What if Chiang vetoed both Stilwell’s Plans and the long-distance bombing campaign?

raharris1973

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Rationale: As in OTL, CKS is loath to cooperate with Stilwell or allow him to dilute his own lines of authority to Chinese military forces. He is also loath to commit too much to the Burma campaign, to keep up strength within China. He does not want to give up control, make openings for the Communists and overtax his core forces and internal alliances with warlords.


The added twist is he does not see focusing on a US bombing campaign from China as the easy alternative, as he did in OTL.


The rationale is that he anticipates that if China is the unique platform for bombing Japan, it will stimulate Japanese attacks on Chinese forces and territory. Therefore, while verbally expressing plans and intentions to invigorate the war with Japan, and while seeking both massive military equipment and defensive air support from the US (fighters more than bombers), Chiang puts off development of the long-range air campaign until the USN has fought across the Pacific to the Marianas and Philippines and gained better, more secure air bases, and incidentally is in a position to support China with amphibious force via the Pacific.


Associated poll:

a) Japan would not do Ichigo without the US China-based bombing campaign

b) Japan would do Ichigo anyway without the bombing campaign.
 
The B-29 campaign out of China was a phenomenal waste of resources for very little result. It was a morale booster to some extent, and to the extent it gave crews experience and dealt with bugs in the aircraft and changes of that sort had some value. It is hard to gauge how much the B-29s caused Ichi-go. Certainly putting the airbases on the list of objectives happened, but there were other "rationales". If there are no air bases for B-29s, probably the objectives of this offensive may alter in terms of geography, but the desire to either knock China out of the war or render them completely impotent is still there.

If Chiang is basically ignoring Stilwell, and not putting the effort in to building/protecting the air bases, I expect that US aid is going to be less than OTL. Being uncooperative (as seen by the USA) won't mean no aid, China is too valuable a resource sink for the Japanese to be kicked to the curb. Stalin was pretty uncooperative in many ways, but the Allies put up with this because of how the Eastern Front was a suck on German resources.

IMHO Chiang not having B-29 bases in China is actually a plus, you don't waste resources for little result, and also some of the supply capacity used for the B-29s can now be used for more useful stuff.
 

raharris1973

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According to Franco David macri, the main support Chiang needed was bigger artillery tubes in quantity, and the related artillery transport and support.
 
Supporting the KMT was a a pet project of Roosevelt. If Chaing makes it even more difficult Roosevelt has to abandon yet more investment. OTL Chaing shot himself in the foot with his misaligned policies and lost considerable aid. this reduces it further. Maybe Stilwell leaves sooner & finds better employment elsewhere. Be nice to see him instead of Buckner running then Okinawa battle.
 
wouldn't pouring more resources into India to provide the strength to reopen the Burma/Ledo roads sooner make sense as well as alleviating the famine...don't make the immense effort to airlift over the Hump...
 

raharris1973

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wouldn't pouring more resources into India to provide the strength to reopen the Burma/Ledo roads sooner make sense as well as alleviating the famine...don't make the immense effort to airlift over the Hump...

Alleviate the Bengal famine by recovering the Burmese rice-growing lands?
 

raharris1973

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It seems to me that Chiang could have done himself the most favors by supporting Stilwell's priorities for ground forces equipment over Army Air Corps priorities for the anti-Japan bombing campaign, even if in practice he choose to ignore Stilwell's organizational reforms and operational plans. If he can avoid attracting unwanted additional Japanese attention (which the China-based air offensive does) while collecting ground or tactical air gear for the postwar and to handle any frisky Japanese or Communist moves he leaves himself better positioned, even if he disappoints the Americans.

Once the Americans have blasted their way through the Pacific and are regularly running convoys to the Marianas and PI maybe then is the time to allow stepped up activity to redeem himself somewhat to the Americans (and to populations in occupied China), especially if he can get some supplies and air support from across the Pacific to make up for any losses incurred by more active campaigning. Major efforts with GLOCs or ALOCs the long way around over Burma or the Himalayas just don't seem to have the desired staying power.
 
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