Workers with hand tools building Burma Road2

The Burma Road () was a road linking Burma (now known as

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

) with

southwest China Southwestern China () is a region in the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Xizang. Geography Southwestern China is a rugged and mountainous region, ...

. Its terminals were

Lashio Lashio ( ; Shan: ) is the largest city and the capital of northern Shan State, Myanmar, about north-east of Mandalay. It is situated on a low mountain spur overlooking the valley of the Yaw River. Loi Leng, the highest mountain of the Shan Hi ...

, Burma, in the south and

Kunming Kunming is the capital and largest city of the province of Yunnan in China. The political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province, Kunming is also the seat of the provincial government. During World War II, Kunming was a Ch ...

, China, the capital of

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

province in the north. It was built in 1937–1938 while Burma was a

British colony A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony governed by England, and then Great Britain or the United Kingdom within the English and later British Empire. There was usually a governor to represent the Crown, appointed by the British monarch on ...

to convey supplies to China during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is considered part ...

. Preventing the flow of supplies on the road helped motivate the occupation of Burma by the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

in 1942 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Use of the road was restored to the Allies in 1945 after the completion of the

Ledo Road The Ledo Road () was an overland connection between British India and China, built during World War II to enable the Western Allies to deliver supplies to China and aid the war effort against Japan. After the Japanese cut off the Burma Ro ...

. Some parts of the old road are still visible today.

History

The road is long and runs through rough mountain country. The sections from Kunming to the Burmese border were built by 200,000 Burmese and Chinese laborers during the

in 1937 and completed by 1938 in order to circumvent the Japanese blockade of China. The construction project was coordinated by

Chih-Ping Chen Chih-Ping Chen (; 13 November 1906 – 11 February 1984) was a Chinese student activist, military officer, statesman, and diplomat for the Republic of China from the 1920s through the mid-1970s. He served in student actions during the establis ...

. During

, the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...

used the Burma Road to transport

materiel Materiel or matériel (; ) is supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commerce, commercial supply chain management, supply chain context. Military In a military context, ...

to aid China's war effort, especially after China lost sea-access following the loss of

Nanning Nanning; is the capital of the Guangxi, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in South China, southern China. It is known as the "Green City (绿城) " because of its abundance of lush subtropical foliage. Located in the South of Guangxi, Nanning ...

in the

Battle of South Guangxi The Battle of South Guangxi () was one of the 22 major engagements between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. In November 1939, the Japanese landed on the coast of Guangxi and capt ...

. Supplies from San Francisco for example would land at Rangoon (now

Yangon Yangon, formerly romanized as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar. Yangon was the List of capitals of Myanmar, capital of Myanmar until 2005 and served as such until 2006, when the State Peace and Dev ...

), moved by rail to

where the road started in Burma, up steep gradients before crossing into China over the

Wanding Wanding (; "the sun shining overhead"), formerly romanized as Wanting, is a frontier town in Ruili City, Dehong Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China. Wanding is a town in the official division system, but there are three administrative systems in ...

bridge. The Chinese stretch of the road continued for some five hundred miles through rural

terrain before ending up in Kunming. In July 1940, Britain yielded to Japanese diplomatic pressure and closed the Burma Road for three months. The Japanese overran Burma in 1942, closing the Burma Road. The Allies thereafter supplied China by air, flying "over

The Hump The Hump was the name given by Allies of World War II, Allied pilots in the Second World War to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew military transport aircraft from British Raj, India to Republic of China (1912- ...

" from India, which initially proved fatally dangerous and woefully inadequate, leading U.S. army general

Joseph Stilwell Joseph Warren "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell (19 March 1883 – 12 October 1946) was a United States Army general who served in the China Burma India theater during World War II. Stilwell was appointed as Chief of Staff for Chiang Kai-shek, the Chine ...

to obsessively pursue the goal of reopening the Burma Road. The Allies recaptured northern Burma in late 1944, which allowed the

from

Ledo, Assam Ledo is a small town in Tinsukia district, Assam, India. , the Ledo railway station is the easternmost broad gauge railway station in India. The town is also the starting point of Ledo Road, also known as Stilwell Road, a highway built during W ...

to connect to the old Burma Road at Wanding, Yunnan province. The first trucks reached the Chinese frontier by this route on January 28, 1945. The first convoy reached Kunming on February 4, 1945.

Films set on the Burma Road

* ''

Burma Convoy ''Burma Convoy'' is a 1941 American war film directed by Noel M. Smith and starring Charles Bickford, Evelyn Ankers and Frank Albertson. Produced and distributed by Universal Pictures as a second feature, it is about a truck convoy on the Burma R ...

'' (1941) * ''

A Yank on the Burma Road ''A Yank on the Burma Road'' is a 1942 drama film directed by George B. Seitz and starring Laraine Day, Barry Nelson and Keye Luke. It is also known as ''China Caravan'' and ''Yanks on the Burma Road''. It was produced as part of a cluster of ...

'' (1942) * '' Bombs over Burma'' (1942) * ''

Objective, Burma! ''Objective, Burma!'' is a 1945 American war film that is loosely based on the six-month raid by Merrill's Marauders in the Burma Campaign during the World War II, Second World War. Directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn, the film was ma ...

'' (1945) The construction of the road also features in ''

The Battle of China ''The Battle of China'' (1944) was the sixth film of Frank Capra's ''Why We Fight'' propaganda film series. Summary Following its introductory credits, which are displayed to the Army Air Force Orchestra's cover version of "March of the Volun ...

'' (1944), the sixth film of

Frank Capra Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-American film director, producer, and screenwriter who was the creative force behind Frank Capra filmography#Films that won Academy Award ...

's ''

Why We Fight ''Why We Fight'' is a series of seven propaganda films produced by the US Department of War from 1942 to 1945, during World War II. It was originally written for American soldiers to help them understand why the United States was involved in the ...

propaganda film A propaganda film is a film that involves some form of propaganda. Propaganda films spread and promote certain ideas that are usually religious, political, or cultural in nature. A propaganda film is made with the intent that the viewer will ad ...

series.

References

External links

* Merrill's Marauders: Protecting The Burma Road
Burma Road photosWW2 - Campaigns in Burma
World War II Burma Road video
WWII - Why We Fight - The Battle of China 1943
video 1
WWII - Why We Fight - The Battle of China 1943
video 2
Life-line to China Re-Opened, 1945/02/12 (1945)
''

Universal Newsreel Universal Newsreel (sometimes known as Universal-International Newsreel or just U-I Newsreel) was a series of 7- to 10-minute newsreels that were released twice a week between 1929 and 1967 by Universal Studios. A Universal publicity official, S ...

''
The Ghost Road
Mark Jenkins, ''

Outside (magazine) ''Outside'' is a magazine focused on the outdoors. The first issue of the ''Outside'' magazine was published in September 1977. It is published by Outside Inc., a company that also owns various other ventures. History ''Outside'' founders were ...

'', October 2003
Blood, Sweat and Toil along the Burma Road
Donovan Webster, ''

National Geographic Magazine ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

'', November 2003
China to Europe via a new Burma road
David Fullbrook, ''

Asia Times ''Asia Times'' (), formerly known as ''Asia Times Online'', is a Hong Kongbased English language news media publishing group, covering politics, economics, business, and culture from an Asian perspective. ''Asia Times'' publishes in English and ...

'', September 23, 2004
On the way to Mandalay
'

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuous ...

'', August 16, 2008 *

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

,
Burma's Stilwell Road: A backbreaking WWII project is revived
, December 30, 2008.
Transcribed copies of Joseph Warren Stilwell's World War II diaries
are available on the Hoover Institution Archives website, with the original diaries among th
Joseph Warren Stilwell papers
at the Hoover Institution Archives.
Transcribed copies of the World War II diaries of Ernest F. Easterbrook
Stilwell's executive assistant in Burma (as of 1944) and son-in-law, are available on the Hoover Institution Archives website, with the original diaries among th
Ernest Fred Easterbrook papers
at the Hoover Institution Archives.

{{Coord missing, Myanmar Burma campaign Logistics routes of World War II Military history of China during World War II Roads in China Roads in Myanmar Japanese blockade of China World War II sites in Burma World War II sites in China China–Myanmar relations

History

Films set on the Burma Road

Further reading

See also

References

External links