DBWI: No Anglo-American Burma Agreement

After the sinking of the USS Panay the US and UK came to an agreement. The US was to build the Burma Railroad along side the Burma Road paying for all the track, railroad engines and boxcars. For doing this the US was entitled to use half the railroad tonnage to ship supplies and trade goods into China via the railroad. The tonnage of supplies rose by a factor of three the first year and increased further as more track was laid. What if the agreement didn't happen?
 
After the sinking of the USS Panay the US and UK came to an agreement. The US was to build the Burma Railroad along side the Burma Road paying for all the track, railroad engines and boxcars. For doing this the US was entitled to use half the railroad tonnage to ship supplies and trade goods into China via the railroad. The tonnage of supplies rose by a factor of three the first year and increased further as more track was laid. What if the agreement didn't happen?
You mean no Burma Road, the Japanese would be very happy with that as it would mean fewer supplies for the Chinese fighting the Japanese.
 
You mean no Burma Road, the Japanese would be very happy with that as it would mean fewer supplies for the Chinese fighting the Japanese.


No railroad, there was also a road for trucks here is a mention of the road by the US Army http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/burma42/burma42.htm that was already built but he US built a railroad alongside it (as much as possible) as most of the work clearing the land for a railroad was already done for the road. Railcars can carry far more goods than trucks and thus are much more efficient in moving massive quantities of munitions. Would the Chinese have been able to carry out their big counter offenses in 1940-1942 and pushing the Japanese entirely off their land by 1943 without it?
 

raharris1973

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No railroad, there was also a road for trucks here is a mention of the road by the US Army http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/burma42/burma42.htm that was already built but he US built a railroad alongside it (as much as possible) as most of the work clearing the land for a railroad was already done for the road. Railcars can carry far more goods than trucks and thus are much more efficient in moving massive quantities of munitions. Would the Chinese have been able to carry out their big counter offenses in 1940-1942 and pushing the Japanese entirely off their land by 1943 without it?

No - with just a narrow truck road and no rail system, the Chinese big counteroffensives would have been delayed at least one, and probably two, years.

The postwar effects are interesting though too - without the rails, Burma would have been a much less important oil exporter in the 1940s and 1950s.
And the Burmese state might not have been able to hold together post independence, especially in the north, without the rail and telegraph/telephone networks up there and the additional customs revenue from China trade. I know it is somewhat counter-intuitive because the revolts were many say provoked by a more intrusive ethnic Burmese dominated central government, but tensions always existed with mountain minority peoples, and they might have been able to prevail in breaking away without rail mobility for the central army.

There could be an interesting effect on American domestic politics too. Historians say that until the scandal about the misuse of taxpayer funds in Burma, executive branch pressure on American firms to support the project and similar things leading to investigations and the forced resignations of Henry Morgenthau and Harold Ickes in early 1939, FDR was fully intent was fully intent on running for a third term!

At least before the scandal he was still enormously popular, and I think that could have overcome any public trepidation about overturning the "no third term" tradition. So no President Willkie.

Ironically, the boosted aid program for China from 41-43, of which the Burma Railroad was such a critical part, was one of the things President Willkie was most proud of in his memoirs. If it had not been built though the knock-ons might have meant he never would have been President!
 
No - with just a narrow truck road and no rail system, the Chinese big counteroffensives would have been delayed at least one, and probably two, years.

The postwar effects are interesting though too - without the rails, Burma would have been a much less important oil exporter in the 1940s and 1950s.
And the Burmese state might not have been able to hold together post independence, especially in the north, without the rail and telegraph/telephone networks up there and the additional customs revenue from China trade. I know it is somewhat counter-intuitive because the revolts were many say provoked by a more intrusive ethnic Burmese dominated central government, but tensions always existed with mountain minority peoples, and they might have been able to prevail in breaking away without rail mobility for the central army.

There could be an interesting effect on American domestic politics too. Historians say that until the scandal about the misuse of taxpayer funds in Burma, executive branch pressure on American firms to support the project and similar things leading to investigations and the forced resignations of Henry Morgenthau and Harold Ickes in early 1939, FDR was fully intent was fully intent on running for a third term!

At least before the scandal he was still enormously popular, and I think that could have overcome any public trepidation about overturning the "no third term" tradition. So no President Willkie.

Ironically, the boosted aid program for China from 41-43, of which the Burma Railroad was such a critical part, was one of the things President Willkie was most proud of in his memoirs. If it had not been built though the knock-ons might have meant he never would have been President!

Not talking about the Chinese post war boom. The railroad really facilitated trade between the US and China. I heard it argued the Communists might have even won the Chinese Civil War although I think that is a longshot. In any case the rail really helped trade in China as the railroad was expanded by Union Pacific during the war to follow the Nationalist Army. Although he criticized the misuse of funds during the election, Wilkie continued the program under "increased government supervision" . How much that helped is in question but it did give him political cover to do what needed to be done. After all , the aid wouldn't do much good if left at the Chinese-Burmese border , it had to get up to the troops and the Chinese railways weren't developed enough to handle the increasing load.
 
No railroad, there was also a road for trucks here is a mention of the road by the US Army http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/burma42/burma42.htm that was already built but he US built a railroad alongside it (as much as possible) as most of the work clearing the land for a railroad was already done for the road.
OOC: Ha, ha, ha.

Have you seen pictures of the Burma road? There's no way you could build a railroad on land already cleared for the road.
The grades and switchbacks totally rule out rail 'beside' the road.

Your best bet is probably
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yunnan–Burma_Railway
 
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