Stilwell the Patriot Read online

  The army rescued Stilwell from his gloomy situation by offering him the post of military attaché in China. He was overjoyed at the prospect of returning to China, though the whole situation had gravely deteriorated since his last visit. The Japanese, those ‘arrogant little bastards’, had continued their penetration of northern China. In the south Chiang had organised a major attack on the Communist forces and driven them, under Mao’s leadership, far to the west and then to the north, on what became known as the Long March, after which the Communists established a precarious base in the remote northern territory of Yan’an.

  In 1936 Stilwell and his family arrived back in China, and almost at once he set out on another of his forays to gain information and to assess the real situation. As usual he eschewed first-class rail travel, preferring to move about by bus and boat to meet more of the people. He travelled north to check on Chiang’s preparations for defence against the Japanese incursions and, finding they were pathetic, was publicly critical of the Kuomintang leader. In the following year he travelled even more widely, visiting Chinese army training centres and studying the situation in Nanking.

  Visiting the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, he found that the Japanese were trying to gain support for their policy by stressing the danger of Russian Communism spreading through eastern Asia. The world was slowly learning about the Communist system under Mao, who by this time was established in the bleak northern area around Yan’an after the prolonged suffering of the Long March. Mao’s firm discipline and his insistence that Communist forces respect the local people, which was part of his overall policy on guerrilla war, impressed outside observers and gave him a huge advantage over Chiang’s corrupt and brutal soldiery. Stilwell observed the effect of Mao’s philosophy and his training on the Chinese soldier. In December 1936, in a bizarre incident, a local warlord kidnapped Chiang to force him to co-operate with the Communist forces in a united front against the Japanese. This caused international concern because most observers feared chaos across China if Chiang was removed. He gained his freedom by offering some dubious promises, and there was a brief semblance of unity against the Japanese aggressors. Stilwell, now increasingly recognised as America’s China expert, observed these incidents at quite close quarters but realistically dismissed the protestations about unity and democracy.

  In July 1937 Stilwell witnessed the ‘contrived incident’, when Japanese troops clashed with the Chinese outside Peking and which Japan used as an excuse to start its war in China with the aim of taking over the northern part of the country. He immediately set up a network of contacts to keep him informed of Japanese progress, and he was determined to publicise details of the Japanese aggression. The Japanese forces advanced almost unopposed, daily committing dreadful rapine and other atrocities. Stilwell fumed at Chiang’s total failure to take effective action and at the pusillanimous American attitude. Chiang decided to withdraw his forces to tempt the Japanese to move south and attack Shanghai. He hoped that this would give the incursion maximum publicity in the outside world and force the western powers to act. This was a signal failure – and then Chiang, against military advice, decided to defend Nanking.

  As Japanese forces took over Peking and most Chinese territory stretching down to Shanghai and Nanking, Stilwell’s criticism, both of Chiang and of the American government, became more strident. By the end of 1937 Chiang’s HQ had been withdrawn to Hankow, about 200 miles southwest of Nanking. Stilwell had to follow. Thus he was close at hand when, in December 1937, the Japanese perpetrated the rape of Nanking, in the course of which their troops raped and massacred nearly 200,000 people. All women and girls were brought in for mass rape by platoons of soldiers and then shot. The world shuddered but took little action. The Japanese then bombed an American ship, but quickly apologised. ‘Bastards,’ said Stilwell.

  The rape of Nanking, whose horror still stands out despite all the horrors that have happened since, brought to an end a period in which the democratic powers, in the grip of appeasement, suffered disastrous setbacks and the fascist powers appeared to be able to act with impunity. In March 1936 Hitler, choosing a weekend when he thought, correctly, that the British cabinet would not be meeting, marched into the Rhineland in defiance of the Versailles settlement. Mussolini had already marched into Abyssinia, where he bravely overcame spear-throwing tribesmen with artillery and mustard gas. Britain could have stopped the Italians by denying them use of the Suez canal, but it feared to do so. In the same year Franco led his Fascist forces, backed by the army and the Roman Catholic Church, against the elected government of Spain. Then, to the delight of the other fascist leaders, who backed him with troops, weapons and aircraft, in April 1937 he carried out the destruction of Guernica in an experiment to determine whether a town could be completely wiped out by aerial bombing. These horrors perpetrated by the fascists in Europe perhaps helped to deflect attention from the worst aspects of Japanese aggression in China.

  Stilwell grew increasingly frustrated and bitter at the craven attitude of the Washington administration and at the restrictions which both the Chinese and the Japanese placed on his travels as a military attaché. Infuriated by what he saw as the stuffy, blinkered attitude of most of the embassy staff, he made contact with any free spirit – including charity workers and journalists – who could bring him reliable information. During 1938 he overcame some of the obstacles and was able to resume his travels to the different war fronts. As he saw more of the Chinese armies his admiration grew for the tough, long-suffering, uncomplaining Chinese soldier, but he despaired of the poor quality of leadership and the feeble, defeatist attitude of the officers and commanders of the Kuomintang. As he tried to extend his travels, he was again curbed by ‘the interfering bastards in Washington’. His frustration was so intense that once again he considered throwing up the job and resigning his commission.

  During this depressing time, Stilwell did manage to obtain details of Russian supplies coming by air to the Communist forces in the north under Mao and, to his surprise, the Chinese won a significant battle against the Japanese. To the chagrin of their German military advisers, the Chinese commanders failed to follow up their victory and threw away the advantage they had gained. As the Japanese resumed their advance after their brief defeat, Chiang sought to delay them by blowing up the dams on the Yellow River. This certainly slowed the Japanese advance, but – and this was apparently a matter of indifference to Chiang – it made two million Chinese people homeless and caused countless civilian deaths. Stilwell observed Chiang’s military failings and despaired further as he and his glamorous, western-educated wife emerged as the heroes of the missionary-based Chinese lobby in Washington.

  By the end of 1938 Chiang had transferred his capital from Hankow to Chungking in the far southwest of China. Here he felt confident that, ‘having exchanged space for time’, he could hold out until the Japanese threat wilted. During this period the ruthless Japanese advance against the ineptly led Chinese forces enjoyed a double victory: they captured Hankow in the north, and in the south, in close proximity to Hong Kong, Canton, effectively cutting off Chiang; from the eastern seaboard. This coincided with the nadir of the western democracies at Munich, on 29 September 1938, when Czechoslovakia was abandoned to Hitler.

  Stilwell transferred his small team from Hankow to Hunan, the area around Chiang’s new capital Chungking, where some desultory military action still continued. Stilwell spent a short time in Chungking, where he met Chiang and his wife. Stilwell was already looking to the future. He began to think that only America would be strong enough to face Japan, but he argued in some detail that the Chinese might be able to face the enemy if they had American equipment and supplies and if they were led by American officers.

  In May 1939, in a mood of profound depression, Stilwell and his family left China on an American troopship for the long sea voyage home. In his mid-fifties and still a colonel, he reluctantly faced the prospect of retirement, but once again he was rescued from this fate
. When the ship reached Honolulu in August 1939 he received a message that his old friend George Marshall had become the US Chief of Staff and had promoted him to brigadier.

  After a brief leave, and after urgent discussions with Marshall on how to overcome America’s fateful unpreparedness, Stilwell was posted to Texas to command a brigade and to bring some harsh reality into the training. Because of cut-backs during the 1920s and 1930s, when America faced no obvious military threat, in 1939 there were only three active divisions, and even these were not at full strength. Stilwell was increasingly concerned that the threat of fascism in Europe masked the growing danger from Japan in the Pacific. The Nazi blitzkrieg in 1940 at least assisted Roosevelt in obtaining the support of Congress for the necessary back-up and for a dramatic increase in military expenditure.

  Stilwell rapidly gained a reputation as one of the best and most aggressive commanders in corps and army exercises, and he fiercely criticised the establishment for its slowness in learning from the German Panzer attack and the fall of France. The dramatic defeat of the democracies in Europe in the summer of 1940 soon had its effect on the situation in the Far East. The war party in Japan stepped up its provocation and pressure, and it forced France to agree to concessions in Indo-China. Within weeks of Dunkirk, Britain, under Japanese pressure, reluctantly agreed to close the Burma Road, which ran from Mandalay and Lashio up to Chungking and was by that time the main supply route for Chiang in Chungking. In September 1940 Japan joined the Rome–Berlin Axis.

  In July 1940, Stilwell was promoted to major general and he took over command of 7 Division. He was already talking openly of the need for America to fight Japan and was suggesting a mixture of American and Chinese divisions. Before the end of 1940 America had begun its huge world-wide financial and military support for the democracies, and in Chungking Chiang Kai-Shek had started to play his unscrupulous and deceitful game. He constantly increased his demands for money and supplies, and he backed up these demands by hinting that things were desperate and he might be forced to do a deal with the Japanese.

  In October 1940, Chiang, egged on by Claire Chennault, who was later to become Stilwell’s bête noire, formally requested American planes and pilots so that he could to attack Japanese sea lanes and military movements. Chiang’s protestations were rarely the whole truth, and even in the extremity of 1940, instead of facing the Japanese, he covertly attacked the increasingly powerful Communist forces under Mao. Chiang was to be severely criticised as a military leader, but he must be given credit for his decision to retire to Chungking, which gave him time and enabled him to keep China in the war against Japan. His demands for American planes, pilots and other support – initially rejected as fanciful – gradually built up a wave of support from the China lobby in the USA and their ginger groups. The scheme received a major boost from the Lend–Lease Act of 1941. Throughout this period Chiang’s case was masterminded by his brother-in-law, the immensely wealthy and influential T. V. Soong, who made an astronomic fortune from Lend–Lease deals. The notion gradually grew that by arming and supplying thirty Chinese assault divisions America might keep China fighting effectively and deter Japan from attacking elsewhere. To oversee this colossal operation Washington set up an American military mission to China.

  During 1941, Japan put pressure on the weak Vichy government and gained further concessions for the use of airfields in French Indo-China, including Saigon. This time Washington reacted to the move and froze Japanese assets. Belatedly it started to reinforce its bases in the Philippines, but both Congress and the country remained deeply divided about the prospect of war. As the war scenario widened and Roosevelt became more involved with Churchill, Chiang was infuriated by his exclusion from top-level discussion. This attitude continued and provided the bleak backdrop to inter-Allied co-operation until 1945. America, despite warnings, continued to believe that with positive support China would mount an effective attack on Japan. Towards the end of 1941 Chiang, in the hope of gaining more supplies, again warned that another defeat by the Japanese or the loss of Kunming could force China to withdraw from the war. The mistrust and misunderstanding between China, which felt it had spent years fighting the cause now supported by the democracies, and America, which believed it had been munificently generous in providing supplies for thirty divisions with scant result, continued through 1941. This enabled the war party in Japan to complete its planning and gave it time to make the decision on where and when to attack.

  * Martin Gilbert, History of the Twentieth Century, HarperCollins, London, 2001, Vol. 1, p. 825.

  CHAPTER 3

  Pearl Harbor and After

  The Stilwell Papers give a vivid, colourful daily record of Stilwell’s life during the Burma war, together with his equally colourful views and comments. A preface to the Papers explains that on Sunday, 7 December 1941, the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Stilwells were entertaining some of the officers of III Corps HQ at Carmel when a friend telephoned and said, ‘Listen to the radio.’ That is how they heard the news of the Japanese attack.

  Stilwell, as the commander of III Corps, was responsible for the defence of southern California. With the psychological impact of the Pearl Harbor catastrophe, it is understandable that people imagined other Japanese attacks to be imminent. In a tense and apprehensive atmosphere, rumours abounded. Southern California, with more than half of all the USA’s aircraft factories, was responsible for three-quarters of the country’s bomber production and a substantial part of its oil production, so it was an obvious target for the Japanese.

  Within hours of the news breaking reports came in of attacking aircraft and ships. Feverish rumours spread wildly. It was reported that the main Japanese fleet was approaching San Francisco – a report which turned out to be totally false. As the overall commander, Stilwell had to take such reports seriously, but his role quickly emerged. It was reflected in his diary entry, ‘Calm ’em down.’ Commenting that common sense was being thrown to the winds and that any absurdity was believed, he added, ‘The higher the H.Q. the more important is calm.’

  From his comments there is no doubt that if the Japanese had indeed planned an attack on California to coincide with Pearl Harbor the area would have been almost defenceless. At the top level, Stilwell had to retrieve the reality from the fantasy. Even so, there was enough dire news in that fateful month of December 1941. On 10 December the British warships Prince of Wales and Renown, with no air cover, were sunk off the coast of Malaya by a Japanese air attack. ‘My God. Worse and Worse.’ The Japanese made rapid advances in the Philippines. Germany and Italy declared war on the USA, and Guam and Wake Island fell. The Japanese occupied Thailand. In July 1941 the Vichy government weakly agreed to the occupation of Indo-China. On Christmas Day 1941 Hong Kong, one of the bastions of British power in the Far East, fell to the Japanese.

  In Chungking, Chiang Kai-Shek was delighted at the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor because it instantly brought the United States into the war against Japan. He quickly produced fanciful plans for all the countries involved in the war to centre their efforts on his HQ in a combined effort to defeat the Japanese during 1942. Stilwell’s diatribes about the ‘Limeys’ – the British – are well known. Less well known is Chiang’s hatred for the British, who he believed were taking away Lend–Lease supplies that were rightly his. Central to this issue was the Burma Road, which ran from Rangoon through Mandalay, Lashio, and through the mountains to Kunming and Chungking. Britain, in response to Japanese political pressure, had temporarily closed the road in 1940, but after Pearl Harbor it became the crucial supply route for much of the Lend–Lease material that was sent to Chiang.

  While the frantic reaction to the Japanese attack continued, Marshall called Stilwell to Washington. On Christmas Eve he left his family in Carmel. He was immediately involved in earnest discussions about a possible American attack on the Axis forces in North Africa. He made caustic comments about Roosevelt, whom he called the ‘Big Boy’, and the diary entry
for 27 December is clear:

  The Big Boy thinks it isn’t yet the ‘ripe time’ for Casablanca. Good news to me, with 1,100 German planes in Sardinia and Sicily, and 185,000 troops in Morocco, and 80,000 French in North Africa, twenty-eight divisions (German) in France and 400 planes in Spain etc. The plain truth is we can do one thing and not several and we’ll have to pick it out.

  During this time his diary is augmented by letters to his wife, which fortunately have survived and which give a stark description of Washington at this critical time.

  My impression of Washington is a rush of clerks in and out of doors, swing doors always swinging, people with papers rushing after other people with papers, groups in corners whispering in huddles, everybody jumping up as soon as you start to talk, buzzers ringing, telephones ringing, rooms crowded with clerks all banging away at typewriters. ‘Give me ten copies of this AT ONCE.’ ‘Get that secret file out of the safe.’ ‘Where is the Yellow Plan (Blue Plan, Green Plan, Orange Plan, etc.)?’ Everybody furiously smoking cigarettes, everybody passing you on to someone else, etc., etc. Someone with a loud voice and a mean look and a big stick ought to appear and yell ‘HALT. You crazy bastards. SILENCE. You imitation ants. Now half of you get the hell out of town before dark and the other half don’t move for an hour.’ Then they could burn up all the papers and start fresh.