Stilwell the Patriot Vinegar Joe, the Brits, and Chiang Kai-Shek by David Rooney
This book covers Chinese history beginning with the Japanese invasion in the 1930s and America’s military intervention on behalf of China. After reading the book I was amazed at how blind the Americans could have been to political corruption, power grabbing and incompassionate greed that cost millions of lives and untold misery for decades to come.
This is a great book with a clear message that is a must read.
EXCERPTS:
The American public, accustomed to seeing war as a frontier skirmish or modest foreign adventure in Cuba or the Philippines, with no likelihood of a threat to the homeland, had never accorded the military a high priority, and in 1914 the army was ill-prepared to take part in a modern war. Something of a dress-rehearsal had taken place in 1916 when General Pershing led a punitive expedition against Mexico with infantry, cavalry, artillery and even some air squadrons, but their enemy, the Mexican insurgent Pancho Villa, was hardly of the calibre of the German army.
By the end of 1937 Chiang’s HQ had been withdrawn to Hankow, about 200 miles southwest of Nanking. Stilwell had to follow. Thus he was close at hand when, in December 1937, the Japanese perpetrated the rape of Nanking, in the course of which their troops raped and massacred nearly 200,000 people. All women and girls were brought in for mass rape by platoons of soldiers and then shot.
1940 Japan joined the Rome–Berlin Axis.
Because of Chiang’s rotten system, Mao Tse-Tung and the Communists might win.
I never heard Chiang Kai-Shek say a single thing that indicated gratitude to our President or to our country for the help we were extending to him. Invariably, when anything was promised, he would want more. Invariably, he would complain about the small amount of material that was being furnished … Whether or not he was grateful was a small matter. The regrettable part of it was that there was no quid pro quo.
By the time of Pearl Harbor Chennault was commanding a force of more than eighty pilots in what became famous as the Flying Tigers. Early in 1941 the Flying Tigers were leased an airfield in southern Burma, and on 20 December 1941 they had their first successful clash with Japanese bombers. From then on the Flying Tigers were in constant and effective action against the waves of Japanese bombers that attacked Rangoon, and in February 1942 they shot down twenty-five enemy planes in one day They co-operated with the RAF, but this had obsolete Buffalo fighters and was rapidly knocked out. Then the Flying Tigers, like all other units, were swept back by the Japanese advance, but they moved adroitly and managed to return to China intact while at the same time helping to halt the enemy advance at the Salween bridge on the Burma Road.
The summer of 1942 was the lowest point of the war for the Allies. Rommel was threatening Egypt and the Suez canal. The Nazi drive to Stalingrad looked unstoppable, and it was feared that these two pincer movements might meet up in Syria and Iraq and cut off Allied access to all Middle East oil. It is no wonder that the situation in China appeared less urgent.
Stalin, ruthless and well prepared, was determined to establish – as he argued – an independent Poland under his influence. Because of their differing agendas Roosevelt and Churchill were outsmarted by Stalin. Attempting to be the benign elder statesman, Roosevelt thought he was better than Churchill at handling Stalin, but in fact they were both hoodwinked (it was later discovered that all their rooms and even the garden around the former imperial palace where they stayed had been bugged).
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