AV 20 Preston S. Fettrow Collection

              AV 20
Preston S. Fettrow Collection
Page 1
OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Audiovisual Collections
AV 20
Preston S. Fettrow Collection
( 1943 - 1946)
OVERVIEW OF THE COLLECTION
Number:
AV 20
Title:
Preston S. Fettrow Collection
Creator:
Preston S. Fettrow, Sr.
Dates:
1943 - 1946
Media:
Black and white photographs, ephemera
Quantity:
0.17 cubic foot
Location:
Ohio Historical Center
Map Room 3/ 15/ 2/ D
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE COLLECTION
Staff Sergeant Preston S. Fettrow, Sr. of the 65th General Department took these photographs during his service in the China- Burma- India Theater where he was stationed during World War II from March 27, 1945 to December 29, 1945. He drove a Jeep as part of a convoy of materials along the Burma Road across China and the photographs document these activities. Mr. Fettrow served in the military from June 1943 to January 14, 1946.
The Burma Road was built by the Chinese after the start of the Sino- Japanese War in 1937 and completed in 1938. It was used to transport war supplies landed at Rangoon and shipped by railroad to Lashio. The road served as a " back door" to China, and avoided Japan's blockade of the Chinese coast. This traffic increased in importance to China after the Japanese took effective control of the Chinese coast and Indochina.
About 160,000 Chinese and Burmese laborers built the Burma Road under great hardship. The road had a base of large rocks, filled with crushed stone, and topped by mud. The road wound about 700 miles ( 1,100 kilometers) across mountains and through thick jungle from Lashio, Burma ( now Myanmar), to Kunming, China.
In April 1942, the Japanese overran Burma, seized Lashio, and thus closed the road at its source. In 1944, as Allied forces from Assam in eastern India advanced into northern Burma, they constructed a supply road from Ledo, India, which finally connected with the Burma Road at a point still in Chinese hands. The Ledo Road, as it was originally known, was opened in January 1945. The road was soon renamed the Stilwell Road after General Joseph Stilwell, who commanded U. S. forces in the China- Burma- India