Tag: Okinawa Marines

Take China-CH7C

June 28, 2021 admin

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New Chinese Teacher

“We have a teacher for you,” Mrs. Murray said. “She  is Chinese,  and from a very prominent family here in Tsingtao. Her name is Mrs. Djung. I have told her all about you, and she is looking  forward to meeting you. She has two very lovely daughters.”

It was several weeks before the Murrays left and I spent as much time with them as I could. Col. Roston agreed to my continuing with my studies and had Stevenson extend my gate pass. With Mrs. Djung’s address written in both English and Chinese characters I set out one day soon after the Murrays left to meet my new teacher. I wanted to take a rickshaw but none of the rickshaw boys could read so I walked. I knew the general location of the address, along the seawall that I had often walked after my Chinese classes.

Often on my long walks from the Murrays into town I wondered who lived in these grand stone houses that faced the sea. They had to be rich. Some of the houses had shiny black rickshaws parked in front. I soon found the house I was looking for, set back from the road behind a high stonewall. Like on most walls in Tsingtao, along the top, pieces of glass were embedded in the concrete. Stone steps led up to the doorway. I rang a bell and listened. I could hear it ring inside the house.

An amah in black-and-white dress opened the door. I said in my best Chinese that I would like to see the lady of the house. She put her hands to her mouth and chuckled. I was used to this by now. Chinese didn’t expect white men to speak their language, and if they did, they laughed. It was annoying. I was about to admonish her when Mrs. Djung appeared. She wasn’t anything like I expected. She was quite stunning, a very proper Mandarin Chinese lady.

She was, indeed, handsome, and very dignified. She was unusually tall, for a Chinese, standing about five-eight or nine. Her hair had strands of gray and was drawn back into a bun. She wore octagonal glasses, without rims. She reached out her hand and smiled. It was a frozen smile, like on a porcelain figurine.

“Mrs. Murray has had nothing but nice things to say about you,” she said. Her accent was very British. Her coldness vanished, and I found I was beginning to like her. As she led me into the house, still holding my hand, two young women appeared from another room. “These are my daughters, Mae and Rose,” Mrs. Djung said.

“Mother is very pleased that a foreign student is coming to spend time with us,” the girl named Mae said.

She was dressed in western clothes, a woolen plaid skirt and a heavy knit sweater. Like her sister Rose, who was dressed much the same, she was very pretty. I stumbled for words and didn’t quite know what to say. I could feel the palms of my hands grow wet, and I wished to drop Mrs. Djung’s hand.

“Mae is right,” Mrs. Djung said. “We are looking forward to having you with us. So come in and sit down and tell us about yourself.” I explained briefly about my studies with Mrs. Murray, and we conversed for a bit in Chinese. At first I was embarrassed, speaking Chinese, but that soon passed when neither she nor her daughters laughed. The conversation returned to English, and it was obvious they wanted to practice their English.

“We are having an early dinner,” Mrs. Djung said, “and we hope that you can stay. We can get better acquainted, and tomorrow we can begin our lessons.” I said I could stay. “Dr. Fenn will be here. He’s a professor at the University  of Shanghai, visiting Tsingtao for a few days. You will like him.” “Maybe you will be more comfortable in the study,” Rose said. “We have to leave you alone while we get ready for dinner. Mother supervises the kitchen. We are having northern Chinese food. I hope you like Chinese food, do you?”

The study was paneled in dark mahogany with fine oriental rugs on the floor. Behind a glassed-in bookcase were rows of books. I glanced at the titles, some Chinese, a few French but mostly they were English. Several photograph albums sat on an oval table near the windows. “You can look at the albums if you wish,” Rose said and left. I was alone. I felt like I was ma museum.

I was curious about the albums. There were three, and I began looking at them starting with the largest one first. Captions under the photographs were in English. The shots were unlike any I had seen before. There was a beach scene, two people walking up a sandy beach, but you could not see their faces. The photograph was taken from the back and showed their footprints in the sand. Another was a silhouette of two people sitting on a wall, facing one another, but they were totally in the dark,  and again you could not see their faces. The background  revealed an open sea with a setting sun reflecting  upon the water. Junks in the far distance left their wakes upon the still water. These were not like the photographs  we Marines took-photographs  of us standing posed in front of temples, sitting in rickshaws, clowning around at the beach, and with us always facing the camera. These were so different. Whoever it was, they took photographs  of details rather than whole subjects. There was a close-up of the peeling bark on a tree. Another one was the crevasse between two rocks, with a blade of grass growing in the opening. They reminded me of pictures you see sometimes in LIFE magazine, when the photographer  tries to be creative.

Dinner was a formal setting: napkins  in silver holders, cutlery laid out in proper order next to the plates, two types of drinking  glasses,  both cut crystal. There was no revolving centerpiece like I had seen in most restaurants. When we were seated, with Mrs. Djung at one end of the table and Dr. Fenn at the other, the servants began to arrive with platters of food. Mrs. Djung explained each dish. They were delicious. I favored most,  a dumpling  called  djow-dze. Mrs. Djung  was very pleased when I had several servings.

Dr. Fenn was very polite. He spoke slowly, choosing each word carefully. He was a frail man. He was dressed in a long robe, like the Chinese gentlemen I had seen in cabarets, with wide sleeves in which he often slipped his hands when he wasn’t  using them. His fingers were long and delicate,  and his wrists so slender they appeared  they might break if he picked up a weight. He didn’t talk directly to me but through someone else. “How does Mr. Stephens like Tsingtao?” he would ask Mrs. Djung, and the others at the table would all turn to me for my answer. I didn’t mind. Maybe it was the custom, I being the youngest  one there. I found it rather amusing.

“Does Dr. Fenn live in Shanghai?” I asked Mrs. Djung, and everyone turned to Dr. Fenn. I could play the game too.

The conversation drifted from one thing to another, with occasional questions as to what my thoughts were about the matters they were discussing, and then it turned to literature. “Dr. Fenn and I were discussing an issue the other day,” Mrs. Djung said, “and maybe you can help. We have read so much about Western culture, and now we have a foreign student among us to explain it.” I smiled, and said I would be pleased to help in any way I could. I liked Mrs. Djung.

She continued. “Tell me,” she said. “Do you think the philosophy of Kierkegaard had much influence on Christianity or led to the philosophical existentialism movement?”

“Huh?”

“Kierkegaard,” she repeated. “You know, Jean-Paul Sartre.” “Huh?”

Our conversation after that changed to other more mundane topics, like how much effort it takes to make a good djow dze. “You know, no two cooks make them the same way.” I said that was nice to know, and no one bothered to ask me any more questions.


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Take China-CH7B

June 28, 2021 admin

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The Rape of Nanking

“In 1937, Japan launched a full scale invasion of China,” he began. “That same year the Nanking Massacre took place, better known as the Rape of Nanking. The American gunboat USS Panay was bombed and sunk near Nanking. Japanese troops soon occupied all of North China. All foreigners, non-Chinese that is, were herded into concentration camps. The Murrays were among them. “

The three of us, Lt. Harper, Whittington and me, became mesmerized by the tone in his voice. He spoke with conviction. To win a point, like the Sophists, he asked questions that we couldn’t answer. “Do you know where I am leading? No. Well, let me tell you, the Japanese didn’t travel alone. They brought their women with them. Their women! Only they were special women. They were sex slaves. This is what Clara Murray became, a Japanese sex slave.”

The words came as a chill wind but without the cold. Lt. Austin hesitated, as though waiting for a question he knew we wouldn’t ask. Letting his words sink in, he continued: “Instead of sex slaves, the Japanese called them jugun ianfu, meaning military comfort women. It’s a euphemism for enforced military sex labor for the Japanese Imperial Army in the name of Emperor Hirohito. It’s the Japanese way of hoping to obscure the dreadful reality behind the term. The number of victims involved is estimated at nearly 200,000, though it is possible that the figures are even higher. Who were they? Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipina, Indonesian, as well as Dutch women taken prisoner in the Dutch East Indies.”

Incomparable Japanese Atrocities

Suddenly the world before me lit up, as if one of those Nip memie bombs had exploded right before my very eyes. This was no dud. Lt. Austin’s words were a sledgehammer blow right in the midsection. As a movie opens up on the silver screen, suddenly it was all there. Ever since Okinawa, something had been deeply puzzling me. I had found it too horrible to talk about, even with my Marine buddies. There are some things we bury deep inside ourselves and this was one of them. When we were mopping up in the south, we entered the caves where the Japanese had been holding out. Only after intense shelling and with Napalm poured into the air vents were we able to flush them out. Not many surrendered, and those who did came out with their hands up, heads shaven, wearing only strips of loincloths for covering. Their Emperor wouldn’t be happy with them now, surrendering as they did, but still, we felt pity for them, until we entered the caves. Those who didn’t die from our shells and Napalm lay dead from their own hands. They had committed harikari. But there was a sight even more dreadful than dead Japanese soldiers who split their guts open with sabers or ended their miserable lives with bullets in their heads. Almost without exception, in nearly every cave, we found women who had been massacred, and all were completely naked. They had not a stitch of clothing on their bodies. Many had their hands bound behind their backs with cord or wire, wire that had cut so deeply into the flesh their hands were nearly severed. They had struggled. Sometimes it was less than an hour after a shelling when we stormed the caves, and already by then maggots began their work. It was a horrid sight that was to haunt us long after, one that had no explanation, until now.

The G2 officer must have been able to read my mind. “You saw it on Okinawa,” he said. Turning to Whittington, he asked, “And you too. What did you see?”

“I especially remember one clear, warm day,” Whittington began. “It was sunny, about our 79th or 80th day of fighting, and we were on the southern tip of the island. We were on a high cave-infested bluff overlooking the South China Sea. Navy ships were cruising just off shore blaring surrender messages through their PA systems. Navy sailors with rifles were exchanging fire with Japs we could not see. I was in a group of ten or fifteen Marines wrestling with 55-gallon barrels of napalm. We were pouring the stuff down the cave air vents. Gunfire and grenade noises were everywhere. Every once in a while a Jap soldier or an Okinawan woman would appear out of nowhere and jump off the cliff. I remember it as one of the most surreal moments of my life.”

“Did you go into the caves?” Lt. Austin asked.

“Yes, and there were the women who didn’t jump. They were dead.”

Lt. Austin began again. “Toward the end of the war, the supply of women was dwindling, and there was more indiscriminate kidnapping of women by the Japanese Imperial Army under the enforcement of the Military Compulsory Draft Act in 1943. This is what you saw on Okinawa. At the end of the war, survivors of military sexual slavery were not informed of Japan’s defeat. During Japan’s retreat, to keep the facts from becoming known, they massacred these helpless women, by driving them into trenches or caves and either bombing or gunning them down.”

Lt. Austin went on to explain how each woman was made to serve an average of thirty to forty soldiers per day, with more soldiers waiting in line. Women who were not submissive were brutally beaten and tortured. Escape was impossible due to strict surveillance. Japanese soldiers were reminded that women were their common property.

“Women from the working class and farmer families were assigned to lower-ranking soldiers, while Japanese and European women were for higher-ranking officers. Clara Murray became officers’ property.”

Lt. Austin read from the dossier, a horror story from real life. It was part medical report, and mentioned things like antisocial personality disorders, shared psychotic disorder and psychotherapy. The report listed eyewitness confessions by prisoners who stated that every woman caught by the Japanese had been raped, without exception. When Japanese soldiers couldn’t  find women to rape, they had been seen copulating with sows in some districts. In places where the villagers had not had time to hide themselves  effectively,  the women were captured,  herded together, stripped naked, and driven forward by the imperial  army as beasts of burden until  they reached their destinations.

“Witnesses  reported  that Mrs. Murray was raped when she was eight  months  pregnant,”  Lt. Austin  continued. “On resisting,  she was beaten and her lower jaw was broken. Her daughter was born a month later. Clara Murray was twelve when they were captured. Age meant nothing to the Japanese. She spent six years handed from one officer to another, until she no longer had her senses. We want to treat this as war crimes,  but our difficulty  is that no one wants to come forth with their own testimony. Every witness points a finger at someone else. We had hoped Mrs. Murray and her daughter might help, until this last incident with the sergeant.”

“And you want me to see what I can do?” I said.

It was an ugly  affair and I didn’t think I could confront Mrs. Murray by asking such horrid questions,  but I had to agree that I would at least try. But there was no need. When I arrived at the Murrays the following  Monday afternoon, Mrs. Murray announced Clara was out of the hospital and that they were returning  to England. She  used the pretext  that they thought  it was best for Mr. Murray who could recuperate back home and regain bis health so that they could return to China.


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Take China-CH7A

June 28, 2021 admin

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War Victims

One terribly cold afternoon in March as I walked through the pines on my way to the Murrays for my Chinese lesson, I seriously thought I might freeze in my tracks before I ever got there. Even with my parka pulled over my head, with only my eyes exposed, I could not keep out the cold. It was so bad Sammy and the other maintenance men couldn’t get the Jeeps nor any of the vehicles in Motor Pool started. To add to my misery, a biting wind blew in from the sea causing the tops of the pines trees above to quiver and moan mournfully. The wind, the cold, the stark bleakness, it all seemed to be a kind of premonition that something terrible was going to happen. When I reached the Murray’s house, I knew my instincts were right. Something was wrong. Little Sally wasn’t at the window. She had gotten into the habit of waiting for my arrival each afternoon, and I could count on seeing the curtains move as she peeked out a window. And when I knocked on the door, she’d open it slightly, quickly dash away, and I’d shout out, “Whoop, who was that?” I would look around and mutter aloud that it must be a ghost. I could then hear her giggling in another room. No curtains moved now; I had to wait several minutes before someone came to open the door. This time it wasn’t Sally. It was the amah. She said nothing and led me to the study and asked that I wait. I sat there for the longest time, wondering what could have gone wrong. It seemed an eternity, like on Okinawa when we heard a “screaming memie” overhead and braced for an explosion. More often than not, they were duds. Those were the worst kind, when nothing happened and you still waited. This was the same. The shell was overhead but when was it going to land?

Finally Mrs. Murray appeared. I could immediately see that she was distraught. She had been crying. “Clara is in the hospital,” she said sadly. She was searching hard to find the right words. “She attempted to take her life last night,” she said in a voice hardly audible.

I didn’t know what to say. Her words came like a powerful poison dropped into a crucible. Clara attempted suicide! I knew that she had been acting strangely and I suspected something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure what it was. But I did reason that it had something to do with the war and the Japanese. Mrs. Murray turned away while she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. Turning to face me again, she spoke of her husband. “Mr. Murray is taking it very badly,” she said and asked to be excused. I mumbled a few twisted words and quietly left. I didn’t feel the cold this time as I hurried through the pines and went straight to Fox Company headquarters.

“I’m glad you came straight here,” Whittington said with some urgency in his voice when I entered the office. “Lt. Harper, the new exec officer, said he wants to see you. The guy from G2 is with him now.” Before I went into his office, as I stood over the kerosene stove warming  myself, Whittington and Stevenson briefed me on Lt. Harper, USMCR. He had just arrived a few days before by ship from Stateside, Officers’ Candidate School in Quantico. “He’s a 2nd lieutenant wonder boy still wet behind the ears,” Stevenson said. Whittington agreed. The regiment had been getting a fresh lot of officers and green troops for replacements, and the old battle-hardened Marines had a difficult time accepting orders from noncombatants wet behind the ears. I gathered after talking to Whittington and Stevenson that this new man, Lt. Thomas P. Harper, was one of them.

I knocked and entered his office. I really didn’t expect to find Falstaff sitting behind the desk but I did. There he was, a fat, flushed-face Marine officer in full green uniform with an expert rifleman’s  badge on his chest above the left pocket. He was smoking a cigar, more for effect than for pleasure. I’m sure he wasn’t enjoying it, not like Col. Roston enjoyed his cigars. For a moment, I thought he might get sick as he took a puff. He was fat but I can’t say he was jolly. In fact, he was rather  grim and to the point. I wouldn’t  have taken  him seriously except for the question he fired at me.

“What do you know about Clara Murray?” he barked. I noticed at a glance that he had my record folder on his desk. His question threw me completely off guard. Why did he want to know about Mrs. Murray’s daughter? He didn’t tell me to “rest at ease” but I did anyway. I told him all that I knew, that Clara kept pretty much to herself, and not once had I talked to her directly, and that the Murrays had private matters they kept secret. It was true. I often wondered about the two girls, how they  fared  in a Japanese prison,  but it was never mentioned, and I didn’t ask. “That’s  about all I know about her,” I said.

I had forgotten all about the G2 officer that Whittington mentioned until I saw Lt. Harper glance in his direction. He was sitting in a chair to one side. Lt. Harper motioned to him and he stepped up to the deck. I recognized  him, Lt. Austin, the baby-face  officer from G2 who held the briefing before we first came ashore in Tsingtao.

“Did you know  she was dating a Marine from Baker Company?” Lt. Austin asked.

“I knew she was seeing someone from the base here. Mrs. Murray told me, and she was concerned who he was. But I didn’t know him.”

“You say you didn’t know him. You never saw him around?”

The lieutenant was trying to trick me into a trap, like a teacher does in school when she doesn’t believe a student.

“Sir, I didn’t say that. I said I didn’t know him but I saw him once when he came to pick up Mrs. Murray’s daughter in a Jeep.”

“But you do know that the girl is under age,” the lieutenant from G2 spoke up, “and that the sergeant could be charged with rape if the Murrays wanted to press charges.”

Good lord! My heart began to quiver, like the quivering of those trees in the pine forest that I had just walked through. The poor Murrays, all that they had suffered, and now this. My face must have registered my disbelief, and there was still more to come. Lt. Austin continued: “Then you didn’t know she was under age?”

“I never thought about it at all,” I said. The trees stopped quivering. I was being accused of something and wouldn’t let it happen.

I must have been convincing. Lt. Harper got up from his chair, walked around to the front of the desk where I stood and laid a folder down before me on the desk. He opened it and pointed to the heading. It was a dossier on the Murrays.

“Sir, you asked about the sergeant and Mrs. Murray’s daughter. What is it you want me to tell you?”

Lt. Austin came to my defense. He asked Lt. Harper that we all sit at the conference table in the adjoining room. He called for Whittington to join us. When Whittington came in and was seated, he began.

“The sergeant that’s involved with Clara Murray, we are transferring him immediately back to the States. The Murrays can still press charges-the girl is barely eighteen-but that’s not why we are here.”

That’s the way to go, I thought. Transfer the guy and forget about the girl. What agony had she suffered? Obviously, she loved the guy, enough to attempt suicide, but that didn’t matter, not with the Marine Corps reputation at stake. The two officers waited for my response. “You’re packing him off. Why are we here then?” I finally asked, bluntly.

“We are trying to gather evidence against Japanese, for their war crimes, and we want the Murrays to testify.”

I was more confused now than ever. Why did the Murrays have to testify? About what? Lt. Austin could see the puzzled looks on the faces of both Whittington and me. He spread open the Murray file on the table and once again began talking like a college professor.


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Take China-CH6D

June 28, 2021 admin

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Emergency Rescue (Broken Arrow)

It was a nasty cold morning on December 17, 1945, when we boarded LST 755 in Tsingtao harbor. The rope flag halyard at the bow had to be thawed out before we could raise colors. There appeared to be even more junks in the harbor than when we first arrived three months before. We felt sorry for the Chinese sailors who stood on their decks, tending lines with trembling fingers. They shivered in the cold and we could just imagine them at sea in their leaky ships with waves of icy seawater breaking over their decks. It didn’t seem much better for the sailors aboard a rusted freighter who lined the deck and watched us depart.

A sharp, biting wind blew in from the sea, and regardless of us not being accustomed to the cold winters of north China, we braved the weather, lined the railing and watched the shoreline disappear into the distance. I had my Brownie box camera with me but my fingers were so numb I couldn’t click the shutter.

We arrived at Peng Lai the following morning. Col. Roston and a small landing party were the first to go ashore. Whittington with a radio strapped on his back went with him, along with a LIFE photographer, an interpreter, two enlisted men and the Duck crew. I was pleased that we had an official interpreter, especially when I learned, even though I was beyond “what is the color of your rice bowl,” that he was to contact the communists and offer them reward money for caring for the pilot and crew member. He would also ask the communists for a “guarantee of safety” while our landing parties went to the downed aircraft to see what could be done.

Col. Roston and his men carried a briefcase packed with Chinese money. We watched them as they pulled alongside the LST before going ashore. “Hey, Whittington, you know how to use that thing,” Terry called out and Whittington gave him the finger. The second rifle squad and our machine gun squad were ordered to stand by. We would be boarding the second Duck to escort aviation personnel to the aircraft.

From the deck of the LST, we watched Col. Roston and his party draw near to the shore. About 500 yards before they reached their destination, a rowboat manned by four armed soldiers approached. From the LST, with rifles ready, we watched the soldiers board the Duck and place the rowboat in tow. Whittington reported over the radio that all was well, and that the soldiers were guiding them to an unmined stretch of beach. The Duck reached the beach, and as Whittington later reported, they caused concern when they left the water and drove up the embankment. Suddenly about a hundred Chinese troops appeared from nowhere and came running to assume positions along the parapeted top of a 50-foot wall fronting the sea. We lost no time boarding the remaining two Ducks and headed toward shore as fast as we could.

As we were rapidly closing the distance to the shore, we noticed the Chinese troops had disappeared; then but minutes later they had reappeared, this time wearing Japanese steel helmets. Whittington who was on the beach guided our two Ducks through the mines whereupon we entered a massive seagate. The Duck with our aviation personnel aboard headed directly for the downed aircraft. The others headed off in the opposite direction toward the town, with the briefcase filled with money. We were fearful for their safety.

The Tiger cat was undamaged, but the hardened ground began to thaw, making take-off impossible. We attempted to pull the plane to higher ground with the Ducks by attaching cables to each landing gear but that too failed. I was trying to get photographs with my Brownie when Stevenson came running. “I can’t believe it,” he said, out of breath. “Those commie bastards brought a carpet bag filled with American money and wanted to buy the plane.” There was no sale.

The lieutenant from G-2 took charge of operations. He lost little time climbing aboard the plane followed by the aviation mechanics and a demolition man from headquarters. We took position around the plane. Several dozen Chinese troops arrived and were helpful when they formed a cordon around the plane and kept the local Chinese from approaching closer than 500 meters. The men with the moneybag left.

We had to complete our mission before nightfall and get back to the LST. The men worked quickly. They removed heavy cameras from the nose of the aircraft, and stripped the navigation equipment. They carried two 5-gallon Jerry cans of fuel aboard and returned with empty cans. The last Marine to leave the aircraft was the demolition man. He set a charge, timing it to go off in an hour, enough time for us to get back to the beach. We returned to the seagate as quickly as we could. The third Duck with Col. Roston and his party had not returned. We waited for them as long as we could. Night was falling.

We still were standing on the beach, preparing to board the Ducks, when there came a terrific explosion. We turned to see the plane on fire. Darkness was almost upon us and still the other Duck was not in sight. We had no alternative but to follow orders and return to the LST. We could only make wild guesses what had happened to Col. Roston and his men. As we returned to the LST, we could see the silhouette of the burning plane against the night sky.

Back aboard the LST, we stood at the railing searching the darkness, looking for some sign of the others. We were thinking the worst when we heard shouts coming through the darkness. The Duck was returning. We gave a shout of victory. They had made it! They had out-smarted the communists. A few minutes later and we could hear their voices, more clearly now, and then their laughter. We knew that sound. Oh, how we knew it-drunken Marines. The LST opened the gate, lowered the ramp and the Duck drove aboard.

Whittington gave the account of what had happened. The town of Peng Lai had anticipated the arrival of the Marines and was waiting with full honors. The streets through which they were escorted were emblazoned with freshly painted posters in English, decrying US interference in Chinese internal political problems, and at the same time fervently wishing long life for Presidents Harry Truman and Mao Tse Tung.

They were taken to the office of the Mayor, Mr. Ba Nan Kong, and introduced to Brigadier General, Sun Rai Fu, and Commander of the Tung Pei Hai Military area, and Mr. Chang Hsao, editor of the local newspaper. A banquet hall where they dined was also plastered with banners, together with pictures of Mao, and a flaming red map of China. “According to the map,” Whittington said, “practically all of China was in communist hands.” Gen. Sun Rai Fu refused to accept the money offered by Col. Roston for safeguarding the aircraft.

The dinner party at the Mayor’s house was a full-blown ten-course affair with various wines, brandies and palate cleansers, served by a battalion of waiters. After almost a week onboard the LST, the banquet meal was an unexpected treat. The Marines were completely baffled by the feast, and after months in the field, they were certainly not the most refined dinner guests ever to share the Mayor’s table. The drinks were generous. One Chinese host became a bit loud and offered continuous toasts, which only served to increase the guests’ alcohol intake. Whittington admitted he tried to follow the Colonel’s lead, as far as table manners went, and thought he did fairly well for a slightly tipsy 19-year old kid from Saugerties, N.Y. However,  the  Marine  next  to  him,  to everyone’s dismay, drank the contents of his finger bowl, which he thought  was just  another  exotic  course. “It was like something from out of Terry and the Pirates,” Whittington said, “although no ‘Dragon Lady’ ever appeared.”

With the sky over Peng Lai ablaze in a red glow from the burning aircraft, LST 755 departed that same evening for Tsingtao. It was a two-day voyage at best. We spent Christmas Day at sea. To brighten up morale, several men put on a skit, which ended abruptly. Terry went drag with a mop for wig and padding under his shirt for breasts. A sailor made a witty remark, Terry punched him out, and the fun ended in a brawl. No sooner was calm restored than an oil line broke and sprayed oil over all our bedding: We spent the night cleaning up the mess. But Fox Company, 29th Marines, did have a Christmas feast, a day later on December 27th back at the Strand Hotel.

On December 31st I took Ming-Lee to a dance at the Shantung University Gym, and Stevenson took Judy. Ming-Lee looked very lovely in a western dress and high heels. I was experiencing a feeling I never had before. Could it be that I was falling in love? But Marines don’t fall in love.


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Take China-CH6C

June 28, 2021 admin

-CH6C-

Little Lew Hangs in the Balance

We all held our breaths. Stevenson lit a Chesterfield and continued. ‘”Sir,’ he says to the colonel, ‘the idea came from the 22nd Marines.’ I gotta hand it to Pappy. He was using strategy. He says to the colonel, ‘You know, their CO let them adopt a Chinese orphan too. They call him Charley Two Shoes. And Motor Pool has a kid too, Bulldog Drummond.”‘

Stevenson knocked the ashes on his cigarette into the cuff of his trousers, took a deep drag and continued. “Pappy knew at that minute he had the colonel whipped.”

“What happened, what happened then?” we all asked. “Col. Roston softened,” Stevenson said. “There was Little Lew, standing there with big eyes wide open.”

“Okay, okay, what happened,” we demanded to know. “What happened,” Stevenson said. “What could happen?

The Old Man agreed that Little Lew can stay.”

They probably heard us in the headquarters office on the ground floor when we sounded off with one big loud cheer. We congratulated Pappy Preston when he returned with Little Lew. Both of them were beaming.

“There’s more to it than that,” Pappy Preston said when things settled down and he made certain Little Lew was comfortable in his new home. He then explained the conditions under which we could keep Little Lew. We had to arrange a fund that would finance his keep. He had to go to school every day, and have a doctor and dentist look him over. We had to pay for a tailor and have uniforms made. Most important, he had to follow rules as we did. He would be issued a chow pass and gate pass but he could not abuse his privileges. In short, Little Lew was the official mascot for Fox Company, 29th Marines. We set up a bunk for him in the corner of the bay. He was the happiest kid in Tsingtao. We began planning immediately for the coming Christmas a few weeks away. This was going to be a very special Christmas, but fate had its hand to play.

Mrs. Murray didn’t agree with Little Lew moving in with us. “Children are not mascots,” she said. “Furthermore what will happen to him when you Marines leave China?”

“We don’t intend to leave,” I said. “We’ll always be here.” I believed it, wholeheartedly. In the meantime, Little Lew fared well. He attended the school for dependents children and he learned English rapidly. He was well liked and was loved by everyone. We no longer used foul language in his presence, and even Melanowski stopped cursing. We fitted him with a uniform and Pfc.’s stripes. When we took him into town, he would sit huddled up beside us in a rickshaw. He became the envy of every kid in Tsingtao. It was true, he was only a kid, but then most of us, when it came down to the question of age, weren’t much more than kids ourselves.

First Winter in China

Winter came to North China in a fury. One day it was warm; the next it was freezing cold. For the Chinese who had little left after years under the Japanese, it was a matter of survival. For many, as more and more refugees pushed into the city, starvation was inevitable. The sick, the lame, the lepers, they walked the streets in rags, the lepers with flesh eaten away to the bone. Most pathetic were the child beggars, the true victims of war. There were hordes of them in shreds of rags. They had never seen a wash or a full meal in their entire short lives. When winter finally set in, they, along with the lepers, were found frozen in doorways. Trucks drove through the streets of Tsingtao each morning picking up frozen corpses in alleys and doorways. In our hikes in the countryside we watched wild dogs gnawing on the bones of the non-survivors half buried in the snow. These poor unfortunate souls didn’t even make it to the city to die.

China for the Marines was a far cry from the steaming jungles of the South Pacific. We had to adapt and we had to do it quickly. No more sweltering heat and torturous sun. The cold was penetrating; even our new issue of cold-weather clothing was inadequate. It consisted of parkas, tank pants, mittens, long underwear, shoe packs and what we called Mongolian piss cutters, fur-lined hats with ear flaps.

The business-minded Chinese of Tsingtao began preparing for the coming holidays. Strings of bright lights began to appear all over town, trees were decorated, and welcoming banners were strung across store fronts, restaurants and cabarets. At Fox Company we began making arrangements for Christmas parties and the chaplain organized a Santa Claus party for orphans to be held at the mess hall. Marines began decorating the gym at the university for the Christmas and New Year’s Eve dances. We began making plans. Roger let it be known he would escort the ladies from the Prime Club. Ming-Lee and Judy looked forward to the occasion and began planning what they would wear. Marines sent home special orders, and packages began to arrive from Sears & Roebuck with the latest women’s wear. It was indeed going to be a happy holiday season for all.

But fun and games weren’t in the cards for Fox Company, not this Christmas. The cold winds were bringing trouble.

When the Sixth Marine Division landed in Tsingtao rather than in Cheefoo, the first order of command was to establish aerial reconnaissance missions in an effort to accomplish two things. First was to monitor all Japanese movements; the second was to keep Marine Headquarters informed of communist activity on the Shantung Peninsula. In layman’s language, we were there to spy for Chiang.

Reconnaissance Planes

While we were planning Christmas parties and dances, two F7F Tiger cats and an SB2C Helldiver were flying reconnaissance north of Tsingtao and became disorientated in bad weather. All three aircraft were forced to land along the northern coast of the peninsula. The Helldiver aircrew survived and made their way back to Tsingtao overland. One F7F crash landed in the sea near Wei Hai Wei. The Chinese recovered the body of one of the crewmen, but they were unable to locate the second.

The Tiger cat that crash-landed had been recording the movement of Chinese troops and was carrying valuable photo surveillance equipment. It made an emergency landing on the beach at the end of the peninsula. Before he was rescued by the Chinese, the pilot, Lt. Bland, radioed Division Headquarters in Tsingtao that the plane was still intact and should be flyable.

Division Headquarters, independent of Washington, made the decision to dispatch as quickly as possible Fox Company, 29th Marines, from Tsingtao to retrieve the aircraft and make an attempt to fly it back to Tsingtao. The site where it crashed was 500 meters inland from the beach. The terrain was flat with very little rise in the ground, and if it remained frozen, the plane should be able to take off.

We got our orders. Fox Company was about to take on the whole Chinese communist army. Col. Roston briefed us. We were to board an LST and travel to the north coast of the Shantung Peninsula and go ashore where the Tiger cat crash landed.

To carry us ashore, we would have three amphibious Ducks aboard the LST, all with 30 cal. machine guns mounted on the bows. The ducks would off-load while we were at anchor. Radio contact would be maintained between the LST and Division Headquarters in Tsingtao while constant ship-to-shore communications would be kept by radio. Rick Whittington was assigned as radio operator. If it was not possible to fly the plane off, we were instructed to salvage the instruments and photo equipment, destroy the plane, and then get out as fast as we could.

We were issued rations and ammunition. Uniforms were utility with cold-weather parkas, leggings, steel helmets and field marching packs. I contacted Roger and asked him to pass the word on to Ming-Lee and Judy that Stevenson and I would not be around for Christmas. I wanted to see her and tell her myself but all liberty was canceled.

-CH6C-

Take China-CH6B

June 28, 2021 admin

-CH6B-

University Amenities vs the Hotel’s

We still used the university. There was a 4×4 weapons carrier that served as a bus and ran scheduled runs. The base movie hall was there, and they had a first class gym with a basketball court and weightlifting room. The library had a new shipment of books from America. I had finished reading The Dowager Empress, and found other books on Chinese history I checked out. One book I found most interesting was titled Chinese Warlords. I began reading about Feng Yu-hsiang, the Christian Warlord who baptized his troops with a garden hose.

I missed chow that night reading it. The author of the book talked about another warlord, Chiang Hsueh-liang, who had captured Chiang Kai-shek. I couldn’t wait to read that chapter.

The Strand Hotel suited me fine for more than one reason. It was closer to the Murrays, and I could walk to my Chinese classes without Sammy having to drive me.

I came to enjoy my afternoons at the Murrays. Sally was becoming friendlier, especially when I brought her little gifts from the PX. I also helped out the family with sweet smelling bars of soap and tubes of toothpaste. They were truly luxuries for them. Clara continued to keep her distance but she no longer fled as she once did. The real shock came when Mrs. Murray told me Clara had met a Marine sergeant and had been seeing him. I was puzzled how she got to know him, shy as she was.

“She was walking home one afternoon and he picked her up in his Jeep,” she explained after I asked her. “He seems like such a nice fellow.”

Mrs. Murray talked freely about the mission and how happy they had been. “Mr. Murray came to China before the Great War, when Tsingtao was still under the Germans,” she said one afternoon when we were having tea after my studies. “He spent the war in China, and came back to England on leave at the end of the war. He was so handsome, and had so many exciting stories to tell. China then was at the end of the world, and to even get here one had to be an adventurer.  I was only eighteen when I met him. He was much older, almost twice my age, and I fell in love with him. I was the one who proposed. Can you imagine that? We married and spent our honeymoon on a steamer to Shanghai. From Shanghai we took a coastal boat to Cheefoo. Clara was born in Cheefoo.”

Another advantage of living in the Strand Hotel was that it was closer to the beach. There were three beaches, and all were secured areas set aside for recreation for the troops. Although it was too cold to swim in October, it was still a fine place for weekend beer parties and barbecues. Marines could meet their Chinese dates here and not fear reprisals. It was here on Sunday that Roger brought Ming-Lee. I was as happy as the day I got out of boot camp.

We didn’t do much, only held hands and walked up the beach and talked about things most Marines talked about. We couldn’t talk about the same things kids back honie talked about. Ours wasn’t football games and proms and Saturday night parties. The war deprived us of these things and we only knew about them from what we read in LIFE and Esquire or from letters from back home. We could only talk about killing Japs and what great buddies we had and the fun we had at the Prime Club a couple nights before. The bar girls in China listened to their men, and this is what made them so special. Marines could unburden their souls to women who hardly knew what they were talking about and it made these Gls happy. Each guy, however, thought his girl was different. I thought Ming-Lee was different, and of course, she was. She not only listened to me, she asked me questions. She was special, I guess, because she thought that I was different. I was becoming very fond of her. She was becoming my escape.

I didn’t realize it but I had gotten on the Ferris wheel.

We walked up the beach to where the officers’ hotel stood on a rocky precipice. “It’s the Dung Hi Fandian in Chinese,” Ming-Lee explained. “Before the Americans came, rich Chinese from Shanghai stayed there during summer months.” One of the things we talked about was my concern for the boy who lived in the sewer pipe at the main gate near the university. “It’s getting cold now, and there must be some place that will take him, like an orphanage,” I said. Ming-Lee offered to check around and see what she could find. When I went to see her at the Prime Club the next night she said it was impossible to find a home for him. The orphanages in Tsingtao, she said, were already overcrowded.

Sewer Boy, Little Lew-Marines Have Soft Hearts Too

Back at the squad bay the next morning before roll call we discussed the boy. We knew the kid was certain to die unless we did something about it. “We can bring him here, can’t we?” Melanowski suggested.

“You’re out of your friggin’ mind,” Terry admonished him.

“Why, what the hell can they do to us? Throw us in the brig for saving a kid’s life!” Melanowski replied. They got into a heated argument. Hot-headed Melanowski didn’t like to be told he couldn’t do something.

We thought the subject would end here, but it was only the beginning. Instead, the two toughest, meanest guys in the Marine Corps, Terry and Melanowski, turned out to be the most soft-hearted of any of us. That night, without us being aware of what was taking place, the two men had Sammy drive them in a Jeep to the sewer outside the main gate, found the kid and wrapped him in blankets and brought him back to the Strand. They scrubbed him up, dressed him out in some old uniforms, rolled up the trouser legs and shirt sleeves, and hid him out in a supply room on the third floor. They fed him that day with food they sneaked from the mess hall. The next night when Cpl. Marsden was playing poker with the staff NCOs in their quarters, they brought the kid to our squad bay. Their plan was all very cleverly orchestrated, but not everyone in the squad was in agreement, until they saw the boy. The very sight of him was enough to soften the heart of the most hard-hearted Marine. There the kid stood, frightened to death, in a uniform with the legs and sleeves rolled up, but with a face full of smiles. We all agreed the boy should spend his nights with us in our squad bay where it was reasonably warm, and in the day he could hide out in the supply room.

We called him Little Lew, for lack of a better name. He was about the size of a peanut and frightfully skinny. He quickly gained our trust and soon began picking up English words. We hadn’t the faintest notion how long we could keep up our deception, but we were determined to see our plan through. We felt the gamble was worth it, considering what might have happened to Little Lew hadn’t we acted. Still, we reasoned, it was not fair to Cpl. Marsden. This wasn’t his doing but he was the one who would get into trouble when the boy was discovered living in the barracks. And sooner or later he would be discovered. That we knew. What we had counted on was that we could trust the houseboys on the third floor. We felt they too would feel compassion for Little Lew. We were wrong. They went running to Col. Roston.

Pappy Preston came to our defense. Who would ever have imagined that an old geezer like him would have feelings for a little kid he didn’t know? Stevenson was on duty in the office when Pappy, with Little Lew in hand, went to see Col. Roston. We were torn apart inside when Pappy left the squad bay holding Little Lew’s hand and walked down the corridor. The kid, not as high as Pappy’s waist, looked so pathetic in his oversized uniform, walking with the gunny sergeant who was so fat his uniform bulged at the seams. At the last moment, before they were out of sight, Scotty ran down the hall with Stevenson’s barracks hat and plopped it down on Little Lew’s head. Little Lew turned and smiled, and with his little hand sticking out his sleeve, he waved.

Stevenson reported later what had transpired in Col. Roston’s office. “There’s Pappy with the kid standing in front of the Old Man,” he began. “And what does he do? He says to the colonel, ‘what can we do with him?’ Before the colonel could say anything, he continues. ‘What’s been done has been done, Colonel. We can’t throw him out. He has no mother, no papa, no one, and no home will take him. It isn’t the question of money; all the boys will kick in for him.’ Then the Old Man asks him, ‘Whose idea was this?”‘

-CH6B-

Take China-CH6A

June 28, 2021 admin

-CH6A-

“Hotel” Accommodation for Marines

The Strand Hotel in Tsingtao became the pride of Fox Company, 29th Marines. I don’t think there was a Marine who moved into the hotel that didn’t write home and talk about it. It was a three-story colonial-style building located at the outskirts north of town facing an open beach. The Strand was built by the Germans who occupied Tsingtao before World War I, but who had to give up their claims in China at the end of the war. The legacy they left was more than a grand hotel, however.  It was a brewery from which Tsingtao beer came. We were grateful to the Germans for both, the hotel and Tsingtao beer.

Trucks transported Fox Company with all of our gear from Shantung University where we had been billeted to the Strand. Here they deposited us, with our weapons, packs and seabags, on the street in front of the hotel. There we waited, sitting on our helmets, while the Chinese gathered to take a look at the new tenants. Seeing the crowd gathering in front of the hotel, more Chinese stopped to investigate. They in tum brought even more people to come for a look. Soon we had a wall of inquisitive bystanders surrounding us, all pushing and shoving to get better views. There was no holding them back, until Terry took out his K-bar, flipped it over and grabbed the blade end of the knife in a very dramatic maneuver. The mob backed up slightly not knowing what to expect. We knew instantly what Terry had in mind. About a dozen yards away stood a tree bare of leaves with the trunk exposed. A few Marines sat smoking around the base of the tree. Had they been aware of Terry’s intent, he may not have pulled it off. Nevertheless, he took aim-we held our breaths-and he let fly the K-bar. It zipped through the air with a swish and stuck point first with a thud into the tree. The mob let out a sigh and moved farther back, leaving us breathing room. Terry calmly withdrew his K-bar, wiped the blade on his sleeve, put the knife back into its sheath and again sat down on his helmet.

Finally Lt. Brandmire appeared with Gunny Sergeant Pappy Preston at his side. Pappy Preston made the announcement. Rifle and machine gun platoons were assigned to the bottom two decks. The top deck was for storage, with a small area set aside for quarters for Chinese houseboys. The houseboys were there for the officers and staff non-commissioned officers only. The rest of us would have to clean our own rooms and shine our own shoes. He instructed us to take our gear and follow Cpl. Marsden to our new quarters on the second floor.

Never did we expect such luxury as when we stepped into the room, or squad bay as Pappy Preston called the rooms. It was spacious, with double bunks, consisting of one single metal bunk bolted to the top of another single bunk. Marsden had us hang our gear in one comer of the squad bay. We placed our skivvies, socks, utilities and personal items in our seabags, which we secured by padlock to the head of each bunk. Under our bunk we slung our rifles on two blanket roll straps. Each Marine strapped his pack, or 782 gear, along with bayonet, cartridge belt and canteen to the foot of his bunk. We draped our laundry bags over the head of each bunk.

There was no central heating and we could already feel the cold for winter was beginning to set in. We had one tent stove, which Melanowski lit, and immediately smelly diesel fumes filled the room. “Quit bitching,” he snapped. “Be happy you’re not sleeping in a tent.” He changed his tune later in the day when the stove blew up and sent soot all over the room. We didn’t stop grumbling; then we had the first of many field days.

Toilet facilities at the Strand Hotel weren’t so grand.  We were fortunate enough to have fresh water, but it was ice cold. We discovered this the next morning when we had to wash and shave.  That evening, and every evening that followed, we had water for thirty minutes, for those who could stand a frigid shower. This occurred only if the water pipes had not frozen during the night. There was no heat in the heads. Shaving in ice water while shivering from below zero temperatures became a daily ordeal. Yet, we dared not to fall out for rifle and personnel inspection without a shave.

Due to uncertain water hours, we were all issued two canteens and every man made sure he kept his canteens full at all times. You never knew when the pipes would freeze, or if for some reason the water would not come on at the designated times.

Heads had no flush toilets because of freezing temperatures and water shortage. The frigid temperature made calls of nature something to complete as quickly as possible. Human waste was scraped out from beneath the round holes where we sat, collected in buckets and kept in a pit outside the barracks. Coolies bailed the pit out frequently, hauling the waste into the countryside to dump on the fields for fertilizer. We called these coolies “honey dippers.” Often times they scraped beneath the holes while we were still sitting there. It required some getting used to.

Eventually we did have hot showers, but it took effort to get one. The Engineers Unit, located three hundred yards down the hill, constructed a large shower room with hot water showers. They allowed infantry companies to use the showers for an hour each evening. This required careful planning on our part, for it was very cold and dark on the path to the shower. Chandler came back cursing the first night; he had been late getting there. He had soaped up his body when the hot water went off. He had to finish with an ice cold shower. We quickly learned not to forget our soap or towel, nor be late.

We had a neat laundry room on the bottom floor. Jerry Ruker ran the operation. If we didn’t want to do our laundry ourselves, which none of us did, we deposited it with him and he sent it out to a Chinese laundry. It came back the next day washed and pressed; even our skivvies got pressed.  Sgt. Herman Willis was in charge of the Chinese cleanup force. We called him “Pops.”  He was older than any of us, having reached his 29th birthday. Even the officers, many who were much older than he was, called him Pops too.

The mess hall was heated but we had to wait in long lines in the cold to get into the hall, and then we had to wait in line again to wash our mess gear after we ate.  Three 50-gallon steel drums with the tops cut off were placed outside the exit door of the mess hall. The first drum in line had a screen on top and here Marines dumped the leftovers and refuge from their mess gear. The liquids filtered to the bottom leaving only solids. The next drum was filled with hot soapy water, and the last drum contained fresh water. When we came out of the mess hall we dumped our leftovers into the first drum, washed our mess gear in the second and dunked away the soap in the third drum.

The mess sergeant issued passes to coolies who attended the cleanup detail. They stood diligently over the first drum and when the garbage piled up they poured the contents into wooden buckets. At first we thought they were collecting the garbage to feed their pigs or other farm animals, but we later learned they were collecting the garbage to eat. No matter how rotten or old the discarded food was, the poor Chinese coolies collected it for food.

Some Marines found the matter disgusting and scoffed at the coolies. “You’re worse than pigs,” they shouted and took their cigarettes and butted them in the garbage. Later the coolies took the butts and stuffed them into their pockets.

-CH6A-

Take China-CH5D

June 28, 2021 admin

-CH5D-

The Marines fall in love too

I always wished I could bring Ming-Lee to dine with me, but that would be impossible. I could go to the Prime Club and sit with her, that was fine, but we could not be seen together in public. It was frustrating. We wondered what would happen if we did take a girl out on the town, to a nice restaurant. What would they do? We found out when we heard about a Marine from Easy Company who talked a taxi dancer at the ABC Club to step out with him. The girl should have known the consequences, but obviously the guy was pretty convincing. It was dark when they entered the street in front of the club. The girl had pulled her coat high up around her face to help disguise herself. But the coolies in the street recognized that she was Chinese, very bu hao, a Chinese girl going out in public with a white man. The coolies began hurling stones at her. Several stones hit the Marine. The two tried to get a rickshaw to take them away but none of the rickshaw boys would come to their aid. Fortunately for the Marine, an MP Jeep patrol was passing and managed to get the injured Marine into the Jeep just in time. No one knew what happened to the girl. When the Marine recovered he went back to the ABC Club but the girl was not there.  He never saw her again, nor did he ever find out what happened to her.

Ming-Lee lived with the other girls above the Prime Club.

I was waiting for her to come down one evening when I noticed, standing at the bar, a Chinese man in western dress. He stood out from the other Chinese men in the club. His coat was a tweed sports coat, heavy wool, and his slacks were dark gray. He wore brown loafers. His hair was long for a Chinese, but neatly trimmed. He had a smile that never left his face. His teeth were white and even. He saw me sitting alone at my table and came over. “My name is Roger,” he said and offered me his hand. His grip was firm. His accent was strange. It was Chinese, but different. I noticed in the leather trim on his shoes, in the small openings, he had U.S .25 cent pieces lodged.

“I’m waiting for my girl,” I said.

“You from 29, maybe I think. I like 29 malines. Vely good. Good malines on Okinawa.  You BAR man?

It was hard not to like someone who liked the 29th Marines. How did he know all about the 29th? “I’m a machine gunner,” I said.

“Ah, mashin gunner. You Sugar Loaf Hill. Many good maline, 3,000, maybe die Sugar Loaf.  You on Sugar Loaf? ” No, I came right after.”

“You come repacemen draft. What number?  I forget,” he said and pulled up a chair.  It was still early and the place was near empty.

“You know a lot about Marines,” I said. “What do you do, sell Tsingtao beer to the PX?” I didn’t like him moving in the way he did. I was anxious to be alone with Ming-Lee and he was getting in the way. Still, I was curious about him.  He didn’t quite understand what I had said.

“You no like Tsingtao pijiu’I”

“No, I asked if you sell beer.  You know, to the PX.”

“No, me no sell. Me newspaper man. Chinese newspaper.” “You a reporter?”

“No, no reporter. Work office.” “You mean you are an editor?” “Maybe what you say.”

Ming-Lee appeared at our table, all smiles and jolly. Roger and I stood up.  She knew Roger and greeted him. They had a few words but my Chinese wasn’t good enough to gather what they had said.

Ming-Lee looked very pretty standing there. Her hair was brushed back and she wore a Mexican blouse and skirt. I was blunt with Roger. “You must excuse us,” I said.  “I want to talk to Ming-Lee. I have something I want to tell her.”

“Vely good,” Roger said. “Maybe you wanna be no one else.  Okay.” He bowed. We shook hands and he left.

“You want to tell me something,” Ming-Lee said when we we’re seated.

“Yes, I do,” I said. “I missed you.”

Japanese Surrender in Tsingtao

The formal surrender of the 10,000-man Japanese garrison in Tsingtao took place at the racecourse on October 25th 1945. We had roll call at 0500 that morning. With rifles, helmets and full field packs we marched in force to the racecourse.

We made a splendid show that morning. The entire 6th Division, from company runner to mess hall cook, lined up on the green, with armored vehicles flanking both sides of the troops. Somewhere ahead of us the generals from the United States, Nationalist China and Imperial Japan were gathered for the surrender ceremony. General Lemuel Shepherd and Lieutenant General Chen Pao-tsang, Chiang’s representative, took the surrender in the name of the Chinese Central Government. Gun salutes were fired, planes flew overhead and speeches where made.

It was an impressive ceremony that made newsprint around the world. That’s what we heard anyway. The only thing we knew was what we could see, and that was the top of the helmet of the Marine who stood in front of us. For an October day in north China it was not cold like the books said it should be. It was hot, almost as hot as Guam. Marines standing in ranks began to pass out and dropped like lead soldiers. Trucks with red crosses painted on the sides were there to pick them up.

The town of Tsingtao celebrated. Throughout the city banners went on display. Chinese and American flags appeared everywhere, and the Nationalist Army paraded through the streets. In the hills the Eighth Road Army looked down at us.

The CO gave each of us a certificate. It had the flags of the United States and the Chinese National Government printed across the top, with our names below, our proof we had taken part in the surrender. We passed the certificates around and had one another sign their name with their address. We vowed we’d all keep in touch and never forget that day.

The day we received our certificates, we also got word that we were shifting quarters. Fox Company was moving into the Strand Hotel near the racecourse. We were thrilled at the news; we were moving into a hotel. To celebrate, we went to the Prime Club. Ming-Lee came to sit at our table. Roger came to the table too. He said he had something to tell me and called me aside. “You want see Ming-Lee Sunday. Good. I take her to beach. Meet you there.”

I didn’t care what the others thought about Roger. He had his merits, and I was going to make the most of them. Roger kept his word. I spent that Sunday with Ming-Lee at the beach. What a marvelous time.  China duty was the best!

Roger took Ming-Lee back to the Prime Club at the day’s end. The rest of us,  filled with good cheer, returned to the university by rickshaw,  singing and laughing all the way, urging our drivers to beat the other drivers in a race, but as we neared the gate we drew solemn. We knew what to expect – the kid living in the sewer. And there he was. His tear-stained face, smudgy and forlorn in the cold, shamed us coming back filled with booze and so joyful.

He brought back the image we had of all the street kids that roamed the back alleys of Tsingtao. Chinese children are beautiful and lovable when they are in health; their almond eyes sparkle; their cheeks flush. But what we saw were shrunken scarecrows with shallow eyes; hunger had bloated their bellies; weather had chapped their skins. Their voices had withered into a thin whine that called only for food. We had to be callused to survive. Outwardly we displayed our indifference, but I don’t think there was a Marine who didn’t suffer inwardly, even the most stoic and toughest of us.

-CH5D-

Take China-CH5C

June 27, 2021 admin

-CH5C-

The Ordinary Life of a Marine Student

We were warned that winters in North China were extremely cold and often vicious. But during the month of October 1945, he weather in Tsingtao was delightful. We had changed from summer khaki to winter greens, and we all wished we hadn’t. Often after my Chinese classes-with my field jacket over my shoulder and my schoolbooks under my arm-I walked into town along the terraced walkways that followed the ocean. It was a long walk, several miles, but I enjoyed it. The pathway followed the curvature of the sweeping bay and passed small hillside shrines and pagodas that stood on rocky precipices. I would miss evening chow at the barracks and have dinner at a Chinese restaurant in town. The guys often joined me. We had special restaurants that we favored. These were real Chinese where only the Chinese ate. You didn’t find them at street level, like the restaurants that catered to foreigners. These were usually on floors above, and to find them you had to know where you were going. Signs were in Chinese and unless you knew where they were, you missed out. They were noisy places, all very much alike-divided into cubicles, with green walls.

I liked to meet the guys at a Chinese eatery near the dock area. Not everyone would have agreed with our choice.  But the food was extraordinary. We had to climb a narrow staircase, with broken steps that creaked with each step, and with walls that were dirty and black with age. At the top of the stairs was a counter with two scrolls of Chinese characters, one hanging at each side. Paper lanterns suspended from the ceiling cast a reddish glow upon the scene.  Behind the counter sat a Chinese gentleman in a high-neck robe. He looked more like a scholar than a cashier, but the way he handled money, we assumed he was the owner.  We had gone to the restaurant a dozen times, and not once did he even smile at us. But then, he never smiled at anyone. On the wall behind the counter was a board with pegs, like the one in the bathhouses, and here waiters on their way from the kitchen to the dining rooms would hang tabs with numbers on them. The old man gathered the tabs when customers were leaving and with an abacus added up the bills. The sound of the clicking abacus beads echoed through the restaurant. Whenever the man saw us coming, he would hit a bell on the counter and instantly a waiter appeared, a Chinese version of a French maitre d’. He carried menus and a towel over one arm. He would lead us to our dining area, always the same one.

The restaurant was a labyrinth of cubicles, some only large enough to seat two people, while others could host a banquet. The entrances to the individual dining rooms all had curtains but rarely were they drawn closed. As we walked to our dining area, it was amusing to watch the Chinese engaged in dining. They ate course after course, which you could tell by the dishes stacked up outside the entrances. Entire family clans grandmothers and grandfathers, uncles and aunts, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and all the clan kids from tottlers to teenagers-sat around circular tables with center pieces that rotated with the swish of a hand. These were family affairs. Those rooms where there were men only-business men most likely feasting their clients and associates-had hostesses in silk dresses who sat with the men,  making sure their wine glasses were filled, feeding them with chopsticks-a morsel of this, a morsel of that. Their drinking games were loud and boisterous. One game they all played-scissors, paper, and stone. Two men played at a time. Each would throw out his right hand, with either his fist closed, or flat open, or else shaped like a pair of scissors. Scissors could cut paper; paper could cover stone; stone could break scissors. With each thrust of the hand they simultaneously called out as loud as they could in Chinese. Those who won roared with laughter while the loser had to down a small cup of local wine. The wine, which came in colorfully painted bottles of every size and design, was actually distilled rice whiskey, and very strong.

In time we could name all the dishes. Shui  dj ouses and youmen sun,  muxu rou and so many more. We learned the names of their whiskies, but regardless of the name, they all were nasty tasting. With the Chinese, the saying goes, the worse it tastes, the better it is for you. We discovered the Chinese drink not because they like the taste, but they drink to get the other person drunk.

The mechanics of eating with chopsticks didn’t come easy. They played havoc in the beginning, but there was no other choice. It bothered us to see little kids eat noodles and rice with chopsticks, and not drop a noodle or grain of rice. In time we became proficient and boasted among one another who was the best.

When we took any new guys to our hangouts, we made sure we ordered Wuja Pee.  It was the worst tasting of all the local whiskies, and the most powerful. We learned to play the games, and in time we were louder than the Chinese. Often as they passed by, they poked their heads into our cubical and gave us thumbs up.

I loved those hidden restaurants, but I always suffered from guilt when I came out of a restaurant, picking my teeth with a toothpick, feeling contented and over stuffed, and then entered the real world of Tsingtao. I felt guilty that I could eat so well while people were literally starving to death on the streets. I felt this way, but it didn’t seem to have any affect on all those Chinese who had dined so well in restaurants.

-CH5C-

Take China-CH5B

June 27, 2021 admin

-CH5B-

Diligent Student

My classes in the beginning were most difficult and I didn’t think I would ever learn Chinese.  Mrs. Murray admitted she had used the wrong approach with me. “We will study vocabulary every day followed by basic grammar,” she said at our first class. “You will learn to conjugate verbs.”

“Conjugate verbs,” I said.

“Yes, conjugate verbs,” she said. “Certainly you conjugated verbs in school, didn’t you?” I didn’t want to tell her that I dropped out of school in the 9th grade to join the war effort and began working in the steel mills, and on my seventeenth birthday I joined the Marines. My mother and father had to sign my papers and agreed to let me join since the war was winding down, and I pleaded with them that if I enlisted, before it was too late, I would be entitled to all kinds of benefits.

I could study electrical engineering under the GI Bill. No one had even the slightest notion that the war was a long way from over. Nor did anyone know that I really didn’t want to study electrical engineering.  My parents signed my enlistment papers and I left for Parris Island.

That first night when I returned from the Murrays to the barracks, I studied verb conjugations. It wasn’t that difficult and I figured I could easily bluff my way through now. A couple of hours and I knew all the answers.

“Today we will study verb tenses,” Mrs. Murray began the next day. I knew them:  past, present, future.  “In Chinese we do not have the pluperfect and conditional tenses that you have.”

Pluperfect, conditional tenses, I had no idea what she was talking about.  It was obvious I had to learn English grammar before I could learn Chinese grammar.

Except for the little money the Murrays made from tutoring, they had no other income. Whenever possible I brought them gifts from the PX that I smuggled out the gate shampoo, Lux soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, a Gillette safety razor and blades. Mr. Murray had never seen a safety razor before. “What they don’t have these days,” he said. They were pleased with anything that I brought. In spite of their ill health, and problems with their daughter, they looked to the future with hope. They planned to establish themselves in another mission, perhaps in Cheefoo in the north.

Once I got beyond the stumbling block of grammar, my Chinese studies went a lot easier. The second week I could put simple sentences together. Before long I was beyond “What is the color of your rice bowl ?” I memorized phrases and kept repeating them over and over in my mind, and sometimes aloud, to the annoyance of others. I learned children’s poems.

Mrs. Murray was a good teacher. “Chinese is a very simple language,” she explained. “It’s a language of poets, but not scientists. In the next million years, the Chinese could not develop a bomb like you Americans did. It’s not within their language to do so.”

“But you said they were the first to invent gunpowder, and the compass.”

“Yes, they did many great things, but China also closed its doors for many hundreds of years. They lost trust in the West.”

The Marines were harsh skeptics when I came back to the barracks and told them that the Chinese invented gunpowder long before it was ever known in the west, and that the Chinese were the first to use a compass to navigate. “That’s bull shit,” Terry said when I mentioned it. “Look at their bloody trucks. They bum charcoal to run.”

“They don’t have gasoline, that’s why,” Chandler butted in. “They don’t have money.”

“They’re backward sons of bitches, that’s why. If they weren’t they’d make money and buy all the gasoline they wanted. They never invented nothing.”

The guys didn’t always like to hear what I had to tell them about the Chinese, and they really became annoyed when I went around spurting out Chinese. “Shut up you friggin’ gook lover,” they said when I overdid it. Nor did they like it when I came back smelling of garlic. The Chinese couldn’t cook without garlic. The second time I came back from dinner at the Murrays they ganged up on me and put my bunk out in the hall for the night.

The guys mocked me for my Chinese, but they also picked up their own street vocabulary, which one could hardly use in polite company. They learned curse words and went around the barracks cursing one another in Chinese. Before long they were using the words freely in town. It amused them to learn that to offend someone in Chinese, you called them a turtle.

Chinese Language, the Bible, Humanities and Strange Livelihood

My education with Mrs. Murray was more than learning Chinese. She started me thinking on serious matters that never entered my mind before. She found books for me to read on their bookshelves. A whole new strange and often mystifying world began to open up. But when she began talking religion, I became uncomfortable. l was not pleased by the way she forgave the Japanese for their atrocities and the pain they caused her and her family. No Marine could.

“How can you forgive them?” I asked in anger after she had just told me about public executions when the Japanese beheaded their victims, and prisoners were forced to watch, even her young daughters.

“They are God’s children. We are all God’s children,” she replied.

“Maybe, but you don’t let your kids do what they want to do,” I said.

“It’s in the Bible,” she said. “If you want to believe the Bible, the Japanese were under the influence of the devil disguised as the Emperor. To the Japanese, the Emperor was the light of the world; the devil, the Bible says, transforms elf into the light of the world.  It says so in 2nd Corinthians, Chapter 4, and in Revelations   12. It states how Satan blinds the minds of the people and misleads them.  To answer your question, unless you believe that the Emperor was God, it is obvious by the Bible that the Japanese were possessed by the devil.  Now, you don’t believe the Emperor was god, do you?” I listened but these things I dared not repeat back at the barracks. I couldn’t go around saying the Japanese were not the fault for what they did, that it was really the fault of the devil. But I could discuss such things with the Murrays.

Mrs. Murray was sympathetic, and yet on the other hand she appeared to be calloused. In her 30 years in China, she formed a view of the world that was perceived quite differently than most others viewed it. When I mentioned about the kid I saw sleeping in the sewer every night, she didn’t feel the compassion for him that I did. Then I found myself in complete disagreement with her about another incident that took place a few weeks after I began my studies with her. It involved a beggar boy.

At the front gate of the university, a boy, about fourteen or fifteen, came often to beg. He made quite a pathetic sight. He couldn’t stand upright and to get around he had to crawl on all fours like an animal.  He had pads on his knees but still the skin was as hard as shoe leather. His legs were sticks, almost withered away from disuse. A navy surgeon saw the boy on several occasions when he passed through the gate on his way to the navy hospital. The surgeon was deeply moved by the boy’s agony. One day he had his Chinese assistants bring the boy into the examining room. After x-rays and consultation with other doctors, the surgeon concluded that the boy could walk again. It would take several operations perhaps lasting many months. After reams of paperwork with navy headquarters, he got permission to operate, but not at navy expense. The surgeon put out an appeal to raise money, and within a couple days the whole regiment was prepared to pitch in.  The kid became a cause celebre. The surgeon located the boy’s parents and gave them the good news.  Their son could be made whole again. The parents refused. The surgeon was astounded.  He argued that we were living in a modern, scientific world, and there was no room for pagan superstition and false religious beliefs.

The thought came to him that perhaps Mrs. Murray, being a missionary and understanding these strange religious matters, might be able to intervene and convince the boy’s mother to change her mind.

“The boy’s mother would never change her mind,” Mrs. Murray said emphatically.

“But there’s a good possibility that the boy could walk again,” the doctor insisted.

“And what would the family do?” she replied, not wanting an answer. “The boy is their sole income. If he could walk, he could not beg. It’s as simple as that.”

The boy never did have the operation.

-CH5B-