World Battlefronts: When a Hawk Smiles

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Tigers in a Cage. But the irking constraint that has shaped Chennault still remains. He is essentially a man of offense, and in China, Allied strategy dictates a mission of defense. His job is to give the Chinese armies air support, to bomb strategic points whenever possible and to keep nibbling at Japanese air strength.

The Fourteenth is still confined by geography and tactical limitations. It operates chiefly in the vast pocket of Central China south of the Yangtze, hedged in on the north and south by the two great Jap bases at Hankow and Canton. Its fighters and bombers provide an air umbrella of limited scope when the Jap in Central China and along the Salween front of western Yunnan stabs at the tough, resilient Chinese lines. But the Fourteenth has a consolation of sorts: its men know that they are contributing to a much greater show. Every ship sunk and every plane shot down by Chennault's men lessens the Jap potential in more active theaters of war. A young colonel of the Fourteenth commented: "We're a thorn in their side. We aren't serious but we hurt. The Japs are like boxers: if they take off their gloves to dig out the thorn, somebody is going to bop them right smack in the face." Supply problems alone will hold down the Fourteenth for bitter months to come.

A 400-plane bomber force in China, operating efficiently, would consume nearly 70,000 tons a month of gasoline, bombs and ammunition. One hundred fighters would consume some 5,000 tons more.

Tons of replacement parts, anti-aircraft ammunition, food and supplies for air and ground crews would be required. By air alone—the only means now available —such a force could be maintained only by prodigious effort and a bigger fleet of transports than China has yet seen. Even if Burma is reopened, the Burma Road's previous top capacity of 15,000 tons a month would hardly wet the bucket. That is why Chennault dreams of a seaport near his operational bases.

In the meantime he and his ground-minded chief, "Uncle Joe" Stilwell, have to fight amongst themselves—and with their Chinese friends—for every foot of air-cargo space.*

Airdrome runways are built by coolie-hand. At the main base three Americans direct thousands of Chinese laborers in the constant process of reconstruction and repair. Asphalt and concrete runways are practically unknown; most of the strips are paved with mud, hand-poured and bound with crushed rock. On a very few fields the Fourteenth has strips of the Chinese version of asphalt, made of tung oil, resin, sand and hand-chipped rock.

East v. West. Serious interracial friction might have come to China with U.S. pilots and groundmen. That it did not was due in part to Claire Chennault. He insisted on having waiters and houseboys who spoke English in the barracks, to minimize language friction. Striking a Chinese, carrying arms on visits to nearby towns, promiscuous firing of arms were made court-martial offenses. Pilots were forbidden to "buzz" airfields: the diving planes frightened the Chinese laborers.