Berle Wheeler was a veteran of the China-Burma-India Theater as a member of the 967th Engineers [Annotator's Note: 967th Engineer Maintenance Company]. He was born in 1924 in Claremore, Oklahoma. It was Cherokee Indian country. He was raised there and graduated from Claremore High School. He joined the Army while living there. Wheeler had two sisters. His mother was a homemaker. His father was a public accountant. Learning the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] after attending a movie, he was aghast. No one thought such a thing could happen. He joined the Army four months later after getting clearance from his parents. He would have preferred to fight in Europe knowing the perils of the conflict in Asia.

Berle Wheeler was sent to Camp Robinson, Arkansas for 13 weeks of boot camp. He was then sent to Camp Gordon in Augusta, Georgia for attachment to the 967th engineers [Annotator’s Note: 967th Engineer Maintenance Company]. The boot camp training had been far more intense than the time at Camp Gordon. Camp Robinson was infantry training and discipline was tough. Wheeler's platoon sergeant drove them hard. He said it would save their lives later. Wheeler learned to appreciate that fact. He trained with an M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand], a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle], a carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine] and qualified on the rifle range. Bayonet training plus forced marches in the Arkansas countryside were frequent. Recruits were taken out in trucks and had to find their way back to camp. Other trainees gravitated to Wheeler because he could find the base. There were forced marches for 50 minutes with just a ten minute break. Wheeler had plenty of stamina for that. It was rough but good training. After infantry training, Wheeler was sent to Augusta, Georgia as a company clerk in the 967th Engineers. He was there from July to December. He then took a troop train to San Bernardino, California. He was provided experience in the California-Arizona maneuver area. The original overseas orders had the 967th being transported to Wilmington, Delaware. That seemed to indicate transport to Europe but those orders were revised. Departure was from Wilmington, California. He was headed to the Pacific with no questions asked. He wrote letters to his parents and called them before going overseas on the SS Mariposa which was an old Matson liner. Two meals were provided to the passengers each day. The ship had five high bunks on it but the assignment to Wheeler's company was much better. He and another man shared a stateroom. Wheeler thought he had plush quarters on the ship. He never got seasick but plenty of men did. The ship was very crowded. First stop was Australia. Advice given was to bring plenty of cigarettes. The Aussies would keep the beer coming if there were cigarettes. He had close encounters with friendly ladies while at port. The young Americans had their pick of the women since most of the young Australian males were off in the military. After leaving, Australia, the 967th made its way to Bombay [Annotator's Note: Bombay, India; now Mumbai, India]. The troops had no idea that was to be their destination until they reached the Indian Ocean.

Berle Wheeler was company clerk in his outfit [Annotator's Note: 967th Engineer Maintenance Company] when it arrived at Bombay, India [Annotator's Note: now Mumbai, India]. As company clerk, he had to account for personnel who were absent from duty. He had other general duties that included taking care of most all paperwork. The 967th was immediately loaded on trains and put under British control. The heat was tough in transit. Rations were not very good. A transfer from the train to a riverboat was made. There were no cranes to move the heavy equipment so coolies had to be hired. After two nights on the boat, the battles of Kohima and Imphal started up. Wheeler was close enough to the fighting to see the flashes in the sky and hear the guns. Although the Americans were armed, they were not provided with ammunition. Had the Japanese broken through the British defensive lines, the 967th would have been sitting ducks. It scared the hell out of them. After five days on the river, the boat pulled to the bank in Guwahati [Annotator's Note: Guwahati, India]. The Americans were encouraged to grab their canteen cups and get some hot Assam tea. That was the first hot food or beverage that was available since Bombay. It tasted very good. The destination was the Assam Valley which has many tea plantations. Wheeler became addicted to Assam tea while in the military in India. Rain was continuous in India. The humidity was high. The climate was miserable. After departing the riverboat, the 967th made its way to Ledo [Annotator's Note: Ledo, Assam, India] where its permanent station was located.

Berle Wheeler arrived with his outfit [Annotator's Note: 967th Engineer Maintenance Company] at Ledo, India. Camp was set up with the men living in woven bamboo thatched huts. The huts protected the men much better against the heat and monsoons of India than the standard Army tents. The huts were not snake proof. A cobra was found inside the hut once. A tiger even went through the tent while the men slept under their mosquito nets. The huts were called bashas. Veterans of the China-Burma-India campaign formed a reunion group that named Wheeler chairman. The group referred to themselves as the "Basha." The 967th was in charge of the heavy equipment at Ledo for work on the supply road to China. The company provided third and fourth echelon maintenance on the heavy equipment for the building of the road from Ledo to Kunming [Annotator's Note: Kunming, China]. During the Battle of Myitkyina [Annotator's Note: Myitkyina, Burma; now Myitkyina, Myanmar], the 967th disassembled heavy equipment to load it into C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] transports destined for that location. That battle was touch and go with the opposing sides occupying opposite ends of the runway. Wheeler was responsible for landing with the equipment, unloading it, and returning to Ledo for more. Merrill's Marauders [Annotator's Note: 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)] were heroes. After jumping off at Sembawang, they fought their way to Myitkyina without support or supplies. Small L-5 liaison planes [Annotator's Note: Stinson L-5 Sentinel light observation aircraft] had to be used to extract their wounded. They had repeated calls to return to action even after securing their objectives. Lessons were learned through them about how not to treat combat troops. The strategy in the China-Burma-India campaign was to keep China in the war. Over a million Japanese troops would be tied down in the fight in China and not be available to battle Americans in the Pacific. The Japanese had their eyes on India with the next step being to join with the other Axis powers in the Mid-East or Mediterranean. The Burma Road to Kunming was a critical supply line to China that was cut by the enemy. The Ledo Road was built to replace the Burma Road in order to support B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] airbases in China. The B-29s could reach and bomb Japan and Indochina [Annotator's Note: present day Vietnam]. One percent of the American military served in the China-Burma-India Theater. Priorities of supplies were placed first on Europe and then the Pacific. Wheeler's theater came third and seemed to be the forgotten theater.

Berle Wheeler was company clerk [Annotator's Note: in the 967th Engineer Maintenance Company at Ledo, India]. Each man in the company had a military occupational specialty, or MOS, that Wheeler had to maintain and update. Using a primitive computer method, he kept up with personnel. He had to keep up with mail call. His commanding officer was very interested in keeping morale high so he urged Wheeler to do what was necessary to achieve that. Wheeler helped the men with paperwork when promotions came due. His commanding officer was a good man. There was a large shop with M3 and M4 maintenance for bulldozers, graders and other heavy equipment. Wheeler was concerned that some men in the construction battalion seemed to sabotage their equipment to get time off. He would send people out to instruct them on how to perform first and second echelon maintenance to keep their equipment running. Wheeler was responsible for allocation of equipment but never had to perform any physical work on building the Ledo Road. That was left to the combat and construction engineers. When the work first started on the Road, the Japanese were in the jungles and the engineers had to carry rifles. The Marauders [Annotator's Note: Merrill's Marauders; members of the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)] joined up with the engineers and drove the Japanese back from the work effort. Their final mission was at Myitkyina [Annotator's Note: Myitkyina, Burma; now Myitkyina, Myanmar]. That was when the Ledo Road joined the old Burma Road into Kunming [Annotator's Note: Kunming, China]. Wheeler focused his efforts on the Road unless he had to fly supplies into Myitkyina or Kunming. He could observe contrails higher than any previous planes could fly. It was the B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] flying east and then west. The area around the Himalayan mountains was called "Aluminum Alley" for all the transport planes that had crashed. There were a few air raids by the Japanese but air superiority came early on due to Claire Chennault [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault]. He was a visionary for pursuit and interceptor aircraft. He was an early proponent of the vulnerability of Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] to air attack. Because the War Department had little faith in him, Chennault developed his own strategy of multiple plane attack and defense. He became persona non grata with the War Department. Chennault wiped out the Japanese attempt to enter China from a land route that proved disastrous for them.

Berle Wheeler experienced Japanese air raids but slit trenches protected him from the attacks [Annotator's Note: he was with the 967th Engineer Maintenance Company at Ledo, India]. The trenches always seemed filled with water and unknown things. That danger did not last that long since the Japanese were quickly driven away. The heat of the monsoon weather was terrible. The relations with the Hindus was acceptable but the Moslems in India were suspect. Food was never very good. Being engineers, they had the equipment to set up shower facilities and took advantage of the luxury of warm showers. Wheeler spent two and a half years on the Ledo Road. Detachments of the 967th were spread along the Road. He did get leave on occasion and managed to go to some rest areas that were nice. He had recurrent malaria that was very predicable when it would return. His temperature reached 107 degrees one time. He was treated with quinine. He developed hearing problems as a result. His folks did not recognize him when he returned home. He heard about the end of the war as well as the atomic bombs while he was in Ledo. The best way to end the war would be through Japan surrendering rather than invading them. The Americans had control of the sea around Japan so it an invasion was not necessary. Wheeler and a buddy had a private celebration with a bottle of Scotch whiskey when the war ended. He still had to maintain station until February 1946. The equipment had to be rounded up only for much of it to be dumped in the Bay of Bengal. That was by agreement with the British. The transition from colony to independent nation went well in India despite riots between the Hindus and Moslems. He traveled on a makeshift Liberty troopship from Calcutta [Annotator's Note: now Kolkata, India] through Singapore. He finally reached Seattle, Washington in March. It was a beautiful sight to see the sunrise over the mountains. After Seattle, he went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and was discharged there. When he arrived home, his parents not even recognize him because of his weight loss.

Berle Wheeler attended college at the University of Oklahoma [Annotator's Note: in Norman, Oklahoma] and then University of Arkansas [Annotator's Note: in Fayetteville, Arkansas] where he graduated. He stayed in the Reserves and was called up for the Korean War but he requested that his resident records be transferred from Arkansas to Oklahoma. The records were changed and he missed going to Korea as a result. Wheeler received multiple military decorations recognizing his service during the war. Since the end of the war, he has grown to appreciate the people of India. He and his wife have gone to India and beheld the Taj Mahal. He would like to return to Ledo [Annotator's Note: Ledo, Asam, India] and the Assam Valley but that is in Bangladesh where strikes occur. Wheeler highly respects Claire Chennault [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault] as the best commander in the theater. He was a visionary who could implement his concepts. Stillwell [Annotator's Note: US Army General Joseph Stillwell] was more of a dud. Chennault was from Louisiana and a monument has been erected close to his home. Everyone tried to do their part during the war.