A Matter of Supply

More than ever before, China's future seemed to hang on the fighting in north Burma. As always, China's great need was supply; in north Burma this week there was hope that soon a small part of the need would be filled. If Chinese soldiers south of Myitkyina could fight the Burma-Ledo Road through, and U.S. engineers could follow them closely, as they had up to now, a route for supply from the U.S. via Calcutta and the Road would be opened to Chungking.

More important even than the Road was the 2,000-mile pipeline that went with it. Already the line, which carries both gasoline and oil, had been laid far into Burma. It had had steady use, had paid off at the fighting fronts with release of planes and transport from fuel chores. It now crossed three rivers, must still cross several more. Once completed, it would also free Hump flyers and the Road's truckers into China for transport of guns, munitions and food. Thousands of tons of ammunition and artillery await the day in India's stockpiles.

This week Chrysler's Dodge Division announced that shipment to India of several thousand trucks of special design for the Road was begun in October. Presumably the Army wanted China to know that help was near. While the trucks waited Lieut. General Daniel I. Sultan last week had Bhamo surrounded, needed only 65 more miles to link India with the Burma Road. Because the Japs' main bodies had been forced toward south Burma, there was some reason to hope that the 65 miles might not be too long or too bloody.

Now, more than ever, the Road was a military "must." The Japanese, with unbroken communications from Manchuria to the South China Sea, were bulging westward. With the capture of Ishan they ousted the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force from another airstrip. Under personal command of scrawny, high-powered Field Marshal Shunroku Hata, the Japanese now headed for the Chinese end of the Burma-Chungking Road. Only 180 miles away, they stood a good chance of cutting the Road below Chungking before the Chinese at the other end opened it up.

Fingers Crossed. U.S. Major General Albert C. Wedemeyer, in Chungking only a few weeks as "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell's successor, sized up the situation as serious but not irreparable. Said Wedemeyer: the Japanese are using a well-trained, well-equipped army in China led by "a very able commander" with the intention of fighting the war in Asia rather than on Japan's home soil. Nevertheless, he predicted that the Japanese could be defeated within a year after victory over Germany. The U.S., said he, would concentrate on supply for Chinese troops, continue air support for the Chinese Army. To Chiang Kai-shek he submitted recommendations ("simple and I hope sound") for immediate action against the enemy, kept his fingers crossed for speedy success in north Burma.

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