That Rejected Stilwell

Stilwell's Road Feeds the China That Rejected Stilwell

IN the third week of January, 1945, the New Burma Road from India into China was opened; and, 33 months after the Japs closed the Old Burma Road, long lines of trucks, bearing supplies from the United Nations, resumed their freighting ser vice into Fighting China. Here, in brief, is the history of the Burma Road. 1937, —Japan, without declaration of war, attacked China, from the north east. Later, as the Chinese retired into the interior and set up their capital at Chungking, the Japanese blockaded the whole Chinese coast. 19 38-9. —Attitude of Japanese towards British and Americans in Far East became insulting and aggressive, and there were many “incidents.” Anglo- American sympathy was strongly with China. China urgently needed supplies.

Britain and America undertook to supply China, on condition that China built a road from Yunnan Province (south-east China) through the mountains into Northern Burma, to link up at Lashio with British road, rail and river traffic running up from Rangoon to Mandalay and Lashio. Tens of thousands of Chinese built the road; and British, American and Chinese interests began the transportation of supplies by many hun dreds of trucks. , , 1939-40.—Burma Road supplies helped to keep China fighting, and Japan was bitterly resentful, and in every way pos sible put pressure upon Britain for the closing of the Road. Britain, fighting the Axis alone in 1940, trying to appease Japan, did close fche Road for a few months; but when Japan joined the Axis in 1941 and finally hurled herself upon the Americans and British in the Pacific, the Road was reopened. 1942—The Japanese invaded Burma in April, and the whole of the Old Burma Road from Rangoon to Mandalay, and on through Lashio into south-east China, was occupied by the enemy. 1942-43-44.—The only supplies which reached Fighting China were taken in by air, in a great freighting service from India, over the Hump of the Himalayas, to Chungking. 1945 (January).—The New Burma Road, from India through north-west Burma, to China, came into operation, THERE is an interesting story of courage, intrigue, greed and corruption, behind those bare facts.

China is pre-eminent among the nations as the land of palm-greasing, the home of the secret commission.

Nothing can be accomplished without graft. Everyone gets his “squeeze.” It has been so for untold ages; presum ably, it will be so for ages to come.

The Old Burma Road did not escape. Here were tens of thousands of tons of goods, worth millions of pounds, pouring through a primitive and unpoliced country, a stream of wealth apparently without end. The set-up was God’s good gift to millions of Chinese grafters. So, long before the Jap invasion of Burma closed the Old Road, newspapers throughout the Anglo-American world were carrying stories of how a large and startling proportion of the incoming goods was disappearing into the maws of grafters and black marketeers, and

not reaching the Chinese armies, for whom the goods were intended by the hard-pressed Allies.

Indignation was mounting among the Allies, and the closing of the Road probably forestalled only by weeks some drastic action by the United Nations designed to compel the Chungking Government to put an end to the graft with which the traffic was surrounded.

BUT when the Road was closed, and the Chinese armies were so handicapped by lack of vital sup plies that the costly air service across the Himalayas had to be organised, the British and American commanders in South-east Asia turned again to the problem of the Road. It was plain that the old route, via Rangoon and Mandalay, could not be resumed so long as the Japs remained in Burma; but (argued certain officials) sooner or later we are going to push from India throughout North-east Burma against the Japs—so is it possible to build a road from India throughout North-east Burma and on into South-west China?

Some officials said that it could be done from the Brahmaputra, in Assam (North-east India), through Ledo, and into the river valleys of North-west Burma. Others declared flatly that the task was too great even to be contemplated. If you look at

the map on page 40, you can see their point.

The first problem was to get the road from the Brahmaputra across the Naga Hills into the valley system of North-west Burma. The engineer

ing difficulties were fantastic. The Naga Hills are a spur of the Hima layas, and they are not hills. They are 6,000 feet high, a nightmare of gulches and pinnacles, covered with dense forests, and subject to an annual rainfall of 100 inches.

It was decided to proceed with the work, and construction commenced in December, 1942—0n1y seven months after the Japs had, as they thought, absorbed Burma permanently into the Empire of the Sun Goddess. The driving force behind the plan was the indomintable American, General Joseph Stilwell. The plan’s handicap was represented by scores of high officers, both British and American, who—not without reason—said it just could not be done.

The work made slow progress. By October, 1943, when plans were being developed for an Allied push from Assam through Northern Burma, only 43 miles of the New Burma Road had been constructed.

GENERAL STILWELL did not waste any more time in Burma. He mounted a plane, and went roaring and cursing into Washington. He got quick action.

In a matter of weeks, there arrived in North-east India, ready for grand scale operations, enormous road building equipment, staffed by men who had just completed the building of the mighty highway from the United States through Western Canada into Alaska. They were com manded by one of the great military road-builders of this time—Brigadier- General Lewis Pick.

By May, 1944, the New Road was over the Naga Hills and down into the Burma valleys, keeping pace with the now advancing armies of Britain, India, America and China. The im mediate military demands upon the half-built Road were so great as to create a special engineering problem for the builders.

Most remarkable chapter in this in credible history is the performance of the bulldozers. These 17-tons mech anical monsters, working mostly in line, simply charged into the hillsides, the jungles and the swamps, follow ing lines dimly indicated by the surveyors. They first of all cut what is called a trace; then they widened the trace into a “combat road,” along which poured the ever-impatient and surgmg mhifary traffic; and, then, aftei that, as soon as possible, the combat road was formed into a well

graded and surfaced motor highway, Stilwell saw his long-sighted plan become a reality. The New Road from the Brahmaputra and Ledo carried the military traffic demanded by the Allied armies who were now pushing the Jap out of North-west Burma; and, as it advanced, the New Road came ever nearer to providing vital link between the China- North Burma roads, and India.

T OOK again at the map. It will be L seen that the New Burma Road, 1 100 miles louf? runs fmm i pHn nn

t Kunmin\ et TVou“? S’

and that it Is in three sections: Moo. i??i t'—From Ledo across the Naga Hills and North-west Burma to the vicinity of Myitkyma.

Section ll.— From about Myitkyina

to the vicinity of Lashio, near the border of Burma, Section lll.— From Lashio through China to Kunming, being part of the Old Burma Road, The Old Burma Road ran south wards from Lashio towards Manda lay. The New Burma Road turns west and north-west from about Lashio, towards India.

Section I had to be wholly con stiucted—one of the greatest engineer

seltion II S

oection li had to be partly con

were* in' this

m wifllready eC th“re er ’ 1944 ' SeCtl ° n The road from Ledo into Burma ends at Myltkyina. The road now be ing used runs from Myitkyina south to Bhamo, and then northwards, to

This map of the Burma-Indo China region shows: (1) The Old Burma Road (from the top of the Burma railway system) at Lashio, to Kunming, in China. (2) The New Burma Road, from Ledo, in Assam, India, into North-west Burma; thence to Bhamo; and thence north-east to join up with the Old Burma Road, in China.

join the old Old Burma Road at Mongyu. Until January, the Japs held 20 miles of that road—and as soon as they were gone, the trains of trucks began to move towards China.

But, if the road were to run east from Myitkyina, across the Kaoli Mountains to the ancient walled city of Tengchung. (Tengyueh) in China, and then straight across the Chinese province of Yunnan to Paoshan, on the Old Burma Road, a distance of 170 miles would be saved. It may be assumed that that route (now traversed by only a muletrack) will be used soon; but some reports say that it is only a dry-weather road.

VERY fittingly, this great new high way from India into China has been named the Stilwell Road.

The dynamic Stilwell, who staunchly fought against the ancient graft sys tem of old-time China, is gone from Burma; but his road remains, not only to provide a life-line for the China that rejected him, but as a monument to a fine soldier, a most successful planner, and a great American.