Yet on February 6, 1942, Marshall sent a message to General John Magruder, the head of the American military mission in Chongqing, that made Stilwell’s role clear: “American forces in China and Burma will operate under Stilwell’s direction . . . but General Stilwell himself will always be under the command of the Generalissimo.”35 The gap between the official understanding of Stilwell’s role and Stilwell’s sense of his own position would soon come to assume crucial importance.
