 The National Broadcasting Company at its affiliated stations present the Pacific story. This is the story of the Pacific. The drama of the millions of people who live around this greatest sea, where the United States is now committed to a long-term policy of keeping the peace. This, as another public service of the National Broadcasting Company, is the background story of the events in the Pacific and their meaning to us and to the generations to come. Transport in China. We are starving. What can we do? Must we starve with all this food piled up here? Enough for all your people and all mine? How can we get it to your region? You must. There are no railways to your region and not enough water in these streams this season to float us down our roads. They are no more than ancient paths. The war trucks went over them? We have no trucks. Can nothing be done? Good friend, we will send all that our carts and wheelbows and coollies can carry. We will starve. A coolly, a human beast of burden, can carry 125 pounds about 15 miles a day. For this he earns a few pennies, but transportation by coolly in China is many times more expensive than by railway in the United States. It takes many coollies to carry as much as a railway car and even millions of coollies cannot meet China's enormous post-war transportation needs nor compensate for the evils that have resulted from China's lack of transportation. Because of lack of transportation, we have suffered many famines. So say thinking Chinese. Because of lack of transportation, we have been backward in the development of our natural resources. We have had many internal disorders and national unity has been a greater problem. Lack of transportation has made China a nation of provincialism. Today China has little more than 13,000 miles of railways. About one-twentieth the railways in the United States. Some highways were built, some were improved during the war. But most of the interior is crisscrossed with roads that are little more than widened paths. A network of waterways spread throughout the country, but the means of transportation on the rivers are desperately inadequate. Air transportation was given a boost during the war. But in terms of what is needed, only a start has been made. Today China gives highest priority to the development of transport. The Chinese are doing all possible to develop it. Yet for years its development was actively opposed. Run! Go and hide! It is the work of the devil! What curse is it that has brought this to our country side? Chinese peasants had a superstitious horror of railroads, and the Manchu rulers had other reasons for opposing them. They are against the will of heaven. Besides, such contrivances bring together people and ideas. When people and ideas mix, dangerous thoughts are born. The Manchus feared the growth of nationalism. In it they saw their downfall. In 1876 they permitted twelve miles of rails to be laid. From Shanghai to the port of Wusong. Your August Emperor in all his benevolence has heard your protests to this dreadful western devil. In deference to you, his loyal subjects, he has caused the iron tracks to be torn up, and ordered them, along with the cars that rolled over them, sent out of the country that they never more will trouble you. And this roaring monster that belches fire and smoke, we have brought here to the river's edge for destruction. Watch well as the timbers are knocked from under it, and the mighty engine topples into the river. Strike the timber! The timbers are giving way. There it goes! There it goes! All evidence of this twelve miles of railroad was erased. The story of the destruction of the railroad passed from mouth to mouth, and spread throughout all China. It was ten years before another railroad was tried, a short industrial line in the northeast hauling coal from the mines to a canal. This one made good. Then foreign capital came in. By the turn of the century, because, among other things, of the control of the railroad by foreigners, there was rebellion. Some Chinese had seen the value of transportation. The far-seeing ones saw that the manchus, partly because of ignorance and partly because of selfishness, had discouraged the development of transport. We must have railroads. But we cannot have railroads controlled by a foreigner. The foreigners control the railroads because the manchus are too decadent to protect us against the foreigners. Dr. Sun Yat-sen says that we must develop all kinds of transportation. It is the way to national unity. Dr. Sun is right. We have hardly any railways. In North China, some of the roads are wide enough for two carts to pass. But here in South China, the roads are hardly wide enough for two wheelbarrows to pass. And in most places, only wide enough for two couries to pass. How can we be a nation with communications like this with roads that are no more than paths? We cannot. Never under the manchus. We must drive the manchus from the throne for the sake of the people of China. When the revolution swept out the manchus, one of the first objectives of the New Republic was improved transport. But before there could be national unity, there would have to be some system of national transportation. And before there could be a system of national transportation, there would have to be national unity. And there were other stumbling blocks. There is no point in building more railroads in China. Look at what is happening in the United States. The United States has been building railroads for years. It is nearing its saturation point. It is past it. The railroads have been made obsolete by motor transport. You mean that motor transport is taking the place of railroads? Yes. The United States has more railroads than any country under it. So many that now they are scrapping miles of track and thousands of tons of equipment. Motor transport can never take the place of railroads. Railroads are necessary for long hauls and for carrying bulk cargo. This can be much better done by railroads. We shall see. Slowly railroads were built. Highways were developed, but not enough. Not one-hundredth of what was needed. Those with vision looked ahead. The outlook was dark. The young nation was torn with internal strife. There was little money for the development of transportation. Give us food. It was the old cry, the old old cry, that had periodically been heard for a thousand years. We must have food. Send us food. We are starving. This was 1931. The Yangtze had gone on a rampage again. Again, the millions were starving. Again, the answer was what had it been a thousand times before. There is no way to get the food to the stricken regions. With all this food here, are you going to leave my people to starve? Heaven has smiled on us here in Manchuria. We have more than abundant crops. Well, how can we get our food to you? It was cheaper to bring flour and wheat across the Pacific from the United States to the flood victims than it was to bring the surplus crops of Manchuria down into the Yangtze Valley. Now, was this true only in times of emergency? It was cheaper for us merchants here in Canton to buy rice in California and have it brought across the Pacific by boat than have it carried by Cooley here to Canton from our neighboring provinces. Yes, and it is cheaper for us in the flour milling business here in Hancao to bring in wheat from the United States and Canada and Australia and even from the Argentine. And to bring it in from some of the provinces of China. The far-seeing ones knew all this. China's railroads passed through only about one-eighth of the national territory. Most of these railroads were in North China and in Manchuria. Some highways and roads had been built, but railways were desperately needed. But South China was still an ancient land tied together with a network of ancient paths and waterways. In 1936, Zhong Kai-shek projected a five-year plan for the building of railroads. Zhang saw the war coming. He knew China would have to have a transportation system to survive. It was a race with a coming of war. He lost. Some of the railroads he planned were finished, many were not. When the Japanese drove inland, the Chinese were confronted with maintaining contact with the outside world. They took stock of their situation. We have in China 60,000 miles of road. This was in 1937. But they are not connected into a national highway system. Not only that, only about half of them are in condition to be used for motor traffic. I know. And only about one-quarter of them have surfacing for all weather. They would not stand up for military use. It is time that we took note of the old Chinese saying, a clever rabbit's hole has three exits. Three exits, yes. But how can we do this? We must work out a national plan of roads. We must think in terms of the whole country rather than of these separate provinces. It will mean building new roads as well as linking and improving the old ones. This we are planning to do. Look at this chart. Yes. This is a plan for connecting China with our neighboring countries. I see. They will be roads through China's back door. Yes. Now, notice these two roads down here in the southwest. Yes. This one here will go from Hengqiang here out here through Huilin and Nanning and down into Indochina. Yes. It will give us an outlet to the sea. In Indochina? Yes. And this road will go from here in Kunming down here and through Burma. I see. That is the Burma road. Over this road, we will be able to bring in supplies that can be landed at Rangoon. Yes. And this road up here in the northwest will go from Lanzhou here up here to the border of Sinkyang and out here to Soviet Asia. Over this highway, we will be able to receive from the Russians. These were the three exits to the Clever Rabbits Hole. Two of them out through the southwest and one out through the northwest. And each was to connect with a network of highways. Millions of Chinese were put to work on the road projects from one end of China to the other. They carried rocks in carts and wheelbarrows, carried them in baskets, went from the end to poles, carried them by main force with their bare hands. They cracked the rocks with their crude tools, pulverized them, clamped them down, and rolled them smooth with giant rock rollers pulled by hundreds of straining tools. By the end of 1937, guns, munitions, tanks, airplane parts and a thousand other items of war were pouring into China from the USSR in plates of trucks. Alongside the road, mule carts and camel caribons moved, still carrying goods as they had for thousands of years. For the first time, China at large was thinking of transportation in national terms. While her troops were fighting a war of resistance, her people were struggling to build roads and railroads in order that China might better fight for her life. Roads were widened, improved. Road systems were tied together with other road systems. Shortcuts were made. Still, it was not enough. A century of road-making could not be condensed into months or even years. A fresh train over the section of railroad. Yes. There is something to be proud of. Yes. We started building this 365 miles of railroad three months after Japan attacked us. In one year, we have completed this 365 miles of railroad. This is good, but it is not enough. Even with this new section, we have fewer miles of railroad here in China than in the state of Nebraska in the United States. Americans who went to China to help in the construction realized as did the Chinese how pitifully inadequate China's rail system was. To get an idea of how little trackage China has, consider that not only Nebraska, but 15 other states of the United States, each has more trackage than China. This was the situation when China took the first powerful blows of the Japanese. Almost cut off from supplies from the outside world, she fought to extend her lines and improve her service. We have lost the Lundai Railroad in the north, and Canton has fallen in the south. At all cost, we must complete these lines running out of Lujou. From Lujou in China's southwest, the Chinese built lines out to the south, to the northwest, and the northeast. One of the projected lines was to Quail in, where several years later the United States was to have one of its P-29 bases. You see, we are avoiding the digging of tunnels wherever possible. This is rocket terrain, all right? We must do the best we can. The time is short. I was thinking about those grades on those long switchbacks. They are very steep, we know. No ordinary breaks would do on a grade that steep. Well, you see, we have already made provisions for special air brakes, and the engineers who will take the trains over these lines will be given special training in mountain duty. I see. These lines out of Lujou will give us a better system of internal communication. The trip from Lujou to Quail in, which takes 20 days by river barge, will be able to make in 10 hours. These lines will make it possible to base bombers in this section to operate against the Japanese around Tenton and Hong Kong. Remember, Lujou, around this railroad center and the cities it reached were to be fought some of the bitterest battles in China. Japan set about systematically to destroy China's railroads and to cut off for lines of communication with the outside world. Supplies were still coming in through the three exits of the clever rabbit, but the Japanese had these routes spotted. Flying from Nanking, the Japanese bombed the railway, linking Yunnan with French Indochina. The Chinese strained to keep this line open, but it was exceptionally vulnerable to air attack. The Indochina Ryunani Railway, which extends from the port of Haifeng in Indochina, 600 miles into the heart of southwest China, is the most extraordinary railway. This is a French official in Indochina. It passes over and through 3,000 bridges and tunnels. A hit on any one of these would stop traffic. It passes through jungles and over mountains and over rugged gorges. In one of these gorges in Yunnan, a 200-foot steel bridge is swung between two perpendicular clicks. This was one of the lines over which China was receiving supplies. Despite the bombings, the Chinese succeeded in keeping the line open. That is, until something happened on the other side of the world. With the ball of France and the pressure exerted by Hitler and the Japanese on the Vichy government, the railway from Indochina into Yunnan and China has been closed. The Japanese, who already occupy part of Indochina, are fanning out through the entire country, and this will mean that the railway... One of the clever rabbit exits had been closed. Now the Japanese concentrate down the second, the Burma Road. But events on the other side of the world were still calling the turn in Asia. With France knocked out of the war, Britain was fighting for her life. The Nazi Blitz was armed. Britain acceded to Japan's demand to close the Burma Road for three months. The second of the clever rabbit exits was closed. Supplies are still coming in over the Russian road. It is our last link with the outside world. Now we must depend more than ever on these supplies coming in from the northwest. The problem is, how can we transport these supplies to where they are needed after we receive them? They will have to be hauled longer distances than ever. Yes, and our internal transport is breaking down. So look at this report. Yes, the replacement... We do not have enough replacements for our railroad equipment, not enough for our rails, not enough for our locomotives nor our cars, not even enough to replace what is breaking down. Yes, and can our motor transport be as badly crippled as this? Not only the trucks, also the roads where there are roads and the roads available in many places have broken down. Besides, there is a shortage of gasoline and oil and spare parts. All of these must be brought in from the outside. This period of the closing of the Burma Road was a dark hour, but on the other side of the world, Britain stood up to the blitz, and after three months, she reopened the Burma Road. Again, supplies began to come in over this tortuous trail into China. But though the Chinese were struggling to improve their internal transport, the actual situation within China had improved little. While her millions fought to hold the Japanese, other millions worked on the roads and railways. The steel ribbons of rails were fed out in the railroad center. Every mile was a triumph over time. And what China needed, most of all, time to prepare, even as she fought to save herself. Then the word came. The Japanese have attacked the United States, and at the same time Japanese forces are striking westward to close the Burma Road. In no time, the door of the Burma Road was slammed shut. Then the Japanese went after China's railroads, hammer and tong. Not just another Japanese drive. Look here at this chart. This railroad here, you see it? That is the railroad from Hangzhou to Nanchang, is it not? Yes. It is 400 miles long. And notice this railroad. Let me see. What line is this? The line from Hangkou to Kowloon. 770 miles long. Two of our most important railways. Yes. Now, the Japanese are here and here. They control both ends of both of these lines. We hold this middle part here of both lines. Are the middle sections still in operation? Yes. Every mile has been bombed, but we still have them in operation. We are still using them. Now we are faced with a full-scale attack. We must hold these two lines. The Chinese fought fiercely for their precious lines. They could hold the Japanese, but they could not prevent them from bombing their railroads. The enemy has destroyed the 400-mile line from Hangzhou to Nanchang. What of the other line? We are still using it in a limited way, but it is badly crippled. The wanton destruction of the lines they were struggling so valiantly to maintain awakens many Chinese to the value, the indispensability of transport. Many who had been tied too long to the past saw that in order to survive, they must have railroads and highways. Those with vision had known this for years. Now the others saw it and worked with all that was in them. We can be sure that soon the enemy will be driving here on New Zhou. That's why we've got to do everything we can to get this railroad center in the best possible shape in order that we conserve the big air base at Guilin and all the others. American engineers were helping to convert Southwest China into a network of bases. Planes were hauling gasoline over the hump from India. From Southwest China, the Americans would launch powerful air blows against the Japanese. The construction went on even as the enemy was driving to destroy what was being built. By fall 1944, the Japanese were pounding at the gates of Lu Zhou, the railroad center. Knock out the railroad center and you cut the supplies of the big American fields. By November 1944, the Americans knew that Lu Zhou could not be saved. That if Lu Zhou fell, the big air base at Guilin and the other bases in the vicinity would fall. Units of the 14th United States Air Force went to work. Prevent seizure by the enemy, the Americans destroyed the field. When the Japanese arrived, they found nothing but desolation. We can get rails and rolling stock just to take it away from the enemy. There's no way to bring it into China. We cannot even hope to take the railroad intact from the enemy. Because of the destruction? Yes, and because the enemy has torn up many miles of rails and carried them away and taken the rolling stock with them. We must salvage all possible equipment. We will save all we can as we are done. Foot by foot, the Chinese won back the lines around Lu Zhou. But they did not win back the railroads as they were. The railroads were desperately crippled or missing completely. For the Japanese were building their own lines in China. Then the whole face of affairs in the Pacific was changed by what happened on the other side of the world. With the capture of Berlin and the surrender of the Nazi forces in all parts of Germany, the war in Europe is over. The full might of the Allies will now be concentrated on Japan and redeployment of our forces. Now the thunder rolled over Japan. China's transport system lay mangled. The war was drawing to a close. Lack of railroad equipment had been China's biggest problem in the war. The Chinese looked ahead to China's post-war needs. The railroads we have need extensive repairs. But even the railroads we have, if they were in good repair could not meet our need for transport. We must build more railroads. Americans would have been in China who knew the extent of the Chinese railroads and who knew the condition of the Chinese railroads estimated what China would need in the next ten years. Well, she'll have to build about 14,500 miles within the next ten years. That's more than all the mileage China had at the outbreak of the war. First she'll have to get the lines she has back in operating shape. Then she'll have to build lines between her important business and political centers and the centers of her resources where she's got her tungsten and antimony, her tin, iron and copper so she can industrialize. Then she'll have to build railroads to the countries around her. Russia, India and Burma. A program of this kind would take about ten years, I judge. And when it was done, China would have about 28,000 miles of track about one-tenth the mileage in the United States. Not only would China need two and a quarter million tons of rails to carry out such a program but also would need more than 2,000 locomotives and more than 22,000 cars. Meantime, China faces the enormous problem of getting along with what she has. At least half of the rolling stock we have will have to be replaced. The war has revolutionized transportation in China. I have seen many airplanes. I have never seen a train. In the next few years, China must bridge the gap between its world of before the war when transport was a matter of waterways, carts, wheelbarrows and human beasts of burden and the machine world of today with its high-speed highways, its fast trains and its swift aircraft. You have been listening to the Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations as a public service to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable across currents of life in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send ten cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. May I repeat? For this Pacific Story program, send ten cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The Pacific Story is written and directed by Arnold Marquess. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Paluso, your narrator, Gane Whitman. Programs in this series of particular interest to servicemen and women are broadcast overseas through the worldwide facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is the National Broadcasting Company.