Major Joseph Stilwell (Shi Diwei) conferring with famine-relief road workers, 1921
Shanxi Province
Courtesy of Colonel John Easterbrook
The Stilwell family with their Chinese tutor, 1926
Tianjin
Courtesy of Colonel John Easterbrook
As the U.S. Army’s first Chinese language student, Joseph Stilwell mastered Mandarin after moving to Beijing in 1920. The next year, he was assigned as chief engineer to construct a Red Cross famine-relief road in Shanxi Province. During World War II, Stilwell was the U.S. commanding general of the China-Burma-India Theater and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s chief of staff. Guan Wenchun, his Chinese language tutor, also taught Stilwell’s children, who thought of him as a grandfather.