Evening star., 1940-11-20
Says Burmo Road
Proves Its Worth
Valiant Efforts of Chinese
To Construct Highway
Are Described
BIZ SCHUYLER v. Cdmmdnn

~ OSfSN1SS' So"ebSuht'
When the new Burma road first was
built in 1898, foreign military observers
said that it could never have more than
sentimental value, since it could never
carry as much freight as the French
Railway from Indo-China, and would
be useless during the rainy season, when
the road was cut by streams or be-
came a streambed itself These views
have been completely disproved during
the past few months, and the Burma
road finally has emerged as factor OF
supreme importance In Chinas con-
tinued resistance.
After two summers of landslides,
truck losses, and halted traffic, the
Chinese managed to keep the highway
passable during the last few months,
by improved methods of road laying
and the ceaseless activity of repair
crews. Unfortunately, the Chinese
government was unable to take full
advantage of this feat as in July the
British closed the Burma section for
three months to arms and munitions,
allowing only necessary non-military
supplies, such as Red Cross materials
to pass over it.
This was done largely to appease the
Japanese, then threatening Hong Kong,
but with the understanding that, in
return, Japan would take advantage of
this three month period to negotiate
peace with China. The Japanese COM
pletely failed to keep their part of the
understanding. They not only made
no move to terminate the China in
Cident," but deliberately took advantage
of the weakness of Britains former ally
to close the French Railway-which had
been China's first lifeline-and to seize
bases in the northern part of Indo-
China, from which to bomb Southwest
China. These actions gave the British
a final lesson, If one were needed, in the
futility of trying to appease Japan,
and they announced their intention to
reopen the road on October IT.
Meanwhile the long uncertain Silk
Road from the Soviet Union across
Turkestan had been proving itself so
impractical that Russia had been
shipping almost all of her heavier sup
plies for China by sea to Rangoon in
Burma. This left the Burma road as the
sole lifeline into Yunnan and Szechuan
provinces, which are the heart of resis-
tance in Free China
The making of the new Burma road
was as great human achievement as
the building of our own Union Pacific
On the China side, 100000 men, women
and children, set to work to relay some
300 miles of recently built highway from
Running to Hsiakwan, and to build $50
miles Of new road from Hsiakwan to the
border. Working with only the most
primitive implements in a difficult and
mountainous country and in fever
ridden jungles, they finished the Job in
eight months.
Every one was given a definite job to
do by the Chinese overseers. The young
men and the strong hauled rocks which
children and elderly people patiently
cracked into small pieces for the road
bed. The tribeswomen, used to doing
farmwork and packing heavy loads,
lugged huge hampers of earth on their
backs, dumping them over big shoulders
on the foundations of crushed rock, while
their menfolk leveled the surface with
primitive wooden tools. Bullock men
harnessed their clumsy beasts to stone
boats to move the heaviest rocks. and
when each surface was finished. forced
the animals to pull hand-hewn stone
rollers over it, to make it fiat and firm
Meanwhile the Yunnan Mohammedans
kept to their hereditary profession as
muleteers, managing packtrains of rice
to feed the countless workers. who lived
in temporary villages of grass shacks
beside the roadside streams.
The only exceptions to this technique
of employing sheer numbers with prim-
tive tools were in two or three places
that offered unusual difficulties. Leaving
Hsiakwan, ledge for the new road had
to be blasted from wall Of solid VOL
canic rock in deep ravine. Here a
modern machine drill had been set up
to bore holes for sticks of dynamite The
tribal workers were delighted at the great
noise and shower of rocks that accom-
panied each explosion and only series
OF fatal lessons taught them the danger
OF standing too near. More modern
equipment was also needed in the great
gorges of the Mekong and Salween
Rivers, where steel cable bridges with
concrete piers replaced the swaying chain
bridges which had been the only means
OF crossing for at least thousand years
Ever since the ancient barbarian
Kings of Yunnan began the trade with
Burma, exchanging Chinese silks and
gold leaf, paper and metalWork for ivory
and amber, cotton and jade, the traffic
along the old Burma road was con-
Quoted by means of long pack trains
These consisted of anywhere from so to
several hundred of the tiny Yunnan
ponies, little bigger than donkeys. Car
rying loads up to 300 pounds, they fol-
lowed their gaily decked leadhorses
single file, over narrow mountain trails.
Even the Ambassadors Road, over which
the Kings of Burma sent tribute to the
Emperors of China, was only irregularly
paved with stone blocks, several feet
long and foot wide, laid end to end,
which proved their value only during
rainy season.
Now the modern "gas CARTS as the
natives call them, each carry the load
of IS or 20 ponies and passengers besides,
but the old methods have not been given
up. Not only by trucks. but by coolie
back and pack horse loads, foreign arms
and munitions and American gasoline