One day in early 1945, I heard the adults talking: “The China–India Highway is open. Today, the first shipment of strategic supplies provided by the United States will arrive in Kunming.”
That afternoon, after school, I was on my way home when I heard firecrackers amid the noisy voices on the street. I dropped my schoolbag and immediately ran outside. Jinbi Road was packed with people. I tried hard to work my way through the crowd and squeezed up to the roadside. I saw olive-green military vehicles coming slowly from the west, one after another. They passed through the magnificent Golden Horse and Jade Rooster Archways, then continued slowly toward the east.
Many of the American soldiers driving the vehicles were Black. They were tall and big-built, and wore garrison caps. The spectators clapped and applauded them. Some shouted slogans. Some gave a thumbs-up: “Americans—first-rate!” The soldiers, black as charcoal, showed their snow-white teeth and rattled off some words. I could not understand them.
The whole city seemed caught up in celebration.
What exactly did the opening of the China–India Highway mean, and why was it so important? As I grew older and read more books, I gradually came to understand. During the War of Resistance, the China–India Highway was an important international route for foreign aid to China. Its opening encouraged the Chinese people’s confidence in holding out until victory. It was of great importance in hastening the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and recovering our sacred national territory.
After the July 7 Incident of 1937, the Japanese Army kept nibbling forward, step by step, and occupied all of China’s coastal cities, causing China to lose its international transportation routes.
At the urging of the American general Stilwell, the Chinese government put 500,000 civilian laborers to work day and night. By 1941, they had built the Burma Road from Kunming to Wanding on the border. This became China’s only remaining route for foreign aid.
At the time, even if the supplies carried by a 10,000-ton ship arrived in Rangoon and were transferred every day by 300 trucks, they could carry only a little over 1,000 tons. Even so, the Japanese invaders would not leave it alone.
In 1942, on the eve of their invasion of Burma, the Japanese invaders attempted to cut the Burma Road and choke off China’s route for foreign aid. Britain gave in to Japanese pressure and closed the Burma Road. China’s external transportation could then depend only on airplanes flying over “the Hump” of the Himalayas and bringing supplies in by air from India.
In the beginning, to protect the Burma Road, China sent an Expeditionary Force of 100,000 men into Burma, but it met obstruction from the British allies. Later, when the Japanese Army reached the gates, the British Army fled in panic, and the Japanese Army seized the opportunity to drive into western Yunnan.
The Chinese Expeditionary Force was forced to withdraw back into China. Another part of it—the Thirty-Eighth Division—fought bitterly against the Japanese invaders at Yenangyaung. After rescuing more than 3,000 British soldiers, it too withdrew into India to rest and reorganize while awaiting an opportunity to counterattack.
In May 1944, to drive out the Japanese invaders and reopen the Burma Road, China sent out a second Expeditionary Force, totaling 120,000 men. Launching a “counterattack” from western Yunnan, they forced a crossing of the natural barrier of the Nu River, fought fiercely through the Gaoligong Mountains, recaptured Longling and Mangshi in succession, and laid siege to Tengchong.
Tengchong was an important transportation junction linking China, Burma, and India. The Japanese Army, struggling desperately, sent a large force to defend it.
For this reason, the Battle of Tengchong was the fiercest, most difficult, and bloodiest battle in the counteroffensive in Burma. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. The siege began on July 29 and lasted forty-seven days. The street fighting inside the city alone lasted twenty-five days. They truly fought and struggled for it one house after another, one street after another, before Tengchong saw light again.
In this battle, the Chinese Army lost more than 9,000 men, and more than 4,000 people of Tengchong died. More than 6,000 Japanese soldiers were killed, including more than 100 commanders of the rank of major general or below. Countless supplies, weapons, and ammunition were captured.
Another part of the Expeditionary Force, the New Thirty-Eighth Division stationed in India, entered Burma from India and attacked eastward, recapturing Myitkyina, Bhamo, and other places in succession. They fought and built the road at the same time. The combat troops recovered lost ground in front, and the Tenth Engineer Regiment followed behind to build the road. At first, everything depended upon human labor. The only tools they had were hammers and pickaxes, and progress was slow. Later, an American mechanized engineer unit brought mountain-cutting and road-building machinery, and the pace gradually quickened.
The two wings of the Expeditionary Force closed in from both sides. Finally, on January 28, 1945, they joined forces at Mongyu. They divided their forces and advanced, drove out the Japanese invaders, and recovered cities large and small throughout Burma.
While the Expeditionary Force in India fought and built the road, it also carried out another difficult project: laying the China–India oil pipeline. During the War of Resistance, there was a slogan: “A drop of gasoline, a drop of blood.” The pipeline was laid from Calcutta, India, and followed the China–India Highway directly into China. After the project was completed, it eased China’s wartime oil shortage.
The China–India Highway was 1,566 kilometers long. From Kunming in China, it ran west through Chuxiong, Dali, Baoshan, Longling, Mangshi, and Tengchong; entered Burma at Bhamo and Myitkyina; and then reached Ledo in India. Along the way, it crossed thirteen peaks more than 6,600 meters high.
After the China–India Highway opened, the first group of vehicles driven from India into China numbered 105. Among them were sixty-six large trucks with a carrying capacity of two and a half tons. There were also jeeps, ambulances, and weapon-towing vehicles. The supplies they carried included arms and gasoline. The heavy weapons included heavy artillery, mountain guns, direct-fire guns, and others. These strategic supplies strengthened the fighting power of the Chinese Army and played a part in destroying Japanese fascism.
Today, sixty years later, amid reform and opening up, the China–India Highway has important strategic significance and economic value in strengthening links with the South Asian countries along the Indian Ocean. China has widened and improved the sections within its borders. At present, the entire area presents a scene of unprecedented prosperity.
*(Originally published in the U.S. World Journal, March 14–15, 2007.)*