Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945 (44 page)

The test of Stilwell’s assessment would come soon enough. The next day, March 25, the Japanese surrounded Toungoo. Stilwell refused to give the order that would have allowed the 200th Division trapped there to retreat. He believed himself to be standing firm while everyone else was hysterical. “Chiang K’ai-shek and his changeable mind had me worried,” Stilwell noted, adding that the lesson was “always be slow to
put an unacceptable plan into action
.” (Chiang’s desire to retreat was the “unacceptable” idea.) Du Yuming, the general commanding the Fifth Army, was having one of “his depressed fits and everything was wrong . . . Christ, he’s terrible when he’s like that.” And “riot among British soldiers at Yenang-yaung.
British destroying the oil fields
. Good GOD. What are we fighting for?”
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Stilwell’s certainty of his own correctness might have been more understandable if his strategy was working. It was not. “I know that I’ve sacrificed a great deal for nothing, for the sake of this plan of the Americans and British,” Chiang wrote despairingly in his diary. “But now I do have to stick it out to the end.”
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As the Japanese moved ever closer to the town, Chiang finally got a message through allowing the divisional commander to withdraw on March 30. This gave Stilwell fuel to accuse Chiang of attempting to interfere and second-guess his command. At noon the next day, Stilwell boarded a plane, and by two o’clock the following morning he was back in Chongqing. That morning was April 1. Stilwell wrote: “Am I the April Fool? From 3/19 to 4/1 in Burma, struggling with the Chinese, the British, my own people, the supply, the medical service, etc., etc. Incidentally, with the Japs.” Stilwell’s self-pitying tone brought him far closer than he would have cared to acknowledge to his adversary Chiang, who had written early on in the war that “nobody understands me but my wife.” Chiang’s diary did, in places, show self-doubt. There was little of that in Stilwell’s evaluation of the Toungoo debacle: “Through stupidity, fear, and the defensive attitude we have lost a grand chance to slap the Japs back at Toungoo. The basic reason is Chiang K’ai-shek’s meddling.” He also described Chinese politics and military strategy as “twisting, indirect, and undercover.”

Stilwell was not a fool, April or otherwise. But he showed characteristics that suggested severe limitations on his skills as a military commander. He had a particular way of viewing the world, and anything that ran counter to the assumptions that shaped that view was dismissed as irrelevant, or worse, maliciously intended to undermine him.

At midday Stilwell went to Chiang and “threw the raw meat on the floor,” demanding to be relieved of his command. “I have to tell Chiang K’ai-shek with a straight face that his subordinates are not carrying out his orders, when in all probability they are doing just what he tells them.” He did observe that it must have been difficult for the Chinese to hand the command of their armies to a “goddam foreigner . . . in whom they can’t have much confidence.” But the next line of the diary found Stilwell in a less circumspect frame of mind: “The worst has happened in the press. Before I have a chance to get my feet on the ground, a flood of crap is released, to justify which I would have to be in Rangoon within a week. What a sucker I’ll look like if the Japs run me out of Burma.”
⁵⁵
Stilwell would be portrayed by his allies in the press as a driven and selfless man determined to fight the war “wholeheartedly, democratically, with no tolerance for corruption, duplicity, or the niceties of diplomatic small talk,” in the words of Theodore White.
⁵⁶
In fact, Stilwell may have been more image-conscious than any other commander at his level, perhaps more so since his lack of command experience was now compounded by failure in Burma.

Chiang was caught in a dilemma. It was true that he had ordered the divisional commander at Toungoo to retreat, thereby probably saving his life and that of his troops, as Stilwell had shown no intention of retreating in the face of overwhelming Japanese opposition. Chiang regarded Stilwell as a rash decision maker, too eager to risk the best Chinese troops left. (That same week, Chiang cast doubt on Stilwell’s assurance that he could have a new airfield built within thirteen days. “He’s been deceived by the British,” Chiang wrote, “and now he’s cheating me.”)
⁵⁷
However, he had waited well over four years to gain the United States as an ally. He could not afford a full-scale conflict with the senior American commander in the China Theater after less than four months. Chiang consulted his wife Song Meiling, who stressed the importance of appeasing Stilwell. (Stilwell had more time for her, calling her “direct, forceful, energetic, loves power . . . Great influence on Chiang K’ai-shek mostly along the right lines, too.”)
⁵⁸
Chiang invited Stilwell to Huangshan, the villa outside Chongqing which provided a retreat from the dusty and noisy city, as well as relative safety from air raids. He announced that General Luo Zhuoying would be sent back to Burma with Stilwell and would be responsible for transmitting his orders to the Chinese commanders lower down. In addition, Chiang himself would accompany them back to make it clear that he personally endorsed Stilwell’s authority over the troops. “This is a major victory for me,” Stilwell wrote, adding, “When you consider their history and experience with foreigners, this is really a handsome gesture that Chiang K’ai-shek is making.”
⁵⁹
The party flew down to Maymyo in central Burma, including not only Chiang and Song Meiling, but also the writer Clare Boothe Luce, wife of the publisher of
Time
magazine. There, in public, Chinese officers were instructed that Stilwell’s orders be obeyed without question.

In Burma the situation was now critical. Stilwell wanted to make a stand with the Chinese Fifth Army at the town of Pyinmana in central Burma, in the hope of drawing the Japanese into a trap. But the plan quickly fell apart. The British troops were reluctant to protect the Chinese troops on their right flank, fearing that they would be surrounded. On April 18 troops under the British major general William Slim (promoted to lieutenant general during the campaign) were in danger of being surrounded by the Japanese in the oil-rich area around Yenangyaung, west of Pyinmana, forcing Stilwell to divert Chinese troops to relieve them.
⁶⁰
“Wild tales of the Jap tank division at Loikaw,” wrote Stilwell on April 20. “Aiming at Lashio? Jesus. This may screw us completely.”
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The Allied hope of thrusting south hastily gave way to a desperate attempt to withdraw before the Japanese destroyed the Allies’ best troops in the region. However, the retreat was hampered by the unwillingness of the British, the Chinese, and Stilwell to trust one another’s motives or judgments. Meanwhile, the Japanese army struck hard at Lashio in eastern Burma, as Stilwell had feared, seizing it on April 29. Now there was a real danger that significant numbers of Allied troops would be trapped in Burma, unable to break through Japanese lines. “Imminent danger of disintegration and collapse,” Stilwell wrote.
⁶²

A new battle of wills began between Stilwell and Chiang. Stilwell ordered Du Yuming to lead his Fifth Army troops not back to China, but to India. Chiang was aghast when he heard the news that his chief of staff had ordered a substantial part of his army into another country, and wondered whether Stilwell had lost his resolve because his proposed attack in Burma had gone so wrong.
⁶³
Chiang reversed the order and instead commanded Du to bring his troops to the northern Burmese town of Myitkyina. Chiang then received the news that Stilwell was leaving Burma for India, along with his closest staff. Once again, Chiang could not believe that Stilwell would abandon the troops supposedly under his control.
⁶⁴
“One doesn’t expect this of one’s military adviser,” he wrote, horrified. “Could it be that because of the battle, his nerves have given way?”
⁶⁵

Stilwell was determined to leave. On May he set out with a party of some eighty people, including American, Chinese, and British soldiers, Indian engineers, and Burmese nurses. Stilwell led this unlikely group on a terrifying journey through a jungle where disease and snakebite were as much a threat as the enemy. “Limeys’ feet all shot,” he recorded on May 8. “Our people tired . . . Chattering monkeys in the jungle. Bombers over . . . Hot camp. Insects.” They finally made contact with civilization again on May 20, when they arrived at Imphal in northeast India, to be met by an “old fool” of a provincial administrator.
⁶⁶

Never one to miss an opportunity for good press, Stilwell made an official statement in New Delhi on May 25. “I claim we got a hell of a beating,” he declared. “We got run out of Burma and it is as humiliating as hell. I think we ought to find out what caused it, go back, and retake it.” In a letter to his wife he was franker about assigning blame, and what he intended to do about it. “I’ll be going back to report to the G-mo [Chiang] and I sure have an earful for him. He’s going to hear stuff he never heard before and it’s going to be interesting to see how he takes it.”
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In fact, Chiang had already determined that he must from now on sign off on Stilwell’s orders, although he did not tell Stilwell this.
⁶⁸
“Now I know that the alliance is just empty words,” Chiang wrote, “and I don’t exclude America from this.”
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Remarkably, Stilwell’s group had made it out of the jungle without any deaths. The troops he had commanded, and had left behind in Burma, fared less well. Luo Gu was one of the soldiers who served in the Fifth Army under General Du Yuming. They fought fiercely against the Japanese, even capturing a couple of elephants. But at the start of May, as communications broke down, they attempted to march northwest, to Mandalay. “The jungle covered everything for miles,” Luo recalled, “leaving us deadly thirsty.” Soon they got lost. As they waded around in rice paddies, insects attacked them from all sides, and a massive thunderstorm soaked them to the skin. Days turned into weeks, and conditions worsened further. The soldiers destroyed their weapons, as they no longer had the strength to carry them and they did not want them captured by the Japanese. A month after they had started out, Luo recorded, “the soldiers are all in rags and look very gaunt. Everyone is carrying a bag of rice, a water-can, a diesel tin, and in the other hand, a walking-stick.” The soldiers’ difficulty in walking was compounded by their diet. “Because we haven’t had any oil for a month,” complained Luo, “my stools are very hard and my anus has split. When can we get hold of a drop of oil?” And everywhere they traveled, they found corpses scattered. The company cook was one who went missing; the remains of his body were found half eaten, presumably by one of the many tigers that stalked the jungle. By the middle of June the soldiers were starving, digging up roots to try and survive; meanwhile the monsoon rains poured down every day. Even when supplies were dropped in the area from the air, tragedy struck, as some soldiers were hit and killed by the falling boxes. More then died from eating too fast after a period of long deprivation. Only at the start of August did Luo and his companions finally reach India.
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Most of the Chinese troops of the 38th Division under General Sun Liren did make it to India, although the numbers were lowered by Japanese attacks as well as disease. Parts of the Fifth Army had to make their way north to Myitkyina in Burma, under constant aerial attack from the Japanese. The 96th and 200th Divisions did, somehow, make their way back to China as coherent units. Much of the Sixth Army was not so fortunate, wiped out by the Japanese assault. The Japanese were on China’s doorstep, driving into Yunnan. But now Chiang sent in troops—along with Chennault’s Flying Tigers—to drive them back.
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The Japanese did not need to thrust into China at this point. They had achieved their main aim of cutting off supplies to Chongqing via the Burma Road. With no reliable access to land or sea supplies, the National Government was now perilously close to being completely isolated.

Did Stilwell’s failed strategy in Burma destroy a key defense for the Nationalist government? The alternative, a retreat to north Burma—advocated both by the National Government and by the British—might still have seen the region overrun by the Japanese and the loss of the Burma Road. But Stilwell’s highly risky gamble was much more likely to fail than succeed. It led to the death or injury of some 25,000 Chinese troops along with over 10,000 British and Indian troops (with only 4,500 Japanese casualties).
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Retreat might have meant that more of the Fifth and Sixth Armies were saved for the defense of China. Whatever the alternative, the reality was that by the spring of 1942 there was no further possibility of Nationalist China being supplied through Burma. The political and financial consequences of Stilwell’s choice would rebound on Chiang’s government for years to come. The ending of the Burma supply route also put another opportunity in Stilwell’s hands. Some 45,000 tons of Lend-Lease supplies intended for China were now instead assigned to the Nationalist armies that had made it to India.
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Throughout the war Stilwell would retain control over the Lend-Lease assigned to China, diverting much of it to projects which he favored, and exacerbating tensions that would corrode the alliance with the Nationalists.