893.248/232
Mr. T. V. Soong, of China Defense Supplies, Incorporated, to the Coordinator of Information (Donovan)70
Dear Colonel: This is to summarize the conversation I had with you yesterday afternoon. The concurrence of certain events has made it desperately necessary that help of aircraft to China be immediate, so immediate that the delivery will have to be effected by diversion from the nearest available sources of supply, such as the Philippines, Singapore or the Dutch East Indies.
A. The first of the events is a new type of continuous all-day bombing—twenty-two hours out of twenty-four—by relays of bombers in units varying from large squadrons to flights of a few planes to which Chungking has been continuously subjected since the Anglo-American protest71 about Japanese moves to the south. Without planes to fight off the bombers over the city and to bomb back at the bases from which the raiders come, there is no possibility of defense or retribution.
It is perfectly clear that the purpose of this bombing is to finish the “China Incident” before Japan moves in other directions—by demonstrating to the people of China the difference between reality and the hopes of the last fourteen months that American assistance would be effective.
This awful demonstration of the difference between reality and promises is underlined for the Chinese by two other events.
B. The second event is the swiftness with which it is announced that deliveries of aircraft are being made to the Soviet Union, after repeated earlier promises of delivery to the Chinese have been excused as nonperformable because the aircraft simply does not exist.
C. The third event and you must understand this not in the light of true justification but in the light in which it appears to the Chinese under bombardment of twenty-two hours a day—is the recent frank disclosure of the American policy of appeasing Japan with materials of war—the very material and gasoline that are presently bombing Chungking—in order to keep Japan from attacking certain American supply routes to the south.72
Adding these three events and their implication together, Chinese who are weary of Chiang Kai-shek’s policy of resistance in the general democratic cause are saying, “Our resistance is just a pawn in the [Page 706] calculations of other democratic powers. Japan is being furnished the materials with which to destroy us in order to relieve the British from attack in the south and maybe even the Russians from attack in the north. Although we are being given polite nonoffensive aid like road materials and trucks, nothing which would really offend Japan or give us striking power of retribution against Japan is being allowed to actually get here—even though this supposedly non-existent offensive material is available immediately for our friends the Russians.[”]
Please do not think that any of us in the Chinese Government think that way or do not understand the American problem.
But, Colonel, surely you can understand from your long experience with your nationals under attack how easily the average Chinese, particularly the average Chinese army officer, can think that way, and what a terrible problem of morale it raises for Chiang Kai-shek at the present time.
Remember that the last really effective military aid China had from the West was from the German military mission which did enormously and practically aid us in the first stages of our resistance to Japan and that the memory of that mission is still real in the minds of our army.
The cables I am now receiving from China asking if your promises of help are real are the saddest things to read and the most difficult things to answer I have ever faced in my life.
If planes are delivered to Russia now—even though the Russians are still our friends and allies—you must get planes to Chungking now or the Chinese will never understand.
I have now been in the United States over fourteen months pleading for the help of planes.
In response, the President, after pointing out the dangers of non-resistance to aggression, promised to call upon his advisors to give all practical assistance to us.
I then and there stressed the urgent necessity of providing us with aircraft to defend the main routes of supply, the key urban areas, and to enable strategic operations on the part of our land forces.
In the fourteen months which have followed not a single plane sufficiently supplied with armament and ammunition so that it could actually be used to fire has reached China.
Through the exertions of the President 100 Curtiss P–40’s were released by the British last fall and eventually reached China, but the necessary spare parts and ammunition without which these craft are not fighting ships but only training ships, are just being arranged for now.
[Page 707]Last fall and winter we were offered a few bombers capable of raiding Japan. The offer was accepted but it did not materialize.
A special American air mission under General Claggett visited China following Mr. Currie’s visit and after an intensive study of our airfields, air force, and facilities on the spot, favorably reported on our plans for an air force of 350 pursuits and 150 bombers. No action has materialized.
At the end of July an allotment of 66 bombers and 269 fighters was definitely ratified by the Joint Strategy Board on the President’s authority and Chiang Kai-shek was assured of immediate delivery of 24 bombers. General Chiang was never happier than when Lauchlin Currie cabled back that assurance to Chungking.
Today I am told that deliveries cannot start before October and then on a scale that will extend into Spring, 1942.
Meanwhile Chungking is bombed incessantly day and night and China goes on the second month of her fifth year of war while the promises I cabled over for encouragement one by one fail.
Army leaders and Peoples’ Representatives of Free China ask Chiang Kai-shek when the American planes are coming. When he gives them my answer—that the planes are simply not yet produced in the United States—they will ask him where the planes are coming from for Russia.
It does the Generalissimo little good to reply that a generous allocation of funds is being made under the Lease-Lend enactments; that every courtesy is shown by the several agencies interested; that sincere concern is manifested by the leaders of the administration; and that more of the trucks are on the way.
What we need and need desperately is the actual appearance on the Chungking front now, of aircraft diverted from the Philippines, Singapore, or the Dutch East Indies with ultimate use of the future deliveries that have been promised us.
After that immediate relief what we need is the actual allocation of favorable priorities and the actual certainty of deliveries of a special air unit of 350 fighters and 150 bombers, maintained at that size.
With this size of a force, a mere drop in the bucket as far as the needs of Britain and Russia are concerned—we could prevent or render difficult any extensive Japanese move toward the south. We could afford effective assistance to the defense of Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. We could defend the Burma Road and the key cities in Free China. We could launch counterattacks with the purpose not only to hold existing Japanese forces in China but to compel their continuous dispatch of stronger forces.
[Page 708]Finally, we could attack the main industrial areas and fire the paper and wood cities of Japan.
Your special American air mission has studied this plan and declared it completely feasible.
You will excuse me for having been so frank. But the Russian situation and the failure to mention China in all the new joint strategic plans that are being publicized has really precipitated a problem of Chinese morale about the immediacy of aircraft help to China.
I am sure you will understand.
Remember, Colonel, that we have proved that we can fight longer than any other people who are fighting on the democratic side—that given the arms we can really finish the job.
We have stuck for five years. Please help us stick now.
With kind regards [etc.]
- Copy transmitted to the Under Secretary of State (Welles) by Capt. James Roosevelt, U. S. M. C., of the Office of the Coordinator of Information, in his letter of August 22, not printed.↩
- For statement by the Acting Secretary of State, see Department press release on July 24, 1941, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 315.↩
- See White House statement on July 25, 1941, ibid., p. 264.↩