by David Rooney
He wrote:
I never heard Chiang Kai-Shek say a single thing that indicated gratitude to our President or to our country for the help we were extending to him. Invariably, when anything was promised, he would want more. Invariably, he would complain about the small amount of material that was being furnished … Whether or not he was grateful was a small matter. The regrettable part of it was that there was no quid pro quo.
Stilwell repeated his faith in the Chinese soldier and the Chinese people – ‘fundamentally great, democratic, misgoverned. No bars of caste or religion … Honest, frugal, industrious, cheerful, independent, tolerant, friendly, courteous.’ He compared the Kuomintang system of ‘corruption, neglect, chaos … hoarding, black market, trading with the enemy’ with the Communist regime, which aimed to ‘reduce taxes, rents and interest, and to raise production and [the] standard of living, and to involve the people in government’. He gave an accurate assessment of the Chinese army, which in theory could muster more than 300 divisions, although most were at less than half strength. The troops moreover were unpaid, unfed and shot with sickness and malnutrition, the equipment was old, inadequate and unserviceable, and there was no artillery, transport or medical services. He concluded by asking, ‘How would you start to make such an army effective?’
Returning to the theme of Chiang Kai-Shek, Stilwell commented that he was bewildered by the spread of Communist influence.
He can’t see that the mass of Chinese people welcome the Reds as being the only visible hope of relief from crushing taxation, the abuses of the army and the terror of Tai Li’s Gestapo. Under Chiang Kai-Shek they now begin to see what they may expect. Greed, corruption favouritism, more taxes, a ruined currency, terrible waste of life, callous disregard of all the rights of men.
These strictures are in colourful contrast to Mao Tse-Tung’s Basic Tactics, which were issued during his early struggle against both the Japanese and the Kuomintang in the 1930s. His rules included: do not steal from people; be neither selfish nor unjust; be courteous; be honest in your transactions; return what you borrow; replace what you break. The instructions even included advice on telling jokes – ‘not too obscene’.
When Marshall gave Stilwell details of Roosevelt’s message to Chiang he added, as an old friend, a fairly stiff rebuke to the effect that there would have been far fewer problems if he had not offended both the Generalissimo and the President on small matters. Stilwell accepted the criticism and promised not to annoy but said that the proposed command was a heavy load for a country boy.
The initial reaction from Chungking gave the impression that Chiang would accept Roosevelt’s proposal in principle but wished to discuss further detail because such a command involved far more complex military and political issues than the command in Burma. When Soong, now restored to Chiang’s inner circle, heard that America was trying to force Stilwell down Chiang’s throat, he commented that ‘The Generalissimo will not and cannot yield’. There is now little doubt that Chiang had no intention of accepting Stilwell’s overall command but spun out negotiations in order to prolong the supply of American aid and in the hope of vastly increased supplies when the land route up the Burma Road was reopened. He therefore suggested that, as a move towards closer co-operation, there should be a permanent presidential representative in Chungking because political co-operation came before military co-operation. Roosevelt, rather naively, accepted this suggestion, though Marshall objected strongly. After the initial favourable reaction Chiang’s real purpose began to emerge.
Towards the end of July 1944, with a pretence of co-operation, he set his first condition: that the Communist forces should not come under Stilwell’s command until they accepted the authority of the Chungking government. Nearly everyone realised that this would never happen. The second condition requested clarification over the relationship between Chiang and Stilwell, while the third made plain what had been Chiang’s aim from the start: that the Lend–Lease supplies should be entirely under the authority of the Chinese government.
The high-level negotiations took place against the backdrop of continuing advance by Japanese forces towards the airfields in southwest China. They had conquered Changsa but had been held up for several weeks by the spirited defence of Heng-Yang. Chennault’s air attacks on their advancing units and supply lines caused serious damage but did not halt their progress. Heng-Yang soon fell to the Japanese, in early August, despite the fact that there were seventeen Chinese divisions in the area. These were in desperate need of supplies, and this focused attention back on the issue of the allocation of the tonnage coming over the Hump. Stilwell did not duck the issue, and his answer was clear. Chennault had claimed he could drive back the Japanese if he had 10,000 tons of supplies a month. The previous month he had received 12,000 tons, so if his project had failed he had better tell Chiang and leave him to decide what he wanted to do with the available supplies.
When news of the fall of Heng-Yang reached Chungking, a new and serious factor emerged. Marshal Li Chi Shen, a powerful warlord in southern China, contacted the Americans to say that the leaders of all the southern provinces were about to set up a provisional government under his leadership. Its aim was to overthrow the dictatorial regime of Chiang Kai-Shek, to achieve national unity in order to cooperate with the Allies, and to prosecute the war against Japan more effectively. Marshal Li claimed to have about eight divisions to support this move. Such a proposal had to be seriously and swiftly considered. Stilwell received the details while he was still in Ceylon and wrote tersely ‘Hooray for Crime’, but he warned that while the proposal was being investigated America should remain detached and make absolutely no comment. Urgent enquiries were made to assess the likelihood of the Communist forces supporting the proposal, and fairly soon it was concluded that they would not agree and that in fact there was little solid support among the other warlords in the area.
Despite Chiang’s opposition, several American delegations went to visit the Communist-held areas in northern China and were amazed at what they found. The people were working industriously, communities appeared prosperous compared to those in the Kuomintang areas, Communist soldiers cultivated their own patches and did not steal from the local people, and they appeared to be robust, well trained and well equipped. This situation was the result of the brilliant leadership of Mao Tse-Tung, who had linked his views on guerrilla war to an all-embracing political aim.*
While these issues were being discussed, Stilwell made some interesting and percipient observations about the situation in China. ‘The cure for the Chinese situation is the elimination of Chiang Kai-Shek … He hates the Reds and will not take any chances of giving them a toehold in the government. The result is that each side watches the other and neither gives a damn about the war against Japan. If this condition persists, China will have civil war immediately after Japan is out.’
The Japanese Ichigo offensive (see map on p. 210) provided the backdrop to the urgent discussions on future policy but their setbacks in the Pacific and in Burma prompted an upsurge in other activities centred on Chungking that illustrate wider aspects of the war. In Thailand (formerly Siam) the government at the time of Pearl Harbor had reluctantly given in to Japanese pressure and allowed the passage of troops to Burma and Malaya although retaining a fairly substantial degree of sovereignty. During the Japanese occupation a strong resistance movement sprang up. This was in close touch with the OSS operating out of Chungking, and by July 1944, with strong American backing, Thai agents were infiltrating into Thailand along a land route from Chungking. After some initial setbacks they were able to set up such an effective system that agents could be dropped in safely. Later there were airstrips in different parts of the country where aircraft could land safely with supplies. At the same time, with support from SEAC HQ in Ceylon, and working with SOE and Force 136, agents were landed on the coast of Thailand by Allied submarines. It helped that the Thai regent, who was not tightly controlled by the Japanese, was virtually the
head of the resistance movement. The Thai chief of police was also a supporter, and most communications to resistance agents were sent out under cover of the police radio system. The Thais were eager for an uprising against the Japanese occupation forces but were restrained by Mountbatten and SEAC HQ, which was planning an amphibious operation and wanted a Thai uprising to coincide with that. In the end the Hiroshima bomb pre-empted both plans.
In similar vein, the OSS was actively encouraging the Vietnamese to rise up against their Japanese occupiers. In a well-recorded incident, Ho Chi Minh made contact with Chennault hoping that he would be able to help the Vietnamese operations. In return for his support Ho Chi Minh asked for a signed photograph of Chennault and six Colt revolvers – which he gave to his five divisional leaders, keeping one for himself. A refreshing contrast to the greedy and ungrateful attitude of Chiang! American links through the OSS with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh movement were later to lead to serious divisions between Britain and America. Roosevelt and Stilwell were strongly opposed to the Free French and their clandestine activities in Indo-China. When the war finished abruptly in August 1945, the French asked for the return Indo-China, while Britain hurriedly brought in some veterans of the Burma war – 20 Indian Division under General Gracey – to keep law and order. For a brief time in Saigon, in a situation that was quite bizarre, the British using a few French troops and some Japanese were fighting against the Viet Minh supported by the Americans. The final irony was that one of Ho Chi Minh’s ablest commanders at the time of his links with Chennault was Vo Nguyen Giap, who was to defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu and ultimately to drive the Americans out of Vietnam.
While the tide was turning against the Japanese and resistance movements in Thailand and Indo-China were gaining in confidence, the final discussions about Stilwell’s future and the future of Sino-American relations reverted to Chungking. Roosevelt replied in vague terms to Chiang’s conditions about the role of the Communists and the future of Lend–Lease, but he stressed the urgency of making Stilwell’s appointment to avert military catastrophe. Chiang for his part prevaricated, with no intention of taking decisive action. He was becoming increasingly isolated even within his own inner circle, and he seemed entirely unaware of the disastrous situation in the army and the country It appeared that he was hoping – accurately as it turned out – that Japan could be defeated without any major military campaign in China, leaving all his forces and all the American munitions he had stockpiled ready for him to take on the Communists. Thus, little had really changed when Roosevelt’s two presidential representatives, Brigadier General Patrick Hurley and Donald Nelson, flew to Delhi on 4 September and were escorted from there to Chungking by Stilwell.
* Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 284.
* David Rooney, Guerilla: Insurgents, Patriots and Terrorists from Sun Tzu to Bin Laden, Brassey’s, London, 2004, pp. 141–5.
CHAPTER 14
Showdown in Chungking
Brigadier General Patrick Hurley, a tall, imposing man with a white moustache who wore a bow-tie and a homburg hat, appeared to be the ideal Presidential representative. He had been involved with Stilwell at the time of the Cairo Conference and was renowned as a tough negotiator in several major disputes in the oil industry. He made the crack to Stilwell that ‘It takes oil and vinegar to make a good French dressing’. He and Donald Nelson had been carefully briefed, and their attitude as they accompanied Stilwell to Chungking was encouraging.
Stilwell remained wary. Noting that Hurley and Nelson were ready to pound the table, he wrote, ‘It is one thing to make a brief call on Chiang Kai-Shek when he is on his good behaviour … It is another to make him take action along these lines. (After concessions that give him a blank cheque to tie me up.)’ On 7 September Chiang called Stilwell on his own and pointed out that as commander of the Chinese Army the post would be 60 per cent military and 40 per cent political. Then the negotiations started, with Chiang harping on about the issues of Lend–Lease and the Communist forces coming under his control. Hurley and Nelson clearly could not agree to this and went away with Stilwell to prepare an agenda for discussion. T.V. Soong made it plain that Chinese control of Lend–Lease supplies was the central issue. In describing these early stages of the negotiations Stilwell wrote, ‘He let the cat out of the bag: “The G-mo must control Lend–Lease.”’ Pat Hurley told him to write ‘DISAGREED’ in capital letters. ‘We can’t even control the stuff we make ourselves. What a nerve. That’s what the G-mo is after – just a blank cheque. Now we come to the showdown.’ About this time a new nickname for Chiang became popular with American servicemen: ‘Cash My Cheque’.
In a memo to Hurley Stilwell listed the following vital points: that his function should be operational command; that he must have clear support from the National Military Council; that air and ground forces must come under his direct command; that Chiang Kai-Shek must announce his appointment and give him a clear seal of authority; and that Lend–Lease should be handled by an American commission in Chungking, which would have Chinese representatives. At this stage of the negotiations there were also serious discussions with Mao Tse-Tung and Chou En-Lai representing the Communist forces, but the Americans found them as difficult to pin down as Chiang, and little was achieved except a general promise of co-operation against the Japanese.
The threatening background to the talks was the continuing advance of the Japanese against Chennault’s air bases, and before the Chinese in Chungking could reply to the blunt memo Stilwell hurried off to make a brief visit to the front. Here the Japanese, driving south after their capture of Heng-Yang and moving northeast from Canton, posed a serious threat to the great air and supply base at Kweilin. He found a situation of chaos; both commanders and troops were unreliable, whole armies made no attempt to fight, and in the few places where there was some determination the effort was hampered by renewed interference from Chiang in Chungking. Stilwell himself had to give orders for the demolition of the Kweilin base, and he realised that there was no hope of holding the other air base at Liuchow.
In the face of this serious military threat, which could have put Chungking itself at risk, Chiang merely demanded that the Chinese divisions at Myitkyina should advance immediately against Bhamo. He even threatened that if Stilwell did not do this he would withdraw the whole of Yoke Force from the crucial area of Lung-ling on the Burma Road. Stilwell made a detailed report of this to Marshall. In spite of his promise to be on his best behaviour towards Chiang, he wrote in his diary for 5 September 1944: ‘Wants to withdraw from Lung-ling, the crazy little bastard. So either we attack Bhamo in a week or he pulls out. Usual cock-eyed reasons and idiotic tactical and strategic conceptions. He is impossible.’
The tense and bitter atmosphere, which illustrated for Hurley and Nelson the kind of problems Stilwell had faced for years, was colour-fully recorded in his diary for 16 September:
The G-mo insists on the control of Lend–Lease. Our stuff that we are giving him. T. V. (Soong) says we must remember the ‘dignity’ of a great nation which would be ‘affronted’ if I controlled the distribution. Pat Hurley told him ‘Horsefeathers. Remember Dr Soong, that this is our property. We made it and we own it and we can give it to whom we please.’ (We must not look while the customer puts his hand in our cash register for fear we will offend his ‘dignity’.) Pat said there were 130 million Americans whose dignity also entered the case, as well as the ‘dignity’ of their children and their children’s children who would have to pay the bill. Hooray for Pat. (If the G-mo controls distribution I am sunk. The Reds will get nothing. Only the G-mo’s henchmen will be supplied and my troops will suck the hind tit.) … Gave T.V. the works in plain words. I do not want the God-awful job, but if I take it I must have full authority.
In further discussions the Communists agreed to fight under Stilwell but not under anyone appointed by Chiang. Gradually, American commentators in both Chungking and Washington openly considered making a realistic deal with the Communists. This h
ad no ideological element, as was sometimes alleged in the neurotic atmosphere of later decades in the USA, but was merely an attempt to find any effective forces to fight the Japanese. The Chinese Communists were considered to be somehow different to Russian Communists, and even Roosevelt referred to ‘so-called communists’. Stilwell’s own view on the issue was clear: ‘We must get arms to the communists who will fight.’ Serious consideration of using Communist forces was made necessary by the parlous state of Chiang’s armies, which was brought home to him when emaciated corpses of soldiers were found lying in the streets in Chungking and Kunming. How many starved to death in the towns and villages across China was never discovered.
The depth and intensity of Stilwell’s anger and frustration were evident in a letter to his wife. He referred to the battle with Peanut, which was wearing them out, pointing out that Chiang had thrown away 300,000 men in eastern China without batting an eyelid. He asked:
Why can’t sudden death for once strike in the right place. It would be really be funny if it weren’t so tragic. The picture of this little rattlesnake being backed up by a great democracy, and showing his backside in everything he says and does, would convulse you if you could get rid of your gall bladder. But to have to sit there and be dignified instead of bursting into guffaws, is too much to ask for the pay I get. What will the American people say when they learn the truth?
The issue of Indo-China emerged dramatically at this time after the liberation of Paris in August 1944, and Stilwell strongly opposed the use of Free French undercover units in Indo-China, whose obvious purpose was to recover the country for the former colonial power. This possibility aroused Stilwell’s deep and frequently voiced anti-colonial and, especially, anti-Limey feelings. In the same letter to his wife he concluded: