CHINA, BURMA, AND INDIA

...It cannot be denied also that if the Japanese succeed in capturing the airfields from which our planes have been taking off with supplies for China, they will strike another deadly blow and make futile all the hard work done under Gen...

...Indeed, the whole Chinese situation is highly alarming and unsatisfactory...

...As to the reactions of the populace to what is going on we have not been given the slightest inkling...

...Stilwell and Admiral Mountbatten this year...

...Our American press is now beginning to realize the importance of the Japanese invasion of India...

...To all intents and purposes there has been since December no war in China except for the raids of Gen...

...For, from the very beginning the British official bulletins have been such an absolute repetition of the incredible communiques published when the Japanese were conquering Malaya and Burma as to cause anybody who remembered those utterly false and misleading statements to feel the greatest anxiety...

...It was not necessary for the Bombay Times, a British-owned newspaper, to declare that the "publicity side of the Japanese offensive against Imphal has not been happily handled," and to urge that the public be given the real truth about the invasion and its seriousness...

...That possibility has probably passed, but there can be no denying the gravity of the Japanese invasion of India...

...The inflation has become so bad that messenger boys are asking more than $600 a week in the debased Chinese coinage, and the $50,000,000 in gold which we have actually sent to China has apparently been of no avail in checking the inflation, if it has arrived and really been applied to the purpose for which it was supposed to be given...

...Stilwell in opening up a new auxiliary road toward China...

...Of course we must hope that out of the confusion and general welter will come a Japanese defeat, for how they are provisioning their troops and how they were able to get artillery and large quantities of ammunition from Burma through the jungle into India is something that is very difficult to visualize at this moment...

...In consequence we have the most difficult area of battle to consider and judge, and the Bombay Times statement that the British are doing the same old stupid misleading of the public in its statements of the facts adds to the difficulty of getting a clear picture of what is happening...

...At least this student of affairs there has not seen one reference to it as yet...

...Although late reports are that the situation is somewhat improved, the result is that the Japanese are now menacing not only the railroads from Imphal south, but are threatening to cut off our Chinese and American troops operating under Gen...

...The Vital Question President Roosevelt boasted that we were flying about as much material into China by our wonderful American air-transport service over the Himalaya Mountains as had been previously taken over the Burma Road...

...They have "played it down," put it on inside pages, and featured the incessant raiding of Europe, while minimizing the seriousness of our defeat at Cassino...

...The moral effect of the cutting off of this service, which is obviously the prime objective of the whole Japanese invasion, upon the Chinese authorities will be very grave...

...It is the most important news in the progress of the war today, and there is no denying the fact that it was a brilliant military stroke, that it caught us and the British entirely unprepared and unsuspecting, and that if things do not go well it may bring the Japanese to within striking distance of the rich industrial area west of Calcutta, besides jeopardizing all that has been accomplished by Gen...

...It is further known that the illicit trade between Chungking and the puppet government in the former Peking has been steadily increasing, that there-is actually much business being done with the puppet government and therefore with Japan...

...Stilwell took very great chances in establishing parachute forces in the mountainous country of Burma, but so able an officer must have counted all the risks except probably this sudden eruption in the north of Burma...

...One more point: The vital question now is what will be the response of the Indian people to the Japanese invasion...

...Meanwhile the conditions in China get steadily worse...

...Stilwell, and other Allied forces, and perhaps making untenable the whole Mountbatten advance along the coast in the direction of Akyab and Rangoon...

...Distorting The Facts Gen...

...That is perhaps a good reason for not being too pessimistic, but the prevailing pessimism derives from British attitude and its resemblance to the shocking events of 1941-'42...

...Chennault's fliers...

...That was an absolute misstatement of fact which brought forth loud protests from the Chinese who simply could not understand such a crass misrepresentation...

...If the worse should, however, happen the effect upon China will be very serious...

...Then they boasted of having taken the city of Chungteh—American commentators declared that the Japanese had evacuated that city after completely destroying it...

...It is a fact that the Chinese Army has fired no shots against the Japanese since December...