Thunder Out of China

THUNDER OUT OF CHINA by THEODORE H. WHITE and ANNALEE JACOBY LONDON VICTOR GOLLANGZ LTD 1947 To DAVID H. WHITE PRINTED IN CHEAT BRITAIN BY PURNBLL AND SONS, LTD. T, U PAULTON SOMSaSXT AND LONDON CONTENTS A Note To the Reader page 6 Introduction 7 Chapter i. Chungking, a Point in Time 13 a. The Peasant 28 3. The Rise of the Kuomintang 40 4. War 53 5. Stalemate 71 6. Campaign in the South Seas 84 7. Government by Trustee 97 8. Chiang Kai-shek The Peoples Choice 116 9. Doomed Men The Chinese Army 128 10. StilwellsWar 140 11. The Honan Famine 159 12. Disaster in the East 171 13. The Chinese Communists 188 14. The Stilwell Crisis 202 15. Politics in Yenan 213 1 6. Patrick J. Hurley 228 17. 1945 The Year of the Great Promise 240 1 8. Utopia Stillborn 251 19. Victory and Civil War 259 20. China and the Future 276 21. Tentatively, Then . . . 286 Index 301 Maps China End Paper Stilwells Strategy 15 J East China Campaign i 4 5 A NOTE TO THE READER THIS BOOK is the product of two minds, and almost all the chapters are the result of the closest collaboration between the two authors. Sometimes only one of us was present to observe and report the events noted, and in such cases the first person singular in a few chapters refers to Theodore H. White. We wish to thank many people for their aid in reading, editing, and preparing this manuscript for publication. Among those who have assisted most are Jack Belden, Robert Machol, Margaret Durdin, Nancy Bean, Carol Whitmore, and Gladys White, who have helped enormously in weeding out the errors in the book. Such errors as may remain and the conclusions and opinions expressed here are, however, our responsibility. We wish further to acknowledge our thanks toTime In corporated for permission to reproduce material and portions of dispatches that we sent to them in our capacity as staff cor respondents. The opinions and conclusions of this book are, however, the opinions and conclusions of the two authors and in no sense reflect the policy or opinions of Time Incorporated. We also thank the Associated Press for permission to reproduce its first dispatch announcing the attack on Pearl Harbour. The maps for this book have been graciously prepared by Frank Stockman, Anthony Sodaro, and Allan McNab. T. H. W. and A.. August 15, 1946 INTRODUCTION No LAST SHOT was fired in this war there was no last stand, no last day dividing peace from strife. Half a dozen radio stations scattered about the face of the globe crackled sparks of electricity from capital to capital and into millions of humble homes peace came through the air and was simultaneous over all the face of the earth. The great ceremony on the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay was anticlimax, an obsolete rite performed with primitive ceremony for a peace that had not come and a war that had not ended. The greatest fleet in the world lay amidst the greatest ruins in the world under a dark and cheerless canopy of clouds. The U. S. S. Iowa was on one side of the Missouri the U. S. S. South Dakota on the other. A tattered flag with thirty-one stars was hung on one of the turrets 6f the battleship the flag of the infant republic, which Commodore Perry brought with him to the same bay almost a hundred years before. Above the mainmast fluttered the battle flag of the Union of today. The deck was crowded with the apostles of the American genius the technicians. There were technicians of heavybombardment, technicians of tactical bombardment, technicians of amphibious landings, technicians of carrier-borne war. These men were artists at the craft of slaughter, trained to perfection by four years of war. The ship itself was the apotheosis of all American skills, from the cobweb of radar at the foretop above the grey slabs of armour, carefully compounded of secret and mysterious alloys, below. It was an American show...