...decision accept the Allies' terms of surrender. On its face, this announcement was good news for Chiang. He had been dealing with Japanese aggression for nearly a decade and a half, first in the annexation of Manchuria in 1931, then in outright war since 1937. But the Japanese were not Chiang's real enemy; to him they were only "a disease of the skin." His real nemesis--what he referred to as China's "disease of the heart" was the Communist Party under the leadership of Mao Zedong. The surrender would rid China of over one million Japanese soldiers, but in doing so it would also create a vacuum that would be filled either by Chiang's Nationalists or Mao's Communists.

Herein lay Chiang's problem: Mao's army of nearly one million was located in and around Japanese-occupied areas, areas that practically dominated the entire 2,000-mile eastern coast of China. As such, the Communists were in a better position than the Nationalists (or Guomindang, GMD for short) to receive the forthcoming Japanese surrender, but to Chiang, Mao's armies were nothing more than a dangerous group of "bandits." Making matters worse, the bulk of Chiang's armies were scattered as far as 700 miles away from key Japanese strongholds and were in no position to accept the surrender that came so abruptly.

Chiang had to work fast. If he didn't move his troops to northeastern China, Japanese commanders would surrender to Mao's generals putting the Communists in control of China's strategic east coast. Chiang's armies had to be moved hundreds of miles over a rugged Chinese interior in a matter of weeks--if not days--to check this imminent Communist victory. His only option to prevent defeat lay in the use of air transport to get his armies to pivotal cities like Shanghai, Nanjing (Nanking), and Beijing (Peiping). If time was Chiang's greatest enemy, the presence of the massive American "Hump" airlift force, based in eastern India and western China was his greatest ally and best option in circumventing a de facto Communist takeover.

Gen. Albert Wedemeyer, the senior American commander in China, had been cajoling Chiang for months to plan for an imminent Japanese surrender. "We are striving to prepare for any eventuality reference Japanese capitulation," Wedemeyer wrote in an August 1 message to the U.S. Army's commander, Gen. George Marshall. In the message Wedemeyer went on to say that American forces were making preparations for the war's end, but that he was concerned that the Chinese government was paying too little attention to this "eventuality." "If war comes suddenly, it is reasonable to expect widespread confusion and disorder. The Chinese have no plan for rehabilitation, prevention of epidemics, restoration of utilities, establishment of a balanced economy and reposition of millions of refugees." Wedemeyer had recently established a school in Chongqing (Chungking) to teach Chinese officials rudimentary civil affairs skills, and had also "emphasized to the Generalissimo the necessity of advanced planning." Despite these efforts, Wedemeyer's outlook was less than cheery, as he was "not optimistic about the results to be attained." (2)

But Chiang's lack of attention towards the quick restoration of Chinese society to its pre-war state was not simply a case of strategic short-sightedness. He did need to pay attention to the issues highlighted by Wedemeyer--utilities, medical care, and refugees to name a few but the Generalissimo's first concern was to deal with the Communist problem, and to do so by reasserting Nationalist influence in China's cosmopolitan seats of power, namely Nanjing, Shanghai, and Beijing. Operating from this assumption and prompted by a flurry of events set in motion by the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, he met with Wedemeyer on August 11 to ask for troops to occupy these and other coastal cities, as well as for help transporting his own troops to the east to help stave off a civil war. (3) While Wedemeyer was unable to help Chiang with his request for an army of occupation, he was able to meet Chiang's transportation...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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