On War and Leadership by Owen Connelly

Author:Owen Connelly [Connelly, Owen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, General
ISBN: 9781400825165
Google: KWu4ikq73VMC
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2009-01-10T01:41:59+00:00

XIII

Joseph Warren Stilwell

(1883–1946)

“VINEGAR JOE”

GENERAL JOSEPH W. STILWELL was hated by many—both those above and below him in the command chain, and casual acquaintances. Irascible, acerbic, he was not a man to “suffer fools lightly,” even if one of his “fools” was the president of China, Chiang Kai-shek, whom he called “Peanut.” He was one of the great characters of World War II, who earned the nickname “Vinegar Joe” a hundred times over. He was tough, blunt, hard, and yet a man of unchallenged integrity—and a fighter who marched with his men and allowed himself nothing they did not have. Those who really knew him loved him; his staff knew that his leathery face and sharp tongue protected a man who worried about his troops and felt a responsibility to their parents. The few words he wrote on leadership are worth considering.

Stilwell was born in Florida but reared in Yonkers, New York. He graduated from West Point in 1904,and was posted to the Philippines, where he made a reputation for testiness. He also showed an uncanny talent for languages. As a result, although he served as liaison officer with a French corps in Europe in World War I, most of his service was in the Far East. When World War II arrived, he was the best available “China Hand.” He was sent in 1942,as a lieutenant general, to be chief of staff to General Chiang Kai-shek, president of China, then allied with the United States. Stilwell was also Supremo of the [American] China-Burma-India theater (CBI), and Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten.

The war in the China-Burma-India theater was complicated by the fact that Britain was fighting to recover Burma, a commonwealth of her Empire, from the Japanese. Americans wanted Burma for roads to China, to facilitate helping Chiang to beat the Japanese by sending weapons and supplies (flown over the Himalayas, “the Hump”), to train his troops, and later to prepare them for a postwar battle against Mao Tse-tung’s (Mao Zedong’s) Chinese Communists.1

“Vinegar Joe” Stilwell had many eighteenth-century American attitudes. Hebelieved generals should wear the same uniforms as men, live under the same conditions, and eat the same food. He was often found standing with his men in “chow lines,” and declined most privileges of rank. He seldom wore the three stars of his grade or decorations. He vocally disliked “limies” (the British), especially aristocrats, except, curiously, Lord Mountbatten, 20 years his junior, whom he decided was “a good egg.”2 He despised Chiang Kai-shek because he was devious. The Chinese Generalissimo repeatedly undercut Stilwell’s authority by giving orders directly to his generals.3

Despite his eccentricities, Stilwell was a leader of men. He went out of his way to walk every step with the infantry—Chinese or American—and saw to his men’s needs. He shunned even the simplest comforts for himself; General Slim (who liked the cynical old man) thought he carried austerity to extremes.

Slim and Stilwell collaborated in a drive that ended with the capture of Myitkyina in August 1944—the only Burma campaign that included American ground troops.

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