Susan in NC’s Reviews > Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-1945 > Status Update

Africa postponed, “the finger of destiny swung like a compass needle to Stilwell” for a China post... “Secwar” [Stimson] asked him how he felt about the mission. “I told him I’d go where I was sent.”…Stimson…wrote afterwards, “I was very favorably impressed by him. He knows China thoroughly and in half an hour gave me a better first hand picture of the valor of the Chinese armies then I had ever received before.”

“… China “was still in the eighteenth century.” Nevertheless that great and ancient country with its 500 million enduring people, however frustrated by endless misgovernment, was a geopolitical fact. Roosevelt wanted it on America’s side in the future.”

“ Stilwell, joined by his staff chiefs from the IIIrd Corps, worked on a plan of operations with its objective changing hourly. Was it to be Casablanca or Dakar? Iceland or the Canary Islands? What strength? What prospects? What support? What arms? What anticipated enemy action? All was uncertain and arguable. Alternates and variants were seized and discarded.”

“Stilwell was given stunning news of his new assignment: he had been chosen to command the first American offensive of the war in the form of Plan Black, a landing in French West Africa…Marshall had selected him for this… because he…considered him a masterly tactician, fertile, ingenious and confident; a student of military history, and excellent in training.”

“Suddenly he was summoned out of the frenzy. A call from Fourth Army woke him at 6:30 on the morning of December 22 to say he was ordered to Washington at once “to work on a war plan for some expeditionary force which [the caller] implied I was to command.” He was told he would be away for some time…After a hasty winding up of affairs he went home for a farewell visit and a premature Christmas with his family.”

“ Stilwell’s days were a succession of tours up and down the coast, conferring with mayors and the Marines and Navy, investigating rumors, protecting airfields, organizing warning procedures, answering queries, arranging billets for extra units sent from the East, trying to locate additional ammunition, while alarms and rumors continued.”

“Sitting at his desk in San Bernardino…biting his cigaret holder almost in two, he told the War Department he had enough small arms ammunition for a few hours of combat and practically none for artillery. When the officer at the Washington end promised to do “the best we can,” Stilwell roared, “The best you can! Good God, what the hell am I supposed to do? Fight ’em off with oranges?””

“Besides a population of 5 million, the region contained 80 percent of the nation’s aviation industry, all of it within naval gun range of ships at sea. Stilwell himself believed California beyond Japan’s reach but the weight of his responsibility caused a recurring “sinking feeling” at least once a day. Alarm and confusion were all around him…”

“Stilwell was responsible, under Lieutenant General John L. De Witt, commander of the Fourth Army, for the Southern Sector of the Western Defense Command covering the California coast down to the Mexican border. This was the area where invasion could come, whose defense, owing to the naval losses at Pearl Harbor, now depended on the unready Army.”

“No one had expected the Japanese to fling themselves upon the American battle fleet 3,300 miles across the Pacific in an act of such extraordinary daring. The boldness of the offensive and its awful success was as astonishing as it was frightening. The Japanese…were now suddenly credited with awesome and fearsome capacities and expected to descend upon the United States at any moment.”