Adapted from the August 10, 1942 issue.
Portions copyright 1942 Time, Inc.
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If the face of defeat is always bitter, it is sometimes heroic too.
Last week from one of the United Nations' most humiliating defeats, the Army released one of the war's
most heroic stories. It was the picture record of the flight of General "Uncle Joe" Stilwell and his staff
of 103 Americans, British and Chinese from Burma into India in May. Many of these U.S. Army officers LIFE
readers met in Clare Boothe's articles on Stilwell's headquarters in the issues of June 15 and June 22
(see bottom of page).
The men and women covered 140 miles in 20 days, more than half of it by foot. They tramped through jungles
and underbrush, over mountains and across swamps, in terrible heat and pounding rain. Always they were in
danger of being cut off by the Japanese. Some days their road was blocked by streams of Burmese and
Chinese refugees, starving and sick, trying to escape into India. Once supplies were dropped to them by a
British Blenheim plane but mostly they lived on a diet of rice. Although the oldest (59) man in the party,
General Stilwell stood the trip better than most of the other soldiers, sleeping in the jungle at night,
making stretchers for the wounded and standing in line, with the rest, for his meager supply of food.
Stilwell finally emerged from Burma at the Indian frontier town of Imphal on May 24. From there he took a train to Dinjan and then flew to New Delhi. There he uttered his now famous statement: "I claim we got a hell of a beating. We got run out of Burma and it's humiliating as hell." Today in his New Delhi headquarters, Stilwell is still waiting and planning how to retake Burma.
Wearing his underwear and campaign hat, Stilwell carries bully beef across Uyu River to his raft.
The meat has been dropped by a British plane. As far as Uyu River, the party used trucks and jeeps.
There they left them and built rafts.
Through the Burmese jungle, Stilwell leads his men at steady pace of 105 steps a minute.
This soon became known as the "Stilwell Stride." During each hour of the march, Stilwell permitted
ten minutes rest. During the trip he was company commander, guide, gun bearer and chief coaxer
for the weary.
Rest period in the jungle was a time to joke and talk about home and what food they expected
to get that day. Said Colonel "Pinky" Dorn: "Forty percent of us liked food spiced. Sixty percent didn't
like their food spiced. So the food was cooked separately. But whether spiced or not, it was still always
rice."
Feet tired from a weary day's march are bathed in a Burmese stream by Colonel George Sliney, Lieut.
Colonel Frank Merrill and Major Felix Nowakowski. When trucks were abandoned, everybody was ordered to
leave everything behind "except what you can carry." Burmese nurses left shoes behind.
Over the pock-marked sand on the approaches to the Chindwin River straggle Stilwell and party.
These Army photographs were probably taken by Captain Fred Eldredge who has been Stilwell's public relations
officer since the general was in command of the 7th Division at Fort Ord, Calif. From the time they left
Wuntho until they reached the Chindwin, Stilwell's party was out of touch with the world. By the time
Stilwell had led his polyglot group into India, he had performed a miracle, changing it from an
unorganized mob into a well-disciplined force.