stilwell

joseph stilwell, a controversial figure in the history. people who like him said he's one of the best generals out there in WWII, and he was the one who saw the true potential of common chinese people. people who dislike him said he was loud mouth, militarily lacking, and extremely rude.

i read three american memoirs that mentioned his name so far. the first one was claire chennault's the way of a fighter, the second one was albert coady wedemeyer' wedemeyer's reports, the third one was milton miles' a different kind of war. i also flip through gen. stilwell's diary edited by mr. white and stilwell and the american experience in china, 1911-45 by barbara tuchman. all of these accounts formed a very dynamic profile on gen. stilwell.

i would like to point out that i am writing this words not just because i am interested in gen stilwell's war time experience in china. but also because when the CCP started introducing chinese role in wwii, they glorified gen. stilwell. CCP used gen. stilwell to attack the wartime chinese government. he, gen stilwell, became a very good weapon for a very stupid political propaganda. it's an insult to chinese and general himself.

gen. stilwell knew some chinese, i am guessing it's mostly mandarin. he knew chinese custom quite well. but i am not sure, how much more compared to other USA officers. the indications shown in the books, really did not give me much picture. the example described in the books i felt were mostly common knowledge if a foreigner paid a little attention to the surroundings. he could speak chinese quite fluently. however, as far as i know, many chinese themselves had difficulty understanding each other sometimes. so i am not sure how much and how deep he could really communicate with them actually.

gen. stilwell was a straight forward guy. from the books i've read so far, he was a great leader. he could take care of people under him fair and square. people under him definitely felt at ease and disciplined. this impression was not from CCP's glorified version of him, nor USA military' one sided story of him. the impression was from milton miles. gen. miles liked this man. gen. miles was an action sort of guy. gen. miles wanted to get things done, and the same goes with gen. stilwell. gen. stilwell did not approve what gen. miles did. because gen. stilwell did not trust Dai Li and thought guerrilla warfare was illegal. however, he let gen. miles did his things with Dai Li. He almost never interrupted gen. miles' plans. from miles' description, gen stilwell was a soldier under a lot of strain. from resource relocation to human resource management, gen stilwell was tied between chinese, american, and english, there're huge friction came from all three sides in the highest order. gen. miles had not much trouble from gen. stilwell though. gen. stilwell even liked the intel from gen. miles. from reading gen. miles' book, i had a impression of an old man tough, outspoken, and an attitude of all his own.

gen. stilwell never really led an army on to battlefield in his life before april 1942. that is not to say that he really lacked military intelligence. he was a staff member during WWI. only the brightest member could serve as a staff. however, with complete distrust of chinese commanders and supreme confidence in himself, he boldly required command power from chinese for the first burma entrance in WWII even before he agreed to come to china. this info was written in his diary. it was almost foreseeable that the experienced chinese commanders would have huge quarrels with him during the campaign. so for this first burma campaign, both sides, chinese, and gen. stilwell, blamed each other. people looking back now, they could see the real problem was with the coordination between chinese and english. the failed mission was doomed from the beginning, even if alexander the great was here.

the deeper issue showed from the first burma campaign was not the outcome of the campaign, but gen. stilwell's attitude and the shift of chinese attitude. again and again, one of the interesting points from reading USA military memoirs about that period was the shift of chinese feeling towards western nations. before december 1941, many chinese disliked westners, but after december 1941, the feeling would be even stronger. although japan was a common enemy, an oriental country swept all "imperialist" countries out did something to all the oriental people at the time. i believe there must have effect on some chinese commanders as well. additionally, both gen. stilwell's attitude and english military performance were not much help either. gen. stilwell did not trust chinese commanders' ability from start. from gen stilwell's earlier tour in china, his view of chinese commanders were already ruined. the first burma campaign just cemented his own belief. this belief was further sealed by the OSS and gen stilwell's own staff members. however, lacking many helps from chinese government, OSS and stilwell's own staff members could not gather much useful intel at all. this impression was from gen. miles' book. some may say that gen. miles' point of view here was not fair, because gen. miles had huge quarrels with OSS and army intelligence, aka gen. stilwell's staff members. but i am pretty sure that without Dai Li's help, both OSS and army intelligence would be limited severely. lacking intelligence, with strong belief that chinese commanders were mostly unqualified, gen. stilwell was doomed from his mission. like gen. miles said, going to a foreign country, you will need to respect how they operated. but gen. stilwell was not only a tough man, he's also a man with quite a few words, especially sharp to the superiors. the attitude of this kind can not win anything in his favor. lacking intelligence added oil to the flame.

lacking intelligence was not just a description from gen. Miles. it also came from claire chennault's the way of a fighter. most of the time, USA military personnel and journalists from all over the world were confined in 重慶. OSS had field setup around chinese country. however, most of them did not have access to Dai Li. If you know how complex china really was, you will understand that without much help, foreigners would be very hard to do anything at all. Claire Chennault was part of intelligent collecting to all sidest. however, gen. chennault was in a very bad term with USA army, including gen. stilwell himself. the most obvious example of this grudge between gen. chennault and USA army, was when the reports of ichigo operation came in. gen. stilwell's army was deep in the burma jungle. when he heard gen. chennault's report, gen. stilwell asked his own staff members. they just swept the news aside and said it's just exaggerated news again. gen. stilwell went back into burma jungle. this doomed the gen. stilwell's chance to do anything against ichigo operation. because, even with lend lease, china could not fight two big wars simultaneously.

i once read stimson, USA war secretary under president roosevelt in WWII, saying that he felt that he and his government did not support gen. stilwell strong enough. then he started to blame chinese government. saying that after gen. stilwell was gone, USA government never take china seriously again. i have to strongly disagree with that statement. i think USA themselves put gen. stilwell in a very bad spot. USA government indeed did not support gen. stilwell at all. the conflict between 蔣中正 and gen. stilwell was mostly because USA kept canceling its promises to both 蔣中正 and gen. stilwell. whenever, the cancellations of promises arrived, it's always gen. stilwell's duty to inform 蔣中正. repeat such action again and again, inaction doomed the relation between 蔣中正 and gen. stilwell. early on, gen. stilwell still kept some empathetical words towards 蔣中正 in his diary. but, the depressed atmosphere set in gradually. a desperation for action which i saw in all three generals' words, including gen. stilwell, gen. miles, and gen. chennault appeared. soldiers live for fight. these men were soldiers, including 蔣中正. but 蔣中正 was in a position, where fighting with less certainty was not tolerable. and here again, the words and attitude of gen. stilwell was not helpful at all. he's a soldier, like many of his admirer said. politics was not his game. here's another incredible wrong move for USA government. they put wrong people in the wrong spot. they put gen. stilwell, an excellent fighting general in a spot where, politics and diplomacy was desperately needed. to give a summary view on gen. stilwell's position in CBI area: gen. stilwell did not just need to answer 蔣中正, he also needed to answer to Washington directly. gen. stilwell was also under english command, for he was also head staff of gen. louis mountbatten. it's an extremely complicated and delicate situation. USA themselves killed their own general by moving a fighter to ball room dance. but of course, blame other people was much easier than just looked at their own record.

one of main issues with gen. stilwell was always the grand strategy of army or air support of china. if USA decided to support army strategy, then burma road had to be qualified as a road that could provide enough materials. if USA decided to support air, then could chennault's air field be defended? people now looked at history, it's overwhelmingly easy to say that gen. stilwell was right. however, i wonder how many of them really looked at the burma road's data. and did they know that all over the chinese battlefield, most of the ablest soldiers were in Indy. not where the defenses were really needed. could chinese defended chennault's airfield by themselves? with all the good soldiers and weaponry were in northern burma, i think there's indeed no doubt that china could not hold the ground. whilst our 雲南 y 軍 spend months on 騰衝, japanese ichigo opertaion swept from north to south. gen stilwell's whole grand strategy thing really could not benefit china at all. however, this is the only battle CCP dare to talk about it the most.

why is that? most of historical videos were about second burma campaign. i don't think this is a coincidence. gen. stilwell was a man who supported the idea of using CCP during WWII. and the fact that he slammed war time chinese government was a very important reason why CCP loved to keep talking about him. the word corruption, incompetence, and personal political gain was always accompanied with those "historical" videos. those videos also always loved to use phrases like "chinese soldiers was surprised that they could stand toe to toe against japanese army". this, time and time again, proved those videos are more propaganda than educational. people sometimes argued that this will change. but from my experience, as long as CCP or one dictating party on the throne, there's no change to come. the different views will always be blockaded, twisted, or overwhelmed by sea of propaganda.