When Allied forces converged on Germany from east and west and U.S. forces carried out their island-bypassing operations in the Southwest and Central Pacific, fighting also took place in China, Burma, and even along the frontier of India. The Americans referred to this vast area as the China-Burma-India theater (CBI). But this designation gave the impression of greater unity in Allied operations in Southeast and East Asia than was actually the case. In reality, Chiang Kai-shek retained command in China, and the British exercised authority in India and in attempts to reconquer Burma. Starting in 1942, small American ground forces and larger air contingents operated from bases in India but remained strictly under U.S. jurisdiction. Cooperation among the three Allies were often far from close, and a great deal of mutual distrust prevailed.
American and British aims in the CBI also diverged on the question of the role that China should and could play in the war. Indeed, U.S. policy toward China strongly shaped Allied strategy and led to operations in Burma, which the British did not wish to undertake. And since the entire area lay on the periphery of the struggle against Japan and was far from crucial, the decision to devote so much effort to it was clearly a mistake.
THE CHINESE SITUATION
Although of secondary importance in the Pacific war, China had long held a strange fascination for American leaders and people alike, and this continued until well into the conflict. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Chiang Kai-shek's forces had not fought a major battle since 1938. But the entry of the United States into hostilities convinced the Kuomintang leader that Japan would lose the war. He did not intend to risk his troops in fighting against the Japanese if he could avoid it. He preferred to conserve them for the postwar era, when he would face the formidable task of restoring his control over all of China. And he intended to settle his old score with the Communists.
At best, Chiang's army was a flimsy affair. Much of it was poorly trained and equipped and under the leadership of warlords whose allegiance to the government in Chungking was questionable. Chiang did maintain a substantial number of higher-quality divisions under his own control, but he used many of them to blockade the Communists in an effort to cut them off from foreign aid. The Communists, ironically, were the only Chinese force that dedicated itself to fighting the Japanese. Their guerrilla tactics also proved effective in bringing much of the countryside under their control while restricting the enemy increasingly to the cities. The Kuomintang regime became more corrupt and inefficient during the interminable war. Its members devoted themselves primarily to advancing their own personal interests and paid little attention to the pressing economic and social evils that afflicted the Chinese people. Even had they possessed the will to deal with these problems, the pressures of war sharply limited their ability to do so.
Despite the depressing reality of China's situation, U.S. leaders pursued a policy toward that country that came close to wishful thinking. Roosevelt sympathized with China's desire to free itself from foreign influence - not merely Japanese but Western as well. He believed that the weakening of British, French, and Dutch colonialism in all of eastern Asia would facilitate this. But, nevertheless, the president looked forward to a close postwar relationship with China that would favor U.S. economic interests.
Roosevelt did not base his outlook solely on self-interest, however. He visualized China as a great power in the postwar era and believed that it deserved to be treated as one while the fighting raged. A great power must have a strong army, and Roosevelt intended to provide Chiang with U.S. military equipment, supplies, and advisers to help him make the best use of his abundant population. The president feared that if such assistance were not forthcoming, China might collapse or seek a separate peace. Lend-lease aid had begun to flow to the Chinese even before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It had traveled over the Burma Road from Lashio in eastern Burma to Chungking. But the fall of Burma in 1942 cut this route, and the United States resorted to an airlift of supplies over the world's highest mountain range, the Himalayas, which separated India from China. The Americans called this barrier "the Hump." Roosevelt and other U.S. leaders also saw China as a possible strategic objective after the conquest of the Philippines. It would provide a formidable jumping-off position for a seaborne assault on Japan as well as air bases for bombing raids against Japanese cities.
Many of the American people shared Roosevelt's sympathy for China and looked upon Chiang not as the dictatorial head of a corrupt regime but as a great national hero and the leader of a government that enjoyed strong support from the Chinese people. The "China Lobby" helped create and perpetuate this distortion.
The establishment in China of a small air contingent, the American Volunteer Group (AVG), shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor, contributed to the prevailing view. The AVG consisted of mercenary pilots whom Colonel Claire L. Chennault, a retired U.S. Army air officer, had recruited to fight in the service of China. After Pearl Harbor, it also participated in the defense of Burma and fashioned a remarkable record despite its dependence on P-40 fighters that were inferior to the Zero. Chennault minimized this disadvantage by using fighters operating in pairs and diving on their opponents from higher altitudes. The group soon earned the nickname "Flying Tigers" because of the painted tiger shark's teeth that adorned the noses of its planes. The AVG's exploits came as a relief to the American people, who were weary of a steady diet of defeat in the early months of the war. They even inspired a film, Flying Tigers, starring John Wayne. The AVG later became a part of the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force, operating from bases in southeastern China.
Not all Americans were uncritical of Chiang. Those who were most familiar with China warned that he and the Kuomintang regime were not what they seemed to be and that the Chinese army was not much better than a rabble. Churchill and the British, while not lacking in sympathy for China and the Chinese, also did not share the popular American view and were alarmed by Roosevelt's policies. They did not see China as a potential great power, a major factor in the war, or even a likely candidate for collapse or a separate peace.
In his effort to bolster the Chinese, Roosevelt sent General Joseph W. Stilwell to China early in 1942. Stilwell received his appointment largely because of his extensive service in the U.S. embassy in China and his fluency in Chinese. Chiang appointed him to serve as his chief of staff. But in addition, the general received command of all U.S. forces in the in the China-Burma-India theater as well as serving as Roosevelt's personal representative to Chiang and administrator of lend-lease aid. This multitude of responsibilities caused much confusion.
To make matters worse, Stilwell and Chiang did not get along. Chiang's suspicion of foreigners and his stubbornness were legendary, and Stilwell's acerbic personality had earned him the nickname "Vinegar Joe." Stilwell did not share Roosevelt's faith in Chiang, to whom he referred in private as "Peanut." But he did take seriously his mission to transform the Chinese army into a major factor in the war. Since Chiang had no intention of cooperating in this impossible task, it is not surprising that the two men often quarreled.
Stilwell also found himself closely involved in developments in Burma, which bordered China on the southwest. He arrived in Chungking in March 1942 during the British retreat from Rangoon. Chiang placed him in charge of Chinese forces that were assisting the British in Burma in an effort to keep open China's supply route from the West. Stilwell soon discovered that the Chinese operated with little regard for his orders. His troops became victims of the general Allied collapse, and the capture of Lashio cut the Burma Road, preventing their retreat into China. Instead, they fled through the nightmarishly difficult mountains and dense jungle of northern Burma, eventually finding refuge in India. As Stilwell put it, they had suffered "a hell of a beating."
BRITISH RAIDS ON BURMA
Once the Japanese had conquered Burma, they had reached the limit of their planned expansion in Southeast Asia. Despite Allied fears to the contrary, they had no intention of invading India. Stilwell, who disliked the British and had been highly critical of their direction of the Burma campaign, called for an offensive to oust the enemy from the country as soon as possible. The British commander in India was Field Marshal Wavell, who had driven the Italians out of Egypt in 1940 and had assumed the hopeless task of commanding Allied forces in Southeast Asia during the early days of the Pacific war. Wavell recognized that his resources would not allow for such an ambitious undertaking. He did agree to a limited attack designed to capture the coastal area of Arakan, bordering India on the southeast. But when the thrust into Arakan began in December 1942, it progressed slowly. Many of the Allied troops had little experience, were poorly trained, and suffered from both malaria and low morale. When the Japanese counterattacked, they forced the Allies back to their original line by May 1943.
One bright episode helped to reduce Allied gloom. In late 1942, Wavell established a commando force of 3,000 men under the leadership of General Orde Wingate. Eccentric and unorthodox, Wingate was an inspirational leader who had utter contempt for most of his superiors. Although he was given to sudden and extreme changes of mood and had once attempted suicide, he had conducted successful guerilla operations behind Italian lines during the British conquest of Ethiopia. Wingate referred to his commandos as "the Chindits." He took this name from the Chinthe, a mythical beast, half-lion and half-eagle, whose likeness adorned many Burmese temples. To Wingate, this creature symbolized his belief in close ground-to-air coordination as the key to successful guerrilla operations. He divided his British and Indian forces into seven columns, which moved into northern Burma in February 1943 and, with the help of supplies dropped by cargo planes, raided enemy outposts and communications.
The Chindit raids were more a nuisance than a major problem for the Japanese. They also resulted in the loss of one-third of Wingate's men, and many of the survivors were so weakened by disease and malnutrition that they could never return to combat. But this exploit did show that Allied troops could hold their own in jungle fighting with the Japanese and enhanced morale. The Chindits also devised jungle warfare techniques that Allied commanders successfully applied to later operations by larger formations. Wingate especially demonstrated that large-scale air supply was absolutely essential for troops operating in a vast wilderness such as Burma.
INDIA'S INTERNAL INSTABILITY
While struggling with the Japanese in Burma, Britain also had to contend with problems in India. A nationalist movement had developed there during the early twentieth century. Under the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi, it had pursued a nonviolent policy of civil disobedience and moral pressure in its quest for independence. Gandhi and his followers, most notably Jawaharlal Nehru, had revitalized the Congress party, which was founded in 1885 but had long remained small and ineffectual. Under Gandhi and Nehru, however, it attempted to unite all Indians under one banner. Gandhi also became a Hindu spiritual figure who devoted himself to a life of prayer, meditation, and fasting. Dressed in the loincloth and shawl worn by the lowliest Indians, Gandhi became known as "Mahatma" (Great Soul) and symbolized the struggle for freedom.
But as time passed, India's basic religious division between Hindus and Muslims created an impediment to the Congress party's pursuit of independence. Although the Hindus were by far the most numerous of the many religious groups that made up the population, the Muslims comprised the overwhelming majority in certain areas, especially in the northwest. The Muslims also found a leader of great ability and determination - Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Although Jinnah originally supported the aims of the Congress party, he eventually came to believe that if India gained independence as one state, the Muslims would find themselves in the position of a neglected, perhaps even persecuted minority. This concern led him to break with Congress and to assume leadership of another party, the Muslim League, Jinnah and the League favored division of the country into a Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan. Gandhi, Nehru, and the Congress party remained totally opposed to such a policy.
By the early 1930s, Britain recognized that it could not avoid granting extensive concessions to Indian nationalism. The Government of India Act of 1935 provided for a parliamentary government complete with Indian ministers, but control over foreign affairs and defense remained in British hands. The Congress party found this unsatisfactory and demanded full dominion status. Despite its objections, Congress went along with the legislation as a stopgap measure.
When World War II began in 1939, the British, with their control over foreign policy, declared that India was at war with Germany. While Gandhi, Nehru, and certain other Congress leaders shared Britain's outrage over the policies of Nazi Germany, they did not believe that India had sufficient cause to go to war. They also protested the manner in which the British had brought India into the conflict. Their ministers resigned from the government, while Gandhi, true to his pacifist beliefs, condemned participation in any war as immoral. Nevertheless, elements of the Indian army, much of which was Muslim, served with distinction on Britain's side in North Africa and the Middle East.
With Japan's conquest of Malaya and Burma, the war came to India's doorstep. And as evidence of British weakness mounted, nationalist agitation increased. Britain realized that further concessions were inevitable and in March 1942 appointed Sir Stafford Cripps as a special envoy to seek an agreement. Cripps proposed that upon conclusion of the war, a constituent assembly would draft a constitution for India with complete freedom to create an independent state. In return, Congress would rejoin the government and support the war. But the proposal also provided that if the Muslims expressed their desire to secede from India, they would be allowed to create a separate state of Pakistan. Congress found such a partition completely unacceptable, and Gandhi planned to call for a nationwide movement of civil disobedience.
Before Gandhi could act, the government arrested him and the other Congress leaders. They remained in custody for the duration of the war in relative comfort. Ironically, Gandhi, a man renowned for his humble lifestyle, found himself installed in a sumptuous palace. These arrests sparked widespread civil disorders in Bombay as well as in other parts of the country. Unrest continued to flare until September when the death toll from the violence reached 750. With the Congress leaders temporarily out of the picture, Jinnah worked feverishly to build up support for the Muslim League among the Muslim population and, while cooperating with the British, continued to strive for the postwar creation of an independent Pakistan.
Indian nationalist opposition of a far more violent type came from outside India. The architect of this policy was Subhas Chandra Bose, a former Congress leader who had turned to extremism. Bose fled India in early 1941 and made his way to Germany, where he fell under the spell of Nazism. He believed that only an authoritarian system could create a unified Indian state. In 1943, he left Germany by submarine to assume leadership of a Free India movement that Japan was organizing among Indians in Southeast Asia as part of a plan for a "Greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere." When Bose arrived in Singapore, he took over the leadership of a government for Free India as well as the small Indian National Army, which consisted mostly of prisoners of war who had enlisted to escape the miserable conditions in Japanese penal camps. Such motivation was hardly likely to fill them with fervor for Bose's cause.
THE CO-PROSPERITY SPHERE
The concept of a co-prosperity sphere had originated before the attack on Pearl Harbor and visualized a new order for East Asia. Supposedly designed to free Asians from Western imperialism, in reality it was largely a propaganda device to mask Japanese domination of the region. Although Japan sponsored "free" governments in China, Indochina, Malaya, Burma, and the Philippines, these were nothing more than puppet regimes that never gained the allegiance of a majority of their respective populations. The tendency of the Japanese army to treat these peoples with contempt and often with brutality also helped undermine this endeavor. Among other outrages, the Japanese army forced more than 100,000 women to become "sex slaves" for their troops. Some of them had to service as many as 30 men a day. This practice began as early as 1932 during one of Japan's early operations in China and at first utilized Japanese prostitutes. It was intended to reduce the number of rapes committed by soldiers and maintain discipline. But, as the demand increased, the army resorted to kidnapping women from other countries under Japanese rule, 80 percent of them from Korea. Subjected to barbarous treatment during their enslavement, these "comfort women" often suffered continuing shame when they returned home, ostracized by their own compatriots. In recent years many of these unfortunate victims have filed suit against the Japanese government for being forced into prostitution.
THE UNITS OF DEATH
The Japanese engaged in even more sinister activities in the realm of biological and chemical warfare, again to the sorrow of fellow Asians. Soon after the conquest of Manchuria in 1931, Shiro Ishii, a Japanese military doctor, created a secret organization of scientists that became known as Unit 731. Headquartered in the Manchurian city of Harbin, Unit 731 sought to perfect various forms of biological warfare and used human beings as guinea pigs to test the effects of deadly diseases such as plague, cholera, anthrax, and haemorrhagic fever. At first, it used prisoners but later expanded its web to include slave laborers and even women and children. The Japanese referred to these subjects as "maruta" (logs). The victims of their experiments endured hellish suffering before they died. Unit 731 cooperated with another scientific detachment, 516 Chemical Warfare Unit, which specialized in the testing of chemical weapons. It subjected still more human guinea pigs to the horror of mustard gas and cyanide. The Japanese also carried out malnutrition experiments in which human subjects were starved and required to perform various physical tasks while scientists studied how long it took them to die. If all of this were not hideous enough, vivisection specialists dissected living human bodies, usually without benefit of anesthesia.
Ishii and his associates planned to use balloons to transport disease-carrying devices that would drift over the Pacific and release their lethal cargoes over the United States, creating epidemics that would ravage the population. The Japanese did actually launch about 200 balloons that landed in the United States, Canada, and Alaska in late 1944 and early 1945. Fortunately, none of them carried any bacteria, but they were equipped with incendiary devices, designed to ignite forest fires. Most of these failed to detonate, but two did, killing a woman in Montana and six fishermen in Oregon.
ALLIED SQUABBLES OVER STRATEGY
While Britain struggled with the troubled situation in India, the Allies continued to wage war in Burma, and quarreled over strategy. To Roosevelt and his advisers, the reopening of a land supply route to China held first priority. To accomplish this, Allied troops must first reconquer northern Burma. This would enable the construction of a road from Ledo in India to China, facilitating the flow of supplies to Chiang and the buildup of Chennault's 14th Air Force operating from Chinese bases. But the Americans also wanted to reopen the old Burma Road and to recapture Rangoon. Until the Allies controlled the port of Rangoon and the railroad that extended northward to Lashio, any land supply route to China would be inadequate.
British leaders doubted that reopening the land supply route was worth a full-scale operation in the jungles of Burma. Indeed, they questioned whether providing more supplies to China would really benefit the Allied cause. They much preferred amphibious operations against the East Indies, which would threaten Japan's oil supply. But neither sufficient naval forces nor landing craft could be available until late 1944. American leaders tended to attribute the British position to an unwillingness to shoulder a rightful share of the war against Japan. Churchill and his advisers were especially sensitive to such criticism, given the scope of U.S. operations in the Pacific. This placed them at a disadvantage in the strategic debate, and they gradually yielded to American demands for an offensive in Burma.
As a major step in this direction, Allied leaders agreed on the need for a supreme commander in Southeast Asia. In August 1944, they chose Admiral Louis Mountbatten, who had been serving as Britain's chief of combined operations. A cousin of King George VI, Mountbatten was only 42 years old and had a gift for maintaining close personal relations with both his British subordinates and American officers. In another change, General Auchinleck, who had succeeded Wavell in control of North African operations in 1941, now took over his post as commander in India. Wavell moved "upstairs" to the political office of viceroy in India.
In preparation for the impending offensive in Burma, Allied reinforcements reached India and resulted in the establishment of the 14th Army with General William Slim, who had experienced the harrowing retreat from Burma in 1942, was perhaps the only British officer to earn the respect of both Stilwell and Wingate. He possessed a sincere concern for the welfare of his men, a trait that won him their wholehearted devotion. The Allies planned their major attack in the north, where engineers were to build the Ledo Road. Indeed, construction on the Indian portion of this supply route had begun as early as December 1942.
THE CAMPAIGN TO RETAKE BURMA
The offensive started in October 1943 as two Chinese divisions under Stilwell's command thrust down the Hukawng River toward the major communications center of Myitkyina on the Irrawaddy River. But Japanese resistance stalled their advance. In February 1944, Stilwell sent an American guerrilla force, under the leadership of General Frank Merrill, to carry out a series of operations behind Japanese lines. This unit consisted of volunteers who had trained with the Chindits. It soon acquired the name "Merrill's Marauders." Wingate also launched a second Chindit operation in March but lost his life in a plane crash soon afterward. Although the Marauders captured the Myitkyina airfield in May, both raider forces suffered heavy casualties while the Japanese and monsoon rains delayed the fall of Myitkyina until August. Its capture opened the way for the extension of the Ledo Road, and the herculean efforts of the American engineers as well as Indian and Chinese laborers resulted in completion of the project in January 1945.
General Slim launched a second Arakan offensive in January 1944, only to be halted again by Japanese counterattacks. But this time Slim withdrew into a series of strongholds that received supplies by air. The new approach proved so successful that the enemy forces had to break off their assault.
Meanwhile, General Renya Mutaguchi's 15th Japanese Army invaded India in mid-March. This operation in part was a delayed response to the first Chindit raids, which had persuaded the Japanese that their hold on northern and central Burma was precarious. Mutaguchi hoped to seize the communication centers of Kohima and Imphal near the Burmese border. An especially aggressive officer, Mutaguchi possessed vast determination but little common sense. He plunged into his invasion of India with woefully inadequate supplies and scant regard for the dangers that lay ahead. Nevertheless, his forces advanced quickly, and early in April they surrounded both Kohima and Imphal. Their success might have been still greater had Ultra reports not warned the British that the Japanese were planning an offensive. Slim ordered the two garrisons to hang on with the aid of airlifted supplies.
The badly outnumbered defenders of Kohima fought one of the most courageous battles of the war and held out for two weeks until a relief expedition arrived. Imphal's garrison was considerably larger but also confronted much stronger Japanese forces. The siege lasted 88 days while both sides, especially the Japanese, ran dangerously short of supplies. When the British finally broke the encirclement on May 12, the remnants of Mutaguchi's starving and disease-weakened troops fell back into Burma.
Bose's Indian National Army participated in the Japanese invasion. The nationalist leader hoped that the operation would result in a triumphal march that would lure thousands of Indians to his cause. But his troops displayed a dismal lack of fighting spirit and an alarming fondness for desertion.
Although the struggle for Kohima and Imphal took place in India, it was the most decisive engagement of the Burma campaign. It cost the Japanese 50,000 troops and severely weakened their ability to resist when Slim launched a major offensive in mid-November. The Allies now had an advantage of a greatly improved supply system, numerical superiority, and control of the air. They forced the Japanese back toward the Irrawaddy River. General Hoyotaro Kimura, the Japanese commander in Burma, hoped to smash the Allied forces as they crossed the Irrawaddy north of Mandalay. But Slim anticipated this and made his major crossing farther south against weak opposition on February 13, 1945. Once across, Indian troops dashed for Meiktila and captured the town on March 3, cutting road and rail communications to Mandalay, 75 miles to the north. By the end of March, Kimura accepted the inevitable, abandoned Mandalay, and retreated southward from Meiktila.
The road to Rangoon now lay open. But Slim was encountering supply problems, and it appeared doubtful that he could reach the capital before the start of the monsoon season. On May 1, Mountbatten came to the rescue by launching Operation Dracula, which featured both amphibious and airborne landings south of Rangoon. Caught between these forces and the main Allied column to the north, the Japanese evacuated Rangoon. The Allies occupied the city on May 3.
Meanwhile, Stilwell had opened a drive southward from Myitkyina in October. But soon afterward he had one quarrel too many with Chiang, who demanded his dismissal. Roosevelt had no choice but to comply. He appointed the much more tactful General Albert C. Wedemeyer to take Stilwell's place. But before long, Wedemeyer was sending messages reminiscent of Stilwell's in which he complained of Chiang's deviousness and lack of cooperation. Nevertheless, his forces pushed forward and on March 7 captured Lashio, the western terminus of the Burma Road.
A CHANGE OF PLANS FOR CHINA
Ironically, now that the Allies had regained control of the original supply route, Roosevelt and his advisers abandoned their former high hopes for Chiang and China. America's swift advances in the Pacific had undercut the country's strategic importance, while events inside China had left U.S. leaders totally disillusioned with Chiang and his regime. All of this made it clear that the British had been right. The conquest of Burma and the supply route to China had not been worth the investment in blood and materiel.
Indeed, Japan's position in China became much stronger as the result of an offensive that its troops began in April 1944. This operation aimed at capturing the 14th Air Force bases in the southeastern part of the country. Attacks by General Chennault's planes on Japanese shipping had become a source of growing concern to Tokyo. The Japanese offensive made remarkable progress and by the end of November, most of Chennault's bases were in enemy hands, and the Japanese at long last had created a land link between northern China and Southeast Asia. But, as always in China, the war dragged on - at least for a few more months.