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China's involvement in the Second World War

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Saturday, 9th October 2010

  The last time I asked a question here both the quality and quantity of the answer were quite quickly beyond my knowledge (and really my interest) but I don't let little things like that stop me.
  
  Now I am reading about lost airmen of WWII and there is a sentence and photo that really surprise me. It says, "The next major phase of the war had been decided during a meeting of the leaders of Britain, the USA and China at Casablance in January 1943. This was to concentrate forces in the Mediterranean and to knock Italy out of the war."
  
  And the photo shows war people at the back in their soldier poses, and in front Roosevelt and Churchill looking relaxed (Churchill muchly so), and seeming to be talking to each other Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek and Madame Kai-Shek.
  
  I had not been aware that China was particularly involved in WWII at all, let alone being involved in threeparty summit meetings. There is no further mention of China as far as I can see in my book (which is now concentrating on Antoine Saint-Exupery's disappearance, or rather events leading up to his disappearance).
  
  Cheers, Caro.

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• Message 2

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  Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Saturday, 9th October 2010

  Hi Caro,
  
  In Britain, at least, it's very hard to find information about the Chinese war effort. British books tend to concentrate on Burma, American ones on the Pacific, and general books about China tend to relate WW2 as an incident during the rise of Mao and the Communists!
  
  China lost more people between 1937 and 1949 than any other nation (though this does involve casualties of the civil war as well as the war with Japan). 5/6th of the Japanese army was employed to fight China.
  
  If anyone can recommend a good book I'd be very interested!

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• Message 3

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  Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Saturday, 9th October 2010

  That description is a bit odd, as Chiang Kai-Shek was not present at the conference of Casablanca. Much later in the year, he and his wife were present at the first conference of Cairo. The author of your book probably mixed up his conferences, or his pictures.
  
  China's involvement in WWII was both important and limited. It had been at war with Japan since 1937. During the Sino-Japanese war, which was brutal, large areas of China were occupied, and for this task a large number of Japanese troops were used. The Chinese government wasn't able to do much about this: It was weak (the country was in a simultaneous state of civil war), had lost whatever little war industries it had possessed, and for much of the war was only connected to its allies by an airbridge from India -- which ran over part of the Himalaya mountains.
  
  There indeed was some debate relating to China against Casablanca, despite the lack of Chinese representation. The Americans argued for retaking Burma in 1943, because this would re-open communications with China. The operation, code-named Anakim, was agreed to at Casablanca, but it was never executed. As strategic thinking matured, American planners came to the conclusion that their island-hopping campaign in the Pacific was more effective than any plan that involved landing in Burma and then advancing over some of the most difficult terrain in the world. (Units that did fight there, both Allied and Japanese, often suffered enormously.)
  
  Throughout the war strategy relating to China, such as it was, was particularly riddled with conflicts. At least some senior American leaders dreamed of arming the Chinese army and using it to defeat Japan, a strategy which appeared to promise a major reduction in American casualties. The Chinese government, perhaps unsurprisingly, had little sympathy for this idea, and focused on surviving the war. The British did not believe China could make a useful contribution to the war effort and feared that Chinese prominence could only harm their colonial empire in Asia. The Soviets kept China at arm's length as they were not at war with Japan and anyway the Chinese communists were their ideological allies.
  
  In the end, a kind of realism prevailed, in which American strategists buried their wilder dreams and focused on giving the Chinese enough support to keep them in the war -- Chiang regularly threatened to sign a separate peace. The Chinese government managed to survive the war, but at its end found itself too weak to regain control of the country.

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• Message 4

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  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Sunday, 10th October 2010

  Caro
  
  The United States regarded Kuomitang China as an important economic partner (really, source of raw materials and markets). In the pre-war period, much had been made of Chinese sufferings at the hands of the Japanese. The photograph of the baby crying in the Wreckage of Nanjing was at least as famous as any from Spain.
  
  China was routinely described as one of the "Big Five" (British Empire and Commonwealth, USA, USSR,China and France)in diplomatic and press articles. Madame Chiang-Kai-Shek made the most of her attributes to charm the other leaders at the conferences China was invited to.
  
  Militarily, the Chinese Armies (with help from Mao's lot)kept very large Japanese armies tied up in China. But it became obvious that they could not be turned into an offensive force, not least because Chiang had his eye on the coming battle with Mao. The British, in any case, never shared Roosevelt's admiration for the Generalissimo.
  
  The importance of China then became as an airbase for USAAF long range bombers - most of the air resupply effort over "The Hump" was dedicated to this purpose, and this was also the reason for the priority the US gave to opening a groiund route to China (indeed, the US only agreed to support the military campaign in Burma until this was achieved - after that, the Brits were on their own).
  
  Chinese forces did participate in the first Burma campaign, and to a limited degree in 1945, but the British were swuspicious of their ultimate intentions.
  
  Barbara Tuchman's "Sand Against The Wind", her biography of Stilwell covers this period (up to Stilwell's removal as Chiang Kai Shek's military commander). St5ilwell didn't like his boss (didn't like anyone much) and called him "Peanut". Unfortunately, tuchman shared Stilwell's virulent anglophobia, so it can be a tiresome read.
  
  The relevant parts of Churchill's "The Second World War" are also illuminating, and I presume there is an official US Campaign study on line somewhere.
  
  Cheers
  
  LW
  

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• Message 5

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  Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Sunday, 10th October 2010

  Unfortunately, tuchman shared Stilwell's virulent anglophobia, so it can be a tiresome read.Β 
  
  I don't think that that is fair. Judging from her other works (The Guns of August, The March of Folly, The Zimmermann Telegram), Tuchman was no anglophobe. In "Stilwell and the American Experience in China" she clearly sided with her subject, a common practice among biographers, although not always a wise one.
  
  Calling Stilwell an anglophobe may also be a misjudgment, as being too specific -- he indeed doesn't seem to have liked anyone very much -- but when on Marshall's planning staff, he had belonged to a group of planning officers who were suspicious of British motives. And on the few occasions when they met, Stilwell and Alan Brooke seem to have cultivated a strong mutual dislike, which didn't help things at all.
  
  Stilwell's problem in China was that he was a talented, hard-working and honest soldier stuck in an essentially political and diplomatic role, for which he completely lacked the capabilities, despite having been a military attache for part of his career. Naturally he focused on the reform of the Chinese armies as his practical goal, being rather happier when showing a soldier how to handle a rifle, than when seated at the conference table. It is hard to imagine that any American officer might not have wanted to reform this army, considering that it largely consisted of masses of poorly trained, malnourished and maltreated soldiers under the command of frequently corrupt and incompetent officers. But Stilwell failed to accept (although he probably knew it) that the state of the army reflected the state of the nation, and army reform was an essentially political undertaking. About he last thing Chiang Kai-Shek wanted was to create a New Model Army under the leadership of a Chinese Cromwell.
  
  

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• Message 6

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  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Sunday, 10th October 2010

  MM
  
  Well, if she wasn't Anglophobic, she was hypercritical to the point a reasonable man couldn't tell the difference.
  
  A major part of her oeuvre (well worth reading as they are) pitches her into an analysis of Britiain as the opponent.
  
  In the "Guns Of August" she is critical and deliberately dismissive of the British contribution. In "The First Salute", she revels in every reverse for the British (and rather sweetly seems to think the Netherlands was still a world power in the 1770s). Less well known, "Bible and Sword" puts the blame for the Middle East problem on us. In "Sand Against The Wind", she accepts Stillwell's fulminations at face value - a biographer has to be sympathetic to her subject, but needs to impose some balance. She is quite capable of pointing out his faults in other contexts.
  
  Ms Tuchman's works are extremely well written and very worth reading. But she definitely didn't like the Brits. She saved her worse scorn, nonetheless and quite rightly, for the Germans.
  
  As for Stilwell, if he'd been nicer to the Brits, he might have got more support with the Generalissimo.
  
  Cheers
  
  LW

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• Message 7

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Sunday, 10th October 2010

  Thanks for those replies; China had much more input than I had ever realised. I just thought of it as tucked in the background having problems with Japan, outside of the world war really. Though now I think about it, I do recall reading fairly recently that the beginnings of the Pacific war could be traced to the China/Japan friction.
  
  I know nothing of Stilwell or Tuchman though your arguments about them are interesting to me. I am mystified, though by your comment that the photo attribution is wrong, M_M. The photo caption says, "The three-power conference at Casablance in January 1943 resulted in important decisions for the conduct of the war in the Mediterranean. Bottom row, left to right: Generalissimo Chian Kai-Shekl President Franklin Roosevelt; Prime Minister Winston Churchill [he is dressed all in white]; Madame Chian Kai-Shek. Top row: General Chang Chen; Lieutenant-General Ling Wei; Lieutenant-General B.B. Somervell; Lieutenant-General J.W. Stilwell; General H.A.P Arnold; Field Marshall Sir John Dill; Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten; Major General Carton de Wiart.
  
  Then it says Author's collection.
  
  The blurb at the back says Roy Conyers Nesbit has a long-established reputation as a leading historian of the Second Wolrd War. Mostly, it seems, as an aviation and naval historian though. So maybe he just has this muddled somehow.
  
  Caro.
  
  

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• Message 8

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  Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Monday, 11th October 2010

  Hi caro. I seem to be locked out of you know what.
  
  Gf

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• Message 9

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  Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Tuesday, 12th October 2010

  As Niall Ferguson says in 'The War of the World' the fact that we talk about World War 2 starting in 1939 (when Hitler invaded Poland) rather than 1937 reflects a Eurocentric bias.
  
  The 1937 outbreak of war between China & Japan was the beginning of World War 2's biggest campaign, as the Japanese only made their fateful move into the Pacific as a result of getting bogged down in China.
  
  
  

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• Message 10

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  Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 12th October 2010

  Caro
  
  You may have mentioned that Madame Chiang Kai Shek was I believe an American born Chinese.. The wave of Chinese immigration into California in the 1880's had created quite a storm, but it established a real Chinese presence and we are now accustomed to various China towns in the USA without always realising how deep their roots are.
  
  And I do not think that anyone has mentioned the US equivalent of the "International Brigade" that took many people to fight against General Franco in the Spanish Civil War. From I think round about the same time 1936 there were American volunteer pilots acting like Knights of St.George trying to do something to counter the massive air superiority of the Japanese who drove the Chinese Government inland to Chunking.
  
  But the most famous action I suppose was the legendary "Long March" away from the Japanese and to the remote area where Mao Tse Tung was able to train a peasant based guerrilla army in Yunan Province (?)
  
  Hun Suyin's first novel "The Road to Chunking" is based upon her own experience of leaving her medical training in the South of England to go back to China to "do her bit".
  
  Cass

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• Message 11

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  Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Wednesday, 13th October 2010

  Mutatis_Mutandis
  
  China's involvement in WWII was both important and limited. It had been at war with Japan since 1937.Β 
  
  The Chinese themselves would say 1931, with the invasion of Manchuria.

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• Message 12

  , in reply to message 10.

  Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Wednesday, 13th October 2010

  CASSEROLEON,
  
  From I think round about the same time 1936 there were American volunteer pilots acting like Knights of St.George trying to do something to counter the massive air superiority of the Japanese who drove the Chinese Government inland to Chunking. Β 
  
  The American Volunteer Group (AVG), aka the Flying Tigers, didn't start see actual combat until Dec. 20, 1941 - after Pearl Harbor.
  
  
  
  Which isn't to say there hadn't been sooner efforts at organizing something.

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• Message 13

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  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Wednesday, 13th October 2010

  Cass, WC
  
  Chennault had been Chiang's air advisor since 1936. He had come to the conclusion that he needed US pilots at least as trainers and (preferably) also as combat pilots. He was pressing heavily for this by 1940. There was a specific need to protect the supply route from Burma.
  
  The idea was attractive to the USAAC and USN/USMC as a way to get combat experience, but equally unattractive to the State Department and isolationists as an entanglement in foreign wars. It was illegal for a US citizen to serve in foreign armed forces. Major objections were being raised at the time to the presence of US volunteers in the RAF (the reason the first Eagle Squadron was not formed until Nov 40).
  
  The AVG was raised in the expectation of seeing combat while the USA was still neutral. Volunteers had to resign their commissions, which resignations were held on file in case they were killed or captured). This set up a procedure used post-war by the CIA's "China Air-Sea" and "Air America" operations. (Some writers dispute that resignations were required).
  
  As noted by White Camry, the AVG did not enter combat until after the Us had enetered the war, but it took some time to regularise their position and return them to their parent services. This didn't bother some of them too much - they were being paid three times as much as US rates, and got a bounty for each shoot down (something their RAF colleagues in Burma thought led to overclaiming).
  
  LW

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• Message 14

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  Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Wednesday, 13th October 2010

  The idea was attractive to the USAAC and USN/USMC as a way to get combat experience, but equally unattractive to the State Department and isolationists as an entanglement in foreign wars. It was illegal for a US citizen to serve in foreign armed forces.Β 
  
  Wasn't that law repealed specifically to let pilots volunteer to serve in China? Also, I seem to remember that serving military pilots were allowed to resign to volunteer for the HCinese air force.
  
  As a side issue, weren't there two American pilots in the RAF during the battle of Britain?

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• Message 15

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  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Friday, 15th October 2010

  cloudy
  
  I understand there is some dispute as to whether US law was actually changed, or whether FDR isssued secret Presidenatial authorisation, or in fact nothing was done, except the bureaucratic crossing of fingers.
  
  The volunteer pilots did have to resign their commissions, but the resignations were "held on file" and only activated if required. The British did something similar with volunteers for Finland, although in that the case the resignations were actually processed so that Regular officers like Mike Calvert who volunteered actually lost all their pre-war seniority.
  
  A few US citizens did serve in the RAF during the BoB, but it is not clear exactly how many. Estimates are usually bewteen 8 and 11, not all of whom saw combat. Working it out is complicated by the fact that several had dual-citizenship, and therefore joined the RAF as British citizens, but are sometimes included in the count of US citizens.
  
  There were also the "South Canadians", not all of whom got round to admiting their US identity.
  
  The number of US citizens who had volunteered for RAf service by the time of the BoB was higher, as the later formation of "Eagle Squadrons" showed. But it takes time to train a fighter pilot, so ony those who had volunteered at the very early stages actually reached squadrons. Even when the Eagle Squadron finally sttod up in Nov 40, only half its pilots were actually American.
  
  LW

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• Message 16

  , in reply to message 10.

  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Friday, 15th October 2010

  Caro, Cass
  
  Madame Chiang Kai-shek was not American born, but she was educated in the United States from an early age (11, I think). She came from an influential political family.
  
  From this experience, she had an unusually keen understanding of Americans, which was of great advantage in her dealings with US politicians and officials on behalf of her husband. She spoke perfect American English with a "Southern Belle" accent which helped her cause.
  
  She was also very attractive and several politicians and generals noted that she exploited
  her "traditional" Chinese wardrobe to show of her legs, in distracting fashion.
  
  A very interesting lady.
  
  LW

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