893.00/6–547
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Vincent) to the Secretary of State
The attached telegrams,41 from U. S. Navy and Marine sources in China, confirm other reports from U. S. officials in China of the deterioration of the National Government’s military position, especially in Manchuria.
The Commanding Marine General at Tientsin says that the Communists are now capable of capturing any town in the Tientsin-Peiping area, except for the largest cities, although they could not hold it long. He also states Nationalist forces are in desperate need of ammunition for U. S. weapons, a need also stressed by Navy intelligence, which describes the need as crucial. Navy also reports that inept leadership and poor planning and tactics have resulted in costly Government defeats. The Naval Attaché at Nanking42 describes treatment and pay of Government troops as poor and their morale as generally below that of the Communists.
In this connection, the Consul General at Changchun reports that the current Communist drive in Manchuria seems aimed at the total conquest of that area and brings out the present impotence and ineffectualness of the National military in Manchuria. He says that the Communists, by taking the initiative and going on the offensive, are isolating or capturing Government garrison points, while the Government holes up in its garrison towns and allows the Communists to implement their plans without active interference. The Consul General at Mukden reports the deterioration of Nationalist morale at an accelerated rate during the past two months, with apathy, resentment and defeatism spreading and causing surrenders and desertions in Nationalist ranks. The Embassy feels that the gravest danger to the Government in the immediate future is from disaffection in the armies but that in spite of fairly steady deterioration in morale the Government can hold the loyalty of its best troops. The Embassy anticipates that Government efforts will be bent on supplying these troops adequately.
[Page 167]The recent action toward completing most of the 8⅓ CAF program, the transfer of ammunition under surplus arrangements and the granting of export licenses for shipment of munitions to China43 may serve to improve Nationalist morale and bolster its fighting strength, but it cannot alter the effects of poor leadership nor will it improve the treatment of Nationalist troops. There seems to be no action that the U. S. could take in the immediate future to correct these shortcomings except through more or less direct involvement in the civil war.