By 1941 the only overland access to China was from India over the Himalayas on the hairpin mountain curves of the Burma Road. Japan controlled this route, so supplies to the Chinese army had to be flown in by a dangerous route known as "the Hump." It took years of bitter fighting in hellish terrain before the Allies were able to reclaim the Burma Road.

Even after the efforts of The Flying Tigers, all of Southeast Asia was under Japanese control by the time America officially entered the war. Chiang Kai-shek's forces - busy fighting the Communists - failed to stop the Japanese advance in Burma, and lost the one remaining overland supply route to China, the Burma Road. The Allies had to take to the skies over the Himalayan Mountains to supply Chiang's army.

The Americans were primarily in charge of the air campaign, under the command of General Joseph Stilwell US, British, and Chinese troops battled in the humid overgrown jungles, or cold mountain plains at the top of the world. All the military forces in Burma faced difficult logistics, colonial troubles in Burma and India, impossible terrain and monsoon rains, as well as tigers, snakes and the Japanese.

The CBI Theater became the "forgotten campaign" of the war's history. The Allies finally re-opened the Burma Road in 1945, but it took the explosion of two atomic bombs before Japan formally surrendered. The war ended, but problems in China and Asia remained.

Jump to one of the following subjects or scroll down to view all sections:

Click on any image for an enlarged view

The Flying Tigers (American Volunteer Group)

Even before Pearl Harbor was bombed, 100 US pilots and 200 groundcrew were recruited for a secret air force under the command of General Claire Chennault. The purpose of this force was to battle the Japanese in China and Burma. They were called the American Volunteer Group, or AVG for short. Technically, the AVG was contracted by a US firm, the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Co., which in turn was under contract to the Chinese government.

Outnumbered as much as 8 to 1, they lived under primitive conditions, suffered shortages of food and military supplies, and held their planes together by determination and resourcefulness. They compiled an unparalleled combat record, destroying 650 enemy aircraft while suffering minimal losses.

Flying P-40 Tomahawks they were forever branded "The Flying Tigers" because of their aircraft's distinctive shark's mouth paint scheme. In 1942, they were incorporated into the 23rd Pursuit Group of the 14th US Air Force to continue their battle against the Japanese.

The Supreme Allied Commander of the Southeast Asia Command, General Joseph Stilwell, was in charge of all US, Chinese, and British forces. It was a thankless job. President Roosevelt supported a Burma theater, but only with limited supplies. Stilwell's plan to train Chinese ground troops was opposed by General Claire Chennault who wanted to use US airpower, by Chiang Kai-shek who wanted direct command of the Chinese army in Burma, and by the British who wanted men and supplies diverted to "Europe-first."

By 1943, Stilwell was able to start his "GALAHAD" offensive. His attempts to introduce reform into the Chinese Army offended Chiang, however, whom Stilwell privately called "the peanut." Chiang's revenge was to convince FDR to recall Stilwell to the US In 1945, General Stilwell was replaced, but not before Roosevelt presented him with his fourth star as a Major General.

In 1943, almost 3,000 American soldiers volunteered for a mission, code-named "GALAHAD," to sneak behind enemy lines and cause havoc. Nicknamed Merrill's Marauders after its leader, Brigadier General Frank Merrill, the Marauders marched 1,000 miles over the Himalayan Mountains into Burma. The hard-hitting foot soldiers disrupted Japanese supply and communication lines and eventually captured the only all-weather airfield in Northern Burma. At the end of their campaign, the Marauders suffered from tropical diseases, exhaustion, and malnutrition - or as the tags on their battered uniforms said, "A.O.E." (accumulation of everything).

The unit was consolidated with the 475th Infantry in 1944. During their campaigns the Marauders were described as "apparently forgotten, frequently lost, occasionally mutinous, and almost always magnificent!"

Patch - with the insignia of Merrill's Marauders
--Artifact on loan, courtesy of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford, California