“The Roosevelt administration hoped to use Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese people to blunt the aggressive military actions of the Japanese.”
By Mike Lemish
A FORMATION of brand-new, American-made, heavy bombers flies in formation over the Japanese homeland. Their target is Fukuoka.
With a population of 300,000, it’s one of the largest cities on the island of Kyushu and capital of its own prefecture.
Down below, air raid sirens wail. Civilians clear the streets and scramble for bomb shelters.
Once over their objective, the planes’ bomb bay doors open and each aircraft releases its deadly payload onto the city below.
The date is Friday, June 13, 1941
Of course, no air raid by American bombers on Fukuoka took place on that particular date. Indeed, at that time, the United States and the Empire of Japan were at peace; the attack on Pearl Harbor was still six months off.
Yet, such a scenario was one which many U.S. officials and allies hoped might play out in 1941.
American flier Colonel Claire Chennault was one of them. China’s generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, was another. Meanwhile in the United States, the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. fiercely lobbied the White House to bomb Japan. Remarkably, President Franklin D. Roosevelt greenlighted the entire scheme.
For years, the United States had watched with growing concern as Japan forcefully expanded throughout the Far East. In 1931, imperial troops invaded Manchuria; in 1937, the Kwantung Army launched a war in China itself.
Long before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Washington sought to stifle Tokyo’s ambition. Specifically, the Roosevelt administration hoped to use Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese people to blunt the aggressive military actions of the Japanese.
For years, the United States provided China with aircraft, both military and civilian. The sale of planes ebbed and flowed depending on the political winds in the American capital. The Great Depression saw U.S. aircraft manufacturers looking to China for potential sales.
Well before the Flying Tigers, the famous contingent of American volunteer pilots in the Chinese air force, the first U.S. pilot to be killed by the Japanese occurred in 1932 at a time when Japan already had a foothold in China.
His name was Robert Short, and he was a demonstration pilot for Boeing. One day in 1932, while flying a Boeing 218 biplane, Short spotted several Japanese bombers ramping up to attack a Chinese railhead. Knowing he was fully armed, Short decided to engage the aircraft and damaged several in the ensuing dogfight. A few days later he once again engaged several Japanese naval fighters and was shot down. Short’s exploits went unrecognized in the United States, but a memorial for him in China remains to this day.
But America was officially neutral at this time. And the isolationist movement in the country, headed by Charles Lindbergh, hampered efforts by the Roosevelt administration to provide China (and Great Britain) with what it needed to defend itself. After one Lindbergh speech FDR would remark, “If I should die tomorrow, I want you to know this: I am absolutely convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi.”
In 1937, the Chinese sought out the services of Captain Claire Chennault, recently retired from the Army Air Corps to whip the abysmal Chinese Air Force into shape.
On his way to Shanghai, Chennault stopped off in Japan and visited several cities. After taking careful notes and snapping some photographs, he concluded that Japanese cities were ripe for the use of incendiary bombs.
Unfortunately, Chennault with his unorthodox views towards the application of air power would become a pariah with the Army Air Corps. Some considered him a mercenary and in later years General Joseph “Vinegar” Stilwell would even call him a “crackpot.” Without a doubt this is one, among other reasons why the United States vacillated on providing bombers for China.
An early opportunity for the United States to blunt Japanese aggression in the Far East occurred in 1937 with the sinking of the American gunboat USS Panay (PR-5) on the Yangtze River near Nanking.
Tokyo offered assurances that the incident, which saw Japanese warplanes strafe and bomb the American-flagged vessel, was an accident. Some historians have since speculated that the attack was deliberately carried to test U.S. resolve.
Washington officially protested and Japan apologized offering $2 million compensation to the victims. The United States accepted the overture, leaving Tokyo to surmise that America had no stomach for a fight.
As Japanese aggression intensified in China throughout the 1930s, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin recognized that Japan posed a risk to his eastern border. Soon, Moscow was providing China with both aircraft and pilots with which to fight the Japanese. Soviet support continued until the U.S.S.R and Japan signed a non-aggression pact in 1941. This allowed Stalin to turn his attention to Hitler in the west. It also meant the United States would have to pick up the slack of containing an expansionist Japan.
Despite this, Chennault understood there would be no American intervention on behalf of China without pressure and reached out to T.V. Soong, the premier Chinese lobbyist in Washington, D.C. to help.
Soong presented a plan to the Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. about providing fighters and also heavy bombers to China. Morgenthau was on board but not the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull. Hull would eventually reverse course however and FDR approved the plan.
U.S. Chief of Staff, General George Marshall and the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson both opposed the idea. Stimson even called Chennault’s plan “half-baked.” Although FDR backed the strategy it was opposed by many in the military and the implementation was hampered as no one person would head the operation. The B-17s were off the table, if only temporarily.
By way of consolation, Chennault would receive 100 Curtiss-Wright P-40B Tomahawk fighters that the British passed up to wait for an improved version. Adding insult to injury, the Tomahawks arrived in China with no ammo. FDR had to intervene and order General Marshall to provide three million rounds of ammunition for Chennault.
Meanwhile in Washington, D.C. mid-level bureaucrats with Soviet sympathies pushed for more support to China as this would free up Stalin to focus on Nazi Germany.
The Treasury Secretary even engaged writer Earnest Hemingway to spy on Chiang Kai-shek to see how American money was being spent and confirm the building of potential B-17 airfields.
The overall doctrine of the United States was a “Europe first” policy. Thus, China only received six pounds of military aid for every 80 pounds delivered to the British. The results became apparent in the upcoming years.
Other bombers were promised for China, but these would be medium- range, two-engine variants and not capable of reaching Japan.
The Washington bureaucracy and the United States military moved sloth-like as tensions with Japan escalated. As such Douglas DB-7 bombers sat on the tarmac in Burbank, California as American bomber pilots started their journey to China only to have their travels interrupted with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Michael Lemish is the author of Before Pearl Harbor: China, FDR and the Plot to Bomb Japan. His other books include War Dogs – A History of Loyalty and Heroism and Forever Forward – K-9 Operations in Vietnam. He has contributed to military documentaries produced by the BBC, Discovery, The History Channel and PBS. He has written for such publications as The American Legion Magazine, Aviation History, The Atlantic Flyer – General Aviation News and the scouting magazine Boy’s Life. He resides in Massachusetts along with his retired military working dog Lucy. You can visit him online at www.michaellemish.com.
