Press Briefing on the 60th Anniversary of World War II 2/2/2005

Posted on Feb 4, 2005

Embassy Minister-Counselor for Press and Cultural Affairs Donald M. Bishop and the Embassy's Army Attache, Colonel Frank L. Miller, briefed local media on U.S.-China Cooperation in World War II on February 2, 2005. The major topic of the briefing was the construction of the Stilwell Road (the new Ledo Road built by American and Chinese Army engineers across northern Burma from India linked with the northern portion of the older Burma Road) to open a land transportation route to China during the war. The first convoy over the Stilwell Road reached Kunming on February 4, 1945.

FACT SHEET

First Convoy over the Ledo-Burma-Stillwell Road
Departed Assam, India on January 12, 1945
Arrived in Kunming on February 4, 1945
(nine days before the beginning of Spring Festival)

• The Japanese conquest of Burma cut China's last transportation route to the outside world (from Kunming to Lashio via the Burma Road, and then by railroad to Rangoon) at the end of April, 1942.
• Until a new land route to China could be opened, the only way for war materiel to reach China was by air from northeast India via the hazardous "Hump Route" over the Himalayas.
• Opening a new land route to China was a consistent aim of President Roosevelt and General Stilwell from 1942 to 1945.
• The United States sent 4600 railway personnel to India in 1943, to bring order to the British colonial railroad system between Calcutta and Assam. Before then, it took up to 67 days to move supplies from the port of Calcutta to northeast India.
• The construction of the Ledo Road -- from Ledo, Assam, India -- into Burma began on December 16, 1942.
• The Ledo Road ran 465 miles from Ledo to a junction with the Burma Road at Mongyu. In addition to building the Ledo Road, engineers and local workers also upgraded over 600 miles of the Burma Road from Mongyu to Kunming.
• The full length of the Stilwell Road from Ledo, India to Kunming, China was 1079 miles.
• A fuel pipeline was built along the full length of the new road from India to China.
• The Ledo Road and the pipeline went through some mostly uninhabited areas of Burma with some of the most difficult terrain in the world, including tropical rain forest, torrential streams, terraces and canyons, jungle-covered mountains and swampy valleys. The wet monsoon season from May to October had heavy rain (up to 140 inches in the mountains).
• Leeches, malaria, and typhus were among the medical hazards for the troops.
• Two Chinese units joined the American engineers, the 10th and 12th Independent Combat Engineer Regiments.
• From October, 1943, the commander of the effort was Brigadier General Lewis A. Pick. Troops nicknamed the Road "Pick's Pike."
• General Pick said that building the road was "the toughest job ever given to U.S. Army Engineers in wartime." Told the road could not be built, he said the road would be built, "rain, mud, and malaria be damned." He began around-the-clock construction.
• In December, 1943, the engineers opened 54 miles of road in 57 days.
• Pick's construction system: Chinese Army engineers led, clearing a trace. An American engineer company followed, bulldozing the roadhead. An aviation engineering battalion cleared the right-of-way 100 feet wide, and other units graded sections of 10 to 15 miles. American and Chinese engineers installed drainage culverts. An engineer construction or combat battalion built the needed bridges. Finally, an aviation battalion spread gravel for the road surface.
• Of the 15,000 Engineers who built the road, over 60 percent were African-Americans. (At the time, U.S. Army units were segregated. These units were led by white officers. The success of African-American troops on the Road and in other roles during the War gave a strong impetus to the later drive for Civil Rights.)
• Engineers moved 13,500,000 cubic yards of earth in building the road. This is enough earth to build a wall 3 feet wide and 10 feet high from New York to San Francisco.
• Engineers dug 1,383,000 cubic yards of gravel from riverbeds to surface the road. If this gravel had been loaded on railcars, the train would have been be 427 miles long.
• The Ledo Road crossed 10 major rivers and 155 smaller streams. Seven hundred bridges were built over the length of the road.
• Construction was as much a drainage project as a road building effort. An average 13 culverts per mile were used, totalling 105 miles of pipe.
• Foresters gathered 822,000 cubic feet of lumber for use in building the road. One million board feet of lumber and 2400 pilings were used in a causeway over the swamp.
• Engineers completed the longest (1,180-foot) pontoon bridge in the world over the Irrawaddy River on December 6, 1944.

The First Convoy

• General Pick led the first convoy out of Ledo, bound for Kunming, China on January 12, 1945 -- 113 vehicles (heavy cargo trucks, jeeps, and ambulances). The convoy reached Myitkyina on 15 January, but was delayed until 23 January until the last Japanese units were cleared from the Road area by Chinese and American troops.
• The convoy entered China on 28 January. They were met by Minister of Foreign Affairs T.V. Soong.
• On 4 February, the convoy reached Kunming as firecrackers exploded and bands played. The Governor of Yunnan Province gave a banquet for the Americans.
• The Governor announced that the Ledo Road and the upgraded portion of the Burma Road from Mongyu to Kunming were to be named the Stilwell Road in honor of American General Joseph W. Stilwell, former Commander of the China-Burma-India Theater.
• In the six months following its opening, trucks carried 129,000 tons of supplies from India to China. Twenty-six thousand trucks that carried the cargo (one-way) were handed over to the Chinese.

The Cost

• The final estimated cost of building the Road (in labor, materiel, supplies, equipment, fuel, and repairs) was $148,910,000.
• The greater cost of building the Ledo Road is measured in human lives. The entire length of the Stilwell Road was 1,079 miles. American fatalities were 1,133. The human cost is often stated as "a man a mile."
• Overall: Killed in combat, 624 ... Died of Typhus, 63 ... Died of Malaria, 11 ... Drowned, 53 ... Died in Road Accidents, 44 ... Died in Aircraft Accidents, 173 ... Total Ledo Road Fatalities, 1133

Additional Links

1945-2005 World War II Sixtieth Anniversary Commemoration