Cold Comfort

The weather last week came to the aid of Allied forces in southwestern China. It was bitter weather, and it brought new suffering to ill-clad, undernourished lao ping (China's G.I. Joe). But it also gave China's armies a priceless gift of time. The enemy was trying to stabilize his positions after being driven back down the Kweiyang-Liuchow road and railway, clear out of Kweichow Province. At week's end, the two armies were digging into the frozen ground around Hochih.

Sleet-laden clouds hung like a leaden shroud over all the Kwangsi-Kweichow border area. Rime coated the tents and hutments of Chinese, Americans and Japanese alike. Icicles hung from the wings of Major General Claire L. Chennault's fighter-bombers, standing silent on the runways. For a hundred miles in every direction, columns of refugees and soldiers trudged through the hill paths and over roads broken by battle, their skin cracking with frostbite.

Chungking believed that the Japanese at Hochih were still overextended; that although they might hold there indefinitely, it would be some time before they could resume the drive into Free China. Chungking's new War Minister, lean, smooth General Chen Cheng, and American officers, with whom he was on better terms than his predecessor, strove to wring every possible advantage from the frosty breathing spell.

Letters to the Editor. China's press and leaders suddenly became articulate about the plight of patient lao ping. Said General Feng Yu-hsiang: "The military set-backs will do us more good than harm. The more defeats we suffer, the more daring is the press in expressing its opinions. Previously we knew little about the fact that our soldiers were underfed and thinly clad." In a national campaign to "comfort the troops," great sums of money were collected. Little was donated direct to the Government for disbursement by slow-moving bureaucrats. But millions of Chinese dollars (on current approved rate, each worth a U.S. nickel) were sent every day to the independent newspaper, Ta Rung Pao, with such covering letters as: "I am giving the money to our soldiers through you, because I know that through you the soldiers will get it."

General Chen was making a spectacular start as War Minister. He announced his determination to abolish thousands of the 20,394 sub-organizations of the National Military Council. He laid plans to train 30 to 40 divisions in 1945, to equip each of them with U.S. artillery. Whereas each Chinese army now comprised three understrength divisions, Chen planned armies built of four full-strength, "square" divisions of four regiments each.

For the U.S., heavy-burdened Major General Albert C. Wedemeyer promised more aid to China. Hump-flown supplies have constantly increased. Means of distributing them more rapidly to front-line Chinese troops have been established through a new, topnotch supply organization. Wedemeyer began to surround himself with staff officers of a caliber not available to displaced General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell in China's earlier crises. For China's war effort, there was new life, new hope and heaven-sent weather.

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