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Burma Road

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This article is about the Sino-Burmese road. For the 1948 Siege of Jerusalem, seeBurma Road (Israel).For Japanese-built wartime railroad in Southeast Asia, seeBurma Railway.
Burma Road
Traditional ChineseĐiền miến công lộ
Simplified ChineseĐiền miến công lộ
Literal meaningYunnan–BurmaHighway
Transportation of Allied Forces in Burma and southwestern China including the Burma Road
The "Twenty-Four Bends" (25.821725°N, 105.202600°E), often mistaken for a segment of the Burma Road, is actually inQinglong County,Guizhou Province.During theSecond Sino-Japanese War,Western supplies carried over the Burma Road first arrived atKunming,the capital of Yunnan province, then traveled over mountain roads, such as the "24 Bends," passing through cities such asGuiyang,the capital of Guizhou province, before continuing toChongqing.
Burmese and Chinese laborers using hand tools to reopen the Burma Road in 1944

TheBurma Road(Chinese:Điền miến công lộ) was a road linking Burma (now known asMyanmar) withsouthwest China.Its terminals wereLashio,Burma, in the south andKunming,China, the capital ofYunnanprovince in the north. It was built in 1937–1938 while Burma was aBritish colonyto convey supplies to China during theSecond Sino-Japanese War.Preventing the flow of supplies on the road helped motivate theoccupation of Burmaby theEmpire of Japanin 1942 duringWorld War II.Use of the road was restored to the Allies in 1945 after the completion of theLedo Road.Some parts of the old road are still visible today.[1]

History[edit]

The road is 717 miles (1,154 km) long and runs through rough mountain country.[2]The sections from Kunming to the Burmese border were built by 200,000 Burmese and Chinese laborers during theSecond Sino-Japanese Warin 1937 and completed by 1938 in order to circumvent the Japanese blockade of China.[3][4]The construction project was coordinated byChih-Ping Chen.

DuringWorld War II,theAlliesused the Burma Road to transportmaterielto aid China's war effort, especially after China lost sea-access following the loss ofNanningin theBattle of South Guangxi.Supplies from San Francisco for example would land at Rangoon (nowYangon), moved by rail toLashiowhere the road started in Burma, up steep gradients before crossing into China over theWandingbridge. The Chinese stretch of the road continued for some five hundred miles through ruralYunnanterrain before ending up in Kunming.[3]

In July 1940, Britain yielded to Japanese diplomatic pressure and closed the Burma Road for three months.[5]: 299 The Japanese overran Burma in 1942, closing the Burma Road. The Allies thereafter supplied China by air, flying "overThe Hump"from India, which initially proved fatally dangerous and woefully inadequate, leading U.S. army generalJoseph Stilwellto obsessively pursue the goal of reopening the Burma Road.[3]

The Alliesrecaptured northern Burmain late 1944, which allowed theLedo RoadfromLedo, Assamto connect to the old Burma Road at Wanding, Yunnan province. The first trucks reached the Chinese frontier by this route on January 28, 1945.[6]

First convoy reached Kunming on February 2, 1945.

Films set on the Burma Road[edit]

The construction of the road also features inThe Battle of China(1944), the sixth film ofFrank Capra'sWhy We Fightpropaganda filmseries.[7]

Further reading[edit]

  • C. T. Chang:Burma Road,Malaysia Publications, Singapore 1964.[ISBN missing]
  • Forbes, Andrew; Henley, David (2011).China's Ancient Tea Horse Road.Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books.ASINB005DQV7Q2
  • Jon Latimer:Burma:The Forgotten War.John Murray, London 2004,ISBN0-7195-6576-6.
  • Donovan Webster:The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II.Farrar Straus & Giroux, New York, 2003,ISBN0-374-11740-3.
  • Smith, Nicol (1940).Burma Road: The Story of the World's Most Romantic Highway.New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company.[ISBN missing]
  • Tan, Pei-Ying.The Building of the Burma Road.Whittlesey house, 1945.ASINB000I1C4XW

See also[edit]

Wikivoyage has a travel guide forBurma Road.

References[edit]

  1. ^Voy: Burma Road
  2. ^"Burma Road – Britannica Online Encyclopedia".Archivedfrom the original on 2008-11-18.Retrieved2010-05-04.
  3. ^abcBernstein, Richard (2014).China 1945: Mao's revolution and America's fateful choice(First ed.). New York. pp. 12–13.ISBN9780307595881.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^Seagrave, Gordon S.,Burma Surgeon,W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1943[ISBN missing]
  5. ^Lorraine Glennon.Our Times: An Illustrated History of the 20th Century.October 1995.ISBN9781878685582
  6. ^Winston Churchill.The Second World War,v. VI, chap. 11.
  7. ^Brinkley, Douglas;Haskew, Michael(2004).The World War II desk reference.HarperCollins.p.368.ISBN0-06-052651-3.RetrievedNovember 1,2010.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toBurma Road.
Look upBurma Roadin Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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