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Guys war

 

This website is dedicated to my Grandfather, Guy D. Smith, who not only has made a great contribution to the study of soil science in his life, but also documented/filmed much of the construction of the Ledo Road in WWII.

Wedding

Months prior to that historic day, the 8th of December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States had begun to support China’s war against Japan with money and materials. It was that earlier commitment to China that brought the United States into the Burma Campaign. China was becoming more and more isolated from the rest of the world. Japan was able to shut down one of the two supply lines the Chinese were using for transporting materials inside thier boarders. The sole remaining supply line was the Burma Road – it too was under threat to be shut down. Materials were shipped by sea to Rangoon, transferred to railroad cars, and then carried by truck over the 712-mile-long road to Kunming, China.

 

 

LedoRoad

 

DEC 05

Guy Smith Letter Posted by Amy Smith

(1944) “My internment here is probably coming to a close. I will not be able to write much en route, if any, and I will not be allowed to cable my safe arrival. So once again I will warn you that there may be a break in my letters. There is no way to tell what route we will take, but it is very probable that I will see every continent but Australia in the next week.”

JAN 05 Guy Smith Letter Posted by Amy Smith

(1945) “My bed is on the left of the sketch. What looks like a box is a mosquito bed net – to prevent malaria. The thing is built of bamboo with a concrete floor. The walls are of woven strips, my bed is covered with a sort of burlap. The stove in the foreground is an oil burner, it seems that my roommate must work somewhere in ordinance for it is the only oil burning stove in the officer’s quarters. The shoes on the right are Indians hoes, which I will send to you.”

“The entire bedroom will be mosquito proofed within a week or so, so that we don’t have to sleep under nets during the monsoon. It will be no small job, but when it is done it will be worth it. If we don’t do something of the sort, I won’t be able to sleep when I get home unless I have a net, and that will be awkward in a double bed.”

“You write as though you would like to travel the road. If it were in the states it would be a miserable road. Mud on the hills where you don’t want it, and dust on the flats. I don’t know which is worse.”
Burma is characterized by high, rugged mountain terrain. The Himalayas to the north reach altitudes of 19,000 feet. The road was built by 15,000 American soldiers and 35,000 local workers.
“You write as though you would like to travel the road. If it were in the states it would be a miserable road. Mud on the hills where you don’t want it, and dust on the flats. I don’t know which is worse.”

On January 12, 1945, the first convoy of 113 vehicles departed from Ledo; approximately 3 weeks later they reached Kunming, China.

CampRoom

FEB 12 Guy Smith Letter Posted by Amy Smith

(1945) “You write as though you would like to travel the road. If it were in the states it would be a miserable road. Mud on the hills where you don’t want it, and dust on the flats. I don’t know which is worse.”

Burma is characterized by high, rugged mountain terrain. The Himalayas to the north reach altitudes of 19,000 feet. The road was built by 15,000 American soldiers and 35,000 local workers.

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About Guy Smith

authorGuy D. Smith, was born in 1907, in Atlantic City Iowa, where his father was the local city engineer.

Guy graduated from college in about 1929, just as the depression hit, and worked his way through graduate school. He received his PhD in the study of soil science in the late 1930’s.

By the time Pearl Harbor was bombed he had three children and a wife (he was 34 years of age). He enlisted the next month into the Army Air Corps (January 1942). The Air Force was not yet a separate branch of the service.

His first posting was to an air base in San Antonio, Texas and he was shipped overseas in 1944. He traveled from Florida across Africa and then the Middle East, at last arriving in India. He then traveled from Calcutta to Ledo, where he was based.

Guy retired from the US Department of Agriculture in 1972 as the director of the US Soils Conservation Service. He traveled extensively throughout the world documenting soil samples for the US government throughout much of his career. In 1981 he passed away in Ghent, Belgium, where he held a professorship at the University of Ghent.