Less spectacular than aerial deployment but more far-reaching in its implications was another U.S. military job done in China: the organization, equipment and training of an elite corps (39 divisions) within the vast mass of the Chinese Army (300 divisions).
The job was begun about a year ago, when U.S. Lieut. General Albert C. Wedemeyer, a brilliant staff man, took over the China Theater from General Joseph W. Stilwell. Its broad purpose was to give China a modern army that could meet the Japanese on equal terms. The work went forward under the title of Chinese Combat Command. It rapidly became one of the most remarkable training projects in military history.
For Victory. The “C.C.C.,” as its wits said, was really neither Chinese nor combat nor command. At its top was a red-faced, outspoken, thoroughly able U.S. field officer—Major General Robert Battery McClure, 49, native of Georgia and veteran of Guadalcanal. Under him, from brigadier generals to buck privates, a few thousand U.S. soldiers formed an advisory skeleton within China’s new army.
General McClure ran his show from a spacious compound in Kunming, a stone’s throw from the terminus of the Burma Road. He bellowed, spark-plugged and steamrollered the Chinese divisions within the C.C.C. from an amorphous lump into a cohesive weapon. He was assisted by such capable officers as Brigadier General George Olmstead, 44, a levelheaded lowan who ran G5; and Brigadier General Paul Caraway, 39, West Point-trained son of Arkansas’ Senator Hattie Caraway and an outstanding planner, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff.
The C.C.C. was divided into field units, each headed by a Chinese lieutenant general who was advised by an American brigadier general or a colonel. The field units branched off to army, divisional and regimental headquarters, each with its Chinese commander shadowed by an American counterpart. In the lowest rank G.I.’s taught their Chinese equals the operation of Garand rifles, flamethrowers, etc.
A general-staff school in Kunming instructed members of the Chinese General Staff. American medical officers trained alongside Chinese doctors. Veterinary, signal corps and transport schools taught American methods.
The Americans roughed it with the Chinese in the field. On training campaigns, they lived hard together, sweated out long marches, heat and sickness together, ate rice and slum together when U.S. rations ran short. Out of the prodding, teaching, learning and comradeship a new respect and understanding was fashioned between the Allied fighting men. And out of the traditionally primitive and inefficient material of the Chinese Army emerged a confident striking force.
For Unity. Last summer the new army was ready for action. With the utmost secrecy it prepared to push through the Japanese “lifeline” in South China, seize a port on the coast and thereby open the country for a U.S. landing. Suddenly the Japanese surrendered. The C.C.C. was denied both a victory and the recognition for which it had labored so long.
But last week the divisions trained and equipped by the C.C.C. were playing another role—one equally important to China’s destiny. They were the spearheads thrust by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek into North China and Manchuria to accept the Japanese surrender and to meet the military challenge of the Chinese Communists (see FOREIGN NEWS). They may well become the decisive factor in their nation’s civil war.
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