Retribution_ The Battle For Japan, 1944-45 Part 8

Yan Qizhi, a small farmer's son from Hebei, became a Nationalist infantry soldier at sixteen, and fought his first actions with a locally made Wuhan rifle which always jammed after four shots. His ambition was to arm himself with a sub-machine gun. In one of his regiment's first battles as part of Chiang's 29th Army, it lost almost half its sixteen hundred men. There were only rags to bandage the wounded. "The j.a.panese had so much more400 of everything," Yan said, "and especially aircraft. By 1944, life was pretty wretched. We had just enough to eat, but the food was very poor. We went through the whole winter with only summer uniforms. Most of us, like me, simply had no idea what had happened to our families." His only notable compensation for service in 29th Army, he said, was that he received his pay. In many of Chiang's formations, senior officers stole the money. "I hated the war: so many battles, so many dead and maimed friends. When I close my eyes, I can see them now. An army is not just weapons and equipment, it is spirit. The Kuomintang army lost its spirit." of everything," Yan said, "and especially aircraft. By 1944, life was pretty wretched. We had just enough to eat, but the food was very poor. We went through the whole winter with only summer uniforms. Most of us, like me, simply had no idea what had happened to our families." His only notable compensation for service in 29th Army, he said, was that he received his pay. In many of Chiang's formations, senior officers stole the money. "I hated the war: so many battles, so many dead and maimed friends. When I close my eyes, I can see them now. An army is not just weapons and equipment, it is spirit. The Kuomintang army lost its spirit."

The lives of Nationalist soldiers-notionally some two million of them in 1944, organised in two hundred divisions-were relentlessly harsh. Bugles summoned them to advance, to retreat, to die. Their weapons were an erratic miscellany: old German or locally made pistols and rifles; a few machine guns, artillery pieces and mortars, invariably short of ammunition, often rusting. They had no tanks and few vehicles. Commanders might have horses, but their men walked. Only officers had boots or leather shoes. Fortunate soldiers possessed cotton or straw sandals, but were often barefoot beneath the long cotton puttees which covered their legs. If they had a little kerosene, they used it to bathe chronic blisters.

Gunner captain Ying Yunping found himself walking more than two hundred miles during an epic retreat to Mianyang. One night, accompanied only by his batman, he staggered into a village and begged shelter and food. He was grudgingly given a few salted vegetables. His suspicions were roused, however, when he noticed that many of the people around him were carrying guns. His batman finally muttered: "They're bandits. They want your sub-machine gun. They say they hate the Kuomintang, and they're going to kill you." Ying's skin was finally saved by the eloquence of his batman, who parleyed with the bandits for the officer's life, saying: "He's not one of the corrupt b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. He's not a bad fellow." Finally, a villager came to Ying and said: "Forgive us." The captain shrugged: "There's nothing to forgive401. You have given me my life." Next day, he and his batman trudged onwards, away from the j.a.panese, towards Mianyang. When they rejoined the army, officer and soldier were separated. "In wartime, it was very hard to stay in touch. I never saw him again. But in my thoughts, for the rest of my life he has been 'my Mianyang brother.'"

Off-duty, officers drank the fierce maotai maotai spirit, played mahjong, visited brothels or attended the occasional show put on by a "comfort party" of actors and singers. Few rankers enjoyed such indulgences. Soldiers smoked "Little Blue Sword" cigarettes when they were fortunate enough to be able to get them. John Paton Davies described the pathetic pleasures on which Chiang's men depended to relieve a life of otherwise unbroken hards.h.i.+p and oppression: "a cricket in a tiny straw cage spirit, played mahjong, visited brothels or attended the occasional show put on by a "comfort party" of actors and singers. Few rankers enjoyed such indulgences. Soldiers smoked "Little Blue Sword" cigarettes when they were fortunate enough to be able to get them. John Paton Davies described the pathetic pleasures on which Chiang's men depended to relieve a life of otherwise unbroken hards.h.i.+p and oppression: "a cricket in a tiny straw cage402, a shadow play manipulated by an itinerant puppeteer, gambling a pittance on games of chance, or listening to the fluted tones of flights of pigeons, each with a whistle tied to a leg-any one of these was enough to make an off-duty afternoon."

Among Nationalist soldiers leave was unknown, desertion endemic. Eight hundred recruits once set off from Gansu to join a U.S. Army training programme in Yunnan. Two hundred died en route, and a further three hundred deserted. Tuberculosis was commonplace. Wounded men often had to pay comrades to carry their stretchers, for otherwise they were left to perish. In battle or out of it communications, mail, tidings of the outside world, were almost non-existent. Ying Yunping, a thirty-year-old403 born in Manchuria the son of a salt merchant, was a married man with a baby daughter. During the early battles for Nanjing, his wife left him to return to her family. Ying never saw or heard of her and their daughter again. born in Manchuria the son of a salt merchant, was a married man with a baby daughter. During the early battles for Nanjing, his wife left him to return to her family. Ying never saw or heard of her and their daughter again.

If men received their rations, these might consist of fried pancakes, pickles, soup. The fortunate carried a sack of dried fried rice. In a town, in the unlikely event that a man possessed money, he might buy from a street seller a bowl of "congress of eight jewels," or youtiao youtiao-a stick of fried batter. More often, desperate soldiers were driven to seize whatever they could extort from hapless peasants or townspeople. The official ration allowance of twenty-four ounces of rice and vegetables a day was seldom issued. GIs laughed to see Chinese soldiers carrying dead dogs on poles to their cooking pots. Yet what else was there to eat? "Even junior officers could not survive or feed their families without corruption," said Xu Yongqiang, who served in Burma. Luo Dingwen, an infantry platoon commander with 29th Army, saw peasants lying by the roadside as his regiment marched past, dying or dead of starvation. "We usually relied on what food404 we could find in villages in our path," he said. Despairing American military advisers reported that many Chinese soldiers were too weak even to march with weapons and equipment. Most were clinically malnourished. Not even the U.S. could feed two million men by air over the Hump. we could find in villages in our path," he said. Despairing American military advisers reported that many Chinese soldiers were too weak even to march with weapons and equipment. Most were clinically malnourished. Not even the U.S. could feed two million men by air over the Hump.

A prominent American soldier in China wrote of his Nationalist counterparts: "Senior officers were suspicious405 of all foreign officers, totally callous to their subordinates and would not voluntarily a.s.sist other Chinese units in trouble." General Sun in northern Burma refused to loan mules to take food and drugs to another formation, even though he knew its men were starving. A Chinese divisional finance officer casually asked an American: "How are you getting yours?" He was curious about his U.S. colleague's route to "squeeze." of all foreign officers, totally callous to their subordinates and would not voluntarily a.s.sist other Chinese units in trouble." General Sun in northern Burma refused to loan mules to take food and drugs to another formation, even though he knew its men were starving. A Chinese divisional finance officer casually asked an American: "How are you getting yours?" He was curious about his U.S. colleague's route to "squeeze."

There is no dispute-outside modern j.a.pan, anyway-about the atrocities carried out by the j.a.panese in China, merely about their scale: for instance, j.a.panese historians make a plausible case that "only" 50,000 Chinese were killed in the 1937 Nanjing ma.s.sacre, rather than the 300,000 claimed by such writers as Iris Chang. Yet the overall scale of slaughter was appalling. In 1941 the j.a.panese launched their notorious "Three All" offensive, explicitly named for its purpose to "Kill All, Burn All, Destroy All." Several million Chinese died. The survivors were herded into "protected areas" where they were employed as slave labourers to build forts and pillboxes.

It was an extraordinary reflection of the cult of bus.h.i.+do bus.h.i.+do that many j.a.panese soldiers took pride in sending home to their families photographs of beheadings and bayonetings, writing letters and diaries in which they described appalling deeds. "To the j.a.panese soldier that many j.a.panese soldiers took pride in sending home to their families photographs of beheadings and bayonetings, writing letters and diaries in which they described appalling deeds. "To the j.a.panese soldier406," an American foreign service officer reported to Was.h.i.+ngton, "the resistance from armed peasants...and the unmistakable resentment or fear of those whom he does not succeed in 'liberating' are a shocking rejection of his idealism...The average j.a.panese soldier...benightedly vents the conflict in vengeful action against the people whom he believes have denied his chivalry."

The j.a.panese argued that the Chinese were equally merciless to foes, and it is true that the Nationalists frequently shot prisoners. The Communists, at this period of the war, sought to spare the peasantry and customarily recruited KMT prisoners into their own ranks, even if officers were unlikely to survive. But beheadings of political enemies were familiar public spectacles in China. Most j.a.panese soldiers were no more willing to accept captivity in Chinese hands than in those of the Western Allies. "Once in 1944, we had a j.a.panese post surrounded," said Communist guerrilla Li Fenggui of 8th Route Army. "The defenders fought until their ammunition was gone. Even then, one man ran towards four of us, brandis.h.i.+ng his rifle. This j.a.panese and one of our men went at each other with bayonets. They thrust and parried until I managed to get behind the j.a.panese and give him a stroke which took his arm off. He fell to the ground quick enough, but we had to keep stabbing again and again until he lay still and died. That was a brave man!"

A Nationalist soldier found his unit unexpectedly under fire while escorting sixty j.a.panese POWs. "At such a moment [our commander]407 was in no position to consider his orders to treat prisoners well. He had to take resolute action. At the word, our machine gunners opened fire, and we rid ourselves of the enc.u.mbrance." Rural areas feared the depredations of the Nationalist army at least as much as those of the j.a.panese. Peasants had a saying: "Bandits come and go. Soldiers come and stay." Modern Chinese historians argue, however, that the fact that their own people inflicted atrocities upon each other was, and remains, a domestic matter of no rightful concern to foreigners; that nothing done by Chiang or Mao mitigates the crimes of the j.a.panese. was in no position to consider his orders to treat prisoners well. He had to take resolute action. At the word, our machine gunners opened fire, and we rid ourselves of the enc.u.mbrance." Rural areas feared the depredations of the Nationalist army at least as much as those of the j.a.panese. Peasants had a saying: "Bandits come and go. Soldiers come and stay." Modern Chinese historians argue, however, that the fact that their own people inflicted atrocities upon each other was, and remains, a domestic matter of no rightful concern to foreigners; that nothing done by Chiang or Mao mitigates the crimes of the j.a.panese.

At the cost of deploying a million men, the occupiers maintained almost effortless military dominance over the forces of Chiang, and never sought to challenge Communist control of Yan'an Province. At the November 1943 Cairo Conference, President Roosevelt insisted upon anointing China as one of the four great Allied powers, a.s.sisted by Stalin's acquiescence and in the face of Churchill's contempt. Yet Roosevelt's crusade to make China a modern power languished in the face of poverty, corruption, cruelty, incompetence, ignorance on a scale beyond even U.S. might and wealth to remedy. It was characteristic of the cultural contempt which China harboured towards other societies that even in the darkest days of the j.a.panese war, almost all Chinese retained a profound disdain for the Americans and British. Additionally, as Christopher Thorne has argued408, the U.S. never satisfactorily resolved its purpose. Did it seek to help China win its struggle against the j.a.panese? To create a strong China? Or to support the regime of Chiang Kai-shek? These objectives were probably unattainable, and certainly irreconcilable. Thorne omits a fourth, which weighed far more heavily with the U.S. chiefs of staff than any altruistic desire to aid the Chinese people. Just as in Europe Soviet soldiers were doing most of the dying necessary to destroy n.a.z.ism, Was.h.i.+ngton hoped that in Asia the expenditure of Chinese lives might save American ones.

All these aspirations foundered amidst the chaos and misery of China, and the inability of Chiang Kai-shek to fulfil the role for which Was.h.i.+ngton cast him. In 1944, Chiang's economic recklessness and a j.a.panese initiative which flooded southern China with $100 billion of counterfeit money created catastrophic inflation, which ruined the middle cla.s.s. A quarter of the population of Nationalist areas were by then refugees, victims of the forced ma.s.s migrations which characterised the wartime period. A drought in the south is thought to have killed a million people. Some American personnel were making fortunes running a black market in fuel and supplies. Even as Chinese people were dying of starvation, some Nationalist army officers sold food to the j.a.panese.

A visiting American intelligence officer delivered a devastating report to the War Department in May 1944:

Chinese troops are underfed, improperly clothed, poorly equipped, poorly trained, lacking in leaders.h.i.+p...Because of "squeeze," men are lucky to get 16 oz of their 22 oz daily rice ration. Almost all are illiterate. Motor maintenance is a problem, as they run a vehicle until it stops before any inspection is conducted. Trucks are usually overloaded 200%. Most drivers operate at an excessive rate of speed at all times. Along the Salween river, I was informed that not a shot had been fired since last November...that not over 2000 j.a.panese opposed fifteen Chinese divisions. Most of the troops appeared to be loafing. A Chinese army subsists locally and lives off the country...During the first week of February 1944 Lt. Budd, railhead officer at Kunming, dispatched 250 trucks for Kweiyang. Of this number 192 trucks failed to report and were either hijacked or stolen outright by Chinese drivers.

In the first quarter of 1944, 278 American trucks in southern China simply disappeared. The report a.s.serted that a section409 a.s.sessing the performance of Chinese commanders was endorsed by all long-serving U.S. officers in China, but the relevant pages of the National Archive copy are missing, marked "Removed on orders of the War Department." It is reasonable to guess that this excision was made in 1944, because the report's verdict was so d.a.m.ning. a.s.sessing the performance of Chinese commanders was endorsed by all long-serving U.S. officers in China, but the relevant pages of the National Archive copy are missing, marked "Removed on orders of the War Department." It is reasonable to guess that this excision was made in 1944, because the report's verdict was so d.a.m.ning.

IN THE SPRING OF 1944, when elsewhere in Asia and the Pacific their fortunes were in relentless decline, amazingly the j.a.panese found the will and the means to launch "Ichigo," an ambitious operation which swept across central and southern China, vastly enlarging j.a.pan's area of occupation. Ichigo was provoked by the American air threat. B-29 bombers had begun to operate from bases in China. The j.a.panese initiated Ichigo to deprive the Americans of these. Half a million men, 100,000 horses, 800 tanks and 15,000 vehicles swept across the Yellow River and into Henan Province on a 120-mile-wide front. Some thirty-four Nationalist divisions simply melted away in their path. The j.a.panese killed forty Chinese for every loss of their own. Nationalist resistance was almost entirely ineffectual. Chiang invariably overstated his own difficulties, to extort additional aid from the Allies. But the British director of military intelligence in India reported on 17 May 1944: 1944, when elsewhere in Asia and the Pacific their fortunes were in relentless decline, amazingly the j.a.panese found the will and the means to launch "Ichigo," an ambitious operation which swept across central and southern China, vastly enlarging j.a.pan's area of occupation. Ichigo was provoked by the American air threat. B-29 bombers had begun to operate from bases in China. The j.a.panese initiated Ichigo to deprive the Americans of these. Half a million men, 100,000 horses, 800 tanks and 15,000 vehicles swept across the Yellow River and into Henan Province on a 120-mile-wide front. Some thirty-four Nationalist divisions simply melted away in their path. The j.a.panese killed forty Chinese for every loss of their own. Nationalist resistance was almost entirely ineffectual. Chiang invariably overstated his own difficulties, to extort additional aid from the Allies. But the British director of military intelligence in India reported on 17 May 1944:

It has been the lowest common denominator410 of appreciation of China's prospects that, however much conditions depreciated, China would not capitulate...There is now a distinct possibility of China's collapse...Conditions in occupied territory are said to compare favourably with those in KMT areas...[Its] collapse would render the Burma campaign a waste of effort...The plight of the common people is so bad that they would be apathetic and do nothing...There would be no regret for the Allies, as anti-foreign feeling is always just below the surface. The disaffection in the provinces is so great that their leaders would take a purely opportunistic view. The Generalissimo, faced with a crumbling structure, has no machinery with which to save it. of appreciation of China's prospects that, however much conditions depreciated, China would not capitulate...There is now a distinct possibility of China's collapse...Conditions in occupied territory are said to compare favourably with those in KMT areas...[Its] collapse would render the Burma campaign a waste of effort...The plight of the common people is so bad that they would be apathetic and do nothing...There would be no regret for the Allies, as anti-foreign feeling is always just below the surface. The disaffection in the provinces is so great that their leaders would take a purely opportunistic view. The Generalissimo, faced with a crumbling structure, has no machinery with which to save it.

On the j.a.panese rolled into Hunan Province, crossing the Miluo River, killing casually as they went. Hunan had already been suffering famine for two years. Now matters grew much worse. For the Chinese people of the rice-producing regions between Hunan and Guangdong, in Guangxi and Guizhou provinces, Ichigo meant hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of new deaths from famine and disease. Peasants were reported to have revolted, disarming as many as 50,000 Nationalist soldiers, who were willing enough to abandon the war. American special forces teams from the Office of Strategic Services strove to deny the j.a.panese the great supply dumps and airfield facilities established at such cost. Some 50,000 tons of materiel were destroyed at one base, Tusham, by Maj. Frank Gleason and fifteen Americans, together with their Chinese cook and orphan mascot. The Nationalist retreat was punctuated by occasional stands, notably at Hengyang in June and July. The American correspondent Theodore White joined 62nd Army, which was seeking to dislodge the j.a.panese from the southern hills beyond the town:

It was dawn when we fell411 into the troop column, but the cloudless skies were already scorching. As far as we could see ahead into the hills and beyond were marching men. They crawled on foot over every footpath through the rice paddies; they snaked along over every ditch and broken bridge in parallel rivulets of sweating humanity. One man in three had a rifle; the rest carried supplies, telephone wire, rice sacks, machine-gun parts. Between the unsmiling soldiers plodded blue-gowned peasant coolies who had been impressed for carrier duty. There was not a single motor, not a truck...not a piece of artillery...The men walked quietly, with the curious bitterness of Chinese soldiers who expect nothing but disaster. into the troop column, but the cloudless skies were already scorching. As far as we could see ahead into the hills and beyond were marching men. They crawled on foot over every footpath through the rice paddies; they snaked along over every ditch and broken bridge in parallel rivulets of sweating humanity. One man in three had a rifle; the rest carried supplies, telephone wire, rice sacks, machine-gun parts. Between the unsmiling soldiers plodded blue-gowned peasant coolies who had been impressed for carrier duty. There was not a single motor, not a truck...not a piece of artillery...The men walked quietly, with the curious bitterness of Chinese soldiers who expect nothing but disaster.

White watched pityingly as lines of men in their yellow and brown uniforms, feet broken and puffed, heads covered not by helmets, but instead by woven leaves for protection from the sun, sought to claw a way up the hills towards the j.a.panese positions. For three days he awaited the trumpeted Nationalist counter-offensive. Then he understood: he had witnessed it. On 8 August, Hengyang fell. Later that month, when the j.a.panese had reorganised their supply lines, they resumed their advance. Chiang's 62nd Army melted away in their path. Logistics, not resistance, was the chief force determining the enemy's pace. "Even in late 1944," one of Chiang's biographers has written, "the j.a.panese army could still march412 where it wished and take what it wanted." Allied intelligence officers expressed surprise that the j.a.panese were advancing only forty miles a week, "despite facing nil opposition." where it wished and take what it wanted." Allied intelligence officers expressed surprise that the j.a.panese were advancing only forty miles a week, "despite facing nil opposition."

Chiang ordered that commanders who retreated should be shot, but this did not noticeably improve his armies' performance. Added to the miseries of war were ghastly accidents such as one at Guilin, where a locomotive ploughed into a crowd of refugees standing on the railway tracks, killing several hundred. Chiang and Meiling chose this moment to hold a press conference at which they denied rumours that their marriage was in difficulties. Madame Chiang and her sister then set off for Brazil, exploring a possible haven for their family fortune if events at home continued to go awry. Even the most committed Americans came close to despair. China resembled a vast wounded animal, bleeding in a thousand places, prostrate in the dust, twitching and las.h.i.+ng out in its agony, inflicting more pain upon itself than upon its foes.

The only Chinese divisions which performed with some competence were five-equivalent in strength to two American-serving in northern Burma. These were the creations of the U.S. general "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell. He flew tens of thousands of men for training in India, where they were quarantined from Nationalist corruption and incompetence, then deployed them for an offensive aimed at reopening the land route into China. Equipped, fed and paid by the Americans, often receiving the benefit of U.S. air support, these units proved notably more effective than their brethren in China.

"Chinese soldiers showed413 what they could do if they were properly trained and given American equipment," Wen Shan, a lawyer's son who served in Burma as a truck driver, said proudly. "We had officers who did not steal men's food, as they did in China." Wen, like many young Chinese who served with Americans, was boundlessly impressed by their wealth and generosity, though shocked by the way white GIs treated their black counterparts. Jiang Zhen, a twenty-three-year-old landlord's son from Shanghai who drove trucks on the Ledo road, said of his time there: "I was very lucky what they could do if they were properly trained and given American equipment," Wen Shan, a lawyer's son who served in Burma as a truck driver, said proudly. "We had officers who did not steal men's food, as they did in China." Wen, like many young Chinese who served with Americans, was boundlessly impressed by their wealth and generosity, though shocked by the way white GIs treated their black counterparts. Jiang Zhen, a twenty-three-year-old landlord's son from Shanghai who drove trucks on the Ledo road, said of his time there: "I was very lucky414. I had a great opportunity, and it became an important experience in my life."

Wu Guoqing, an interpreter at 14th Division headquarters in Burma, enjoyed his entire experience with the army. In India and on the battlefield he marvelled at the openness of the Americans with whom he served: "They said what they liked415. They criticised their own government. That's what they call democracy. In China we are not like that, not open in the same way." Yet it would be mistaken to over-idealise either the Chinese-American relations.h.i.+p in Burma, or the performance of the Nationalist divisions there. Wu witnessed a bitter row between a young U.S. military adviser and a Chinese colonel. The American officer pressed the Nationalists to display more aggression, especially about patrolling. The KMT officer flatly refused. Likewise, when British troops in Burma began to operate with Stilwell's force, they were unimpressed by Chinese pa.s.sivity. The British official historian wrote contemptuously: "It might be said that416 never had such an army remained so inactive before so small an enemy force for so long." The modest achievements of Stilwell's divisions in northern Burma counted for little, set against the strategic paralysis prevailing in Chiang's own country. never had such an army remained so inactive before so small an enemy force for so long." The modest achievements of Stilwell's divisions in northern Burma counted for little, set against the strategic paralysis prevailing in Chiang's own country.

3. The Fall of Stilwell

IN THE LATE summer of 1944, the j.a.panese Ichigo offensive precipitated a crisis in the relations.h.i.+p between Chiang Kai-shek and the American government. As the Nationalist armies fell back, ceding great tracts of territory, leading figures in the U.S. leaders.h.i.+p at last perceived that China was incapable of fulfilling Was.h.i.+ngton's ambitions. It could not become a major force in the struggle against j.a.pan. Stilwell signalled to Marshall, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff: "I am now convinced that he [Chiang] regards the South China catastrophe as of little moment, believing that the j.a.ps will not bother him further in that area, and that he imagines he can get behind the Salween [river] and there wait in safety for the U.S. to finish the war." This was an entirely accurate perception, but one of little service to the relations.h.i.+p between China's leader and America's senior military representative in his country. summer of 1944, the j.a.panese Ichigo offensive precipitated a crisis in the relations.h.i.+p between Chiang Kai-shek and the American government. As the Nationalist armies fell back, ceding great tracts of territory, leading figures in the U.S. leaders.h.i.+p at last perceived that China was incapable of fulfilling Was.h.i.+ngton's ambitions. It could not become a major force in the struggle against j.a.pan. Stilwell signalled to Marshall, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff: "I am now convinced that he [Chiang] regards the South China catastrophe as of little moment, believing that the j.a.ps will not bother him further in that area, and that he imagines he can get behind the Salween [river] and there wait in safety for the U.S. to finish the war." This was an entirely accurate perception, but one of little service to the relations.h.i.+p between China's leader and America's senior military representative in his country.

Personal antagonism between Stilwell and Chiang, festering for many months, attained a climax. Few Americans knew more about China than "Vinegar Joe." After serving in France in 1918, where he rose to the rank of colonel, he spent most of the inter-war years in the East, and learned the Chinese language. A protege of Marshall, who admired his brains and energy, Stilwell was appointed in February 1942 to head the U.S. Military Mission to Chiang, and to direct lend-lease. He also accepted the role of chief of staff to the generalissimo. From the outset, it seemed bizarre to appoint to a post requiring acute diplomatic sensitivity an officer famously intense, pa.s.sionate, intolerant, suspicious, secretive. Stilwell praised subordinates as "good haters," and cherished his feuds as much as his friends.h.i.+ps. During the 1942 retreat from Burma he took personal command of two Chinese divisions, sharing with them a gruelling 140-mile march to sanctuary in India. Sceptics said that such adventures showed Stilwell's unfitness for high command: he had no business indulging a personal predilection for leading from the front, putting himself with the men in the line, when his proper role was at the generalissimo's side, galvanising China's war effort.

Roosevelt delivered homilies about the importance of treating Chiang with respect, writing to Marshall: "All of us must remember417 that the Generalissimo came up the hard way to become the undisputed leader of four hundred million people...and to create in a very short time throughout China what it took us a couple of centuries to attain...He is the chief executive as well as the commander-in-chief, and one cannot speak sternly to a man like that or exact commitments from him the way we might do from the Sultan of Morocco." that the Generalissimo came up the hard way to become the undisputed leader of four hundred million people...and to create in a very short time throughout China what it took us a couple of centuries to attain...He is the chief executive as well as the commander-in-chief, and one cannot speak sternly to a man like that or exact commitments from him the way we might do from the Sultan of Morocco."

This, of course, was nonsense. Roosevelt's remarks reflected naivete about the mandate of Chiang, as well as about the character of Stilwell. The general was incapable of the sort of discretion the president urged. Famously outspoken, he flaunted his contempt for the incompetence of Chiang-"the peanut"-and for the British, whose military performance impressed him as little as their governance of India. Roosevelt urged U.S. commanders to display greater respect for the ruler of China, but American policy reflected a colonialist vision. It was absurd to suppose that an American general could impose on Chinese armies standards which their own officers could not; that Nationalist soldiers could be incited by a few thousand Americans to achieve objectives which Chiang and his followers refused to promote. American adviser Maj. E. J. Wilkie complained that even Stilwell-trained Chinese troops were hopelessly casual in their use of firearms: "I saw a machine gunner418 firing his weapon with one hand while eating with his other." firing his weapon with one hand while eating with his other."

Stilwell's most notable military achievement was to direct the advance of Chinese troops on Myitkyina, the northern Burmese town whose liberation was critical to opening the Burma Road. Aided by a small force of Americans-the legendary Merrill's Marauders, who endured hards.h.i.+ps comparable with those of Wingate's Chindits-Stilwell's forces triumphed at Myitkyina in August 1944. Yet the British, whose forces contributed significantly to that operation, remained highly sceptical of the Chinese performance, and of Stilwell's claims for it. Success at Myitkyina owed much more to j.a.panese weakness than to Allied genius. A shrewd judgement on Stilwell was offered by the British Bill Slim, who liked the American, and thought his post-war published diaries did him a disservice: "He was much more than419 the bad-tempered, prejudiced, often not very well-informed and quarrelsome old man they showed him to be. He was all that, but in addition he was a first-cla.s.s battle leader up to, I should say, Corps level, and an excellent tactician, but a poor administrator. At higher levels he had neither the temperament nor the strategic background or judgement to be effective." the bad-tempered, prejudiced, often not very well-informed and quarrelsome old man they showed him to be. He was all that, but in addition he was a first-cla.s.s battle leader up to, I should say, Corps level, and an excellent tactician, but a poor administrator. At higher levels he had neither the temperament nor the strategic background or judgement to be effective."

Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek were divided on one irreconcilable issue. The bespectacled American sought to run a campaign to defeat the j.a.panese. The haughty, implacable Chinese warlord, by contrast, addressed the demands of his own nation's politics. He needed to maintain the support of his generals, frustrate the rise of the Communists, husband his military strength for the moment when Nationalist armies must reoccupy j.a.panese-ruled China, and crush Mao Zedong. By the autumn of 1944, Stilwell's patience with Chiang's military inertia was exhausted. The generalissimo's fury at Stilwell's perceived presumption could no longer be contained. Chiang rejected out of hand a request from Roosevelt that Stilwell should be given direct command of the Nationalist armies. This was indeed fanciful. Americans were savagely critical of British conduct in India. Yet Americans in China, from Stilwell downwards, behaved with comparable insensitivity and matching condescension. GIs referred to Chinese as "the slopies," Chiang as "Chancer Jack." In Kunming, the northern terminus of the Hump air route, Chinese servants were so abused that it was found necessary to post notices: "U.S. personnel will not beat, kick or maltreat Chinese personnel." Wen Shan, a supply driver on the Ledo road, said ruefully: "Americans considered a Chinese life to be worth a great deal less than an American one." U.S. Captain Medill Sarkisian, in the same area, submitted a formal protest when told that his Chinese troops could not feed alongside Americans: "From any point of view, I believe that inferior treatment of Chinese soldiers is prejudicial to our best interests...when in their own country to treat them as unworthy to eat with our own men."

Sgt. Wade Kent was one of thousands of American engineers labouring to complete the road and fuel pipeline from Ledo through northern Burma into China. An accountant's son from Richmond, Virginia, Kent was appalled by India, "the most terrible place I had ever seen. I wasn't born into the lap of luxury, but to see human beings in that condition was terrible." In Burma, the first man his unit lost was washed away in a foaming river. They worked in the jungle, "hot, miserable, damp...those d.a.m.n leeches, one pulled off one's boots to find them full of blood," in teams of three GIs with each crew of Burmans. One of Kent's comrades was killed when he drove his bulldozer over an old j.a.panese mine, but mostly they worked in a huge silence broken only by jungle noise. When at last the path into China was opened, they welcomed the coolness of the mountains, but encountered new hazards. Chinese villagers punched holes in their fuel pipeline, then attempted to use the gas they stole for their lamps. "They sometimes set fire to whole villages-then blamed the Americans." Fuel leaked into the paddies, killing precious rice. Trucks plunged into ravines. For almost two years, there was no R and R, precious little news of the outside world: "It was a strange a.s.signment."

Kent and his comrades achieved a technical triumph which proved a strategic cul-de-sac. A kind of madness had overtaken the American war effort in China, to which many men posted to the theatre succ.u.mbed, in this alien Oriental world where leopards and tigers were known to kill U.S. soldiers, who in turn hunted them with carbines. At the Hump airlift's forward HQ in Kweilin, "the most lovable and abandoned town in the Orient," some of the most skilled prost.i.tutes in Asia had set up shop after fleeing from Hong Kong. Here, "silken clad girls420 with ivory bodies and complete devotion to their art" practiced it to the satisfaction of visiting Americans, but doubtful advantage to the war effort. Edgar Snow, no friend to either the Nationalists or the U.S., was nonetheless right to suggest that "the one abiding sentiment with ivory bodies and complete devotion to their art" practiced it to the satisfaction of visiting Americans, but doubtful advantage to the war effort. Edgar Snow, no friend to either the Nationalists or the U.S., was nonetheless right to suggest that "the one abiding sentiment421 that almost all American enlisted personnel and most of the officers shared was contempt and dislike for China." It was a rich irony of both national policy and personal behaviour that Americans perceived themselves as anti-colonialists, yet conducted themselves in wartime China at least as autocratically as the British in South-East Asia. that almost all American enlisted personnel and most of the officers shared was contempt and dislike for China." It was a rich irony of both national policy and personal behaviour that Americans perceived themselves as anti-colonialists, yet conducted themselves in wartime China at least as autocratically as the British in South-East Asia.

In October 1944, Stilwell became the most prominent casualty of American frustration and failure. Emily Hahn describes the general as "incapable-surely to an abnormal degree?422-of appreciating that there are more points of view than one's own, and that the world is appreciably larger than America." Stilwell refused to acknowledge that, whatever the limitations of Chiang's regime, he must work through its agency. Rationally, of course, his view was correct. If the Nationalist army was to play a useful role in the war, it must purge itself and reform, in the manner of the Chinese divisions airlifted to India beyond reach of Chiang's dead hand. Had the generalissimo reformed his forces as Stilwell urged, the destiny of the Nationalist regime might have been different. However, to imagine that Chiang Kai-shek could forsake absolutism and corruption was akin to inviting Stalin to rule without terror, Hitler without persecuting Jews. Stilwell's demands represented an a.s.sault on the very nature of the Chongqing regime. It was futile to yearn for Nationalist China to be what it was not, to suppose that an American could override Chinese leaders, however base.

In the autumn of 1944, Roosevelt made one of his most bizarre, indeed grotesque, appointments. He dispatched as his personal emissary to China one Patrick Hurley, a rags-to-riches Oklahoman ex-cowboy who had risen to political prominence as President Hoover's secretary of war. Hurley was a buffoon, loud-mouthed and verging on senility. An ardent Republican, he was also a prominent figure in the "China Lobby," precious little though he knew of China. He came, he saw, he addressed Chiang as "Mr. Shek." Finally, he reported to Roosevelt: "Today you are confronted by a choice between Chiang Kai-Shek and Stilwell. There is no other issue between you and Chiang Kai-Shek. Chiang Kai-Shek has agreed to every request, every suggestion, made by you except the Stilwell appointment [to command China's armed forces]."

On 13 October, Hurley recommended Stilwell's sacking. Roosevelt, who had earlier favoured replacing the general as director of lend-lease and chief of staff while retaining him as battlefield commander in Burma, acceded. Stilwell wrote to his wife of his delight in "hanging up my shovel423 and bidding farewell to as merry a nest of gangsters as you'll meet in a long day's march." He said to John Paton Davies: "What the h.e.l.l. You live only once and you have to live as you believe." He quit immediately, without waiting even to brief his appointed successor, Lt.-Gen. Albert Wedemeyer, who had been serving as deputy chief of staff to SEAC commander Lord Louis Mountbatten. Wedemeyer arrived in Chongqing on 31 October, with a much more restricted mandate than his predecessor. He was to manage U.S. air operations out of China, "advise and a.s.sist the generalissimo," but remain aloof from politics. and bidding farewell to as merry a nest of gangsters as you'll meet in a long day's march." He said to John Paton Davies: "What the h.e.l.l. You live only once and you have to live as you believe." He quit immediately, without waiting even to brief his appointed successor, Lt.-Gen. Albert Wedemeyer, who had been serving as deputy chief of staff to SEAC commander Lord Louis Mountbatten. Wedemeyer arrived in Chongqing on 31 October, with a much more restricted mandate than his predecessor. He was to manage U.S. air operations out of China, "advise and a.s.sist the generalissimo," but remain aloof from politics.

Chiang rejoiced. He perceived the removal of Stilwell as a triumph for his own authority. Yet after just ten days, Wedemeyer signalled Marshall in Was.h.i.+ngton: "The disorganization and muddled planning of the Chinese is beyond comprehension." After a month in his new role, the U.S. general reported on the condition of Chiang and his armies in terms which matched or transcended Stilwell's histrionic dispatches:

Generalissimo promised would fight hard to hold [Guilin-Liuzhou] area for at least 2 months, as it was it fell without a fight. The troops that melted away so quickly...were by Chinese standards well equipped and fed...I have now concluded that G and his adherents realize seriousness of the situation but they are impotent and confounded. They are not organized, equipped and trained for modern war. Psychologically they are not prepared to cope with the situation because of political intrigue, false pride and mistrust of leaders' honesty and motives...Frankly I think that the Chinese officials surrounding the G are actually afraid to report accurately conditions...their stupidity and inefficiency are revealed, and further the G might order them to take positive action and they are incompetent to issue directives, make plans and fail completely in obtaining execution by field commanders...efficiency of Chinese combat units...is very low.

Wedemeyer was fearful that the j.a.panese planned to take Kunming, terminus of the Hump air route, and strove to concentrate Chinese forces to defend it. To the dismay of Mountbatten and Slim, he withdrew from Burma the American-trained Chinese divisions, the best troops in the Nationalist order of battle, and airlifted them to the Yunnan front. Yet they arrived there as the crisis pa.s.sed. The j.a.panese halted. They had achieved their aim-to open a land link to their own forces in Indochina, at a time when the sea pa.s.sage was threatened by American blockade. In the Allied camp, it was recognised that the closure of Ichigo was the result of a policy decision by Tokyo, owing nothing to the Chinese Nationalist army's powers of resistance. After almost three years of herculean effort by the United States, the employment of a quarter of a million Americans on the Asian mainland, Was.h.i.+ngton was obliged to confront the fact that the j.a.panese could do as they chose in China; that the country was as much a shambles as it had been in 1942, save that thanks to American largesse the regime's leader and princ.i.p.al supporters, together with a few U.S. officers, were incomparably richer. None of this const.i.tuted a case for retaining Stilwell in his former role. Hurley was thus far correct, that it was absurd for the most senior American soldier in China to be entirely alienated from the man endorsed by the U.S. as its national leader. Was.h.i.+ngton belatedly realised what Chiang had always understood-that America was stuck with him; that no threats of withdrawing support unless conditions were met had any substance, because the U.S. administration had no other Chinese card in its deck.

For the rest of the war, Wedemeyer suffered familiar frustrations about the shortcomings of America's huge, hopeless ally. If Stilwell's successor managed to avert a showdown with Chiang, he saw nothing to diminish his contempt for Asians. Stilwell recorded an earlier conversation with Wedemeyer. "Al stated that424 he thought the British and we should permit the Germans and the Russians to beat each other into pulp...that Britain and the United States were the guardians and legatees of the only civilisation worth preserving." he thought the British and we should permit the Germans and the Russians to beat each other into pulp...that Britain and the United States were the guardians and legatees of the only civilisation worth preserving."

Through the winter of 1944, Allied diplomats and soldiers speculated freely that Chiang's regime might collapse, that by default Tokyo might find all China at its mercy. "In about six months the j.a.panese have advanced...a distance of roughly 500 miles over comparatively poor l[ines] of c[ommunication] against a considerable concentration of Chinese troops, supported by the American/Chinese air force operating from well-prepared forward bases," reported Mountbatten's intelligence chief in a gloomy appreciation on 2 December 1944. "Economically they have secured adequate rice to maintain their forces but, of greater consequence, they have denied to the Chinese the resources of these areas...It appears probable that one of the main aims of j.a.panese mil strategy is to prolong the war in the hope that war-weariness, a.s.sisted possibly by disagreement between the Allies after the defeat of GERMANY GERMANY, may enable her to secure a negotiated peace."

Wedemeyer persisted with ambitious plans to rebuild the Nationalist armies. He had sufficient tact and discretion to sustain a relations.h.i.+p with Chiang, at the cost of quarrelling bitterly with the British. As the Chinese predicament worsened, acrimony increased between U.S. officers committed to Chiang and Mountbatten's people, wearied to despair by what they regarded as a grand American futility. Americans believed that British strategy was driven chiefly, if not exclusively, by a preoccupation with resurrecting their own empire. On 9 December 1944, Mountbatten's chief political adviser, Esler Dening, reported to the Foreign Office in London: "General Wedemeyer told me with conviction425 that there would not be a British Empire after the war...At present the question was whether to prop up a tottering China with props which may not hold, or to hit the j.a.panese hard where we have the forces to do it. [This] seems already resolved in favour of the former. If props hold, America will get the credit and if they do not, we shall get the blame." that there would not be a British Empire after the war...At present the question was whether to prop up a tottering China with props which may not hold, or to hit the j.a.panese hard where we have the forces to do it. [This] seems already resolved in favour of the former. If props hold, America will get the credit and if they do not, we shall get the blame."

The only happy man in all this was the generalissimo. He deluded himself that he had gained all his objectives. Supplies flowed up the Burma Road in ever-increasing quant.i.ties. Yet Chiang would pay a heavy political price for his military failure. The U.S. no longer deluded itself that j.a.pan's forces in China could be defeated by the Chinese. Was.h.i.+ngton thus turned to the only other power capable of doing so-the Soviet Union. Through the winter of 194445, with increasing urgency Was.h.i.+ngton solicited Russian partic.i.p.ation in the war against j.a.pan. Chiang believed that he had played his cards with brilliant skill, by preserving American support for his regime on his own terms, without conceding any scintilla of domestic reform. Yet the consequence would be a great Russian army's descent upon Manchuria, with the endors.e.m.e.nt of the United States.

"Nineteen forty-four was the year in which Chiang Kai-shek's policies completely collapsed, along with his defence of China," says a modern Chinese historian, Professor Niu Jun of Beijing University. At a period when elsewhere in the world Allied arms were decisively ascendant, in China alone did the j.a.panese remain victorious. It is mistaken to dismiss the generalissimo as an absurd figure. He knew his own country better than did the Americans. He understood that no Chinese army could defeat the j.a.panese. His willingness to surrender territory, of which China possessed so much, rather than to confront the enemy on terms which suited Tokyo, was more realistic than the grandiose visions of Stilwell, Wedemeyer or Roosevelt. "Chiang did some big things426 for China," says a historian of Manchuria, w.a.n.g Hongbin. "He ended the domination of the warlords, and he fought the j.a.panese. He was criticised for failing to oppose the j.a.panese takeover of Manchuria, but what else could he realistically do? He lacked the military means to resist. His strategy was simply to wait for a chance to engage the enemy on favourable terms. Is not that what the Americans and British also did in the Second World War? The Americans did not understand China. They wanted this country to do much more than it was capable of." for China," says a historian of Manchuria, w.a.n.g Hongbin. "He ended the domination of the warlords, and he fought the j.a.panese. He was criticised for failing to oppose the j.a.panese takeover of Manchuria, but what else could he realistically do? He lacked the military means to resist. His strategy was simply to wait for a chance to engage the enemy on favourable terms. Is not that what the Americans and British also did in the Second World War? The Americans did not understand China. They wanted this country to do much more than it was capable of."

Chiang's regime was ultimately doomed by its corruption, and by the generalissimo's inability to translate some shrewd conceptions into any sort of reality. He liked to proclaim sonorously: "I am the state." But, by surrounding himself with thieves and sycophants, he denied his government the services of subordinates who might have rendered it sustainable. The generalissimo would ultimately discover that his achievement in forcing the Americans to indulge his regime on his own terms merely ensured its collapse. John Paton Davies wrote: "Stilwell's big mistake, in which I sometimes went along with him, was to think that he could strike a bargain with the generalissimo...Had Chiang been able and willing to do what Stilwell asked, China might well have emerged from the war a great power...As Chiang could no more reform his power base than overcome his idiosyncrasies, the bargain was doomed-as was Chiang." U.S. amba.s.sador Clarence Gauss, who was replaced by Hurley shortly after Stilwell's sacking, wrote perceptively in the autumn of 1944: "Time is on the side of427 the Chinese Communists...as time goes on, the Kuomintang's influence and control in free China is deteriorating if not yet disintegrating; and...if the Soviet Union should come to make war upon the j.a.panese...defeat of the j.a.panese continental armies would probably leave the Communist forces and their regime in a strong political and military position." the Chinese Communists...as time goes on, the Kuomintang's influence and control in free China is deteriorating if not yet disintegrating; and...if the Soviet Union should come to make war upon the j.a.panese...defeat of the j.a.panese continental armies would probably leave the Communist forces and their regime in a strong political and military position."

From the winter of 1944 onwards the war effort in China, which had never synchronised with events elsewhere, lapsed into a pattern wholly at odds with them. While in Europe and the Pacific the Allied march to victory gained momentum, in Chiang Kai-shek's land the enemy retained power to advance at will. The occupation of swathes of new territory did nothing to mitigate the hopelessness of j.a.pan's wider circ.u.mstances. "Ichigo was a success in a narrow sense," said j.a.panese staff officer Maj. s.h.i.+geru Funaki, "but it did not help our overall strategic position. We still had a million men in China who were denied to the Pacific campaign. Our success in overrunning the B-29 airfields in China simply meant that the Americans moved their bases to the Marianas."

The j.a.panese advance made a mockery, however, of Was.h.i.+ngton's claims that China was a serious partner in the Grand Alliance. The country was like some dowager stricken in years and heavy with rheumatism, unwillingly obliged to dance at a ball. The effort was painful, the achievement pitiful. The j.a.panese had no wish to extend their Asian perimeter until American a.s.sertiveness forced them to do so. The princ.i.p.al consequence of the huge Allied commitment was to intensify the miseries of China's people. Li Fenggui, a Communist guerrilla from a peasant family in Shandong Province, was one of eighty-nine young men who left his village to fight. Afterwards, just four returned. The community's experience was mirrored throughout China. The Chinese people paid a terrible price for partic.i.p.ation in the Second World War, while contributing almost nothing to Allied victory.

NINE.

MacArthur on Luzon

1. "He Is Insane on This Subject!": Manila

THE LARGEST CAMPAIGN of the Pacific war, second phase of MacArthur's drive to recapture the Philippines, began on 15 December 1944. Elements of Sixth Army landed on Mindoro, just south of Luzon. The island was of comparable size to Leyte, but the j.a.panese mounted no significant ground defence. The operation became, in the words of an American engineer, "just a maneuver for sh.o.r.e party units." Within a fortnight, airfield construction teams accomplished on Mindoro what had proved so difficult on Leyte-the creation of strips from which large numbers of aircraft could operate. of the Pacific war, second phase of MacArthur's drive to recapture the Philippines, began on 15 December 1944. Elements of Sixth Army landed on Mindoro, just south of Luzon. The island was of comparable size to Leyte, but the j.a.panese mounted no significant ground defence. The operation became, in the words of an American engineer, "just a maneuver for sh.o.r.e party units." Within a fortnight, airfield construction teams accomplished on Mindoro what had proved so difficult on Leyte-the creation of strips from which large numbers of aircraft could operate.

The j.a.panese knew that a landing on Luzon would not now be long delayed. On 2 January 1945, Yamas.h.i.+ta moved his headquarters to the pine-clad summer resort town of Baguio, 7,400 feet up in the mountains of the north. From there, he planned personally to direct the "Shobu" group, 152,000 strong, one of three such commands into which he divided his army. The second "Kembu" force on Bataan and around Clark Field had 30,000 men, the third "s.h.i.+mbu" group another 80,000 south of Manila. Staff officers described Yamas.h.i.+ta in those days as possessing a mellow, fatalistic calm. He spent hours reading the essays of a Buddhist priest. In the evenings, he often wandered into the staff mess and gossiped to whichever officers were on hand. He was not above chatting to his private soldiers. His mind seemed much on the past. He expressed concern about the welfare of Allied prisoners on Luzon, and told his superior Field Marshal Terauchi that he intended to relinquish these to the Americans as soon as they landed. Terauchi sternly dissented, but Yamas.h.i.+ta told the officer responsible to surrender the POWs anyway.

At MacArthur's headquarters at Tacloban, the general and his staff nursed a delusion that the j.a.panese army in the Philippines had been largely destroyed on Leyte. During a conference before the Luzon operation, Sixth Army intelligence a.s.serted that large j.a.panese forces remained in the Philippines. MacArthur, sucking on his corncob pipe, interrupted: "Bunk." Brig.-Gen. Clyde Eddleman, Krueger's G3, laughed and said, "General, apparently you don't like our intelligence briefing." "I don't," responded MacArthur. "It's too strong. There aren't that many j.a.panese there." Eddleman said: "Most of this information came from your headquarters." Maj.-Gen. "Sir Charles" Willoughby, MacArthur's intelligence chief, one of the courtiers least admired by outsiders, leapt angrily from his chair. "Didn't come from me! Didn't come from me!" he exclaimed. Eddleman sighed: "General, may I skip the intelligence portion and go on to the basic plan?" "Please do."

Afterwards, MacArthur called Eddleman to follow him into the bedroom of his quarters in the old Palmer House, almost the only coconut planter's house still standing in Tacloban. "Sit down," said the general428. "I want to give you my ideas of intelligence officers. There are only three great ones in history, and mine is not one of them." Sixth Army a.s.serted that there were 234,000 j.a.panese troops on Luzon. MacArthur preferred his personal estimate-152,000. Krueger's officers were much more nearly correct. Nothing, however, including substantial Ultra intelligence, would persuade the commander-in-chief to believe that his forces would face important resistance. Herein lay the seeds of much distress to come.

MacArthur spent hours at Tacloban pacing the verandah in solitary state or with a visitor. "We grew to know his mood429 from the way he walked, how he smoked," wrote one of his staff. "There would be times we would see him racing back and forth, an aide at his side, talking rapidly, gesticulating with quick nods, sucking his pipe with deep, long draughts." Those who once questioned the general's courage-the "dugout Doug" tag-were confounded by the calm with which he endured frequent j.a.panese bombings, and indeed near misses. His paranoia, however, had worsened. He attributed Was.h.i.+ngton's supposed lack of support for his operations to "treason and sabotage from the way he walked, how he smoked," wrote one of his staff. "There would be times we would see him racing back and forth, an aide at his side, talking rapidly, gesticulating with quick nods, sucking his pipe with deep, long draughts." Those who once questioned the general's courage-the "dugout Doug" tag-were confounded by the calm with which he endured frequent j.a.panese bombings, and indeed near misses. His paranoia, however, had worsened. He attributed Was.h.i.+ngton's supposed lack of support for his operations to "treason and sabotage430." He was an unremitting critic of Eisenhower's campaign in Europe, and indeed of everything done by the supreme commander who once served under him as a colonel. When the U.S. Treasury forwarded a draft of a proposed advertis.e.m.e.nt promoting War Bond sales on which his own name appeared below Ike's, he wrote angrily that unless he was listed before his former subordinate, he refused to feature at all. Later, in July 1945, he was enraged to discover that Eisenhower was briefed on the atomic bomb before himself. More seriously, his confidence in his chief of staff had been fatally weakened by the scandal about the presence of Sutherland's Australian mistress at Tacloban. Sutherland kept his t.i.tle, but for the Luzon campaign MacArthur relied increasingly on the counsel of Brig.-Gen. Courtney Whitney, an ambitious officer much given to bombast, neither liked nor respected by anyone else.

On 9 January 1945, MacArthur's Sixth Army landed at Lingayen Gulf, halfway up the western coast of Luzon. Kamikazes provided fierce opposition. MacArthur had reproached Kinkaid for his allegedly excessive fear of suicide planes, but now the admiral's apprehension was vindicated. Again and again during the days before the a.s.sault, suicide pilots struck at the invasion armada. Fortunately for the Americans, the j.a.panese as usual focused attacks on wars.h.i.+ps rather than transports crowded with troops. One escort carrier and a destroyer escort were sunk, twenty-three other s.h.i.+ps damaged, many severely. The enemy's pilots seemed more skilful than before, their tactics more sophisticated. They approached at deck level, often baffling American radar, and provoking a storm of reckless AA fire which killed men on neighbouring s.h.i.+ps-the battles.h.i.+p Colorado Colorado suffered significant casualties. The British admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, designated commander-in-chief of the Royal Navy's embryo Pacific Fleet, was a guest of Jesse Oldendorf's on the suffered significant casualties. The British admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, designated commander-in-chief of the Royal Navy's embryo Pacific Fleet, was a guest of Jesse Oldendorf's on the New Mexico New Mexico when a kamikaze crashed into its superstructure. Lt.-Gen. Herbert Lumsden, Churchill's personal representative on MacArthur's staff, was killed, along with the s.h.i.+p's captain and other officers. Fraser escaped only because Oldendorf had beckoned him across the bridge moments before: "This thing came down just where we had been standing." when a kamikaze crashed into its superstructure. Lt.-Gen. Herbert Lumsden, Churchill's personal representative on MacArthur's staff, was killed, along with the s.h.i.+p's captain and other officers. Fraser escaped only because Oldendorf had beckoned him across the bridge moments before: "This thing came down just where we had been standing."

During the seaborne approach to Luzon 170 Americans and Australians were killed and five hundred wounded by kamikaze attacks. The strain on men's nerves became acute. They found themselves obliged to remain alert every daylight hour for a guided bomb that could hurl itself into their s.h.i.+p's upperworks, mangling steel and flesh. Aboard the heavy cruiser Australia Australia, Pierre Austin was one of many sailors aggrieved by the enemy's madness: "At this late stage, after all one had survived431, the feeling was: 'Not now-please, not now!' We knew it was going to be our war; we were going to win." On 8 January, a Val dive-bomber crashed into Australia Australia's foremast, killing thirty men and wounding sixty-four, including Pierre Austin. His war ended in a hospital.

Oldendorf, commanding the naval force, warned MacArthur that he lacked sufficient air cover to hold off the kamikazes unless Third Fleet's carrier aircraft could be diverted from attacking j.a.pan to provide support, which of course they were. In the month beginning 13 December 1944, the c.u.mulative toll from j.a.panese air a.s.sault was alarming-twenty-four s.h.i.+ps sunk, sixty-seven damaged. Yet to the astonishment of the Americans, as MacArthur's troops drove inland from Lingayen, the kamikaze offensive stopped. The j.a.panese had lost six hundred aircraft in a month. Only fifty remained on Luzon. j.a.panese fighter pilot Kunio Iwas.h.i.+ta was at Clark Field, Manila, on 9 January when he was ordered to lead his squadron's three surviving aircraft to a new strip. Some five hundred personnel, most of them ground crew, were left to join the retreat of the j.a.panese army, and face months of attrition and starvation. Just four of these men were afterwards recorded alive. A few minutes after Iwas.h.i.+ta and his fellow pilots arrived at their new base, American aircraft struck, destroying all three fighters. The j.a.panese airmen escaped by sea to Formosa. On Luzon thereafter, neither the U.S. Navy nor Sixth Army faced significant air attack. Tokyo husbanded its remaining planes to defend Formosa, Okinawa and the homeland.

The American invasion of Luzon, JanuaryJune 1945 1945

Krueger's troops met only spasmodic artillery and mortar fire as they advanced inland, and there were soon 175,000 Americans ash.o.r.e. While most of the Leyte fighting had engaged only four divisions, Luzon would ultimately involve ten, in addition to huge numbers of support troops. At first, climate slowed the advance more than the enemy. On 16 January alone, forty-nine men of the 158th