Bibliographical Note
The sources for this volume are in three categories: official records; collections of private papers; and published works.
Official Records: Identification and Location
Official records are the major source of information for this volume.1
Papers and minutes of the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their planners can be located by the number, date, and title assigned by the CCS and JCS Secretariats. These papers are in the custody of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Army's set of JCS and CCS papers was kept by the Strategy and Policy Group, Operations Division, WDGS, under the heading of ABC files. ABC files are organized by subject and date of the first paper in the file and are now located in the Departmental Records Branch, The Adjutant General's Office.
The central file of the Operations Division, WDGS, is identified by the symbol OPD, preceded by the case number within that file and followed first by a decimal number referring to the specific subject file, and second by a theater area. OPD papers are in the custody of Departmental Records Branch, The Adjutant General's Office. The Executive Group file of OPD is an informal collection of papers which has been divided into ten major categories and assigned an arbitrary serial number for each item (book, folder, envelope) in each category. The abbreviation OPD Exec identifies these papers in footnotes.
An Army office of record is the Departmental Records Branch, The Adjutant General's Office. The Departmental Records Branch gave each major block of records from a War Department agency an accession number by which it can be located. Accession numbers cited in this volume, with the year of retirement and numerical order of accession within that year, follow:
Accession Numbers Agencies that deposited files A45-466 War Department, Chief of Staff, Army A46-217 SEAC War Diary A46-257 Headquarters, Army Service Forces (Somervell File) A46-299 International Division, Army Service Forces (Lend-Lease to China) A47-30 War Plans Division and Operations Division A47-81 Headquarters, Army Service Forces (Somervell China File) A48-102 Stilwell Personal Radio Files A48-224 American-British Conversations--Papers from Plans and Operations
Of particular interest to students of the CBI Theater are General Stilwell's personal message books (A48-102, Record Group 800), which have been cited arbitrarily in footnotes as JWS Personal File. There are nine of these books, including the OKLAHOMA File, which relates to General Stilwell's recall. A book of messages sent and received by General Stilwell at Forward Echelon, Northern Combat Area Command, is cited as 6A and is located separately at the Kansas City Records Center, The Adjutant General's Office, Kansas City, Missouri.
Records of Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces, China, Burma and India, and those of its subordinate commands are now filed in the Kansas City Records Center. Records describing the combat in north Burma, along the Salween Front, and in east China come from the files of Headquarters, Northern Combat Area Command, Headquarters, Y-Force Operations Staff, and Headquarters, Z-Force Operations Staff, all subordinate commands of CBI Theater.
CBI Theater lend-lease reports are in Col. William S. Gaud's reports to Headquarters, Army Service Forces.
The SEAC War Diary is a chronological compilation of pertinent documents of Southeast Asia Command (A46-217).
U.S. Army radiograms in this volume can be found either in the Staff Communications Office, Office of the Chief of Staff, Department of the Army, or in files of headquarters, USAF, CBI, and its subordinate commands. Location of the latter radios is given in the footnotes. Messages sent and received through Staff Communications are identified according to their local reference numbers and date, the CM-IN or CM-OUT numbers. Messages sent and received through CBI Theater agencies are identified by the call letters of their various headquarters; for example, CAK, CRA, CFB, CHC, and SH.
A variety of miscellaneous records collected overseas by CBI Theater historians or obtained by correspondence with participants in an event are in the possession of the Office of the Chief of Military History. Among these miscellaneous records are a collection of reports and notes of the DIXIE Mission, the U.S. observer group to Communist China.
An extensive account of the Japanese side of the story is found in Japanese Studies in World War II, a series prepared by former Japanese officers in Tokyo, begun under the auspices of the G-2 Historical Section, U.S. Far East Command, and translated by Allied Translation and Interrogation Section, Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. These studies are cited by the number assigned to each by the Far East Command. Most of the basic directives and orders to Japanese Army commanders of continental commands as issued by Imperial General Headquarters are in volumes entitled Imperial General Headquarters Army Directives or Orders. These volumes were compiled by the military historians of the Military Intelligence Section, General Headquarters, Far East Command. Copies of Japanese records are in the possession of the Office of the Chief of Military History.
Immediately after the war's end, Southeast Asia Command interrogated a number of senior Japanese officers who had served in Burma or in southwestern Yunnan. The results were published in a number of mimeographed bulletins, under the imprimatur of Southeast Asia Translation and Interrogation Center (SEATIC). They are in the Military Intelligence Division Library. The interrogators directed questioning to the 1943-45 fighting in Burma. The Japanese spoke freely and showed no particular disposition to flatter the victors.
Thanks to Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, very useful information was obtained from Lt. Gen. Kitsuju Ayabe, Assistant Chief of Staff, Southern Army; Lt. Gen. Tadashi Hanaya, Commanding General, 55th Division, later Chief of Staff, 18th Area Army; Col. Takushiro Hattori, Operations Section, Imperial General Staff; Lt. Col. Taro Hayashi, staff officer, 56th Division; Lt. Gen. Masaki Honda, Commanding General, 33d Army; Maj. Gen. Tadashi Katakura, Chief of Operations, Burma Area Army; Lt. Gen. Momoyo Kunomura, Chief of Staff, 15th Army, Commanding General, Guard Division; Col. Husayasu Maruyama, Commanding Officer, 114th Infantry Regiment, 18th Division; Maj. Gen. Yasuyuki Miyoshi, Chief of Staff, 5th Air Division; Lt. Gen. Eitaro Naka, Chief of Staff, Burma Area Army; Lt. Col. Masaji Ozeki, staff officer, General Headquarters (Tokyo); Lt. Gen. Shoichi Sato, Chief of Staff, 5th Air Division; Maj. Iwao Takahashi, staff officer, 15th Army; Lt. Col. Masahiko Takeshita, staff officer, 15th Army; Lt. Gen. Yutaka Takeuchi, Commanding General, 55th Division; Lt. Gen. Shinichi Tanaka, Commanding General, 18th Division; Lt. Col. Taro Watanabe, Operations Section, Southern Army; Col. Motohisa Yoshida, staff officer, 15th Army.
The papers cited as Japanese Comments were prepared by the Japanese Research Division, Military History Section, Special Staff, of Headquarters, Far East Command, in reply to requests in 1951 and 1955 by the Office, Chief of Military History, for comments on draft narratives of the second and third CBI volumes. Included in this manuscript are statements by General Tanaka, Cols. Takushiro Hattori and Ichiji Sugita, and Lt. Cols. Shiro Hara and Iwaichi Fujiwara of the 15th Army staff. The manuscript cited as Japanese Officers' Comments was also prepared by the Japanese Research Division of Headquarters, Far East Command, in reply to a request of 9 April 1952 from the Office, Chief of Military History, for comments on a draft of this volume. Included in these comments are statements by Marshal Shunroku Hata, Supreme Commander, China Expeditionary Army; Generals Yasuji Okamura, Commanding General, North China Area Army, later Supreme Commander, China Expeditionary Army, Renya Mutaguchi, 15th Army Commander, Shinichi Tanaka, Commander, 18th Division, Masakazu Kawabe, Commander, Burma Area Army, Jo Iimura, Chief of the General Staff, Southern Army; Colonels Kiyoo Nagai, Staff Officer, 56th Division, Masanobu Tsuji, Staff Officer, 33d Army, Iwaichi Fujiwara, Staff Officer, 15th Army, Ichiji Sugita, Staff Officer, Imperial General Headquarters, Takeharu Shimanuki, Senior Staff Officer,
11th Army, Kumao Imoto, Staff Officer, 11th Army, Hiroshi Hashimoto, Staff Officer, 15th Army, and Maj. Kanetoshi Mashida, Staff Officer, 11th Army. These manuscripts are in the files of the Office, Chief of Military History.
Manuscript histories, prepared during or after the war, were consulted in the preparation of this volume. The first attempt to prepare a CBI Theater history was initiated by General Stilwell, then theater commander, when in the summer of 1944 he created a Historical Section, Theater Headquarters, under Col. Mason Wright. The section's mission was to prepare a comprehensive history of the theater for General Stilwell. After General Stilwell's recall, the manuscript prepared under Colonel Wright's supervision was reworked and edited by General Stilwell at his home in Carmel, California. Much of the political comment in the manuscript is a close paraphrase of the reports of John P. Davies, Jr., Stilwell's political adviser. The manuscript was then submitted to the War Department as General Stilwell's Report. The original copy is in the custody of the Departmental Records Branch, The Adjutant General's Office. A carbon copy is in the Hoover Library, Palo Alto, California.
While the Historical Section, CBI Theater Headquarters, was preparing a history of the theater, the Historical Section, Headquarters, Services of Supply, China, Burma and India, under Lt. Col. Harry L. Mayfield, was preparing a history of that organization. The manuscripts prepared by the SOS and Theater Historical Sections have certain physical similarities. Both have a basic narrative, surveying the years 1942-44, with a host of appendixes, many of them reports by subordinate units. The two manuscripts are a rich source of material, and the footnotes in this volume reveal how deeply the authors are indebted to Colonel Wright, to his successor Lt. Col. John L. Mott, and to Colonel Mayfield. The SOS history is in the custody of the Office, Chief of Military History.
The American point of view of the fighting in north Burma is covered in a manuscript by Capt. Edward Fisher, History of NCAC. The British side is in Operational Record of Eleventh Army Group and ALFSEA, November 1943-August 1945. These manuscripts are in the possession of the Office, Chief of Military History.
Miscellaneous manuscripts are 1st Lt. James H. Stone's U.S. Army Medical Service in Combat in India and Burma, 1942-1945; History of the Ramgarh Training Center, 30 June 42-15 May 45; History of the First Provisional Tank Group; and U.S. Army Transportation in China, Burma, India During World War II, by Joseph Bykofsky, Historical Branch, Office, Chief of Transportation. These histories are filed in the Office, Chief of Military History.
Giving the Army Air Force side of the CBI Theater are Despatch on Air Operations in Eastern Air Command (SEA) Covering the Period 15 December 1943 to 1 June 1945, a manuscript prepared for Lt. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer; History of the Fourteenth Air Force; and Growth, Development, and Operating Procedures of Air Supply and Evacuation System, NCAC Front, Burma
Campaign, 1943-45, prepared by the Military Observer Group, New Delhi, India. With the exception of the History of the Fourteenth Air Force, which is now in the U.S. Air Force Historical Division, Air University Library, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, the above manuscript histories are in the custody of the Office, Chief of Military History. The History of the India-China Division, Air Transport Command, 1944, is in the Historical Division, Military Air Transport Service, Andrews Field, Maryland.
Because Southeast Asia Command was an integrated Anglo-American organization, it seemed advisable to obtain a British point of view on those sections of the manuscript dealing with the operations of British units and with discussions of strategy between British and American officers. Brigadier M. R. Roberts of the Cabinet Office Historical Section, who commanded the 114th Indian Infantry Brigade in the 1944 Arakan fighting, very kindly commented at length on the manuscript. His observations and criticisms are filed in the Office, Chief of Military History. A draft narrative lent by Lt. Col. J. E. B. Barton of the same office permitted a sharper and clearer description of Chindit operations in 1944, within the restrictions imposed by the scope of this volume. In July 1953 Sunderland was able to visit the British Isles following temporary duty with the Historical Section, U.S. Army in Europe, and spent many hours with Brigadier Roberts discussing the campaign in Burma.
Collections of Private Papers
A source of valuable information is the private papers of participants in the China, Burma and India Theater. These include (1) Collections of personal papers; (2) Diaries; (3) Letters and inclosures.
Personal Papers: Of primary importance are the records of the late Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, which consist of: his personal journal, cited as the Stilwell Diary; essays and analyses kept in two copy books, cited either as Stilwell Black and White (B&W) Book or Stilwell Black Book; a file of undated papers, cited as Stilwell Undated Papers (SUP); and his collection of theater records and official personal papers, cited as Stilwell Documents, Stilwell Numbered Files (SNF), or Stilwell Miscellaneous Papers. The Stilwell collection is in the Hoover Library, Palo Alto, California.
From the days of his boyhood, General Stilwell kept a diary. As the man grew in maturity and responsibility, his diary kept pace with him. By January 1942 his diary was a tool of command. It acted as a little personal file to which he could turn to refresh his memory. In the diary he summarized important radios, telephone calls, conferences, after action reports, and other papers important to a commander in the field or in the headquarters. In physical form, the wartime diaries are small ring-bound notebooks that the general could slip into his pocket. His family knew he kept a diary, but knew nothing of its contents until after his death, when the little notebooks were found among his personal effects. They were not intended for publication.
In addition to the diaries, General Stilwell kept two copybooks, one with a black cover about eight by ten inches in size, one black and white, such as school children use. In his copybooks, Stilwell wrote his reflections on the day's events, dating almost all of them. However, because he was prone to worry over his problems, the entries tend to blur the clear, terse statements in the diaries. Because the copybooks are more literary in style than the diaries, Mr. Theodore H. White relied heavily on them in editing The Stilwell Papers. Of similar nature is the collection of sketches and essays on pieces of paper which the authors, following Mr. White's usage, have called the undated papers.
The Stilwell Numbered Files and their contents fall into an entirely different category. These are official papers, as distinguished from the purely personal items in the diaries and copybooks. Some of them are official Chinese documents, some are British, some are Stilwell's papers as Chief of Staff, China Theater, most are American. These official papers were sealed by General Stilwell before his death. Mrs. Stilwell in May 1950 permitted the footlockers in which they had been sealed to be opened and the contents inspected by Riley Sunderland. These five linear feet of documents are now in the Hoover Library. For an understanding of the events in China Theater in the years 1942-44 their importance can hardly be overestimated.
Also of great importance are the private papers of the late Harry L. Hopkins, which were temporarily in the custody of Mr. Robert E. Sherwood. The Hopkins papers have now been retired to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York. As a personal friend of Dr. T. V. Soong, the Chinese Foreign Minister, and, in effect, the lend-lease administrator, Mr. Hopkins was actively concerned with Chinese affairs in 1941-44. There are three major classes of papers regarding China, Burma, and India in Book VII of the Hopkins Papers: letters from Soong to Hopkins, official correspondence on lend-lease and Sino-American relations, and letters from Joseph W. Alsop and Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault. In addition, Hopkins usually received carbon copies of Chennault's letters to the President. A complete catalogue of all Hopkins' papers was generously given to the Office, Chief of Military History, by Mr. Sherwood. The authors also used Mr. Sherwood's manuscript of Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History, as well as notes from his personal files.
Material on the background of the Hurley-Nelson mission and Stilwell's recall is in Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Hurley's papers. Here, also, are the White House messages as sent and received by General Hurley while acting as the President's personal representative in Chungking. Notes and extracts from the Hurley Papers are in the custody of the Office, Chief of Military History.
Material on the background and activities of GALAHAD is in the papers of Col. Charles N. Hunter. Among the papers of Col. Carlos G. Spaht is a Chinese unit history giving the Chinese 8th Army's part in the Salween
offensive. Scrapbooks of Col. Robert F. Seedlock contain engineering data on rebuilding the Burma Road inside China.
Diaries: As G-2, NCAC, Col. Joseph W. Stilwell, Jr., kept a diary of his activities in the north Burma fighting. A diary of Col. Walter S. Wood gives an account of Chinese action along the Burma Road on the Yunnan front. Lt. Col. (then 1st Lt.) Dwight E. Brewer, while adjutant general of Z-FOS, recorded events as he saw them at Kweilin during the east China fighting. Extensive notes or transcripts from these diaries are in the custody of the Office, Chief of Military History.
Letters: On file with the Mail and Records Section, Office, Chief of Military History, are a number of letters from other official historians of the war in Asia and from participants in its campaigns. These letters, often including wartime documents as inclosures, and a file of comments and criticisms on draft manuscripts of this volume which were submitted to informed persons, are a source of valuable information. Of particular interest is the file marked HIS 330.14 CBI 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, and 1952 which will be eventually retired to the Departmental Records Branch, The Adjutant General's Office.
Published Works
The following works cover the political aspects of the Far Eastern war for 1943-44.
Churchill, Winston S. The Hinge of Fate. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950.
------. Closing the Ring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1951.
Hull, Cordell. The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. Vol. II. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1948.
Leahy, William D. I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time. New York: Whittlesey House, 1950.
Sherwood, Robert E. Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948.
Stimson, Henry L., and McGeorge Bundy. On Active Service in Peace and War. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948.
United States Department of State. United States Relations with China: With Special Reference to the Period 1944-1949. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949.
Background on the Chinese Army in Burma, and on Chinese political thinking and philosophy may be obtained from:
Ho Yung-chi. The Big Circle. New York: The Exposition Press, 1948.
Peck, Graham. Two Kinds of Time. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950.
On more strictly military matters are:
Appleman, Roy E., James M. Burns, Russell A. Gugeler, and John Stevens. Okinawa: The Last Battle, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1948.
Arnold, Henry H. Global Mission. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949.
Barclay, Cyril N. The History of the Cameronians. London: Siston Praed and Company, 1947.
Chennault, Claire L. Way of a Fighter. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1949.
Craven, Wesley Frank, and James Lea Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II: IV, The Pacific: Guadalcanal to Saipan, August 1942 to July 1944. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1950.
------. The Army Air Forces in World War II: V, The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953.
Eldridge, Fred. Wrath In Burma. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1946.
Fergusson, B. E. "Behind the Enemy's Lines in Burma," Journal of the Royal United Service Institution (August, 1946).
King, Ernest J., and Walter Muir Whitehill. Fleet Admiral King, A Naval Record. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1952.
Maclean, Fitzroy. Escape to Adventure. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1950.
Merrill's Marauders, AMERICAN FORCES IN ACTION. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1945.
Owen, Frank. The Campaign in Burma. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1946.
Ramgarh: Now It Can Be Told. Ranchi, India, 1945.
Report and Supplement for Combined Chiefs of Staff by the Supreme Allied Commander, South-East Asia, 1943-1946, Vice-Admiral Viscount Mountbatten of Burma. New Delhi, India, July 30, 1947.
Romanus, Charles F., and Riley Sunderland. Stilwell's Mission to China. UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953.
Seagrave, Gordon S. Burma Surgeon Returns. New York: W. W Norton & Company, Inc., 1946.
Stanley Clarke, E.B., and A.T. Tillott. From Kent to Kohima, Being the History of the 4th Battalion the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment (T. A.), 1939-1947. Aldershot, England, 1951.
Stilwell, Joseph W. The Stilwell Papers. Arranged and edited by Theodore H. White. New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc., 1948.
Showing the economic effects of the war on Japan are:
United States Strategic Bombing Survey. The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan's War Economy. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.
------. The Effect of Air Action on Japanese Ground Army Logistics. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947.
------. Japanese Air Power. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.
------. The Strategic Air Operation of Very Heavy Bombardment in the War Against Japan. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.
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Footnote
1. The date on all documents is determined by the time zone at the point of origin; the exception is classified messages, which are dated upon their receipt in Washington.