Joseph 'Vinegar Joe' Stillwell

Cairo Conference

This photograph shows Allied leaders US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and China's Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek discussing the reconquest of Burma at their summit in Cairo. Also at the conference were Madame Chiang Kai-shek (far right in this photo), the new Allied Supreme Commander for South East Asia, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and his deputy General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell. The Chinese pressed for an aggressive invasion of Burma (by British, Indian, and American as well as Chinese...

Ledo or Stillwell Road

The "Ledo" or "Stillwell" Road was completed on 28 January 1945. The road linked Ledo in Assam with Kunming in Yunnan via the Kachin Hills. It was the first and is still the only modern road to connect India and China across Myanmar. The idea for the road began in 1942 after Japanese forces seized Rangoon and cut the old "Burma Road". The Burma Road began in Rangoon and went via Mandalay and Lashio to Yunnan. It was the critical...