Talk:China Burma India Theater

SEAC

I am not sure that Stilwell was under the command of SEAC (Mountbatten) but as it started in India that is likley. If you know bette please correct his page and fix the mention of the Ledo Road on the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II and Burma Campaign pages. Philip Baird Shearer 11:16, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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Philip, the point of my change was this: if a unit was part of CBI, it doesn't automatically mean it was part of SEAC; i.e. the US command (CBI) overlapped two separate Allied commands: SEAC and China. No-one could have persuaded Chiang to take orders from an India/SEAC CinC. Which is probably why Stilwell had his secondary role as Chiang's Chief of Staff -- having a US general as CoS both preserved Chiang's dignity, gave him a direct link to the White House, and gave the western Allies some influence (but not much, since Chiang apparently was more pre-occupied with stockpiling arms for a future war against Mao, as he was with fighting Japan.) As this article points out, the anomaly of the CBI overlap was eventually addressed by the separation of the US forces into USFBIT and USFCT. And whether or not USFCT was actually part of SEAC is another issue again. Grant65 (Talk) 00:01, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Here we are. A US Army official history says: "The American air commander in the CBI had a status comparable to that of Stilwell, who also wore quite a number of hats. Part of Stratemeyer's command, the Tenth Air Force, had been integrated with the RAF in India in December and was operating under Mountbatten. Another part of it, the Fourteenth Air Force in China, was at least technically under the jurisdiction of Chiang as theater commander."The Second Front and the Secondary War The CBI: January-May 1944 Grant65 (Talk) 12:08, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Yep there is some ambiguity about it. I came across a letter to from Chennault to FDR (26/1/1944) where he says:

Unfortunately, since the abandonment of the plan for a major campaign in Burma, the China program appears to consist exclusively of the Matterhorn Project, for long range bombing of Japan. No additions to the program seem likely. The Chinese leaders, while I am sure they will approve and cooperate in the operations which I suggest, are too preoccupied with domestic and financial problems to take the initiative. I am glad to say that I was recently able to explain the potentialities of an attack on Japanese shipping and air power to Lord Louis Mountbatten and General Wedemeyer. They immediately grasped its importance, and have promised to support the plan in the appropriate quarters. But they are in no position to do over-all planning for China, and an over-all plan is required.

Why would he be asking Mountbatten and General Wedemeyer "to do over-all planning for China" if his forces were not under SEAC? We know for certain that the strategic bomber forces in Asia and the Pacific were not under theatre command, just as they were not in Europe or the Med either, so we can say that the Twentieth Air Force was not under SEAC. However there are a number of stages in US tactical air forces in China.

• Tigers before the start of WWII
• Tigers after the start of WWII and during the fall of Rangoon. -- when did CBI start?
• 14th Air Force before SEAC
• 14th Air Force during SEAC before the loss of Airfields in China (1944)
• 14the Air Force during the last year of the war
• Some of the 14th were definatly under SEAC, eg No. 490 Bomb Squadron USAAF.

I think that we need to establish a time line and a battle order before developing the idea on the CBI page. I would be a good idea to do the same thing for the Tenth Air Force as well.--Philip Baird Shearer 13:23, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Before I saw this I finished a major re-write. Apart from anything else there were numerous typos and fragmentary sentences. See what you think.Grant65 (Talk) 14:10, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Better, but I have done a re-write on the first section. I have left a lot of things ambigious until the facts can be nailed down. Here is a reference which might helps a little: http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/WCP/enchApxB4.html

One of the things to rember about the CBI is that only ground combat troops the US had in theater were the 3000 of Merrill's Marauders, and they nearly ended up as part of the Chindits so it is not supprising that the official US Army view of the Burma campaign was that it was only being fought to aid the construction of airbases in China. This is not the British view! But which ever way it is cut if the Japanese had captured Dimapur on the Northeast Indian Railways during World War II then supplies to the Hump and the the Ledo Road would have been cut. You might find Ledo Road#The British strategic view about it interesting. Philip Baird Shearer 20:10, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why move from CBI Theater WWII

The problem with the word theater is that it has more than one meaning. Philip Baird Shearer 10:06, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is there a theatrical theatre called the "China Burma India Theatre"? :-) Grant65 (Talk) 11:22, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Not that I know of, but south east Asian theatre turned up a number of hits on Google! So far all the "theatres " end in World War II and "theaters of operations" do not ( "European Theatre of World War II", "South East Theater of World War II") As this was a theater and not a "theater of operations" I would like to keep the original name so that there is no future ambiguity, with someone wanting to stick a See ....(disambiguation) at the top. As I created the original article and name I would like to claim squaters rights on it, so unless you have strong feeling about it I would like to move the page back and keep a redirect from "China Burma India Theater".

An examples of what I mean are Digger (which I sorted out when sorting out levellers), and stormtrooper which listed links to Sturmabteilung-brown shirts, Imperial Stormtroopers-Star wars, and Sturmtruppen-Italian commic with the total explanation of the word as "Regular army assault/shock troops. From the German Sturmtruppen."

PS. I spoke too soon looking at the "levellers" link someone had altered it link to the levellers(disambiguation) page (Sigh!) Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If you do not reply within 24 hours, I'll assume that you do not mind if the page is moved back to its original name. Philip Baird Shearer 16:27, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm...don't think its 24 hours. I really don't think there is any room for confusion, I mean what else is the "CBI" conjunction used for? It's far, far less common than even (e.g.) "south west pacific area" which does turn up some non-WW2-related travel/tourism sites on Google (I think).Grant65 (Talk) 15:49, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Woops moved at 13:28:41, Sorry it seemed like a lot longer than 24 hours since I posted the above. Why do you want to move it? Philip Baird Shearer 22:13, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I know where you're coming from, I recently started Air raids on Darwin, February 19, 1942 and there have already been suggestions it should be moved to "Attack on Darwin", "Air raid on Darwin", etc. My reasoning was that people will do web searches for "china burma india theater" and find it, so the "wwii" was superfluous. It doesn't really matter though. Grant65 (Talk) 01:13, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Task forces

I have just moved the tags for the British-task-force, Chinese-task-force, Indian-task-force, and Japanese-task-force to South-East Asian theater of World War II, which is the general article on the theatre as a whole in 1941-45. CBI was basically US technical jargon for a US supply area. Grant65 | Talk 06:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Not a theater of operations

See China Burma India Theater of World War II#U.S. Land forces

The US forces in the CBI theater were grouped together for administrative purposes under the command of General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, but unlike the other theaters in the war, for example the European Theater of Operations, it was never a "theater of operations" and did not have an overall operational command.

The theater of operations was the South-East Asian theatre of World War II --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

According to the Center of Military History for the United States Army, published a document called Burma, 1942 (CMH Pub 72-21) which states:

• "Even as Stilwell assembled his staff in Washington and began the long journey to the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater of Operations, the situation in Burma was deteriorating rapidly"

• "As Stilwell prepared for his new assignment, the 10th U.S. Air Force was activated in Ohio and slated for deployment to the CBI Theater of Operations."

There are references of both as a theater and theater of operations which are published and documented by the United States Military. -Signaleer (talk) 15:37, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

If it was a Theatre of Operations then what was the operational command for the theater? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

That's a question that should be directed towards the Center of Military History in Washington, D.C. -Signaleer (talk) 11:34, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem we run into here is problems of semantics. It took me some time but I found in the copy of the Official History. The following

"In the absence of further, conflicting evidence, it must be assumed that both the War Department and General Stilwell regarded the Department's 22 June radio as sufficient authority for the establishment of an American theater of operations in China, Burma, and India." (p. 193 United States Army in World War II China-Burma-India Theater, Stillwell's Mission to China by Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sunderland)

It is hardly a ringing endorsement of the claim in the U.S Army Official History! --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The United States Army's Center of Military History is a reliable and credible source of information, considering that they are responsible for the history of the United States Army, more so than yourself. -Signaleer (talk) 12:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll toss in my 2 cents. All of the contemporary literature and documents, and the official histories later based on them, show that the "CBI" was an often-mentioned area of the world, but a composite description of two U.S. theaters (whether or not these "theaters" met anyone's "official" definition): the India-Burma theater, and the China theater. At some future date a brief section might put all these notions together without any need to be "definitive". Such "loose" descriptions occurred throughout WWII. All this posturing, esp. the negatives tossed in, is a waste of energy.--Reedmalloy (talk) 17:29, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Narrative

The article is full of useful information but lacks a narrative, which I am adding. It is based on the material I wrote (alone) for Citizendium in 2008, and found at Citizendium Rjensen (talk) 14:24, 20 June 2011 (UTC)