The Burma Campaign

by Frank McLynn

  Chapter Six

  pp. 110–134

  • 1. David Rooney, Stilwell (1971), pp. 40–1. • 2. SP, p. 119. • 3. C.T. Liang, General Stilwell in China (NY, 1972), p. 44. • 4. Barbara Tuchman, Sand against the Wind (1971). • 5. The probability is that Chiang knew only too well but shut his eyes and ears to inconvenient truths. His champion, Taylor, exposes his breathtakingly ostrich-like approach to the graft, peculation and racketeering of the KMT regime: ‘Corruption, he believed was a problem best addressed in a fundamental way once peace and unity had been secured’: Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo (Harvard, 2009), p. 222. • 6. SP, p. 122. • 7. Ibid., p. 123. • 8. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 307. • 9. Ibid., p. 262. • 10. Ibid., pp. 260, 263. • 11. For Clarence Gauss see John L. Durrence, ‘Ambassador Clarence E. Gauss and US relations with China, 1941–1944’, PhD thesis, University of Georgia, 1971. • 12. Hannah Pakula, The Last Empress (2010), pp. 365, 379, 417, 420, 422, 432, 435, 437–8. • 13. John Morton Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries. Years of War 1941–1945 (Boston, 1967), pp. 87–102; John Morton Blum, Roosevelt and Morgenthau (Boston, 1970), pp. 269, 463–79. • 14. Henry L. Stimson & McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (NY, 1949), p. 299. • 15. SP, p. 122. • 16. Ibid., pp. 124–6. • 17. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 309. • 18. C.F. Romanus & R. Sunderland, Stilwell’s Mission to China (Washington DC, 1953), pp. 104–8. • 19. See Thomas M. Coffery, Hap. The Story of the US Air Force and the Man Who Built It (1982); Bernard C. Nalty, Winged Shield, Winged Sword. A History of the US Air Force (1997). • 20. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., pp. 310–11. • 21. Jon Latimer, Burma. The Forgotten War (2004), p. 127. Stilwell also resented the switch of airpower to the Middle East (SP, p. 126). • 22. SP, p. 127. • 23. Ibid., p. 128. • 24. Ibid., p. 129. • 25. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 313. • 26. SP, p. 129. Hopkins disliked Stilwell, manipulated as he was by T.V. Soong (Pakula, Last Empress, op. cit., p. 413). • 27. Romanus & Sunderland, Stilwell’s Mission, op. cit., pp. 104–8. • 28. ‘Reconquest of Burma, July 1942–June 1943’, CAB 121/681. • 29. SP, p. 132. • 30. Romanus & Sunderland, Stilwell’s Mission, op. cit., pp. 227–8. • 31. See Roger Sandilands, The Life and Political Economy of Lauchlin Currie (Duke, NC, 1990); John E. Haynes & Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (Yale, 2000). • 32. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 324. Currie strongly disliked Stilwell (Pakula, Last Empress, op. cit., pp. 396, 402). • 33. SP, pp. 135–6. • 34. See Ross Y. Koen, The China Lobby in American Politics (NY, 1974). • 35. SP, p. 133. • 36. Ibid., p. 131. • 37. Gauss was an important diplomat with twenty years’ experience of China. See John S. Service, The Amerasia Papers: some problems in the history of US–China relations (1971); Paul A. Varg, The Closing of the Door. Sino–American Relations 1936–1946 (NY, 1973). For particular episodes when Gauss made an anti-Chiang intervention or recommendation to his superiors in Washington see Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932–1945 (1995), p. 489; Akira Iriye, Power and Culture. The Japanese–American War 1941–1945 (1981), p. 156. • 38. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 320. For other critiques of KMT corruption see T. White & A. Jacoby, Thunder out of China (NY, 1946); pp. 105, 140, 170, 178, 187–8, 256; George H. Kerr, Formosa Betrayed (Boston, 1965). • 39. The British even disliked the training of the Chinese at Ramgarh (WO 106/3547). For an American view of Ramgarh see MP, iii, pp. 384–5, 393–4. The Chinese army at Ramgarh was so impressive that Taylor (Generalissimo, op. cit., p. 253, momentarily forgets his defence of Chiang, right or wrong: ‘The Chinese Army in India … numbered some 30,000, all healthy and each carrying a modern weapon – a unique experience for a Chinese army.’ Why was this, pray, if the KMT was not corrupt and Chiang always a peerless leader? • 40. SP, pp. 137–8. • 41. See Jung Chang & Jon Halliday, Madame Sun Yat-sen (1986); Israel Epstein, Woman in World History: The Life and Times of Soong Ching-Ling (1993); Sterling Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty (1996). • 42. White & Jacoby, Thunder out of China, op. cit., p. 154. • 43. SP, pp. 140–2. • 44. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., pp. 326–31. • 45. Ibid., p. 364. • 46. F.F. Lin, A Military History of Modern China (Princeton, 1956), p. 137. • 47. John King Fairbank, Albert Feuerwerker, et al., eds., Cambridge History of China (1986), p. 575. • 48. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 265. • 49. Ibid; see also Liang, General Stilwell in China, op. cit., pp. 129–32; Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief (1987), p. 562. • 50. Rooney, Stilwell, op. cit., p. 64. • 51. Lin, Military History, op. cit. • 52. DIV, p. 144. • 53. F. Eldridge, Wrath in Burma. The Uncensored Story of General Stilwell and International Maneuvers in the Far East (NY, 1946), p. 146. • 54. SP, pp. 121–2. • 55. Ibid., pp. 143–50. • 56. Ibid., pp. 153–4. • 57. William Manchester, The Glory and the Dream. A Narrative History of America, 1932–1972 (1974), p. 226. For the entire convoluted Wilkie story see Ellsworth Barnard, Wendell Wilkie, Fighter for Freedom (NY, 1966); Steve Neal, Dark Horse. A Biography of Wendell Wilkie (1989); Charles Peters, Five Days in Philadelphia: 1940, Wendell Wilkie and the Political Conventions that Freed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Win World War Two (NY, 2006). • 58. For the Wilkie tour of China see Gardner Cowles, Mike Looks Back (NY, 1985), pp. 65–89; Graham Park, Two Kinds of Time (Boston, 1950), pp. 429–30; Pakula, Last Empress, op. cit., pp. 405–12. • 59. Cowles, Mike Looks Back, op. cit., p. 90; Pakula, Last Empress, op. cit., pp. 433–4. • 60. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 337. For Chennault’s side of the story see his Way of a Fighter (NY, 1949), pp. 212–16. • 61. SP, pp. 157–9. • 62. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 338. • 63. SP, pp. 159, 161. • 64. Ibid., p. 161. • 65. Ibid., p. 162. • 66. Latimer, Burma, op. cit., p. 130. • 67. Michael Howard, Grand Strategy (1972), iv, pp. 39–91. • 68. J.W. Dunn, ‘The Ledo Road’, in B.W. Fowle, ed., Builders and Fighters. US Engineers in World War Two (Virginia, 1992), p. 329. • 69. L. Anders, The Ledo Road. General Joseph W. Stilwell’s Highway to China (Norman, OK, 1965), pp. 37–41. • 70. C.F. Romanus & R. Sunderland, Stilwell’s Command Problems (Washington, 1956), p. 10. • 71. SP, p. 164. • 72. Eldridge, Wrath in Burma, op. cit., p. 149. • 73. SP, p. 165. • 74. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 344. • 75. Ibid. Madame Chiang was given the codename ‘Snow White’ by the US Secret Service: Pakula, Last Empress, op. cit., p. 415. • 76. SP, p. 167. • 77. For Madame’s visit to the USA see Pakula, Last Empress, op. cit., pp. 412–42. • 78. Romanus & Sunderland, Stilwell’s Mission, op. cit., p. 244. • 79. SP, p. 171. • 80. Latimer, Burma, op. cit., pp. 131, 464. • 81. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 345. • 82. SP, pp. 172–5. • 83. Romanus & Sunderland, Stilwell’s Mission, op. cit., p. 244. In order not to complicate an already fiendishly complex story I omit the detail of the mission sent to Chiang after conferring with Wavell. This consisted of Hap Arnold, General Brehon Somervell and British Field Marshal Dill. By common consent it was the master diplomat Dill who persuaded Chiang to sign up to ANAKIM: H.H. Arnold, Global Mission (NY, 1949), pp. 407–27; MP, iii, pp. 584–6. • 84. Ibid., p. 259. • 85. Liang, General Stilwell in China, op. cit., p. 104. • 86. SP, pp. 176–9.

  Chapter Seven

  pp. 136–158

  • 1. David Rooney, Wingate and the Chindits (1994), pp. 77–8; 82; WO 203/2082–2084; 172/611. • 2. John Bierman & C. Smith, Fire in the Night. Wingate of Burma, Ethiopia and Zion (2001), p. 234; WO 203/4376. • 3. Bierman & Smith, Fire in the Night, op. cit., p. 265. • 4. Mike Calvert, Fighting Mad (Shrewsbury, 1996), p. 134; Ronald Lewin, The Chief. Field-Marshal Lord Wavell. Commander-in-Chief and Viceroy 1939–1947 (1980), pp. 207–8. • 5. Christopher Sykes, Orde Wingate (1959), pp. 379–81. • 6. Leonard Mosley, Gideon Goes to War (1955), pp. 190–1. • 7. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 384–5; B. Prasad, ed., Reconquest of Burma (Delhi, 1958), i, p. 99. • 8. Louis Allen, Burma. The Longest War 1941–45 (1984), p. 126. • 9. Bernard Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin (1995), p. 59; Mosley
, Gideon, op. cit., pp. 193–4; Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 386–7; Allen, Burma, op. cit., p. 126. • 10. Bierman & Smith, Fire in the Night, op. cit., p. 271. See also Simon James Angrim, ‘Orde Wingate and the British Army’, PhD thesis, University of Wales, 2007, Chapter Seven. • 11. C.J. Rolo, Wingate’s Raiders (1944), p. 61; Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin, op. cit., pp. 58–9; CAB 106/204. • 12. Rolo, Wingate’s Raiders, op. cit. pp. 47–52. • 13. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 390–1. • 14. P. Stibbe, Return via Rangoon (1995), p. 51; D. Halley, With Wingate in Burma (1945), p. 54. • 15. Prasad, ed., Reconquest of Burma, op. cit., i, p. 107. • 16. WO 106/4670. • 17. Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin, op. cit. • 18. Ibid. • 19. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., p. 394. • 20. Ibid, p. 396. • 21. Stibbe, Return via Rangoon, op. cit., p. 78. • 22. WO 106/4827. • 23. P.D. Chinnery, March or Die (Shrewsbury, 1997), pp. 38–42; Jon Latimer, Burma. The Forgotten War (2004), p. 162. • 24. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., p. 403. • 25. Ibid. • 26. David Rooney, Mad Mike. A Life of Michael Calvert (1996), passim. • 27. H. James, Across the Threshold of Battle (Lewes, 1993), p. 90. • 28. Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin, op. cit., p. 101; Bernard Fergusson, The Trumpet in the Hall 1930–1958 (1970), p. 148; Chinnery, March or Die, op. cit., pp. 44–5. • 29. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 405–6. • 30. Allen, Burma, op. cit., pp. 133–5. • 31. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., p. 405; WO 203/5953. • 32. Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin, op. cit., p. 101; Fergusson, Trumpet in the Hall, op. cit., p. 350. • 33. Calvert, Fighting Mad, op. cit., pp. 134–7. There is considerable controversy about the fate of the wounded. Allen, Burma, op. cit., p. 133, says the Japanese responded to this appeal to their honour. But Donovan Webster, The Burma Road (2004), p. 99, says: ‘The soldiers abandoned on that island were never heard from again. Their loss haunted Mike Calvert to the day he died.’ • 34. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., p. 410. • 35. Derek Tulloch, Wingate in Peace and War (1972), p. 66; Calvert, Fighting Mad, op. cit., p. 85. • 36. Mike Calvert, Prisoners of Hope (1971), p. 16; Calvert, Fighting Mad, op. cit., p. 139. • 37. Prasad, ed., Reconquest of Burma, i, p. 122; James, Across the Threshold of Battle, op. cit., p. 122. • 38. Rolo, Wingate’s Raiders, op. cit., p. 113. • 39. Prasad, ed., Reconquest of Burma, op. cit., i, p. 130. • 40. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., p. 411. • 41. Bierman & Smith, Fire in the Night, op. cit., pp. 286–7. • 42. Trevor Royle, Orde Wingate (1995), p. 251; WO 172/2107. • 43. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 414–15. • 44. Bierman & Smith, Fire in the Night, op. cit., pp. 286–7. • 45. Latimer, Burma, op. cit., pp. 164, 472. • 46. Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin, op. cit., p. 143. • 47. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 416–17. • 48. Allen, Burma, op. cit., p. 139. • 49. Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin, op. cit., p. 151. • 50. Prasad, ed., Reconquest of Burma, op. cit., i, p. 127. • 51. Fergusson, Trumpet in the Hall, op. cit., p. 158. • 52. Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin, op. cit., pp. 153–4; WO 106/4670. • 53. Allen, Burma, op. cit., p. 142. • 54. J.P. Cross & B. Gurung, eds., Gurkhas at War (2000), p. 73; R. Painter, A Signal Honour. With the Chindits and the 14th Army in Burma (1999), p. 55; P. Narain, Subedor to Field-Marshal (New Delhi, 1999), p. 171. • 55. Bierman & Smith, Fire in the Night, op. cit., pp. 299–301. • 56. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 422–4. • 57. Ibid., p. 424. • 58. W.G. Burchett, Wingate’s Phantom Army (Bombay, 1944) pp. 154–6. • 59. Rolo, Wingate’s Raiders, op. cit., pp. 119–45. • 60. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., p. 426. • 61. Allen, Burma, op. cit., pp. 144–5. • 62. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 429–30. • 63. Rolo, Wingate’s Raiders, op. cit., pp. 47–52; Burchett, Wingate’s Phantom Army, op. cit., pp. 154–56. • 64. Julian Thompson, The Imperial War Museum Book of War Behind Enemy Lines (1998), pp. 142, 157. • 65. Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin, op. cit., p. 142. • 66. Allen, Burma, op. cit., p. 138. • 67. Bierman & Smith, Fire in the Night, op. cit., pp. 288–9; Tulloch, Wingate in Peace and War, op. cit., p. 85. • 68. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., p. 432; Royle, Wingate, op. cit., p. 253. • 69. Prasad, ed., Reconquest of Burma, op. cit., i, p. 136; G.R. Stevens, History of the 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Goorkha Rifles (Aldershot, 1952), iii, p. 231; CAB 106/41; WO/203/5954; 203/25. • 70. DIV, p. 162. • 71. Burchett, Wingate’s Phantom Army, op. cit., p. 180. • 72. Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin, op. cit., p. 240. • 73. Allen, Burma, op. cit., p. 147. • 74. Michael Howard, Grand Strategy (1972), iv, p. 548. • 75. Bierman & Smith, Fire in the Night, op. cit., p. 308.

  Chapter Eight

  pp. 159–182

  • 1. SP, pp. 185–6. • 2. Barbara Tuchman, Sand against the Wind (1971), p. 348. • 3. SP, pp. 180–1; Hannah Pakula, The Last Empress (2010), pp. 425–6. • 4. See Warren F. Kimball, The Juggler. Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman (Princeton, 1991), pp. 139–43; Keith Sainsbury, Churchill and Roosevelt at War (1994), pp. 160–78; David Stafford, Roosevelt and Churchill. Men of Secrets (1999), pp. 249–63. • 5. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 355; Paul Fussell, Wartime (NY, 1989), pp. 161–2. • 6. C.F. Romanus & R. Sunderland, Stilwell’s Mission to China (Washington DC, 1953), p. 270. • 7. Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide (1956), p. 494. • 8. Thomas M. Coffery, Hap (NY, 1982) op. cit.; H.H. Arnold, Global Mission (NY, 1949), pp. 407–27. • 9. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 357. • 10. SP, p. 190; Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 358. • 11. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., pp. 359–61. • 12. Romanus & Sunderland, Stilwell’s Mission, op. cit., pp. 279–82; Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo (Harvard, 2009) pp. 227–8. • 13. SP, pp. 191–6. • 14. David Rooney, Stilwell (1971), p. 80. • 15. Marshall’s consistent checkmating of Chennault can be followed in great detail in MP, iii, pp. 502–3, 641–3, 672–6. • 16. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 368. • 17. Ibid., p. 269. • 18. Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (NY, 1948), p. 716. • 19. Rooney, Stilwell, op. cit., pp. 80–2. • 20. MP, iii, pp. 674–5; Romanus & Sunderland, Stilwell’s Mission, op. cit., p. 323. Predictably, the violently anti-Stilwell Taylor makes great play of the general’s lacklustre performace in Washington: Taylor, Generalissimo, op. cit., p. 231. • 21. Claire Lee Chennault, Way of a Fighter (NY, 1949), p. 220. • 22. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., pp. 369–73. • 23. Alanbrooke Diaries, p. 403. • 24. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, op. cit., p. 958. • 25. SP, p. 198. • 26. Ibid., p. 200. • 27. Ibid. • 28. Ibid., pp. 201–2. • 29. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., pp. 379–81. • 30. Ibid., pp. 378, 381. • 31. SP, pp. 204, 206. • 32. Ibid., p. 206. • 33. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 377. • 34. William R. Pears & Dean Brelis, Behind the Burma Road (Boston, 1963), pp. 107–9; F. Eldridge, Wrath in Burma (NY, 1946), pp. 174–6. The corruption on the Hump and the Burma Road was egregious even by Kuomintang standards. Sixteen different Chinese agencies supervised the arriving Lend-Lease materiel, all the directors of which had been appointed by nepotism. Much of the supplies simply did not arrive, being appropriated by the KMT ‘rake-off’. One estimate was that for every 14,000 tons that left India and Burma, only 5,000 tons reached China. When American journalists tried to report this, Roosevelt made sure the reports were suppressed: Leland Stowe, They Shall Not Sleep (1945), pp. 74–7. • 35. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 377. • 36. Donovan Webster, The Burma Road (2004), p. 128. • 37. Eric Sevareid, Not So Wild A Dream (NY, 1976), p. 247; Don Moser, China, Burma, India (1978), p. 84. • 38. Tuchman, Sand against the Wind, op. cit., p. 365. • 39. W.S. Churchill, The Second World War (1950), v, pp. 560–1. • 40. Webster, Burma Road, op. cit., p. 149. • 41. DIV, p. 249. • 42. Richard Rhodes-James, Chindit (1980), p. 77; David Rooney, Wingate and the Chindits (1994), pp. 131–5, 174; Shelford Bidwell, The Chindit War (1979), p. 207. • 43. Christopher Sykes, Orde Wingate (1959), pp. 433–9. • 44. Trevor Royle, Orde Wingate (1995), pp. 259–62. • 45. Churchill, Second World War, op. cit., v. • 46. Leonard Mosley, Gideon Goes to War (1955), p. 211. • 47. Alanbrooke Diaries, p. 436. • 48. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., p. 451. • 49. Alanbrooke Diaries, pp. 438–9. • 50. Ibid., pp. 438, 441. On the floods s
ee Wavell to War Office, 17 August 1943, WO 106/3810. • 51. Derek Tulloch, Wingate in Peace and War (1972), pp. 114–25; Alanbrooke Diaries, p. 443. • 52. Auchinleck memo, 19 August 1943, WO 203/5214; cf. also John Connell, Auchinleck (1959), pp. 743–5. • 53. Kirby to Alanbrooke, 3 April 1959, CAB 101/82. • 54. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 460–1; WO 203/5213; 172/2658; 172/4261–4277 • 55. Mosley, Gideon, op. cit., p. 213. • 56. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., p. 468. • 57. Ibid., p. 472. • 58. Royle, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 274, 277. • 59. Sykes, Wingate, op. cit., pp. 473–4. • 60. Royle, Wingate, op. cit., p. 276. • 61. Mosley, Gideon, op. cit., pp. 220–2. • 62. Robert Lyman, Slim, Master of War (2004), p. 121. • 63. Ibid. • 64. DIV, pp. 182–7. • 65. Ibid., p. 188. • 66. A.J. Barker, The March on Delhi (1963), p. 75. • 67. M.R. Roberts, Golden Arrow. The Story of the 7th Indian Division in the Second World War (Aldershot, 1952), p. 12; H. Maule, Spearhead General. The Epic Story of General Sir Frank Messervy and his men at Eritrea, North Africa and Burma (1961), p. 225. • 68. A. Brett-James, Report My Signals (1948), p. 81. • 69. Lyman, Slim, op. cit., pp. 125, 281. • 70. A. Brett-James, Ball of Fire (Aldershot, 1951), p. 252. • 71. Messervy’s biography is Maule, Spearhead General, op. cit. • 72. DIV, pp. 170–1. • 73. Connell, Auchinleck, op. cit., pp. 735–6. • 74. DIV, pp. 172–6. • 75. Ibid., p. 177. • 76. J.S.G. Blair, In Arduis Fidelis (Edinburgh, 1998), pp. 328–9; F.A.E. Crew, The Army Medical Services: Campaigns. Vol. 5 Burma (1966), pp. 122–3; S.W. Kirby, ed., The War Against Japan (1961), iii, pp. 32–3; G. Armstrong, The Sparks Fly Upwards (East Wittering, 1991), pp. 138–40. • 77. DIV, pp. 178–80.