The Burma Road, thus thrown into the world's spotlight, starts at Rangoon, parallels the railway to Lashio, then snakes through wild and remote country along the route of the Old Tribute Road, toward Chungking, a total distance of 2,100 miles. Marco Polo took the same trail 600 years ago. The Chinese Government began pushing the road to the Burma border in dead earnest three years ago, after the Japanese invasion. It replaced chain-and-plank bridges with concrete spans, laid a quick-draining gravel surface, rolled it with huge boulders drawn by water buffaloes. Total of unpaid workers at one time was 120,000. Russian munitions, British oil, American trucks and railway equipment poured up it in a steady, priceless trickle.

At the news that the British Government had tried to "appease" insatiable Japan, the House of Commons last week cried, "Shame!" Actually, the entire proceeding from start to finish was illegal, for Japan is not "at war" with China, has no legal right whatever to attempt a blockade. With perfect legality but no apparent effect, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull protested the closing of the road to U.S. goods.

American-made trucks carry most of the traffic on the Burma Road where until 1937 a car had never been seen. This one nearly fell in river. Accidents are frequent on narrow, hairpin turns.

The Burma Road winds through nearly impassable country in China's wild Yunnan Province, roughly follows the route of the Old Tribute Road.

Adapted by Carl W. Weidenburner
from the July 29, 1940 issue
Portions copyright 1940 Time, Inc.



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