Thanks, Smarty, now as "Uncle Walter" would say, "This is the way is was":
Joseph Warren Stilwell (March 19, 1883 - 1946) was a United States Army four-star general known for his service in China. His military career was unique: throughout it he rarely commanded troops, worked on mostly his own, and still managed to reach the rank of four-star general. He spent most of his career outside the United States in China and, a very capable linguist, spoke Chinese and Japanese fluently.
Vinegar Joe, as he was called, famously lacked tact and a capacity for conventional diplomacy. In spite of this, he tried to convince Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to cede command of his armies to the American military. He intensely hated the Generalissimo, a feeling which was reciprocated, and only managed to keep working together through the tireless diplomacy of Chiang's wife, Soong May-ling.
Like many other Americans involved in Chinese affairs, Stilwell's diplomatic efforts were obliterated with the rise to power of the Communist Party of China and retreat of the Kuomintang government to Taiwan in the Chinese Civil War. Biographer Barbara W. Tuchman very fittingly chose the metaphor "sand against the wind", to characterise the futile nature of Stilwell's efforts.
Late in the war, he was reassigned from China to command the Tenth Army during the final stages of the Battle of Okinawa after the Tenth Army's commander was killed by enemy fire.
He was the subject of a noted biography by Barbara W. Tuchman.
"Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, a FL native, was nicknamed because he demanded as much from others as he gave of himself. And, to General Joseph Stilwell, that meant pushing to the limit. In fact, during the greater part of his career, Stilwell himself was nearly blind. Injured by an explosion during World War I, his vision was seriously impaired and throughout the remarkable campaigns to come, his greatest fear ws that his sight would fail before his mission was done. But lean and wiry, the cantankerous Stilwell -- known to the GI's as "Uncle Joe" -- could get the job done despite physical hardship. So, in World War II, he was assigned to what the Army chief of staff called "the most impossible job" of the war: facing fierce jungle fighting, Stilwell personally led his men on a 20-day retreat out of Burma in May 1942. Fighting malaria, typhoid and jungle weather, as well as three advancing Japanese armies, Stilwell and his men walked the many miles to safety. Later they were able to launch an attack and build a road -- the Ledo Road -- through the jungle that had nearly defeated them. The road became a main supply route into China. "The future of all Asia is at stake," said President Roosevelt, and "I know of no other man who has the ability, the force and the determination to offset the disaster that now threatens China." Against all odds, Stilwell trained the Chinese ground troops, working them into an efficient arm of the Allies.
He died of stomach cancer in 1946.
I know. I read that book.