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Provided courtesy of Mr. Carl Weidenburner CHINA-BURMA-INDIA - Remembering the Forgotten Theater of World War IIl IBT Roundup
Vol. IV No. 31 Delhi, Thursday, April 11, 1946. Reg. No. L5015 Theater Sees 65 Months Of Asiatic OperationsStilwell's Dec. '41 Mission Initiates Brilliant HistoryAllied Fighting In Burma Clears Way To ChinaWith the beginning of 1944 two key appointments were announced by CBI headquarters: Maj. Gen. Daniel I. Sultan was made Theater deputy commander and Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill took command of the 5307th Brigade, the Marauders' official name. On Feb 9th the Marauders left Ledo for their march into Burma and on the 22nd they received their first combat mission: to cut the road in the vicinity of Walawbum and attack the Japanese 18th Division command post, believed to be located there. They contacted the enemy at Lanem Ga, North Burma, and the lead scout, Pvt. Robert W. Landis of Youngstown, Ohio, was killed. Landis was the first American Infantry soldier to lose his life in battle on the Asiatic continent since China's Boxer Uprising in 1900. In their first encounter with the enemy at Walawbum, the Marauders set up a road block and took them by surprise, killing 800 Japanese and losing only five of their own men. Before the completion of their mission these Marauders were to make more than 700 miles of severe jungle marches through Burma and Assam. SPRING 1944 To insure the best communication with forward areas, the U.S. Military Railway Service took over the Bengal and Assam Railroad. India's railways now worked on "stop-watch" time. Col. Phillip Cochran ("Flip Corkin" of comic strip fame) began flying penetration forces of the First Air Commandos to "Broadway," the secret jungle airstrip northeast of Katha, then being readied for a behind-the-lines strike at the Japanese in North Burma. One day after April Fool's Day the first B-29 Superfortress landed in India and the joke was about to be on the enemy. And that same month two Chinese divisions were flown down from China to fight in the Hukawng Valley. The Marauders broke the enemy siege at Nhpum Ga and on May 17, along with the Chinese, scored their first major victory in the Burma campaign: the capture of the Myitkyina airstrip. Mid-April and a British ammunition ship exploded in Bombay harbor, destroying 15 other ships, killing an estimated 2,000 and tumbling a good part of the harbor installations into the water. Later, the ATC and the Air Forces established their Theater headquarters within the compound of the Warren Hastings Jute Mill, right outside Calcutta. SEAC became restless too and Mountbatten and staff moved from New Delhi to Kandy, Ceylon, near the base of the fleet which he someday hoped to lead in the recapture of the peninsulas of Southeast Asia. SUMMER 1944 Theater morale was given another boost in the summer of 1944 when the CBI branch of USAFI opened in Calcutta. The first B-29 mission from Indian bases, the raid on the Makasan Railway yards at Bangkok, Siam was made in early June and a week later the Superforts bombed Japan from China bases, successfully damaging the imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata on Kyushu Island. In Burma, the Chinese Expeditionary ("Y") Force launched a five-column offensive across the Salween River to drive the Japanese from West Yunnan and clear China's part of the Burma Road. A few weeks later it fought its way into the walled Chinese city of Lungling. Simultaneously, Chinese and American forces captured Mogaung and thus cleared the entire Hukawng and Mogaung Valleys. In mid-June 1944, the Japanese launched two offensives, capturing Lungling back from the "Y" Forces on the Burma border and threatening to take Changsha in central China, heart of the "Rice Bowl" district and strategic key to control of the Canton-Hankow Railway. By the end of July the 5332nd Brigade was organized and assigned to the Northern Combat Area Command in Burma. This brigade later became known as the Mars Task Force and, together with the Marauders, went down in I-B history as the major body of U.S. fighting forces in the Burma campaign. On August 3, 1944, Myitkyina, the main objective of the North Burma campaign, fell to Allied forces after a 78-day siege. Although the airstrip had been taken since mid-May, it was only after the Marauders had had their ranks enormously depleted by exhaustion, jungle disease and enemy harassment and then reinforced with combat engineers and stateside replacements that their remnants were finally able to join the Chinese in taking the town. Within a week the railway from Myitkyina to Mogaung started operating with an improvised "jeep-on-rail" train service. Then, their mission achieved, the Marauders were inactivayed. In mid-August, the British had annihilated the last of the Japanese invaders from the borderlands of India near Tiddim, killing 30,000 of the enemy. FALL 1944 In October, 1944, Stilwell was recalled to Washington and his CBI Theater divided into the China Theater under Lt. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer and the India-Burma Theater under Lt. Gen. Daniel I. Sultan, former CBI deputy commander. With the division of the Theaters, China had a strength of 25,002 and the I-B of 179,687. The Chinese Expeditionary Force, fighting on the Chinese-Burma border through monsoons and mountains and across the precipitous gorges of the Salween River, captured the Japanese stronghold of Tengchung after a long siege. Turning south, it recaptured for once and all the Burma Road town of Lungling. During November and December of 1944 Chinese forces surrounded the Japanese stronghold of Bhamo, second largest city of North Burma. On Dec. 15 they took it and opened the way for the drive into Central Burma. WINTER 1944 At this time the 475th Infantry regiment of the Mars Task Force left Myitkyina for the front lines and tangled with the Japs for the first time near Tonkwa. With the help of the Chinese 22nd Division, Tonkwa was captured in mid-December. The men of Mars had marched 200 miles in 25 days to accomplish this initial victory. Their next move was a surprise 150-mile trek across the mountains to the Burma Road. Instead of aiming directly for it, as expected, they made a 35-mile forced march across country, caught the Japanese napping and secured some of the commanding ground overlooking the Road. After 20 days of furious fighting, the Mars Forces succeeded in completely crushing Japanese resistance. The last day of 1944 also saw the last Japanese air raids over Allied installations in North Burma. The enemy simply couldn't afford to challenge our air superiority any longer. And at the end of the year the I-B strength was practically 200,000, while that of the China Theater was just a little over 30,000. January 1945: the beginning of the last year of fighting. During the first part of the month the Chinese New Sixth Army, trained and equipped by Americans, was air-lifted back to China to form the nucleus of an effective fighting force against the Japanese in the long-promised China offensive. And then Shwebo, Burma was recaptured by British and Indian troops and the scene of Stilwell's humiliating retreat was finally avenged. As a classic example of "crossing your bridges when you get to them" the first motor convoy left Ledo for China on January 12, knowing very well the road was not yet cleared of the enemy, but confident it would be by the time it arrived. Ten days later the "X" and "Y" Chinese Expeditionary Forces joined at Mu-se, Burma, and the final mopping up of Japanese action along the Stilwell Road began. On January 27 Chinese veterans of the Salween campaign met Chinese veterans of North Burma at Mong Yu and the "Golden Spike" had been driven, the Ledo and Burma Roads were one. The first convoy, its faith in the road's being cleared vindicated, crossed the border into Wanting, China the following day. At the peak point of its construction the Road had 15,400 GI's working on it and it is said that an American life was lost for every mile of its length. The man whose dogged determination it was to reopen the land route to China was no longer around to see the glory: "Vinegar Joe" was now a four-star general and Chief of Army Ground Forces in Washington. And then came the comforts. The ATC inaugurated its C-54 flights direct from Barrackpore to Kunming for high priority passengers and cargo. Taking it the bumpier way, Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Pick, chief engineer on the road, led the first convoy of 113 vehicles into Kunming on February 4, 1945. Near the end of February the XXth Bomber Command, which had launched the first B-29's in the war, packed up from its gloomy Hijli prison compound in West Bengal and flew off to Guam and Tinian to join the Twentieth Air Force headquarters base. Bomb tonnage for the month of February had reached a new high of 4,367.6 tons dropped over enemy lines. Although only in its first month of operation, 30 convoys were dispatched over the Road to China during February and 5,231 tons of equipment delivered to Kunming. It was in february that Calcutta was named first of all Army ports for its net and gross discharge efficiency. SPRING 1945 On March 3 "Vinegar Joe" was finally given his due, and the Road he pushed through was designated the "Stilwell Road." Lashio, the old terminus of the Burma Road and an important hub on the supply route to China, fell to the Chinese 38th Division the first week in March. This was quickly followed by the British 14th Army's taking of Mandalay and capturing 30,000 Japanese prisoners. Sultan's three-pronged drive into Central Burma was comnplete and they were now free to advance south to Rangoon, the last great enemy throttle in Burma. Meanwhile, the Pipeline to China under steady construction despite jungle, monsoon and shellfire, had been completed and the first gasoline crossed the Chinese border at Wanting on March 22. Just about the end of March the Admiral Benson docked at Bombay and became the last troop transport to have to detour to India's west coast. From here on it was the Bay of Bengal and Calcutta. The GI's held their own this month when 10 enlisted men were given field commissions for work in the Mars Task Force.Victory Over Japan: The I-B Starts To DemobilizeOn May 3, 1945 Rangoon fell to British amphibious forces. Pegu and Prome quickly capitulated and two days later Mountbatten announced the end of organized Japanese resistance in Burma and the conclusion of the Burma Campaign. The Japanese had 347,000 casualties; the Allies, 27,905. The only Congressional Medal of Honor for the I-B was awarded posthumously to Lt. Jack Knight, killed while serving with the 124th Cavalry in Burma. And on the lighter side, an I-B ATC jeep turned up in France, AWOL with no one having even noticed it was missing. Near the end of May the Pole-line of telephone wires was added alongside the Road and the Pipeline to become the third communication and transportation link-up with China. The first telephone hook-up was made from New Delhi through Calcutta to Kunming on May 25. SUMMER 1945 Now that the Burma Campaign was over, the Mars Brigade was disbanded and the American Air Force units withdrawn from the Eastern Air Command and sent to China. Redeployment of American and Chinese troops over "the Hump" and along the Road to China began. The spotlight was now on China and the I-B would be its supply artery more than ever. June was also the first month of redeployment for discharge: 1,500 I-B veterans sailed for Uncle Sugar. On June 23, Sultan was recalled to become Chief of the Inspector General's Department in Washington and his deputy, Lt. Gen. Raymond A. Wheeler, took command of the Theater. July, 1945, and the New York POE took over from Los Angeles to supply and equip the I-B. The 10th Air Force packed up at Piardoba in Bengal and flew to its new headquarters in Kunming. Monsoons were washing out sections of the Road but excellent maintenance work restored each wash-out, almost as it occurred. August 14, 1945, the day every man in World War II had placed ahead of Christmas - the Imperial Household of Japan accepted Allied surrender terms and gave the cease-fire orders. Mail censorship was off a while later and the pent-up personal griefs of almost four years of war exploded into letters home. But war over or no, the Pipeline went on pumping and the Road convoys kept on delivering. Over 9,000,000 gallons had been pumped to China since the line's opening April 9. The Road's monthly quota, of course, exceeded every previous month's record: in August it was 15,866 long tons. FALL 1945 Demobilization got into full swing in September, 1945 with 80-point men leaving for home on the General McRae, the first evacuation ship to leave Karachi. The I-B got its fourth Commanding General when Wheeler was recalled to Washington to become Chief of Engineers and Maj. Gen. Thomas A. Terry, former CG of the Second Service Command in New York, was named new Theater chief. October was sort of a wind-up month. The last convoy over the Road arrived in Kunming on the 7th, giving the Road a grand total of 25,783 vehicles and 6,539 trailers, carrying 146,948 long tons of cargo into Kunming since the first convoy drove over the Road the previous February. The last spurt of gasoline plunked into Kunming on the very last day of the month and this meant that 58,297 short tons of fuel had been delivered between April and October. ATC began to wind up its "Hump" activities and on November 20 the pilots who flew daily to China over the world's roof decided to call it a day. The India-China Division of ATC had flown 776,532 tons of material to Kunming in its three years of operation. There were losses too: 594 planes, 910 crew members killed and 130 still missing. WINTER 1945 The removal of U.S. dead to five centralized cemeteries at Singapore, Myitkyina, Barrackpore, Kalaikunda and New Malir began. This was destined to become the start of the last mission in the Theater, for the Graves Registration Service plans to work at shipping home these dead until 1949. By the end of December, 151,594 men from the I-B and China had been repatriated through India, a monthly average of 57,898 since the demobilization program started in early September. This left the I-B with 78,637 men and 8,013 officers on the eve of 1946. Getting his last licks in, Roundup's reporter Sgt. Ed Alexander rode in the last American jeep across Stilwell Road into China on Christmas Eve, 1945. And up in the weeds, all property left in Burma, save the Pipeline, tankage and heavy equipment, was sold to the Government of Burma. During last January the monthly evacuation of personnel had dropped to 17,679 and the Theater strength became 36,832. In February, 1946 the last Chinese Army personnel in India were airlifted to Shanghai, and activities in the forward area had dwindled to such an extent that Intermediate Section was consolidated under Base Section in Calcutta. Only four U.S. installations now remained in Burma: the Road, the 4" and 6" Pipelines and that part of the Kuoming Toll Line lying in Burma. U.S. troops had been slimmed down to 46, all employed in jungle search and rescue work. On Feb. 17, Terry was flown home to Walter Reed Hospital for treatment of injuries sustained in an automobile accident near New Delhi. Maj. Gen. Vernon Evans, his Chief of Staff, assumed command. The India Wing of the ATC was placed under the North Africa Division of ATC and all Air Force activities were consolidated at the Bengal Air Depot. The last day of February the bottleneck of Theater demobilization - the manner of disposal of Army surplus property to the Government of India - was broken. FLC representatives and Indian officials came to an agreement and the custodial transfer of surplus property began. SPRING 1946 Last month, Undersecretary of War Kenneth Royall announced in New Delhi that he anticipated the I-B Theater's closing by the end of May, leaving only a residual group of 500 for graves registration work and similar activities. These 500 are to be progressively slimmed down and in a few months India will have but 100 to 150 men of the U.S. Army. With the sailing of the General Hersey April 21, all men with either 30 months of military service or 45 points will be on their way home. Theater personnel will be dropped to 2,100 in early May and the transfer of surplus property to the Government of India's custodians will have been completed. And so we have the history of the India-Burma Theater of World War II. From Dec. 30, 1941 to the end of May, 1946. Sixty-five months of combined effort on the part of the Chinese, the British, the Indians and the Americans. VITAL ROLE Its success was due to the cooperative resources of Allied nations; its campaign planning determined half-way around the world by Big Two and Big Three conferences. Sometimes under China, sometimes under the Southeast Asia Command of Mountbatten, eventually an independent U.S. Theater Headquarters, the I-B has had a vital role in the war against Japan. While the larger part of the land fighting in Burma was done by the British in the central and southern areas and by the Chinese in the north, the American forces kept hammering at the supply lines to China. Our ranks were composed primarily of air and service forces, not ground forces. The air arm protected the British and Chinese advances and drop-fed them. Our SOS Engineers and Signal Corps men followed the combat teams and laid down paths of communication and transportation as soon as the enemy had been cleared from the area. The India-Burma mission was to keep China's back door free, her forces supplied for a successful defense of the great Asiatic mainland, and to prepare for a day when British, Chinese and American forces would throw the japanese eastward as the Pacific forces pushed them west: an unprecendented pincer movement which would have incorporated and enormous part of this world's land surface. Because the enemy capitulated, that final strategy never became necessary. But the I-B had done its job up to then and it was fully mobilized to see it all the way through.
I-B PEAK STRENGTH
The month: March 1945
The breakdown:
I-B CASUALTIES
ATC HIGHLIGHTS
From September 1, 1944 to August 31, 1945 the ATC Passenger Service: carried 1,204,207 persons, flew 350,209,660 miles. Transported: 515,598 net tons to China in 237,572 trips over the "Hump." Airlifted: 195,893 Chinese and U.S. troops, their battle equipment and their 4,400 pack animals. Evacuated: 4,720 patients over 2,181,496 flight miles.
SUPPLIES TO CHINA
During the peak month of July 1945 the net short tons delivered to China were:
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