I remember, in the year of 1998 while going to Miao to visit some family friends while passing Margherita there was a board calling out Stilwell Road. From that point of time it remained on the back of my mind.
The Books
Recently I was reading a travel book “Land of Dawnlit Mountains” by Antonia Bolingbroke Kent, a British journalist who went on to solo bike trip on Hero Impulse throughout Arunachal Pradesh. It brought my memories fresh and pushed to another book on the topic “Now the Hell Will Start” by Brendan I Koerner story of Herman Perry an African American GI who went into rabbit hole filled with Ganja, Opium, Alter ego leading to him pumping bullets into his white superior considered unpardonable crime during those days.
These two books are a good to start on this wonderful story that spans during the World War II
Apart from these one more book Ursula Graham’s (often called Queen of Nagas) The Hidden Land is one that is on my list to read.
The United States Forces
As usual, the story of where United States of America gets involved to support democracy and this time it was China. Chinese torch bearer for the democracy was Chiang Kai-shek, leader of Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) who was in direct war with the communists. The Imperial Japanese Army was trying to siege China to counter what was going in Pacific. India was a British Colony and American Air Force and Army were in this eastern part of India in order to keep supplies to adequate for Chiang Kai-shek army and support him to fight the Japanese.
Chiang Kai-shek proposed the Ledo road between Ledo in Assam, India and Kunming in China so that the supplies can be easily provided. Later on he became more friendly for the Air Force to parashoot supplies instead of road. He was able to convince Franklin D Roosevelt , the then President of USA that Air Force was a better way. The idea was to cross the Himalayas called “The Hump” and drop supplies.
China-Burma-India Theater
CBI Theater was the name for all the American Forces and the theatrics that was played by major players were true to its name . The Ledo road proved to be a very difficult task at hand for the Americans. Extreme terrain with heavy rains, malaria, tiger infested jungles and head hunter tribes made it quite insurmountable to complete it in the estimated time. The US Force at that time was quite racist and segregation between African American troops and white troops was taken for granted. It was sort of adventure trip for the whites whereas it was a hellish experience for the African American troops. Mosty African American troops were used for building roads or Air Strips rather than direct combat. With terrain so difficult moving machinery was not easy and most of the times it was African American troops and Indian workers called “Coolies”, used manual equipment to build the roads
Joseph Warren Stilwell “Vinegar Joe” was the man who kept going with the project even with differences with Chiang Kai-shek and other Generals and Roosevelt. He has a small contingent of Chinese Army that he got trained in India and ready to fight the Japanese in Burma.
The road was built by 15000 American soldiers, 65% of which were African American and 35000 local workers. Of these 1100 American soldiers died in addition to many uncounted locals. This 1079 mile is often called “A man a mile “road . The actual use of the road was very limited as Air Force was used to drop mostly the ration. C 46 Aircraft were used which were called Flying Coffins as 20% of aircraft used crashed. Lot of these crashes are still on the mountainous terrains. One is discussed in the book Land of Dawn-lit Mountains in a place called Karoi, a Nyishi tribal village near Sagalee in Arunachal Pradesh.
Forgotten Indian Workers
As is normally the case there is not much account on the role that Indian workers played in building this road. The pecking order was like this, at the top were the British Tea Planters in Assam, then were the Marwaris whom the British used for running day to day activity of Tea Plantations, then came that Bengalis/Assamese and last in the order were the dark skinned “Coolies” who used to go through the hardships of manual labor and included both men and women for a measly sum of money. This has not really changed even today in our country where impoverished people both men and women go through back breaking hardships.
Herman Perry Story
Herman Perry was African American GI who got drafted in Army just like so many others. He was sent to this eastern part of India as a part of 849th Engineer Bn. There he got so messed with the stay that he killed a white army officer called Lieutenant Harold Cady. And then he escaped the Army and lived a hippie life with the Naga tribe where he married a daughter of village headman and led a very happy life until the news spread about a black man in Naga village which American officers came to know about him and captured him and was hanged to death for his crime.
Current State
As far as American support to Chiang Kai-shek is concerned it is still there as he moved to island of Taiwan and established a government which he led for 25 years. Even today Taiwan and USA are quite friendly because of what happened then.
Currently Stilwell Road is two lane highway from Ledo to Myanmar Border. Beyond that is something I need to check. China wants this road to opened again and but nothing much has happened yet.