Joseph Stilwell Joseph Stilwell Joseph Warren Stilwell (March 19, 1883 – October 12, 1946) was a United States Army general who served in the China Burma India Theater during World War II. His caustic personality was reflected in the nickname "Vinegar Joe". Distrust of his Allies and a lack of resources meant Stilwell was continually forced to improvise. He famously differed as to strategy, ground troops versus air power, with his subordinate, Claire Chennault, who had the ear of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. General George Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, acknowledged he had given Stilwell "one of the most difficult" assignments of
Joseph Stilwell was completed in 1943 at Fort Ord on the bluffs overlooking Monterey Bay. Many years later the building was renamed "Stilwell Hall" in his honor, but because of the erosion of the bluffs over the decades, the building was taken down in 2003. Stilwell's former residence in Chongqing – a city along the Yangtze River to which Chiang's government retreated after being forced from Nanjing by Japanese troops – has now been converted to the General Joseph W. Stilwell Museum in his honor. Stilwell was initiated to the Scottish Rite Freemasonry. In her book "Stilwell and the American Experience in