Stilwell Museum

Stilwell Museum - Location & Introduction

Stilwell Museum, Chongqing's cultural relic reserve unit, lies on No.63 Jialing New Road, 15 kilometers to the urban area. It covers 5,000 square meters. Its main structure is a two-storey building with a basement, which was used to house distinguished government guests during the Anti-Japanese war. Since Stilwell Museum was opened to the public in 1991, thousands of visitors from home and overseas have been there. William Pace, a former American Secretary of Defense, made a special trip to the museum in 1994 and was greatly touched by how well it had been preserved.

Stilwell Museum - History Background

At the beginning of 1942, General Joseph Warren Stilwell, a four-star U.S. Army general, acting under the orders of American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, arrived in China to assume the position of Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in the China-Burma-India theater. General Stilwell resided here at that time, and returned to the U.S. on October 21, 1944.

With the aid of General Stilwell, the Chinese people won the War of Resistance against the Japanese invaders. To commemorate General Stilwell's help, the local government of the city of Chongqing renovated the general's former temporary residence in Chongqing, and opened it to the public, as Stilwell Museum, in 1991. (More Details)

Stilwell Museum - Relics about WWII

The Stilwell Museum mainly exhibits the historical materials, data and pictures concerning General Stilwell and his mission in Chongqing, such as information about the famous WWII Flying Tigers and their valiant effort to resupply the combined Chinese and Allied forces inside China, via the so-called Hump Route - or the dangerous aerial route over the Himalayas - when the Japanese had interdicted the overland Burma Road route. There are also WW II U.S. military vehicles donated by a Chinese American whose father-in-law once served as Stilwell's liaison officer in China.