Moderators - this post may need to be relocated to the cafe as it has probably strayed too far from the original idea, not that I'm complaining though...
Mark... I have a healthy respect, nay, admiration for General Stilwell and have, through necessary research for my father's book, had to study him at length... The "Stilwell Papers" is an obvious start for direct research, but the best general (no pun intended) overview is almost certainly Barbara Tuchman's "Sand Against The Wind..."
Stilwell was a victim of his own opinions, someone brave enough to stand up and speak the truth, and he paid the ultimate price, dying before he had a chance to vindicate himself. He fully believed in the Chinese fighting force, more than they did themselves, something that Mao Zedong also understood, but with CSK always looking over his shoulder at the growing Communist threat, this opportunity was lost, and Stillwell was sent home, in disgrace...
The direct relating of his influence on my father's predicement at "Blackpool", which was an unmitigated military disaster - too close to the front, no escape route, no supplies (monsoon season), the Japanese statement that "All Chindit's will be executed, no prisoners will be taken", and the fact that they had blocked the Japanese supply route and they wanted them out - and that Vinegar "That'll burn the Limey's up" Joe believed Masters' (commander of 111th Brigade) to be "a coward" for wanting to retreat - they were all but wiped out...
The biggest problem he had was believing that the only effective American presence on the ground ("Merrill's Marauders" - check out Charlton Ogburn's book - probably best direct research I have found) was "had it", even scouring hospitals to try and send people "back to the front" when they were "finished" - as long as one American remained standing, he was not going to give the "Limeys" an inch of respect... He detested the "upper-class" - funny that, so did my dad - never even considered himself to be a Brit... when questioned about Royalty, he would comment on the Germanic influence and the contentious to Scotland 6th verse of the National Anthem, by saying, "They are not my Royal Family; I am not British, I am not Scottish, I am not even a Highlander... I am an Islander..."
The major flying influence for the CBI area of my studies was Lt Col Cochran and the 1st Air Commando Group
The phrase, “Any place, anytime, anywhere”, in use in some US aviation circles, is reputably attributable to General Orde Wingate, the Chindit commander who died in a B25 accident in Burma in 1944…
Uwe... This will take longer... and it will have to be grim... any quotes are paraphrasing from memory - it would take too long for the purpose of this response to be completely accurate, to the letter...
Most Europeans (I will exclude you here, that would surprise me too much) do not even know that Japan was already at War (I always capitalise that word) in 1939, occupying a significant proportion of the Chinese mainland (including Manchuria and a selection of coastal points including Shanghai), also Taiwan and Korea...
Genocide/Democide…? post 1945 Chinese estimates of deaths attributed to the 2nd Sino-Japanese War between 20 and 35 million – this has been viewed as “Democide”. Estimates of Genocide vary wildly too (3 to 10 million are variations I have found).
There were “Experimental Stations” (ref- “Unit 731” for probably the worst example), equally as grim as anything discovered in Europe, far too grim to post details here, but I don’t know of many US or British airmen that were supplied to a German university and used for vivisection… (ref to a B29 that crashed on the Japanese mainland in 1945)
I do not remember any cannibalism coming up widely in German War history, it would be so utterly reprehensible to the Germanic (and Nazi) pschye and to that of most Westerners; this was widespread in the Pacific and, to a lesser degree, the CBI, especially when they were at their most desperate (research – “Australian War Crimes Tribunal – cannibalism”, amongst others, if you wish a quick find); there was a point of view that it was "frowned upon to eat the flesh of your comrades, but acceptable to eat your enemy"; the most notable AWCT item that sprang out to me was an Oz POW who had his liver cut out and was then slung in a ditch, still living, whilst they diced, fried and served his liver to the Officers - the viewpoint was that this would "empower you with the strength and spirit of your enemy"... a “Warrior Race” more Klingon than the Klingons…
How about the enforced Korean/Burmese/Chinese "comfort women"...? Widespread throughout the Pacific Rim and CBI… My father’s brigade came across one camp and, “Scattered them to the jungle, too tired to think of anything else…”
Most do not know that “Brutality” was rife throughout the Japanese chain-of-command, getting more brutal the further it went down, which was a significant change between the Wars. To avoid “soiling their hands”, Korean guards were used in many POW camps, who were treated barely better that the POW’s, so who could they kick…?
It would not be too hard to conclude that as soon as America starting supplying military-aid ("Lease-Lend") to the UK they would be deemed to be a threat to Japan, and therefore Pearl Harbor an inevitable and (dare I say it) brilliant pre-emptive strike - the mistake is also obvious - "too many fronts"... (Don't get me wrong here, USofA cuzzies) America is like a dozing bear or bull, that will quite comfortably dominate its surroundings, but slap it's butt... the problem with present day issues is the beast trying to fight an insect that has stung it -
there are just too many individuals to try and fight... the only answer is a "Fly-Screen", imo... drastic…? Yes, but the 2 POV’s are alien to each-other, and I see no way of changing this…
General MacArthur was primarily responsible for keeping Emporor Hirohito in power (as a figurehead during transition) but isn't it ironic that, as far as I am aware, he was the last living War-time leader... and he never publicly apologised for what they did... that would have helped the healing process...
“Little Boy” and “Fat Man” were differing weapons (Uranium and Plutonium, respectively) and it could be viewed that “why waste it, now it’s here…?” LB was a “direct hit” – FM missed, the force being channeled back through a valley… I can only presume that it was an experiment and the PTB’s took an opportunity to exploit the moment – how many years of hard research did that save them… (considering your background, Uwe, I presume you know about the case going through the British courts at present…? Re British research and troop exposure - Bikini)
We all have our cross to bear - the English (and the Christians) are now paying for the "Failed Crusades" - I fully understand why my late father respected the German people, but I also understand those that cannot forgive the Germans - I had a friend who's father (also now passed) who was in the first wave of troops to over-run one of the death camps (Belsen?) who held similar views to my father...
I have not relished the research I have had to do on this subject, and I am by no means an expert, but it has opened my eyes to the cruelty we do as Nations…
None of us should be responsible for the "sins of the father...", but it is our responsibility not to let them re-occur… something that “big-business” fails to understand, in the main…
Whoah… that was cathartic…
Ps I have had several comments re “when will the book be available…?” All it will do (if published) is point people in the direction of further research, but I do believe it has the makings of a last great unmade War Movie… even down to the end, a wounded survivor of a massacre being flown out of “the Jungle” (Lake Indawgyi) in a Sunderland Flying Boat… not a joke, a fact, 2 of them, nicknamed “Daisy and Gert”, and I am aware of the last flying example being based in Florida and being owned by the wonderfully named Kermit Weeks…
Pps I may re-edit and expand, as reqd… not enough time to edit…
ppps sudden thought... an excerpt from my book - I'll finish this with a quote that centres on Charlton Ogburn's book on Merrill's Marauders and leaving John"Jack" Masters with the final words, to give you a flavour of what Burma was...
INTO BURMA – “BROADWAY”…
My voyage of discovery continued as I dipped into more and more reference works. In the book “The Maurauders”, by Charlton Ogburn, a man who fought with Colonel Hunter and General Merrill…
When I first read Brigadier Bernard Ferguson’s introduction (page vi) to the British edition, he referenced the following…
"In all the essentials of the story, and in scores of details, Mr Ogburn casually and without knowing it says Shibboleth to the initiates. If nothing else in his book proved it, the twenty lines which he quotes from one of his own letters, on page 12, would satisfy any former Chindit. Sight, sound, smell, sweat; the precious little pleasures and the minor irritations that became gigantic; the weight of the pack, the squelching of the boots; the heat and the cold, the sun and the rain, the rare contrasting moments of despair and exhilaration; the curious reactions of the pit of the stomach, the book responds to all tests…”
I had to go straight to page 12, to Charlton Ogburn’s quote…
"I don’t know how to convey the effects of the past three months experience. It would be easy to overdo its nightmarish aspects, for we had much to be grateful for – a temperate climate, generally fair weather, and hazards rather less than American troops had to endure in Africa and Italy. And of course one adjusts to almost any way of life and can come to derive really tremendous pleasure from the occasional opportunity to spend the night on the bamboo floor of a basha instead of on a wet hillside, and from a situation that permits one to have fires after dark, ro from those rare times when one can actually eat one’s fill and when enough coffee has been provided so that one can make three cups of it a day if one wishes without having to do without it later. Then there were those times when we laid up for a day alongside a beautiful clear river and we could swim and shave and wash our filthy uniforms. There were great compensations, and I think one laughed and joked about as much as one does normally. And yet it would not be enough to say that it was the worst experience I have ever been through. It was so incomparably the worst that all the time I could hardly believe in the rest of my life at all…"
If I ever find a better summation than that, I will include it here… No? Nothing else? Then let’s move on to Burma and “Broadway”…
Major John “Jack” Masters, from chapter 13 of “The Road Past Mandalay”, on the Japanese Army: -
"They are the bravest people I have ever met. In our armies, any of them, nearly every Japanese would have had a Congressional Medal or a Victoria Cross. It is the fashion to dismiss their courage as fanaticism but this only begs the question. They believed in something, and they were willing to die for it, for any smallest detail that would help to achieve it. What else is bravery? They pressed on their attacks when no other troops in the world would have done so, when all hope of success was gone; except that it never really is, for who can know what the enemy has suffered, what is his state of mind? The Japanese simply came on, using all their skill and rage, until they were stopped, by death. In defence they held their ground with a furious tenacity that never faltered. They had to be killed, company by company, squad by squad, man by man, to the last. By 1944 many thousands of Allied soldiers had fallen unwounded into enemy hands as prisoners, because our philosophy and our history have taught us to accept the idea of surrender. By 1944 the number of Japanese captured unwounded, in all theatres of war, probably did not total one hundred. On the Burma front it was about six. For the rest, they wrote beautiful little poems in their diaries, and practised bayonet work on their prisoners. Frugal and bestial, barbarous and brave, artistic and brutal, they were the “dushman” and we now set about, in all seriousness, the task of killing every one of them…"
