"Convoys" to China

The U.S. has searched its soul about how to assure U.S. goods on their risky way to Britain, but with no to-do the U.S. is now sending both men and machines to fight in order to assure U.S. goods on their equally risky way to China.

China's only unblockaded supply route for U.S. goods is the Burma Road. Since the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China last January the Road has been within 350 miles of Japanese airfields. The Road is peculiarly vulnerable: it passes over two bridges slung precariously in gorges of the Mekong and Salween Rivers, and as it winds around the shoulders of huge hills it is as easy to see as a yellow ribbon binding a pile of green bundles. That it has not been permanently cut has been due to the halfheartedness and poor aim of Japanese bombers, and to the amazing Chinese capacity for regeneration. Thousands of coolies mend steel bridges with bamboo and rope, fill craters and landslides with little basketfuls of dirt.

The best way to keep U.S. supplies running over the Burma Road is to keep Japanese planes away from it. Chinese anti-aircraft equipment and technique are inadequate. The Chinese fighter Air Force is practically nonexistent. Only solution, therefore: air patrols by U.S. planes flown by U.S. fighter pilots. The Japanese have stationed no more than 300 planes in Indo-China. Chinese experts consider that to keep these away from the Burma Road would require at most 200 pursuit planes in capable hands; at the present rate of Japanese attack, half that many.

Last week half that many--100 Curtiss P-40 planes--had reached Burma. For the past few months tall, bronzed American airmen have been quietly slipping away from eastand west-coast ports, making their way to Asia. Pilots to fly the P-4Os and ground crews to maintain them will soon be scattered over southwest China from the Burma border to Chungking. These pilots were not just a crew of barnstormers turned warstormers. They had been, until recently, crack U.S. Army Air Corps pilots. To take on this combat job they had been allowed to resign their Air Corps posts, enlist in the Chinese Air Force on the understanding that their U.S. Army seniorities would not be affected. Another somewhat whimsical technical understanding is that they will not "take the offensive" against the Japanese Air Force, but will merely defend the Road.

When this "convoy" system has been set up, next projected step is in air-transport system, which ought to be far more efficient and far speedier than uncertain Chinese gasoline, mule-and coolie-propelled transport. Chinese in Washington are desperately trying to obtain priorities for 24 U.S. transport planes, which will operate from Myitkyina, Burma, the railhead north of Mandalay, to a point two-thirds of the way up the Burma Road.

Convoys to China are designed to serve a double purpose: enable Chinese troops to take advantage of their long seasoning and go on the offensive, enable U.S. pilots to get a little seasoning against the day when they may have to go on the defensive.

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