Foreword

This volume, third of a subseries, carries the story of the Army's anomalous mission in China-Burma-India from the recall of General Stilwell in October 1944 to V-J Day. It deals with problems at all levels from platoon to theater, from tactics to diplomacy. The postwar concern of the Army with military assistance gives a special interest to the military advisory system that General Wedemeyer developed in the China theater to strengthen and guide the forces of Chiang Kai-shek. Stopping with the end of the war against Japan, Time Runs Out in CBI necessarily leaves the Wedemeyer story incomplete. But the authors' utilization of hitherto unused Army sources throws a light on the China tangle that should make this book useful to makers of policy, as well as interesting to readers of the history of our times.

  RICHARD W. STEPHENS
Washington, D. C. Maj. Gen., U.S.A.
25 April 1958 Chief of Military History

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The Authors

From 1946 to 1953 the authors formed the CBI Section of the staff engaged in writing the history of the U.S. Army in World War II.

Charles F. Romanus received the degree of Master of Arts in History at the University of Illinois in 1937 and pursued his work for the doctorate at Louisiana State University, where he was a teaching fellow in history. Entering the Army in 1943 he was commissioned in March 1945 and became a historical officer in the headquarters of the China Theater. He is now Chief of the Organizational History and Honors Branch of the Office, Chief of Military History.

Riley Sunderland graduated from the University of Chicago in 1937. In April 1942 he was called to active duty as a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery, and from July 1945 to May 1946 was in the Historical Section, Headquarters, India-Burma Theater, in New Delhi. After leaving OCMH in 1955, he entered the field of operations research and is now studying mathematics at The George Washington University, Washington, D. C.

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Preface

The history of China, Burma, and India, as U.S. theaters of operations in World War II, ended as it began. As in 1942, so in 1945 the Americans in China were still attempting to improve the Chinese Army so that China might be a more effective partner in the United Nations war against Japan. Other Americans in India and Burma were making an effort to fly supplies to their American and Chinese comrades and to help drive the Japanese from North Burma so that still more supplies might go to China by road and pipeline.

The volume begins with the division of the China-Burma-India Theater into the India-Burma and China Theaters in October 1944 and ends with a Japanese surrender that cut across the accelerating Sino-American preparations in China. The scope of this subseries has required covering both of the successor theaters of CBI in a single volume. Though an effort has been made to do justice to the India-Burma Theater, its mission of supporting the China Theater dictated subordinating the account of its activities to the story of the latter theater. Perhaps the most significant story told in this volume describes the efforts of Lt. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer and his staff to create an effective system for Sino-American co-operation in building a better Chinese Army.

This volume is the last of a three-volume subseries that describes a continuing flow of events and the space given to the several topics treated within reflects that fact. The authors have tried to make the volume reasonably complete within itself, yet the perspective in which events have appeared to them will emerge more clearly if viewed in the light of the first two volumes.

Like its predecessors, the present volume is written at the level of theater headquarters in the India-Burma and China Theaters. The emphasis is on the over-all roles of the organizations comprised in the Army Ground Forces and the Army Service Forces. The authors have not attempted to duplicate the efforts of the U.S. Air Force in presenting its own story of air operations in China, Burma, and India, or of the several technical services in telling their histories. Moreover, the other nations that took part in the closing phases of World War II in the Pacific must perforce be left to tell their own stories from their own records.

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The authors were greatly aided by the privilege of examining that portion of the papers of Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Hurley, U.S.A., Ret., which relates to his services in China. Since General Hurley was Presidential representative and then Ambassador to China in 1944 and 1945, his papers are essential to any serious study of the period. The personal notebook and private papers of Brig. Gen. Ernest F. Easterbrook gave an interesting and helpful glimpse of Burma operations through the eyes of an infantry regimental commander.

General Wedemeyer, with Brig. Gen. Paul Caraway, Col. B. F. Taylor, and Mr. William MacAfee, offered their recollections in the form of detailed critiques of the draft manuscript. The critiques are valuable, representing as they do the reactions of the sometime China Theater commander, one of his principal planners, the secretary of his general staff, and his aide. The former Chief of Staff, China Theater, Maj. Gen. Robert B. McClure, also commented at considerable length on the draft manuscript. The comments of other participants who read the manuscript formed a rich and varied source of material.

Among the authors' professional colleagues, grateful acknowledgment is due Brigadier Michael R. Roberts, D.S.O., of the Cabinet Office Historical Section. Brigadier Roberts examined the account of British operations from the standpoint of a skilled soldier and accomplished author. Our task would have been impossible without the generous help of many archivists in the Departmental Records Branch, The Adjutant General's Office, and in the General Reference Office of the Office, Chief of Military History.

The distinguished maps in all three volumes of the subseries were prepared under the supervision of Mr. Wsevolod Aglaimoff, Deputy Chief Historian for Cartography.

We wish to record our appreciation of the pains taken by our editor and copy editor to bring this book to print. Miss Ruth Stout, who edited the first and second volumes of this subseries and who over the years has become identified as much with the entire subseries as have the authors, is due our special thanks and gratitude. We also acknowledge a particular debt of gratitude to Mrs. Gay Morenus Hammerman, the copy editor. Mrs. Norma B. Sherris selected and captioned the photographs for this volume. The index was prepared by Mrs. Michael Burdett Miller. Mrs. Mitzi Bucan Rusmisel, our stenographer, gave us invaluable aid in the preparation of the manuscript.

The authors assume sole responsibility for the use made of the comments and criticism offered by participants and for any errors of fact or interpretation of the sources open to them.

Washington, D. C. CHARLES F. ROMANUS
25 April 1958 RILEY SUNDERLAND

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