General Joseph Stilwell's Mission to China and Supervision of the Lend-Lease Program, 1942.

Abstract

The dispatch of General Stilwell's American military mission to China represented a major turning point in the history of Sino-American relations. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into the Second World War, General Stilwell was sent to China in early 1942 to occupy several sensitive posts: he assumed the position of Chief of Staff to the Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek and command of the Chinese armies in Burma, while also supervising the American Lend-Lease program, overseeing the delivery of weapons and equipment to China, and devising means of transporting these arms. He subsequently took up command of the forces in the China-Burma-India theater until his dismissal in 1944. The principal objective of the mission was to keep China in the war, reform the Chinese army, and open supply lines through Burma. The period of the mission witnessed difficult episodes, among them the first Burma disaster (1942) and the establishment of Chinese forces, as well as the second Burma campaign (1943–1944). The mission ended for a number of reasons, foremost among them the severe rift between Stilwell and the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, which culminated in Stilwell's dismissal in October 1944..