Echo from the West

If Chiang Kai-shek was surprised, it was a flash reflex. He knew the Japanese too well for shock. The blast of bombs in Pearl Harbor was the amplified echo of an explosion along a Manchurian railway ten years ago. Since that day Chiang's Government, like some dusty, neglected Cassandra, had warned the Western Powers time & again that some day the Japanese Army would turn on them as it had on China.

There was more lasting satisfaction for Chiang Kai-shek than the melancholy knowledge of prediction fulfilled. Although Japan's explosion in the Pacific might well be followed by the most powerful attack on China of the four-year war, Chiang was willing to take the risk. He knew that if Japan lost its war with the U.S., it would never again have the strength to enslave his people.

To Hold. Within 24 hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Chiang's Government had declared war on Japan, Germany, Italy. Chiang's immediate role in the war was clear: to hold pinioned to China's earth ever larger forces of Imperial Japan.

To Win. But Chiang knew that the war in Asia would not be over until, somewhere in China, Chinese troops had blasted Japanese troops from a major field of battle. There is only one way for China to acquire the necessary power to do that: by importing planes, artillery and trucks over the Burma Road. Chiang's first step toward victory was to keep the Burma Road open at all costs. He was preparing to do that. For weeks he had been marching troops into position south of the road.

Hundreds of U.S. volunteers were to help him. Last spring they had offered themselves as mechanics and pilots for 100 old, outdated Curtiss P-40s that China had bought for Burma Road defense (TIME, June 23). Snarled by red tape, distance and misunderstanding, they had spent months establishing themselves. But for weeks now they had been practicing. Last week, their flight name chosen ("Flying Tigers"), spangled with Disney-designed insignia (a ferocious, striped tiger leaping through the point of a victory V). they were ready to begin the Battle of the Burma Road.

China has also an ace to offer the U.S. in return for war materials: bases. There are airfields in Chinese territory under the Chinese flag almost to the Pacific coast itself. From them some day U.S. bombers may swipe at Japan.

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