Evening star., 1942-04-01
American General
Directs Fighting
In ShirtsIeeves
BY DANIEL DEUCE,
Press War Correspondent

WITH THE CHINESE ARMY
ON THE TOUNGOO FRONT,
March 81 (delayed).-T
was abandoned today by the
fierce-fighting remnant Of the
Chinese garrison which held out
there through five days of ter
rife air and ground assault and
then battered a way over fields
of japanese dead to rejoin troops
which their American command
er, 1t. Gen. Joseph w. Stilwell,
personally led to their relief.
Not until ordered by radio to re-
treat after Gen. Stilwell's forces
proved unable to crack the japanese
line IL miles north of the town did
the garrison bulge from its shallow
machine-gun holes and rifle pits in
the eastern outskirts of Toungoo.
The Chinese crossed the Sittang
under almost point-blank fire, cut
ting q bloody swathe through the
invaders lines, and scattered in the
wooded hills northeast of the town,
whence they made their way to the
main Chinese lines.
Goes Up to Front Lines.
Gen. Stilwell, lean-jawed COM
rnander of the Chinese in Burma,
came up to the very front lines to
direct the fight to save the Toungoo
garrison.
At his command, boyish rifiemen
and machine gunners from China,
spread in thin khaki lines through
the brown jungle fanking the road
to Mandalay, counterattacked re-
peatedly against the reinforced Jap
anese positions II miles north OF
Toungoo.
Four times captured and four
times lost by the Chinese in the
bitter fighting, the smoking ruins OF
the Nangyun railroad station half
mile west of the Burma road, IL
miles north of Toungoo and miles
south of Yedashe, was still the center
of the battle.
Gen. Stilwell, who reached an ad-
vanced post near Nangyun Sunday,
ordered every Chinese soldiers avail
able into the fight to open a way
for the Toungoo garrison to with
draw.
Has Strong Escort.
Armed with tommy guns, First
1t. Carl Arnold, former music
teacher at Los Angeles, and Sergt.
Francis Astolf1 of Wilkesbarre, Pa,
conveyed Gen. Stilwell in a United
States armored scout car.
1t. Arnold, who wrote the music
for Gen. Stilwen's verses of an Army
marching son, Let's Co." had no
chance to test his proficiency at
gunnery, for the Chinese command
also sent along a strong escort.
Gen. Stilwell and Maj. Gen. Teng
Hsi-kuei, 1925 graduate of the Vir-
ginia Military Institute and now a
member of the Chinese National
Military Council in hason with the
American mission, calmly inter-
rupted their inspection Of the front
to take cover in the high brush at
times when Japanese planes circled
overhead.
Gen. Stilwell, in shirtsleeves,
chewed gum end puffed on
cigarette in a black holder as he
chatted in fluent Chinese with his
unit commanders only few hun
dred yards from sputtering ma
chine guns.
Once when nine enemy bombers
passed overhead, flying north, a
buck -toothed Chinese sentry whose
German-made helmet was camou-
fiaged with leafy branches pointed
them out to his general with a grin.
Take a picture of the Chinese;
don't take me-" Gen. Stillwell told
a newspaperman. THE Chinese are
the big story of this war
No Sign of Surrendering.
Despite the battering they with
stood as they forced the japanese
to pay in blood for every inch OF
the town, the garrison had showed
no sign of surrendering.
The fight they put up made the
battle of Toungoo the flercest of the
Burma campaign so far.
The Chinese garrison had been
cut of for a week from all sup
plies except one ammunition convoy
which slipped through the Japanese
lines.
Since Sunday it had been ap-
parent that the Chinese relief drive
down the road to Mandalay from
the north could not reach the
hemmed- in troops, and it became a
question of how many of the trapped
troops could be saved.
Pushed Southwest.
To accomplish this, units Of the
Chinese relief forces pushed south
west from Yedashe to draw the
japanese strength away from the
east and weaken the invaders lines
there, for the garrison's break
through.
Observers said that had the
Chinese reinforcements now in line
IL miles north of Toungoo been
available there a week ago, the issue
might well have been different.
The Chinese counterdrive could
not be started, however, until last
Friday. Lack of air support for the
Chinese was regarded as a large
- RHm Ak@A