Major General Claire L. Chennault to President Roosevelt 98
Dear Mr. President: Your kind letter of 2 October greatly encouraged me, as your letters always do. I am entirely confident that you will find a sound solution for the problem in China, complex and difficult though it is. Without wishing to be presumptuous, I would urge you not to lose heart by reason of what has occurred here to date. No doubt the situation is critical. No doubt strong measures are called for. Yet all my long experience in China is on the side of the conclusion that we still have it in our power to achieve all the aims of American policy in this area.
I have just heard, unofficially, from Chungking that General Wedemeyer is shortly to assume command of the China Theatre. In my judgment, you could have chosen no better man. He has vision, tact, generosity and strength of character—all the qualities needed to establish a good working relationship with the Generalissimo. I need not add that, for what it is worth, he will have my unqualified support. I predict that you will see signs of real progress before very long.
Since I suspect you may share my pleasure in Japanese shipping sinking and sunk, I inclose some photographs of the results of our Hong Kong raid on October 16, which we timed to follow up Admiral Halsey’s great Formosa operation. A tabulation of the results is attached.99 In our small way, we also made them suffer.
In closing, if you will permit a personal word, I should like to say that I and all of us out here are inspired by the leadership which is carrying us from victory to victory in every quarter of the globe. We rely on it.
With warm personal regards, I am
Very sincerely yours,