Indeed, the most difficult hiking of the entire trek would be encountered west of the Chindwin. According to Seagrave, only six people had used this mountain trail ahead of the Stilwell party in making their way out of Burma. On the afternoon of May 14, Stilwell led the group on a long climb up to the Naga village of Kawlum. Because no food had been delivered at Homalin, the party’s most immediate concern was nourishment. Upon reaching Kawlum, however, their worries ended. British administrator Tim Sharpe had led a relief expedition eastward from Imphal. After five days, he made contact with Stilwell at Kawlum. After seeing to the needs of his party, a proud Stilwell wrote: ‘Food, doctor, ponies and everything. Quite a relief, though we could have gone on by ourselves.’

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Much hard climbing remained, however. Fortunately, the sick and lame among the group could now ride on pony or horseback most of the way, until the motor road to Imphal was gained. But the mountain peaks that the trail crossed reached as high as 7,500 feet. At Chammu, Stilwell was greeted by a chieftain in a bright red blanket who offered the general a bottle of rice beer as a sign of friendship and respect. At another village, the general was presented with a goat–Stilwell offered cigarettes in return. As the party progressed toward Imphal, it was repeatedly stopped by various village chiefs offering the ubiquitous rice beer, for which the usual teetotaler Stilwell developed a strong liking. The general was impressed with the Naga porters, whom he described as ‘good looking and tough, good-humored and friendly.’ He was also taken with the magnificent mountain views the steep trail afforded. On May 18, at the large village of Ukhrul (which Stilwell compared favorably with the mountain retreat of Baguio in the Philippines), the Assam Rifles of the Indian army presented Stilwell with a formal salute in honor of his arrival. The next day, after a 21-mile march, the group reached the truck head at Litan, where two American officers met the party with war news, chocolate bars, American cigarettes and whiskey.

Imphal had been bombed by the Japanese, and the bomb craters were much in evidence when Stilwell finally arrived there in the midafternoon of May 20. The truck ride from Litan to Imphal had proved to be 16 miles of pushing and pulling through thick mud, followed by 10 miles of easier driving over gravel road. By this time, the monsoon was in full fury. Stilwell, at age 59, had pushed himself and his people relentlessly, but all 114 members of his party survived the march out of Burma. The general arrived at Imphal with a bad cold, had lost at least 25 pounds and was suffering from what later turned out to be a bad case of jaundice. Several members of the group needed to be hospitalized. After a brief stay at Imphal, however, Stilwell proceeded to Tinsukia in northern Assam, where he met with Maj. Gen. Lewis Brereton of the Tenth Air Force, other American officers, and the British generals Sir Archibald Wavell and Sir Harold Alexander. From there, he flew on to his headquarters at New Delhi.

Stilwell’s trek from Burma was epic. With thousands of troops and refugees fleeing from the Japanese, the Stilwell party may well have been the only sizable group to escape with no loss of life. For many days, its presence was unknown to the outside world, and the general was even listed as missing in action. On May 12, U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall had radioed Stilwell: ‘The President, the Secretary of War, and the entire War Department are filled with admiration for the courageous manner in which you have met the hazards of the past ten days.’ At that point, Stilwell was at Homalin, barely ahead of the Japanese, and he had already destroyed his radio equipment, so the message did not reach him until May 20. In his diary entry for that date, Stilwell questioned why the War Department would send him what seemed like a congratulatory message in the face of a great military debacle. Concerning the loss of Burma, the general had already remarked to his aide, Colonel Dorn: ‘What a bitter tragedy it’s all been. Worse because it might have been avoided.’

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