Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-1945

by Barbara W. Tuchman

The 66th Regiment took the Jambu Bum on March 19, his sixty-first birthday. By some miracle in the woods, a large chocolate cake inscribed in icing “Happy Birthday Uncle Joe” graced the occasion, served from a makeshift camp table under tall trees. Wearing an old sweater, Stilwell cut the cake with a bolo knife and handed out pieces to officers and enlisted men as they filed past. His face had changed in two years. In contrast to the hard healthy look at the start of the war, he appeared old and worn with deep lines around mouth and eyes and a white patch in the middle of his hair. He was suffering from a liver ailment but, bent on reaching his goal in time, he refused to be hospitalized. A birthday telegram from Marshall assured him that “your work may well be of historic importance in this war and the future of China” and his staff in Chungking radioed, “You have the admiration, affection and loyalty of every individual in your command.” Roundup published an analysis of CBI’s controversial commander which concluded, “Someday when the war is only a filthy memory the whole story of Stilwell in Asia will be told, the epic of an unpretentious man who went forth sword in hand and slew the dragons of adversity in their dens.”