Chiang Kai-shek

Battle of Lashio

On 29 April 1942, the 56th Division of the Japanese imperial army defeated forces of the Kuomintang's "Chinese Expeditionary Force (Burma)" and seized Lashio. During a devastating five-hour battle, Lashio was burned to the ground. The Japanese victory effectively cut the "Burma Road", the motorway linking Lashio to Kunming which had been built in 1939 as China's main lifeline to the Allies. The Japanese invasion of Burma had begun four months before. Washington and London had asked for help from...

Cairo Conference

This photograph shows Allied leaders US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and China's Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek discussing the reconquest of Burma at their summit in Cairo. Also at the conference were Madame Chiang Kai-shek (far right in this photo), the new Allied Supreme Commander for South East Asia, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and his deputy General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell. The Chinese pressed for an aggressive invasion of Burma (by British, Indian, and American as well as Chinese...

Ledo or Stillwell Road

The "Ledo" or "Stillwell" Road was completed on 28 January 1945. The road linked Ledo in Assam with Kunming in Yunnan via the Kachin Hills. It was the first and is still the only modern road to connect India and China across Myanmar. The idea for the road began in 1942 after Japanese forces seized Rangoon and cut the old "Burma Road". The Burma Road began in Rangoon and went via Mandalay and Lashio to Yunnan. It was the critical...