Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast.

Episode 292 The War comes to Burma.

Before and after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese worked hard to control much of China's coastal

territory to choke off receiving aid from the Western world. Yet far off Rangoon in Burma

was still open, though the situation there was far from perfect. No matter, President Roosevelt

wanted the lendemies supplies getting to China, and if they had to do so through Burma, then so be it.

Yet the war and humanitarian aid was not getting through. This was confirmed just before Pearl

when Harry Hopkins, per FDR, sent a transport expert to Burma to figure out why in the hell not,

or as FDR put it to Hopkins who put it to Daniel Ardsten, why not a god damn thing was moving over

the Burma road? Which was a fair assessment. The dogs of Rangoon were packed. Dozens of trucks lined

up ready for use, and it was the same situation at Lashio in Northern Burma at the end of the

railway. From there, the 711 mile long Burma road to Kumin was ready to receive besides its

numerous duty stations where bribes were expected, a concept as old as China itself.

Another thing the Americans had to figure out. Per Ardsten, his later report would read,

it would take eight months to clear up the backlog, but the US, nor any of the other allies,

had that much time. The Japanese were running wild all over Southeast Asia, while the Germans

were deep in Russia, having just come to the outskirts of Moscow. Again, FDR would not let go of the

idea of some 30 million Chinese troops armed with American goods engaging and bleeding to death

the Japanese Empire. And the best part, in all honesty, was that this could all take place in China.

To win there would draw in other Japanese troops from Southeast Asia and further east like

Wom and Wake Island. All the Western allies troubles wrapped up in one basket. And Chiang Kai

Shek had no problem sacrificing hundreds of thousands of his own men if it got him what he wanted.

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