by Toland, John
Chennault subscribed to this assessment as well as the allegation that Stilwell was spending too much time playing soldier in Burma, where he would disappear in the jungle for weeks, rifle in hand. By now the two American commanders were barely on speaking terms. A staunch advocate of ground warfare, “Vinegar Joe” thought Chennault’s idea of fighting the war in China’s skies was ridiculous. Wars were won on the ground. For months the two had been battling over supplies to 14th U. S. Air Force. In frustration, Chennault wrote personal letters to Roosevelt complaining he had not been given the tools promised him; nevertheless, his B-24’s and fighters had provided the only bright spot in China with their effective raids on Japanese shipping and lines of communications.
Like Stilwell, though to a lesser degree, Roosevelt was becoming impatient with the Nationalists, and like Stilwell, he was primarily concerned with Burma. In early 1944 he urged Chiang and Stilwell to launch a major offensive across the Salween River into Burma. Chiang questioned the priority of such a campaign; he was far more worried about the Japanese in China. His reluctance drew stronger demands for action from Roosevelt—but still without result. The sudden thrust by Mutaguchi across the Indian border toward Imphal ended the debate as far as Roosevelt was concerned. On April 3 he radioed Chiang an implied threat to cut off Lend-Lease aid unless a Kuomintang army attacked down the Burma Road in the near future:
… TO ME THE TIME IS RIPE FOR ELEMENTS OF YOUR SEVENTY-FIRST ARMY GROUP TO ADVANCE WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY AND SEIZE THE TENGCHUNG-LUNGLING AREAS. A SHELL OF A DIVISION OPPOSES YOU ON THE SALWEEN. YOUR ADVANCE TO THE WEST CANNOT HELP BUT SUCCEED.
TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF JUST SUCH AN OPPORTUNITY, WE HAVE, DURING THE PAST YEAR, BEEN EQUIPPING AND TRAINING YOUR YOKE FORCE [the Yunnan divisions]. IF THEY ARE NOT TO BE USED IN THE COMMON CAUSE OUR MOST STRENUOUS AND EXTENSIVE EFFORTS TO FLY IN EQUIPMENT AND TO FURNISH INSTRUCTUAL PERSONNEL HAVE NOT BEEN JUSTIFIED …
Chiang Kai-shek did not formally reply to this message but within two weeks War Minister and Chief of Staff, General Ho Ying-chin, approved an assault across the Salween. Chennault, who also served as Chief of Staff of the Chinese Air Force, saw a far greater threat in China itself. He warned Chiang that the Japanese were about to launch an offensive on American air bases lying southeast of the Nationalist capital, Chungking. “Under the circumstances, therefore,” he wrote, “it is necessary to inform your Excellency that the combined air forces in China, excluding the VLR [B-29] project, may not be able to withstand the expected Japanese air offensive and will certainly be unable to afford air support to the Chinese ground forces over the areas and on the scale desired. In order to put the air forces on a footing to accomplish these missions, drastic measures to provide them with adequate supplies and adequate strength must be taken. As the Japanese threat appears to be immediate, such measures should be taken without further delay.”
He sent a similar warning to Stilwell, who replied that the threat to Imphal took precedence in the China-Burma-India theater and, therefore, Chennault’s 14th Air Force must accept reductions in supplies; it would “simply have to cut” its operation. Chennault was infuriated. A week earlier he had written Stilwell that he was convinced the security of China as a base for future military operations against Japan was at stake:
… Since the Japanese no longer have the men and material to spare for rice raids or training exercises, it seems to me that they must now mean business. The whole logic of their situation points to this conclusion. They must make ready for eventual abandonment of their more extended commitments in order to try to hold on an interior line. To do this they must somehow neutralize the Allied China base on their flank and protect Formosa, the key to their inner defenses. The urgency of doing this has been immeasurably increased by the prospect of B-29 operations against Formosa and the Japanese Islands, which alone would be sufficient to provoke a violent reaction.…
At the same time he made another personal appeal to Roosevelt; an attack in eastern China was imminent and he doubted it could be withstood.
I wish I could tell you that I have no fear of the outcome. I expect the Chinese forces to make the strongest resistance they can. We shall do our best to give them, by means of airpower, a margin over the Japanese. But owing to the concentration of our resources on fighting in Burma little has been done to strengthen the Chinese armies and for the same reason the 14th Air Force is still operating on a shoe string. If we were even a little stronger I should not be worried. Since men, equipment and supplies are still very short I can say to you that we will fight very hard.
I am the more concerned since the shrewdest Chinese leaders I have consulted are convinced that any Japanese success within China will touch off violent new price rises and probably cause political unrest with inevitable effects on the energy of the Chinese resistance. I note a mood of discouragement among the more influential Chinese.
Chennault’s assessment of Japanese intentions were accurate. Tokyo had already ordered the commander of the China Expeditionary Army to occupy the eastern China airfields and the three important railroads in the area. The operation, named ICHI-GO, was divided into two phases. The first would disperse the Chinese forces, “particularly the Nationalists,” between the Yellow River and the Yangtze, and secure the rail lines from Peking to Hankow. After that, eleven divisions with several others in reserve would cross the Yangtze and continue southwest, seizing first Changsha, and Hengyang in Hunan Province, then Kweilin, Liuchow and Nanning in Kwangsi Province. Capture of this last city would neutralize two important 14th Air Force fields.
ICHI-GO was preceded by an intensive propaganda campaign aimed at alienating China from her Western allies and lowering the morale of the Kuomintang troops. Bales of pamphlets proclaimed that Japan’s enemy was the American-British force, not Chiang’s army, and her objective was the establishment of a new China. If the Chinese offered no resistance they would be treated as friends. Japanese troops, moreover, were given strict orders to cease burning, looting and raping; they were to “treat the local inhabitants with kindness and respect.” The men were taught a new marching song:
Taking loving care of trees and grass,
The Japanese troops march through Hunan Province.
How kind their hearts are!
Behold, the clouds there and rivers here
Appear just as they are in our homeland.
These sights impress our soldiers’ manly breasts.
With worn shoes they plod onward,
Blood streams onto the soil;
Let us defend this forest and that mountain with our blood.
Our enemies are Anglo-Americans, the white-faced demons.
ICHI-GO began on the night of April 17. The 37th Division crossed the Yellow River as Mutaguchi’s men were investing Kohima. Yet, curiously, there was no co-ordination or co-operation between the two operations. That same day Stilwell told Chennault that his primary mission was the defense of the B-29 fields at Chengtu, “even at the expense of shipping strikes and support of the Chinese ground forces.” Chennault wanted to throw all his planes against the oncoming Japanese. Defending Chengtu, he radioed Stilwell, presented no immediate problem, since it lay west of Chungking. Confronted with the imminent collapse of eastern China, Stilwell gave Chennault permission to use the P-47’s assigned to the defense of Chengtu, and ordered B-24’s of the 380th Bombardment Group to deliver fuel to the 14th Air Force.
But the additional air support hardly slowed the Japanese advance. The Chinese armies in the area had deteriorated after almost four years of inactivity. Chennault saw his failure as a predictable result of Stilwell’s policies, and reported to him that he had been handicapped by “lack of tonnage for aviation supplies and a general disbelief in Japanese offensive plans.”
Suspecting that Chennault was preparing a case against him, Stilwell penned a long, bitter analysis of their old antagonism:†
Chennault has assured the Generalissimo that air power is the answer. He has told him that if
the 14th AF is supported, he can effectively prevent a Jap invasion. Now he realizes it can’t be done, and he is trying to prepare an out for himself by claiming that with a little more, which we won’t give him, he can still do it. He tries to duck the consequences of having sold the wrong bill of goods, and put the blame on those who pointed out the danger long ago and tried to apply the remedy.
He has failed to damage the Jap supply line. He has not caused any Jap withdrawals. On the contrary, our preparations have done exactly what I prophesied, i.e., drawn a Jap reaction, which he now acknowledges the ground forces can’t handle, even with the total air support he asked for and got.
Unimpressed by the attack of 72,000 Nationalist troops into Burma in mid-May, Stilwell officially continued his complaints against Chiang. He finally forced the issue in a radio to Marshall:
CKS WILL SQUEEZE OUT OF US EVERYTHING HE CAN GET TO MAKE US PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF GETTING AT JAPAN THROUGH CHINA. HE WILL DO NOTHING TO HELP UNLESS FORCED INTO IT. NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE MAY BLAME ANY OF THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES FOR OBSTRUCTION, THE ULTIMATE RESPONSIBILITY RESTS SQUARELY ON THE SHOULDERS OF THE G-MO. IF HE IS WHAT HE CLAIMS TO BE, HE MUST ACCEPT THE RESPONSIBILITY.…
SO WITH THE CHINESE THE CHOICE SEEMS TO BE TO GET REALISTIC AND INSIST ON A QUID PRO QUO, OR ELSE RESTRICT OUR EFFORT IN CHINA TO MAINTAINING WHAT AMERICAN AVIATION WE CAN. THE LATTER COURSE ALLOWS CKS TO WELSH ON HIS AGREEMENTS. IT ALSO LAYS THE ULTIMATE BURDEN OF FIGHTING THE JAP ARMY ON THE U.S.A. I CONTEND THAT ULTIMATELY THE JAP ARMY MUST BE FOUGHT ON THE MAINLAND OF ASIA. IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THIS, AND THINK THAT JAPAN CAN BE DEFEATED BY OTHER MEANS, THEN THE PROPER COURSE MAY WELL BE TO CUT OUR EFFORT HERE TO THE A.T.C. AND THE MAINTENANCE OF WHATEVER AIR FORCE YOU CONSIDER SUITABLE IN CHINA.…
I REQUEST YOUR DECISION. IS MY MISSION CHANGED, OR SHALL I GO AHEAD AS BEFORE?
Washington’s answer jolted Stilwell, and made official a policy which had been brewing for some time. It had been decided, Marshall replied, that operations in China and Southeast Asia would be determined by the contribution they made to campaigns in the central and southwest Pacific.
… JAPAN SHOULD BE DEFEATED WITHOUT UNDERTAKING A MAJOR CAMPAIGN AGAINST HER ON THE MAINLAND ON ASIA IF HER DEFEAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED IN THIS MANNER. SUBSEQUENT OPERATIONS AGAINST THE JAPANESE GROUND ARMY IN ASIA SHOULD THEN BE IN THE NATURE OF A MOPPING-UP OPERATION.…
Henceforth China would be, primarily, an air base from which to bomb the Japanese mainland with B-29’s. The idea for the Superfortress had been inspired by fears in 1939 that England would be overwhelmed, and there would be no air bases in Europe to attack Germany. It was a monstrous plane, dwarfing the B-17. It was 99 feet long and almost 28 feet high, with a wingspan of more than 141 feet. But it was sleek, its skin flush-riveted, and could cruise at more than 350 miles an hour at an altitude of 38,000 feet and carry four tons of bombs for 3,500 miles. From the beginning its builders had been plagued by engine trouble. An experimental model caught fire in the air, crashed and killed the entire crew. It wasn’t until the summer of 1943 that the first production model took to the air—and this one, in fact, was full of “bugs.”
The Marianas had been selected as the eventual base for mounting B-29 raids on Japan, but as long as these islands were in Japanese hands, Air Force planners decided to launch the first raids from China in spite of the formidable logistics problem. All fuel and supplies had to be hauled by air from India over the Hump—the Himalayas—to the four airfields in Chengtu which were still under construction. Moreover, the 4,000-mile round trip from Chengtu to Tokyo reduced the bomb-load capacity.
The B-29’s were given their first test in combat before leaving India. It was a relatively short mission, but it dramatized the operational difficulties which beset the new bomber. On June 5, 1944, ninety-eight Superfortresses took off to bomb Bangkok. One crashed immediately, fourteen aborted and several others never reached the target. The remainder approached Bangkok in ragged formation. Two planes crashed on the way home, two ditched into the Bay of Bengal and forty-two landed at the wrong bases. But the mission was deemed an “operational success”; the B-29’s were ready for Japan.
On June 15, ninety-two Superfortresses left for Chengtu, where they would refuel before the final long leg to Japan. Seventy-nine of the planes reached the staging area, but only sixty-eight got back into the air that afternoon. Of those, one crashed on takeoff and four others turned back because of mechanical failure. The first B-29 reached the target—the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata on the island of Kyushu—just before midnight, Chinese time. Flak was heavy and several fighters came up to intercept, but of the bombers that made it to Yawata, only six were lightly damaged. The bombing itself was a failure—a single missile hit the Imperial works—but the effect on the Japanese was indelible. The war had at last reached the homeland.
In eastern China, Japanese troops were at the gates of Changsha. The fall of this great city three days later created panic in Chungking; the War Ministry ordered the execution of several field commanders. Two Japanese divisions, the 116th and 68th, were already driving down toward Hengyang, a hundred miles farther south. They seized an adjoining airfield on June 26, and two days later assailed the walled city itself. Surrender was expected momentarily, when Major General Fong Hsien-chueh, commander of the Chinese 10th Army, confounded the Japanese and surprised the Americans by making a determined stand. His troops—supported by Chennault’s fighters and bombers, which made hazardous night attacks on enemy supply convoys—flung back the Japanese day after day.
Low on food and ammunition, the invaders withdrew within a fortnight. At Kweilin, which would have been the city next in the path of the Japanese drive, victory celebrations lasted for a week, its streets acrid from the interminable explosions of firecrackers. Merchants inundated American airmen at the Kweilin base with ivory, jade, silk and lacquerware.
The Japanese were soon back in force, however, with forty thousand fresh troops. General Fong resumed his dogged defense of Hengyang, but Chiang Kai-shek no longer supported him; for some reason he distrusted Fong’s superior, Marshal Hseuh Yo. The Generalissimo ordered suspension of all Chinese and American supplies to the besieged city.
Chennault turned to an old antagonist for help. He radioed Stilwell a request for permission to fly guns and ammunition to Fong. Stilwell’s headquarters replied noncommittally that the proposition was being given “best treatment in this shop,” but took no action. Chennault sent another request, for 500 tons. This time the answer was definite:
IN VIEW LOCATION HSEUH YO’S FORCES, HIS MISSION, RAPIDLY CHANGING SITUATION, CHINESE MISUSE OF EQUIPMENT THEY HAVE AND IMPROPER EMPLOYMENT OF THEIR FORCES, YOUR PROPOSAL TO FLY 500 TONS OF SMALL ARMS AND AMMUNITION WOULD BE WASTE OF EFFORT. ENTIRE AMERICAN EFFORT SHOULD BE CONTINUED FROM THE AIR.
Several weeks later Hengyang fell. But Chennault’s 14th Air Force continued attacking the Japanese supply lines and forced the enemy to postpone their assault on Kweilin for a month.
If China—whose role in the war had been diminished—collapsed, it would release 820,000 Japanese troops. Consequently, Roosevelt dispatched a personal representative to Chungking with orders to keep China in the war by unifying all Chinese military forces, including those of the Communists, against Japan. He selected a civilian, elevated to the rank of major general, Patrick J. Hurley, a successful corporation lawyer who had been Secretary of War under President Herbert Hoover. He was hearty and affable, and had won Roosevelt’s confidence by the way he had carried out wartime diplomatic missions to Russia and the Middle East.
Hurley was en route to China, via Moscow, when V. M. Molotov, Commissar of Foreign Affairs, told him that Russia wanted to be friends with Nationalist China. Hadn’t he, Molotov, personally brought about the release of Chiang after the Young Marshal kidnapped him in 1936? How could China blame Russia for her own internal dissension? The Soviet Union had no interest in the Chinese Communists—they were Communists in name only. America sho
uld try to help the Chinese people improve their economy, and to unify Mao’s and Chiang’s armies.
Hurley, who saw life in simplistic terms, took almost everything Molotov said at face value. In Chungking he told the Generalissimo that he needn’t worry about the Chinese Communists’ being controlled from Russia—wasn’t it obvious that they weren’t really Communists at all?
Chiang was unconvinced; he had read Mao’s articles and speeches. Nor could Hurley persuade Chiang to place Stilwell in command of all Chinese armed forces, as Marshall had so long been demanding. On September 25 the Generalissimo sent Hurley an aide-mémoire stating that his recent experiences had clearly shown him that General Stilwell was “unfitted for the vast, complex and delicate duties which the new command will entail. Almost from the moment of his arrival in China, he showed his disregard for that mutual confidence and respect which are essential to the successful collaboration of allied forces … Last October, I intended to ask for his recall, but when General Stilwell solemnly promised that in the future he would unreservedly obey my orders and would give me no further cause for disappointment, I withdrew my request. Unhappily, General Stilwell’s solemn promise has never been implemented.…” Chiang promised to support any qualified replacement.
Stilwell radioed Marshall that the aide-mémoire was a tissue of false statements and that Chiang had “no intention of instituting any real democratic reforms or of forming a united front with the Communists.”
