Uncle Joe Turns Up

Out of the wreck of Burma last week came Lieut. General Joseph W. Stilwell. When the outside world had last heard of him, "Uncle Joe" and his Chinese Fifth and Sixth Armies were cut off, and had swung north in a, ferocious slash at the back of the Jap.

There was no more word until he turned up at the northeastern India frontier leading a motley column.

But the Chinese Fifth and Sixth Armies were not with Joe Stilwell. They were still fighting the Jap in Burma, or had filtered back into China, or had disintegrated. Unspoken in India (and unanswered in the U.S. early this week) was the question: Why did Uncle Joe Stilwell leave the troops he commanded? Was it on orders from Washington? Was it at Gissimo Chiang's request?* Was it on his own authority, because the job of commanding Chinese troops who had commanders of their own was too embarrassing?

Said Uncle Joe, with disarming casualness: "It's nice to look forward to the prospect of getting food regularly."

But newsmen knew that another prospect was not so pleasant. The whole military philosophy of fighting the slippery, lightly equipped Jap had to be rewritten. And Uncle Joe had all the notes for the new text, if only he could make other soldiers listen.

Later, to correspondents at New Delhi, he expounded a salty preface. Said Uncle Joe: "I claim we got a hell of a beating. We got run out of Burma and it is humiliating as hell. I think we ought to find out what caused it, go back and retake it. ... The Japanese are not supermen. If we go back properly proportioned and properly equipped we can throw them out."

West Pointer Stilwell knew well enough what had got him and his men thrown out. The question was whether he could sell his story to the staff at New Delhi--in time for this war.

* General Stilwell said he intended to go back to China and talk things over with Gissimo Chiang soon.

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