893.797/95
The Navy Department to the Department of State
The following message was received from the Assistant Naval Attaché at Chungking98 under date of January 12, 1941:
The Generalissimo is most anxious to have American Commission operate the Burma Road. He wants highway and motor vehicle maintenance, traffic handling, road construction and associated problems administered by a group of experts one of whom will be in charge, in order that this man may collaborate with the southwest network’s newly appointed Chinese director. We are promised full executive authority and absolute cooperation, nor will he allow the slightest interference from the Sino groups which are in operation at this time. He has asked Soong to make the same request. He is not interested in just advice, what he wants is action.
Chiang informs us that his pilots cannot operate the latest type of planes and he wants similar assistance in aviation at once. He wants to train a special group of Sino pilots selected from the list which he has at present, and would like to have this handled by a group similar to that of the Jouett Mission,99 he would also like to have us coordinate the ground control and superintend the operations. When it was pointed out that possibly the rest of the Chinese air force would oppose this politically, he absolutely guaranteed that this would not be the case.
- Maj. James Marshall McHugh, U. S. Marine Corps.↩
- Col. John H. Jouett (U. S. Army Reserve) was head of the Central Aviation School at Hangchow until June 1935; see despatch No. 10115, June 10, 1935, from the Consul General at Shanghai, Foreign Relations, 1935, vol. iii, p. 224.↩