893.00 Manchuria/6–1247
The Consul General at Changchun (Clubb) to the Secretary of State 60
[Received June 25.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to this office’s current reports on military developments in central Manchuria, and to report briefly below on the nature of Nationalist military strategy in this area.
It is to be noted in the beginning that the Nationalist military strategy in face of the present Communist drive has been essentially defensive, with all initiative in the field left to the Communists. The Communists, implementing their strategy with boldness and executing their moves with speed and intelligence work which is evidently superior to that of the Nationalists, have moved over the countryside without [Page 179] any positive attempt on the part of the Nationalists to launch serious attacks against the Communist columns or otherwise exercise substantial pressure against the Communist drive. The Nationalists at every point have either pulled back in belated attempts to consolidate their over-extended forces, or have dug in where they stood in accordance with the dictates of a passive strategy of waiting inside Nationalist strong points for the Communists to attack or, preferably from the Nationalist point of view, to go away.
General Sun Li-jen, a former commander of the New First Army and presently Vice-Commander of the Northeast China Command, stated to me in recent conversations at both Changchun and Mukden that the strategy (which is that of NECC Commander Tu Yu-ming61) was wrongly conceived, and has been responsible for the useless sacrifice of good troops left in isolated positions without support, that the proper strategy would have been to use the available forces in counterattacks against the Communists. General Sun advanced a proposition which under present circumstances appeared extremely unsound—that the Nationalists should launch a counter-attack against Harbin and Kiamussu—but it is nevertheless reasonably certain on the basis of past performance that measures which might have been undertaken by the Nationalist side had General Sun, instead of General Tu, been in command would probably have been more effective, if only because less costly, than has actually been the case. According to information obtained on June 8, 1947 by Assistant Military Attaché Cowen from a staff officer of the New First Army, the Nationalist forces in Manchuria have suffered the following losses in the present Communist drives:
| Unit | Lost | Damaged | ||
| New 1st Army | 89thR | N30D | ||
| 90thR | N30D | |||
| 112thR | N38D | |||
| 150thR | N50D | |||
| New 6th Army | 65thR | N22D | 207D | |
| 52nd Army | 2D | |||
| 25D | ||||
| 585thR | 195D | 584thR | 195D | |
| 71st Army | 88D | |||
| 1 reg. | 87D | |||
| 1 reg. | 91D | |||
| 60th Army | 184D | |||
| 1 reg. | T21D | |||
| 13th Army | 89D | |||
| 1 reg. | 54D | |||
| 8 reg. | 5 div. | 3 reg. | 1 div. | |
In those circumstances, even allowing for some salvage of broken units, it is fairly obvious that the Nationalist position in Manchuria cannot be restored without the dispatch of large numbers of reinforcements here from China proper. The regular reports of reinforcements arriving have thus far turned out to be fabrications of a propaganda system that is confronted by a drying up of its already scanty resources. Without reinforcements, it is probable that Nationalist morale in Manchuria will continue to deteriorate pari passu with deterioration of the military situation, and improbable that a Nationalist military man like General Sun would be prepared to come forward to take over charge from General Tu, and thus incur the blame which will attach to the nominal leader for any ultimate collapse, even if the command were offered to him.
The information available in Mukden appeared to indicate that the Nationalists were confronted with two fairly categorical alternatives—to reinforce heavily or to withdraw. It may be that, having their eye on the probable unfavorable effect of withdrawal on any possibilities that may remain of the National Government’s obtaining the desired US $500,000,000 loan, the National political leaders will choose a middle-of-the-road course and encourage the local military leaders to hold out as long as possible for political reasons. In that awkward position, they would fall between two stools, losing both Manchuria and the remainder of the good armies stationed there. It is moreover hardly probable that, in those circumstances where they faced heavy odds, the Nationalist forces in Manchuria would put up the utmost determined resistance: it appears more probable that many of them would surrender to the Communists, with resultant profit to the latter. Failure to withdraw if reinforcement is infeasible, in short, would indirectly contribute to the further strengthening of the Communist armies and thus advance the day when North China itself would be threatened with Communist conquest.
As showing graphically the different character of the Nationalist and Communist military actions, there is enclosed a set of pictures62 showing the results of the two respective patterns of activity. The Communist activity thus portrayed occurred at various critical points in the countryside. The Nationalist activity here depicted is limited to the town of Changchun, where jerry-built barricades of wrecked cars and branches cut from park trees are added to brittle brick pillboxes scattered everywhere throughout the modern part of Changchun, all enclosed by an outer moat for the construction of which a large proportion of the town’s male population has been mobilized and is still at work, in an effort to compensate by defensive measures what [Page 181] the Nationalist commanders and armies lack in offensive spirit. The failure of the Nationalist generals properly to use the American-equipped New First and New Sixty [Sixth] Armies is reaffirmation of the well-known fact that faulty generalship will often count more heavily than fire-power, and political morale more than planes, in respect to the final decision.
Respectfully yours,