Posted on 02/24/2020 9:18:47 AM PST by DEPcom
Politics is why, read between the lines of this story and understand why China is having the pull it is from the head of the WHO.
Excellent book.
It really was. I read it over 15 years ago
I learned a great deal and will re read it too.
[Excellent book.]
Almost all (not just most) of the major Sino-Japanese battles were fought by Chiang’s men. At the end of WWII, many of Chiang’s formations existed in name only - they had died in such numbers fighting the Japanese. Whereas Mao’s men were rested and fresh. You know how at near the end of WWI, the French had large-scale mutinies that almost toppled the government? By the end of WWII, Chiang was near the end of his rope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_French_Army_mutinies
Many of his men surrendered to Mao rather than continue fighting. Their reward (just or not) was to be sent to Korea where they died like flies (UN/US estimates were about 800,000 Chinese dead). Many presumably understood that they were being killed off to ward off the future threat of a counter-revolution against Communist rule, such that 2/3 of Chinese POW’s captured by UN forces in Korea defected to Taiwan.
[Excellent book.]
Almost all (not just most) of the major Sino-Japanese battles were fought by Chiang’s men. At the end of WWII, many of Chiang’s formations existed in name only - they had died in such numbers fighting the Japanese. Whereas Mao’s men were rested and fresh. You know how at near the end of WWI, the French had large-scale mutinies that almost toppled the government? By the end of WWII, Chiang was near the end of his rope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_French_Army_mutinies
Many of his men surrendered to Mao rather than continue fighting. Their reward (just or not) was to be sent to Korea where they died like flies (UN/US estimates were about 800,000 Chinese dead). Many presumably understood that they were being killed off to ward off the future threat of a counter-revolution against Communist rule, such that 2/3 of Chinese POW’s captured by UN forces in Korea defected to Taiwan.
Re Stilwell’s deficiencies, I was gonna write a quick summary, but this Quora commenter has saved me the trouble:
I’ll preface this by saying I think that Stilwell would have done excellently in the European Theater of Operations, either as a corps commander or army commander of an all-American force. His single minded drive, ability to push troops to their limit, and aggression would have made for an excellent commander of armor in France. Americans are acclimated to the “loud, insulting, asshole” type, and arguably respond well to it. Chinese and British people, not so much. In Burma, these attributes pissed everyone off around him, got the units under him destroyed through sheer attrition and lack of logistical support, and eventually got him fired from his job.
The only reason he got chosen to be sent to China was because of previous time he spent in China and his ability to speak Mandarin. Personality wise, sending Vinegar Joe into a theater where he was going to loudly tell everyone whats-what, while bringing absolutely no troops to the table until nearly a year after arriving in theater, was moronic. If anything, his driving, hurry up style was unsuitable not just for the CBI theater, but the entire Pacific theater, which demanded careful logistic planning and methodical tactical moves. Again, send this man to Europe.
While “advising” Chiang Kai-Shek, you can tell clearly from his diary that he misapprehended the entire situation. He was technically correct with his strategy: opening a land route to China via Burma would allow for a greater flow of supplies, thus allowing a strengthening of the NRA, and hopefully the eventual theoretical creation of some American style, 30 well equipped division Army would have been able to win the war.
But it’s insane. It’s undoable. You see this type in China, the expat American who doesn’t understand the problems the Chinese face, and just gives contemptuous advice of how “we do it” that is completely irrelevant and unworkable. In this case, a language barrier might have been a boon, not a burden. It would have prevented the Chinese from fully grasping how condescending Stillwell was being, which he liked to fully articulate in face-to-face meetings to his superiors. I’d like to say this doesn’t go over well in Chinese culture, but to be honest, this method is ineffective in pretty much every culture.
“China proper” was being nearly fully occupied with a large proportion of the Chinese population living under the Japanese yoke. To send large portions of the Chinese army into a British colony so that maybe, a year or two later, the Lend-Lease spigot could be turned on a bit more, might seem reasonable to Stilwell, but absolutely beside the point for Chiang. The enemy is right here, let’s fight him here, not in some malarial jungle that ate Chinese manpower for the benefit of the British Empire’s position in India.
Also, Stilwell did not grasp or care to grasp the intricacies of the Chinese command structure that Chiang had to work with. Chiang did not have unity of command as we understand it, with large swathes of his territory and portions of his army having their first allegiance to a “warlord” who then pledged his allegiance to the central government in Chongqing. In effect, it is similar to a feudal style army, where the King has a royal guard that he brings to battle, but he relies on Dukes and Barons to provide the bulk of his forces. In that light, the 30-division plan is ludicrous, and it is also ludicrous to expect these “Dukes” to send their forces to Burma for a plan that would place more Lend-Lease supplies in Chiang’s hands.
This also explains the stupidity of throwing the petty corruption of Chinese forces in Chiang’s face. What is he supposed to do, start another civil war to arrest the people responsible? It’s not like he can just call up some MPs and have the perpetrators arrested, for the most part.
His relations with the British were also spectacularly bad. Considering these two entities, the British Empire and NRA were bringing the vast majority of troops to the table, some humility and tact was in order, not open contempt for limeys. Again, send this man to Europe in charge of a purely American army, and watch him tear up the French countryside. Sending him to the twilight of the British Empire and the purgatory of Nationalist China was a monumentally bad decision.
All-in-all, the CBI theater ended up with all parties leaving with egg on their face. Coalition warfare is the hardest to implement. Operation Matterhorn and Ichigo made both the Chinese and Americans look incompetent, and the British defeat in Burma in 1942 is explainable only in the context of the completely unfounded British collapse in Asia due to incompetence in late 41-42. At least the British came out with a belated victory in the U-Go offensive and counterattack.
Finally, examining Stillwell’s experience in China proves the old canard that we fought World War II “without politics” to be incorrect. War is intimately tied up with the fates of nations and thus is political to the core. Stillwell’s failure to recognize this makes him a jerk, not a hero.]
[Excellent book.]
I’ll preface this by saying I think that Stilwell would have done excellently in the European Theater of Operations, either as a corps commander or army commander of an all-American force. His single minded drive, ability to push troops to their limit, and aggression would have made for an excellent commander of armor in France. Americans are acclimated to the “loud, insulting, asshole” type, and arguably respond well to it. Chinese and British people, not so much. In Burma, these attributes pissed everyone off around him, got the units under him destroyed through sheer attrition and lack of logistical support, and eventually got him fired from his job.
The only reason he got chosen to be sent to China was because of previous time he spent in China and his ability to speak Mandarin. Personality wise, sending Vinegar Joe into a theater where he was going to loudly tell everyone whats-what, while bringing absolutely no troops to the table until nearly a year after arriving in theater, was moronic. If anything, his driving, hurry up style was unsuitable not just for the CBI theater, but the entire Pacific theater, which demanded careful logistic planning and methodical tactical moves. Again, send this man to Europe.
While “advising” Chiang Kai-Shek, you can tell clearly from his diary that he misapprehended the entire situation. He was technically correct with his strategy: opening a land route to China via Burma would allow for a greater flow of supplies, thus allowing a strengthening of the NRA, and hopefully the eventual theoretical creation of some American style, 30 well equipped division Army would have been able to win the war.
But it’s insane. It’s undoable. You see this type in China, the expat American who doesn’t understand the problems the Chinese face, and just gives contemptuous advice of how “we do it” that is completely irrelevant and unworkable. In this case, a language barrier might have been a boon, not a burden. It would have prevented the Chinese from fully grasping how condescending Stillwell was being, which he liked to fully articulate in face-to-face meetings to his superiors. I’d like to say this doesn’t go over well in Chinese culture, but to be honest, this method is ineffective in pretty much every culture.
“China proper” was being nearly fully occupied with a large proportion of the Chinese population living under the Japanese yoke. To send large portions of the Chinese army into a British colony so that maybe, a year or two later, the Lend-Lease spigot could be turned on a bit more, might seem reasonable to Stilwell, but absolutely beside the point for Chiang. The enemy is right here, let’s fight him here, not in some malarial jungle that ate Chinese manpower for the benefit of the British Empire’s position in India.
Also, Stilwell did not grasp or care to grasp the intricacies of the Chinese command structure that Chiang had to work with. Chiang did not have unity of command as we understand it, with large swathes of his territory and portions of his army having their first allegiance to a “warlord” who then pledged his allegiance to the central government in Chongqing. In effect, it is similar to a feudal style army, where the King has a royal guard that he brings to battle, but he relies on Dukes and Barons to provide the bulk of his forces. In that light, the 30-division plan is ludicrous, and it is also ludicrous to expect these “Dukes” to send their forces to Burma for a plan that would place more Lend-Lease supplies in Chiang’s hands.
This also explains the stupidity of throwing the petty corruption of Chinese forces in Chiang’s face. What is he supposed to do, start another civil war to arrest the people responsible? It’s not like he can just call up some MPs and have the perpetrators arrested, for the most part.
His relations with the British were also spectacularly bad. Considering these two entities, the British Empire and NRA were bringing the vast majority of troops to the table, some humility and tact was in order, not open contempt for limeys. Again, send this man to Europe in charge of a purely American army, and watch him tear up the French countryside. Sending him to the twilight of the British Empire and the purgatory of Nationalist China was a monumentally bad decision.
All-in-all, the CBI theater ended up with all parties leaving with egg on their face. Coalition warfare is the hardest to implement. Operation Matterhorn and Ichigo made both the Chinese and Americans look incompetent, and the British defeat in Burma in 1942 is explainable only in the context of the completely unfounded British collapse in Asia due to incompetence in late 41-42. At least the British came out with a belated victory in the U-Go offensive and counterattack.
Finally, examining Stillwell’s experience in China proves the old canard that we fought World War II “without politics” to be incorrect. War is intimately tied up with the fates of nations and thus is political to the core. Stillwell’s failure to recognize this makes him a jerk, not a hero.]
More Stilwell’s deficiencies:
He wasn’t all bad though. I think his observations about many of the flaws of the Chinese Military and State were often correct (though he sometimes exaggerated and did’nt really understand the Bind CKS and his people were under after years of warfare, civil war, issues with warlords, famines and a host of other domestic issues). His efforts and intentions to help modernize the Chinese forces were earnest and well meaning. He liked leading from the front to a fault, though he did abandon his command to its fate during the Burma campaign in 1942.
Many objective historians, and some of his detractors, will concede he was a decent trainer of men and perhaps would have done better as a divisional commander. Ironically, despite being such a prick to so many of his colleagues and allies he was skilled at getting the media on his side which is why to a certain that until the last two decades the historiography on China in WW2 has been so anti-Chiang Kai-Shek and KMT and covered up Stilwell’s own flaws.
In general though I would say he was not a very pleasant character and certainly did a poor job in China. One can say that it wasn’t a choice command for any American, and that he received little supplies there, but again the job was mostly political and diplomatic and he failed on these scores.
As a strategist I think he failed as well. It is debatable if his focus on land power, at the expense of building up AirPower in China was the better option. Realistically the exact opposite isn’t the case, especially after America took the Marianas, but Stilwell’s plans to build a massive, modern Chinese army in China with American arms to win the war against Japan seems crazy given the sheer logistics and allied priorities elsewhere. A more limited army built up in India, the Y Force, made more sense but opening up the Burma road in early 1945 did not really help China in the end (ironically the tonnage over the Hump via planes still brought in more supplies). I’m not saying the Americans should not have sent China weapons for her army, but perhaps the focus on AirPower was more realistic even if Chennault could also exaggerate its potential for his part.
Besides this Stilwell failed his ultimate test in 1944 with the Ichigo Offensive running amok in China. Stilwell was literally in the jungles of Burma most of the time fighting a much smaller Japanese force for a dubious strategic objective while the much stronger Japanese forces in China were cutting the country in half and inflicting horrendous losses on the KMT Armies. Stilwell pressured Chiang, via Roosevelt, to send his reserves to Burma in 1944 even though China was getting hammered by Japan. Perhaps the reserves would not have changed the end result but to ignore the almost fatal threat to China in 1944 and focus on Burma shows poor strategic judgement on his part. Even more petty he refused to send AirPower and supplies (as he controlled lendlease to China) to CKS and Chennault while they were getting hurt by the Japanese. He merely said “Let them stew” because he cared more about past slights than aiding his colleagues and ally.
Franky I think Stilwell in China was a disaster, and few modern historians would disagree. I’m not saying Chiang’s conduct and judgments were always right, or that the KMT state and army were blameless but Stilwell dropped the ball more timed than not.
Here are some good sources regarding all of these points:
Books:
Fenby, Jonathon. Chiang Kai-Shek: China’s Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004.
Mitter, Rana. Forgotten Ally: China’s World War 2 1937-1945. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 2013.
Taylor, Jay. The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.
Van De Ven, Hans. China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018.]
It is unimportant that the one-child policy was lifted in 2015.
“news media is openly backing him (Breadline B.) I’m not so sure they’d report anything bad about communism right now”
Unless they can tie it around PDT neck.
.
Rather like saying the only reason a man was hired to run a lathe was because he had experience doing it and could read the manual.
I am not saying your sources are wrong, but what was the other choice?
Stilwell did not want to go to China, he wanted to go to Europe.
He went to China because there wasn't anyone else qualified to do so.
I cannot evaluate the books you generously mention. I cannot promise to read them, but I may.
NRO will know the truth. I’m sure we and everyone else has satellites taking a peak of what’s happening on the ground.
[Rather like saying the only reason a man was hired to run a lathe was because he had experience doing it and could read the manual. ]
If I had to recommend one book about Chiang, it would be Jay Taylor’s Generalissimo, which goes into detail about all the problems Chiang had keeping his coalition of what were essentially independent principalities with their own flags, armies and revenue sources together. Authors use the term “warlords” as an insult to the local rulers Chiang was attempting to keep subordinate to him, but the fact is that what we call “China” has gone back-and-forth between the unitary empire we see today and a handful of fiercely-independent kingdoms. Even when the empire is united, still waters run deep in the sense that it has frequently been racked by both large scale bottom-up revolts and elite mutinies.
It’s a small part of the grand sweep of his article. Make of it as you will. I thought it was well done and I can overlook such a trivial argument as you make.
[Rather like saying the only reason a man was hired to run a lathe was because he had experience doing it and could read the manual. ]
But Stilwell was almost autistic in his inability to understand the big picture. Instead of helping Chiang’s poorly-equipped and -trained men continue to tie down Japanese divisions and resources more efficiently in a defensive posture, he tried to win the Pacific War on his own using those troops as cannon fodder in pointlessly aggressive and under-resourced offensives in order to cover himself in glory. In so doing, he was arguably a major contributor to Chiang’s eventual defeat in the Chinese Civil War to follow - a defeat that was to cost the lives of 100,000 GI’s in Korea and Vietnam.
Huckleberry Finn was a great adventure based entirely on the life of a young boy and was written by the famous author Leo Tolstoy during the waning years of WWI.
one fiction deserves another
ETC
Every few years a virus mysteriously originates in the East. The mortality rate for Asians is much higher than others.
Yes.. designed.
I would guess the truth is closer to Guo’s numbers than to anything put out by the Communists. The frantic activity of the government indicates it is a lot worse than they say.Satellite pictures are said to show the incinerators going full time.
Dissidents going up in smoke is almost a given.The Communists have their own version of, “Never let a good crisis go to waste,”.
All flights out of China should, indeed, be turned back by all destination countries. Pleading low fuel should not be an excuse.
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