Joseph Stilwell

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General Joseph Stilwell (1943)

Joseph Warren Stilwell (born March 19, 1883 in Palatka , Florida ; † October 12, 1946 in San Francisco , California ), called Vinegar Joe (German "Vinegar Joe") or Uncle Joe (German "Uncle Joe"), was an American four-star general . During World War II he held prominent, strategically important management positions, especially in the Republic of China , Burma and India .

Life

Stilwell had a brilliant military career. Highly decorated as early as the First World War , it was one of the few four-star generals in the Second World War. Highly esteemed at the outset by Franklin D. Roosevelt - and even more so by George C. Marshall - he was the highest-ranking American officer in the Sino-Burmese theater of war. Stilwell was fluent in Chinese and Japanese .

Stilwell, who was initially also intended as one of the commanders for the European theater of war, was sent to China - against his wishes - because he was the only high-ranking officer in the US Army who spoke Chinese. He was assigned to Chiang Kai-shek as chief of staff. When the fighting in Burma developed and the American leadership set up a command for the theater of war China-Burma-India ( China Burma India Theater , CBI), Stilwell was also used there as commander-in-chief . Well-known US units under his command were the Flying Tigers , the transport planes and bombers that flew " The Hump ", the pioneers who built Ledo Street , and the Merrill’s Marauders volunteer group . Stilwell had Chinese units trained in division strength in India . These units were later used successfully in the battle against the Japanese army advancing on India .

Brigadier General Frank Merrill (left), Commander of Merrill's Marauders, and Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell (right) at a meeting near Naubum , Burma

Joseph ("Essig-Joe") Stilwell is one of the most controversial and legendary generals in American military history. Although he sometimes lacked tact and diplomatic flair , he was recognized for his tactical work, his willingness to share the hardships of the common soldier in the field and at the front, and especially for his persistent commitment to the interests of the United States on the Chinese Burmese theater of war highly valued. He gained fame through the construction of Ledo Street, also called Stilwell Road , which was supposed to secure the US-American supplies to the national Chinese troops of Chiang Kai-shek for the fight against Japan in China, through the "heroic march through Burma" , a retreat and rescue march through an impassable area with 100 infantrymen , as well as through his diaries (Stilwell Papers), which - published by his wife after his death - made him an important contemporary witness.

career

Stilwell graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1904 . During the First World War he was a reconnaissance officer with the IV. US Corps and involved in planning the offensive at Saint-Mihiel . Stilwell was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his services .

In the early 1930s, Colonel ( Colonel ) George C. Marshall - later commander in chief of all American forces - was the head of the academic division of the Infantry School at Fort Benning and brought Joseph Stilwell to the school as head of the tactics division.

During the so-called “Benning Revolution”, Marshall and Stilwell taught among other things, contrary to the teaching methods of other schools, to forego long written orders and rather to give a rough direction and let the commanders take care of the rest on the battlefield. Stilwell's motto on the battlefield was therefore also: “ Move, Shoot, Communicate ” (German: “move, shoot, communicate”). So he was also an opponent of complicated maneuvers and plans, which rubbed off on his teaching. He wasn't concerned about whether his students did a perfect essay, but rather how they acted in problematic situations, such as when they got caught in a trap.

Later Major General James M. Gavin said of Stilwell and his teaching methods:

"He was a superb officer in that position, hard and tough worker, and he demanded much, always insisting that anything you ask the troops to do, you must be able to do yourself."

"He was a great officer in the position of [head of tactics], [a] hard and steadfast worker, and he asked a lot, always insisting that whatever you give the troops to do, you have to be able to do what you give the troops."

After the First World War, Stilwell was used three times in China. During this time he became fluent in Chinese. From 1935 to 1939 he was US military attaché in Nanjing . From July 1940 to September 1941 he commanded the 7th Infantry Division .

In the early days after the USA entered the Second World War, the government was looking for a commanding officer who could be deployed in East Asia - especially in the CBI theater of war (China-Burma-India). He should be familiar with the complex social and political problems that await him between the British-Indian Army and the Chinese national forces under their political and military commander-in-chief Chiang Kai-shek . In addition, he should be able to form a military command on the Chinese side that could assert itself against the Japanese. Although Stilwell was only a one-star general at the beginning of the war, he had all the requirements for the mission. To be on an equal footing with the British and Chinese officers at the management level, he was promoted two degrees. As Lieutenant General (Lieutenant General) he started the trip to India in early February 1942.

Stilwell with Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Song Meiling on April 19, 1942

The first difficulties led to ambiguities and disagreements between the Americans and the British about the power politics interests in the CBI, which came to light in mutually blocking or inefficient command structures. The CBI command was not intended as a hierarchically functioning headquarters, but more as a body responsible for the administration of the military units stationed there. Stilwell tried to break through the line of authority and communicated directly with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on operational matters until command passed to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten , Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces in Southeast Asia .

Another position of Stilwell was operational control of the Northern Combat Area Command (NCAC), which held the northern Allied front in Burma. Stilwell was therefore entrusted with various tasks that required him to be present in a wide variety of locations. He had to be chief of staff of Chiang Kai-shek in Chongqing , for the CBI in Kandy , Ceylon , and as NCAC commander near the front line in Burma. The irrational allied command structures in connection with Stilwell's loyalty to principles led, among other things, to arguments between him and the commander of the 11th Army Group , General George Giffard . As NCAC commander he was under Giffard, but as a member of the high command he was Giffard's superior because the NCAC was under Giffard's command and not directly under the high command. It was similar with Claire Chennault , the commander of the Flying Tigers , who often ignored the uncomfortable Stilwell and spoke directly to Chiang Kai-shek. Unlike Chennault and Chiang Kai-shek, Stilwell took the position that the air war against the Japanese could not be won without the support of infantry to secure the air bases, a prediction that would later come true.

In the Indian capital, he had long and intensive talks with the British, who expressed their distrust of the Chinese and disappointed his hopes for military equality for the Chinese. The British imperial interests and the arrogant and anti-China demeanor of British officers in the CBI arena had to be opposed to Stilwell, who had championed the interests of the Chinese people since his time as a diplomat. So he tried to convince Chiang Kai-shek to place the Chinese army under the command of the US military in order to train the malnourished and poorly equipped divisions and to use the means and weapons supplied by the US ( lend lease policy ) that have been hoarded and misappropriated by smugglers and corrupt warlords . After 1941, Stilwell wanted a powerful, offensive Chinese national army, Chiang, on the other hand, represented the traditional Chinese position of a defensive defense army and was reluctant to allow the USA to become militarily active in the CBI.

After the Chinese ports and, most recently, the Burmese port city of Rangoon, fell into Japanese hands, Stilwell strongly advocated the construction of a supply route between Assam in India via Burma and on to Kunming in China, in order to provide a supply route for American military supplies to those against Japan to secure fighting Chinese national troops. These deliveries took the sea route from the east coast of the United States through the Atlantic Ocean, past Africa, and across the Indian Ocean to Karachi in what is now Pakistan . From there it went on by (mostly single-track) rail across the Indian subcontinent, initially without the connection over the Haora Bridge , which was only completed in 1943 , to Assam in northeast India, where the deliveries were finally made by means of a dangerous and loss-making airlift - the so-called. Hump - reached China via the Himalayas. The last section, the airlift, was finally replaced after a long period of construction by the road, the construction of which was carried out with American material and personnel support, led through extremely rough terrain and was extremely difficult to maintain.

Due to Chiang Kai-shek's blockade, the pressure from the American side against the background of a continuing Japanese advance in southern China became increasingly stronger and more uncompromising, which increasingly worsened the relationship between their representative Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek. When Stilwell pleaded for the resources of the lend-lease policy to be divided between the Kuomintang and the Communist Red Army in defense against the Japanese , Chiang Kai-shek feared that arming the Communists would inevitably lead to the loss of his leadership position. Chiang Kai-shek saw the communists as the greater threat and the Japanese ranked second. He hoped, by adopting a wait-and-see and defensive stance, that the Allies would induce the Japanese army to retreat without Chinese participation. Stilwell, on the other hand, wanted to persuade Chiang to form a common front against the Japanese. However, it turned out to be an impossible undertaking to reduce Chiang's fear of the communists and to work towards a negotiated solution. Ultimately, Stilwell's diplomatic efforts did not always fail because of the Kuomintang's lack of political and military resolve. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered Stilwell back to the United States in October 1944, officially because of purely personal differences with Chiang Kai-shek, but actually because of political concessions to him and a waning interest in a decisive crackdown on the CBI scene. Since the American strategy of pushing Japan back in the Pacific, implemented militarily by General Mac Arthur, was very successful, Chiang Kai-shek's importance as an opponent of Japan in China diminished. As the Americans withdrew from the CBI, the Kuomintang quickly lost influence. Despite their numerical and military superiority over Mao's troops, they were finally defeated and withdrew to Formosa, Taiwan . Stilwell's approach might have given the relationship between Maoist China and the US a different character.

Stilwell's relationship to Great Britain, and in particular to the British army command in India and Burma, was tense throughout the war: Stilwell viewed the "Limeys", as he contemptuously called the British, as an anachronistic monarchy that was inefficient for the reconstitution of a colonial British empire that was already gone fought for what purpose Stilwell refused to let US troops and funds abused. The Viceroy Lord Wavell was a tired, beaten man for him, and he considered Commander-in-Chief Mountbatten to be a vain self-promoter. For their part, the British saw Stilwell as a primitive daredevil who lacked insight into strategic relationships. Despite Stilwell's anglophobia, there was a good relationship between him and the British General Slim, who was the leader of the war in Burma. In recent research, the view is sometimes taken that Stilwell's reputation was in large part a creation of the American media, which stylized him as the " MacArthur of the little man". Roosevelt did not share Stilwell's sober assessment of the national Chinese leadership. Stilwell's position between Chiang Kai-shek in Kunming, the British in Delhi and Kandy, and the by no means monolithic US political and military leadership was an extremely difficult one.

Stilwell (left) in conversation with other US officers on a destroyer before or after the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945

At the end of the war, Stilwell took command of the 10th US Army in the Battle of Okinawa , as his predecessor had perished on the island. In 1946 he was given supreme command of the 6th US Army in the western defense area. On October 12, 1946, he died in San Francisco on gastric cancer . After being recalled from Kunming , he never returned to China.

His son, Brigadier General Joseph W. Stilwell Jr. , known as "Cider Joe", served as the commandant of a supply unit during the early years of the Vietnam War . He was killed in a plane crash near Hawaii in July 1966 .

Awards

Selection of decorations, sorted based on the Order of Precedence of Military Awards :

Trivia

Stilwell coined the pseudo-Latin motto Illegitimi non carborundum in the US military .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christopher Bayly / Tim Harper: Forgotten Armies. Britain's Asian Empire and the War with Japan. Penguin Press, London, 2005 ISBN 978-0-14-029331-9 pp. 271 f.

literature

  • David Rooney: Stilwell the Patriot: Vinegar Joe, the Brits and Chiang Kai-Shek . Greenhill Books, July 2005, ISBN 1-85367-632-2 .
  • Barbara Tuchman: Sand Against the Wind, America and China 1911–1945 . Fischer-Tb, ISBN 3-596-24388-2 .
  • Theodore H. White (Ed.): The Stilwell Papers , Schocken Books, New York 1972.

Web links

Commons : Joseph Stilwell  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Stilwell, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stilwell, Joseph Warren (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American general
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Palatka , Florida
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1946
Place of death San Francisco , California