何應欽 interview with Central News Agency(中央日報社) reports, Chunking, September 20, 1944, in "News of the Central Agency", October 7, 1944, in 秦孝儀, ed Chungkuo Minkuo Chungyao Shiliao Chupian Tui erh Kangchang Shihch'i(Preliminary Compilation of Important Historical Material of the R.O.C-Resist Japan Period), part 3 : Chianshih Waichiao(Wartime Dilplomacy)(Taipei: KMT Historical Archives, 1981), Vol. 1, pp.512-514, Lend-Lease that China Received from May 1941-April 1942 before Burma Road was cut off, provided supplies that the War Ministry distributed or stored, including:
Airplanes: 1657 tons;
Arsenals(equipment and material for Arms Manufacture): 2,4000 tons;
Vehicles: 2,9000 tons;
Ordnance(presumably bombs and shells): 1,1000 tons;
Weapons: 1300 tons
Ammunition: 8700 tons;
Road Building Equipment: 1900 tons.
See Charles Romanus & Riley Sunderland, Stilwell's Mission to China(1952); Washington, D.C. : U.S. Army center of Military History, 2002) p49.
---Jay Taylor: The generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek & the struggle of modern China. p646, 118th note for p271.
The Chinese had small arsenals of China made weapons & ammunition. According to a latter study by Wedemeyer's headquarters, from March 1941 through June 1945, Chinese arsenals--apparently with the assistance of U.S.A. supplied non ferrous metals--were able to produce a total of
26,5000 rifles;
4,4000 machine guns;
1,000 mortars;
16 million hand grenades;
610 million rounds of various calibur ammunition.
Except for the hand grenades, this is a relatively small supply of replacement weapon and ammunition for four years given the size of the Chinese army and the combat and other losses that they suffered.
Even so, Chiang probably had sufficient reserve supplies of this China-produced material that he could have provided 長沙 and 衡陽 with the supplies they needed, but Chennault required Stilwell's approval to fly airdrop operation. On June 7, Chiang's team in Washington reported that the U.S.A. Joint Chiefs had approved use use of the Tenth Air Force Heavy Bombers in India to drop 2000 to 2500 tons of material in the China theater, but neither Chiang, nor Stilwell ever pick up on this offer. Message from General Shang Zhen in Washington, June 7, 1944 in 秦孝儀, Zong Tong, Vol. 5, p2374 Ibid 113th Note
According to the Chinese War Ministry, since the fall of Rangoon(仰光), from May 1942-September 1944, 98% of U.S. military aid over the hump had gone to the 14th Air Force--and, the Ministry could have added, to the B-29 operation and the upkeep of the large and increasing number of U.S.A. military personel in China. The U.S.A. had provided 2 millions or so men who were in the Chinese army but not in the X and Y forces a total 351 machine guns, 96 mountain canons, 618 antitank rifles, 28 anti-tank guns, and 50 million rounds of the rifle ammunition. Of all these items, only 60 canons, 50 antitank rifles, and 30 million rounds of ammunition were provided before June 1944, battle of 長沙; the rest afterward. (108)
Further, the War department had decreed that the new Z Force + Chinese divisions to be retrained and armed by the U.S.A. (as the second group of the ninety total divisions that Roosevelt had promised to support) would receive only 10% of the total Land-Lease allotment for China. The American team assigned to this project calculated that if divided between 30 new divisions, these supplies of arms and ammunition would in each case amount to "practically zero".
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