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Part 6
CHINESE FORCES IN INDIA.
15. When the Japanese broke through to Lashio in April part of the Chinese forces in Burma were cut off from return to China. Part of these sought to reach India. One Division, 38th, which had been operating with the British forces, reached Imphal in good order about 6,000 strong. Part of the remainder of the Chinese Fifth Army eventually got through to India by the Ledo route; others made their way north-east into the Kaohin country north-east of Myitkyina and returned to China by mountain tracks, though only after considerable losses from starvation and disease.
General Stilwell himself, the American Chief of Staff to the Generalissimo, had been cut off in Burma and had to make his way on foot to Assam.
16. I decided to place all Chinese troops that had reached India in a camp at Ramgarh that had previously been an Italian Prisoner-of-War camp. Here they would .be re-equipped and trained by the United States forces.
Towards the end of September I received through the American staff a request from the Generalissimo that additional troops should be flown from China into India to make up the force at Ramgarh to a complete corps of two divisions, which, after equipment and training, would operate from India into Burma. I accepted this proposal after approval by His Excellency the Viceroy and His Majesty's Government. The troops were flown in during October, November and December, and by the end of the year the numbers of the Chinese force at Ramgarh amounted to approximately 30,000.
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