady of Taiwan, she died in New York at the age of 106.
* Romanus and Sunderland, Stilwell’s Command Problems, Vol. II, p. 266.
* L. Allen, Burma: The Longest War, 1941–1945, Dent, London, 1984, p. 118.
* Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten, Collins, London, 1985, p. 260.
* Auchinleck, who was about to succeed Wavell, who became Viceroy
Stilwell – the ‘shirt-sleeved general’ – watches American sergeants at Ramgarh instructing Chinese troops in weapon training. These soldiers, led by Stilwell, drove down the Huckawng valley and inflicted a major defeat on the Japanese. Below, Merrill’s Marauders clean their rifles and light machine guns, while their mules – a crucial element in their success – stand nearby. Every infantryman knew that his weapon had to be ‘clean, dry and slightly oiled’
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek at an NBC studio doing what she liked best – bamboozling the American people
General Orde Wingate, the charismatic and abrasive leader of the Chindits, climbs into a Dakota – the plane Mountbatten said was a key factor for military success in Burma. Wingate was killed soon after this picture was taken. Below, Brigadier Mike Calvert (foreground), the Chindit commander whose intrepid leadership led to the capture of Mogaung, surveys the devastation in the town. This photograph was taken shortly before his dramatic interview with Stilwell
A Dakota releases supplies by parachute. Dropping supplies with pinpoint accuracy was a lifeline to both Merrill’s Marauders and the Chindits, demanding accurate map-reading and clear signals
Pick’s Pike Life Line. General Pick was the brilliant engineer who drove forward the road from Ledo to link up with the Burma Road. He used large numbers of well-disciplined black troops and his units worked round the clock. He deserves almost as much credit for the success of this project as Stilwell. Pick accompanied the first convoy to reach Kunming. Below, the Burma Road, showing the hostile terrain with small camps clustered beside the road
The Cairo Conference. Roosevelt and Churchill are seated, with Chiang Kai-Shek and Madame on either side. Stilwell, hatless, stands behind Roosevelt. There were high expectations from this conference, but it ended in bitterness and recrimination. Below, Chinese and American soldiers view a Buddha – a reminder of the permanence of Burmese life against the ephemera of war – in Nankan, a crucial town for the link to the Burma Road
Chiang Kai-Shek and Madame with General Claire Chennault who, with the Flying Tigers, supported the Kuomintang from the earliest days of Japanese attack. He had a very close relationship with Madame – some thought too close. Below, American tanks with Chinese crews en route for Myitkyina pass the more normal form of transport in north Burma
Doctor Gordon Seagrave, who ran a mission hospital in northern Burma and accompanied Stilwell during the retreat. Here he is being welcomed back after the Japanese were driven out. Below, Stilwell, seen here with his son, in pensive mood after his promotion to four-star general
CHAPTER 8
The Sextant Conference in Cairo
Stilwell was accustomed to the sudden and violent changes in Chiang Kai-Shek’s moods, but he was nevertheless surprised when in November 1943 the atmosphere suddenly became sunny and cooperative. He commented, ‘Rattlesnake [Chiang] as affable as hell.’ The cause of the change – of which initially Stilwell was unaware – was the agreement in October in Moscow at a conference of foreign ministers, reached in spite of some opposition from Stalin, that Chiang should be invited to the next major conference to represent China as one of the Big Four. It fell to Stilwell to produce the Chinese plan to be presented at the conference and, to help matters along, Chiang made all sorts of promises about supplies, weapons and troops. Roosevelt sent another representative, Brigadier General Patrick Hurley, to prepare the ground for the conference. At first he appeared as a breath of fresh air, but he overdid the flattery. He called Stilwell ‘the saviour of China’ and compared him to Marshal Ney. ‘My God did I squirm,’ wrote Stilwell. Hurley warned him that Mountbatten was now more in favour of the Chennault plan and was after Stilwell’s scalp. Stilwell took Hurley to dinner with Chiang, where they confirmed their opposition to imperialism, expressed support for an attack on the Japanese homeland rather than Singapore and reaffirmed their faith in a strong, free, democratic China, predominant in Asia.
In his preparations for the Cairo Conference, known as Sextant, Stilwell had serious discussions with some senior Chinese generals, who agreed that grandiose plans would never work because Chiang’s authority was shaky or non-existent outside Chungking. They also repeated the view that within six months of the end of the war Chiang could be thrown out. Despite this Stilwell hammered out a plan, to which Chiang agreed, for China to produce ninety divisions for the recapture of Burma. The divisions were to be raised in three groups, the first to be combat-ready by January 1944 and the second by the following August. After that was achieved, there would be a land and sea attack on the Canton–Hong Kong area to restore sea-borne supplies. In return the Allies would
mount a strong effort with naval, army and air attacks, and for the planned operation against Canton the Americans would provide ten infantry and three armoured divisions.
Stilwell left Chungking for the conference on 15 November 1943 and arrived in Cairo on the 20th. He commented on the River Tigris at Basra, on the aerial view of Jerusalem, on a duck dinner with wonderful French fried potatoes, and, in Cairo, on a visit to Shepheards Hotel for a haircut. He noted masses of barbed wire everywhere, concluding that it was ‘the Limeys protecting Louis’.
CHAMPION, the plan SEAC had produced for the Burma offensive, had serious drawbacks to which Stilwell had drawn attention, but in spite of his comments the plan was put forward at Cairo as the main Allied proposal. The CHAMPION plan proposed the advance of the Chinese 38 and 22 Divisions from Ledo, an operation that was already under way; the advance into the Arakan of the British XV Corps, starting in mid-January 1944; and, if possible, the advance of IV Corps to Sittaung and beyond. In addition, long-range penetration groups would operate in February, an airborne attack would capture and hold Indaw, and a major amphibious operation would take place in the Bay of Bengal. All these operations were to be concluded by the end of April 1944 when the monsoon broke.
Chiang Kai-Shek started by openly criticising this plan, claiming that XV Corps and IV Corps should advance at least as far as Mandalay and demanding that, whatever air operations took place in Burma, the amount of material lifted over the Hump must not fall below 10,000 tons a month. The Cairo Conference brought bitterness and vicious wrangles, with few participants willing or able to see the picture as a whole. Chennault, for example, demanded 10,000 tons a month for the air forces in China but offered no reply to the question of what the ground forces would get. Wrangling continued – between the Americans themselves, between Americans and British, and between both and the Chinese. Chiang remained the greatest problem. All of this Stilwell captured vividly:
2.30. To preliminary meeting. G-mo phoned, ‘Do not present proposals.’ Message that G-mo would come. Then he wouldn’t. Then he would. Christ. Brooke got nasty and King got good and sore. King almost climbed over the table at Brooke. God, he was mad. I wish he had socked him. 3.30. Chinese came. Terrible performance. They couldn’t ask a question. Brooke was insulting. I helped them out. They were asked about Yoke and I had to reply. Brooke fired questions and I batted them back.
The next day Stilwell and Chiang attended a major conference with General Marshall. ‘George laying it on the line about U.S. planes, U.S. pilots, U.S. dough etc. A grand speech for the G-mo to hear and incidentally for the Limeys. Louis told to go and fix it with the G-mo. Welcome change from telling me to fix it up.’
Stilwell had been reprimanded the previous day about Chiang and especially for calling him Peanut, but he continues gaily, ‘Louis in at 11.00 to spill the dope. He is fed up on Peanut. As who is not?’
On 25 November Marshall accompanied Stilwell to see Roosevelt. At the meeting Stilwell’s main theme was that unless something was done about the Chinese high command, and if the effective troops were not placed under a US command with real power, all other effort would be wasted. The President appeared to give him little attention and, in reply to his request for US combat troops, suggested vaguely that a brigade of marines go to Chungking. However, the President did promise that America would equip ninety Chinese divisions and that with these divisions the Chinese would help in the occupation of Japan.
After the Cairo Conference Stilwell scored a line through the detailed notes he had prepared and wrote, ‘F.D.R. is not interested.’ Some of the bitter frustration that had dominated Stilwell’s life in Chungking was brought home to his superiors in Cairo when Chiang, having agreed the CHAMPION plan with Churchill and Mountbatten, refused it on every point the very same evening. Mountbatten attempted to save the situation, but Chiang remained adamant. Stilwell, knowing the value of using Madame Chiang as an intermediary, suggested that Roosevelt and Churchill try this ploy, and after a meeting with the couple over tea the two leaders gained Chiang’s consent once again. Mountbatten commented that Chiang had driven them absolutely mad and he hoped that he would have more sympathy from the top when dealing with him in the future.
Churchill and Roosevelt left Cairo to go on to the great Teheran Conference with Stalin, and the next day Mountbatten called the other SEAC commanders together to get to work on the details of CHAMPION. He was staggered when Stilwell reported that just before Chiang left he rejected all the agreements he had made and that he would only give his agreement if there was an airborne assault on Mandalay and, of course, an undertaking to send 10,000 tons of supplies a month over the Hump. Mountbatten, who was to accompany Chiang on an inspection of the training camp at Ramgarh in a few days time, pretended he had not received this information in the hope that he could secure at least some agreement during their joint visit.
As a break from the tensions and frustrations of the conference, Stilwell and some friends flew up to Jerusalem, and this he described in a letter to his wife. He was shocked to learn that Jerusalem had been destroyed thirty-two times and that the streets from the time of Christ were probably thirty or more feet below ground level. ‘The old surroundings have disappeared entirely and all that is needed to make you believe you are at Coney Island is a hot dog stand.’ He commented grimly that, being the Holy City of Christians, Jews and Mohammedans, they had been fighting over it and tearing it to pieces for two thousand years. In contrast, he was tremendously impressed by the simple grandeur of the pyramids, and above all by Luxor and the great tombs, including Tutankhamen’s. ‘I am all smoked up over Egypt. I am a sucker for antiquities and this is where they are. I could spend months wandering around here, and hope to come back and do it some time … We shove off m a couple of days back to the manure pile. I wanted you to know what a grand interlude this has been.’
The British and Americans may have found Chiang infuriating, but the varied and confusing plans that were put forward at the Cairo Conference gave the Chinese leader some grounds for genuine doubt about what had been promised or agreed. He had consistently demanded an amphibious operation in the Bay of Bengal, and this produced a serious clash between Roosevelt and Churchill. To accede to Chiang’s demands the Americans agreed to BUCCANEER, a plan to invade the Andaman Islands. Lying 400 miles south of Rangoon, the islands would provide a valuable base for bombing the Japanese in Burma and for attacks on Japanese shipping on its way to Rangoon harbour. In contrast, Churchill argued for an attack on Sumatra (Indonesia), which was close to Singapore. This aroused the deeply held suspicion of most Americans that the British wanted their help to recover the pre-war British Empire. By the end of the Conference there was a commitment to launch BUCCANEER – but then Roosevelt and Churchill went to meet Stalin in Teheran. Stalin argued forcibly for a second front, OVERLORD, with landings across the English Channel and in the south of France, and Roosevelt gave the plan his backing. This forced Churchill to agree. OVERLORD, however, would generate an almost insatiable demand for ships and landing craft, so Churchill demanded the cancellation of BUCCANEER because of the overall shortage of landing craft. He reasoned that if Russia joined in the war against Japan once Germany was defeated it would lessen the need for a major effort in Burma and China. That might have been the case, but in the short term it gave Chiang another excuse to renege on his promises.
The Cairo Conference, which had been built up into a tremendously significant occasion, with the presence for the first time of Chiang at top level, in fact had little effect on the Burma situation. It was one of the most acrimonious conferences of the war and aroused very strong antagonisms between the American and British leaders. Barbara Tuchman, describing the conference in Sand against the Wind, after referring to Madame’s feminine wiles and ‘glimpses through the slit skirt of a shapely leg’, wrote of Brooke as ‘the type of Englishman who considered a foreigner something to be snubbed, and if non-white, to be stepped on’.
At Teheran, Roosevelt was
still apprehensive about the possibility of China backing out of the war and freeing up thousands of Japanese troops to oppose the American advance in the Pacific. He was partly reassured by Stalin, who agreed to join in the war against Japan as soon as Germany was defeated, but he was scathingly critical of the fighting prowess of the Chinese army. Stalin’s determined, powerful and forthright approach, which was such a contrast to Chiang’s dithering, prompted Roosevelt to reflect whether Russia might be a more useful ally in the Far East in the post-war world. As a result of the Cairo and Teheran conferences Chiang was increasingly mistrusted in the west and, rather than being enhanced to the stature of a world statesman, his position was seriously undermined.
When Stilwell realised that BUCCANEER was likely to be cancelled, he saw the President again to seek advice on what approach to take when Chiang was given the news. Instead of offering practical advice, Roosevelt waffled on about the historic links between America and China, the achievements of the missionaries and the prospect of billions of dollars in loans after the war. He even discussed the possibility that Chiang might be overthrown. Both Roosevelt and Stilwell wished passionately to do their best for China but, tragically, they were almost totally at loggerheads. After their meeting Stilwell wrote, ‘The man is a flighty fool.’
Back in Chungking, Chiang, enjoying his new eminence, had hardly announced the Cairo decision to launch BUCCANEER when he heard that it had been cancelled. The extent of his humiliation is shown in his immediate and exorbitant demands for a loan of a billion dollars, twice the number of aircraft and a doubling of the tonnage coming over the Hump. At the same time he emphasised the real danger of the collapse of the Chinese economy and China dropping out of the war. Fortunately for America, advisers other than Stilwell stated clearly that no loans should be made because the Chinese economy and its finances were totally chaotic. This realistic view was backed up by increasing disenchantment in Washington with the corruption, dishonesty and incompetence of every aspect of Chinese financial activity.