OSS Special Operations in China, Close Reading 4, Smashups and Shapeshifters

While the first drop of the advance team of JACKAL was happening, Captain Zarembo was sent to Kunming for supplies for the team. From the Team Log started by Zarembo, quoted on MMB 55:

" . . . One week later I returned, much worse for wear and tear but with the supplies firmly clutched to my military bosom - two C-47s loaded with containers, all packed and ready for JACKAL's second drop of men and supplies . . . "

The C-47 Skytrain was modified from the civilian Douglas DC-3 for military use "being fitted with a cargo door, hoist attachment and strengthened floor - along with a shortened tail cone for glider-towing shackles, and an astrodome in the cabin roof." The C-53 came along a bit later; it was bigger, with greater capacity. But the C-47 had a couple of advantages: it could do with a shorter runway, and American industry produced a lot of them:

"More than 10,000 aircraft were produced in Long Beach and Santa Monica, California, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Between March 1943 and August 1945, the Oklahoma City plant produced 5,354 C-47s."

These were the planes of the Flying Tigers, of flying The Hump, and of the Berlin Airlift.

From the American Airpower Museum:

 

 

The airplane had a crew of 4 and deluxe cabin accomodation, as we have already seen. Here is a shiny cargo bay from one they have at Hendon Aerodrome.

 

 

 

So Cyr, Chu, Friele, Robichaud, and Welo on landing dealt with smashed rifles, smashed cameras, Welo's smashed-up leg, and reports of multitudes of Japanese search parties detailed to look for them, so that "out of twenty consecutive days" they must make "fourteen daily moves." All around were Japanese troops, Chinese troops, Chinese Puppets-of-the-Japanese troops, and Chinese troops who don Puppet uniforms to go mingle with the CPoJ troops, in emulation of their commander Sun Ping-Ying,  publicly a Puppet, but secretly not, sort of like the Scarlet Pimpernel but with a different style of poetry.

Cyr traveled by means of a closed-in, horse-drawn cart to meet with Sun Ping-Ying in Hsinhsiang/Xinxiang. We have seen a cart like that in a photo on Photobook Page 17:

The SCR-694 radio mentioned on MMB 65 as being repaired by Welo and Friele is a kind we have seen before.

Want one? They are available.

This advance team came to an understanding with Sun Ping-Ying about chain of command with the First War Area and the Americans; they agreed that all would wait and strike together according to an agreed-upon plan; they reconnoitered some potential targets in the city.  

Finally, they began to understand and get used to the psychological situation. In Europe as Jedburghs they had fought alongside "resistance groups that had feelings of patriotism in fighting for their countries against the Germans. Chinese resistance was motivated by individual hatred toward the Japanese invaders for their barbaric and savage treatment of the populace, and not for . . . their country, China, which wasn't really an effective country organization or entity at all because of the Civil War in progress." (MMB 66) That reads to me as a requirement for them to go without hearing the signals of national patriotism to which they were accustomed, and learn to concentrate on an array of different-sounding signals, to make possible after all their mutual goal.

Will the signal-to-noise ratio be constant, or even knowable?

    

 

 

 

 

 

OSS CBI Photobook 18

We took the book apart in order to scan the pages. Now it is clear that the paper on which the prints were pasted has become fragile over the decades, so that when the scanning job is done we will probably not rebind it. Do not worry overmuch: I am putting each page into a plastic sleeve with a page-number label fixed to the plastic.

 

Page 18 scan, top half:

 

 

 

 

Zoom in, below, to see the window details of the eatery at #329.  "In Bounds United States Armed Forces."

 

So is this one of the "workhorse" DC-3s mentioned in MMB, Chapter 2?

 

 

 

 

Photobook page 18 scan, bottom half:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Dopp Kit sitting on the end of the bench is one of bajillions issued to GIs in WWII. The name comes from Charles Doppelt who in 1919 patented the design.

A Dopp employee and nephew to Charles Doppelt, Jerome Harris, worked for the company for decades, eventually driving innovations himself. An interview with his son includes discussion of the WWII experience in Europe of Jerome Harris.

Found while looking, and failing to find, an image of Charles Doppelt or his Chicago factory, the image below, which is pretty famous. If an attribution is to be found, I would like to have it. No Dopp kit is in sight, but there has to have been one to hold that nice shaving brush. I also like the gas-can table de toilette.

 Next post, we return to Chapter 2 of OSS Special Operations in China.

OSS Special Operations in China, Close Reading 3, Kunming to Chengtu to Hsian to HsinHsiang to a Drop Zone

 Here is a links roundup for review of the background relevant to this book:

OSS Special Operations in China, Close Reading 1: Front Matter

Nationalist Warlords, Ambivalent Warlords, Commies, and Americans

 Fighting Idealists Find Raw Cynicism 

"The Chinese Puzzle" Considered With Some Material from the Hoover

Mysterious Letter from Chungking

Looking for Log in All the Wrong Places 

MMB: Front Matter and Excerpt

OSS Special Operations in China, Close Reading 2: Chapter 1

 G&C Maps Page 

 

MMB Chapter 2 concerns the Ping-Han Railway, a north-south line held by the Japanese Army and essential to their troop transport and logistics.

But first comes the story of the 1,000 mile trip with Task Force TAPIR in a big motorized convoy, with the objective of destroying an airbase up north in Laoheku, so as to deny it to the Japanese. The Japanese take the base before TAPIR gets there, but never mind that. They get to go fishing with grenades. And we are introduced to Major Leonard Clark of OSS SI, whose exploits Mills summarizes on p. 19.  Look out; here is Len Clark:

With regret I must report failure in finding you an image of Victor Yakovleff, of SI, interpreter and "bodyguard and personal gunman for Leonard Clark."

Those two guys are, to my mind, extreme examples of the kind of self-directing fighting man for which the US Armed Forces have always been famous. I think it was Stephen Ambrose who described the US Army squad or platoon and its largely autonomous mode of operation as essential to victory in Europe. The brass knew to what level to direct them; the knew to give them a goal and let them go to it.

Americans have organized and directed our own defense, far from the seat of authority, since 1607. Here is George Henry Boughton's 1867 painting Pilgrims Going to Church.

So as Mills describes on his p. 30, "Each OSS commander or team leader was given a mission and left to do his job the way he chose to do it, with few restrictions on how he managed, so long as the objective assigned to him was achieved." The setup sounds like our Wild West, for example, except that Tai Li and his organization sound a great deal more institutionalized and better equipped than Geronimo or Vittorio.

Hsian, aka Sian/Xsian, Mills describes as "surrounded by a massive stone bastion . . . [that] formed a rectangle two miles wide and three miles long around the city, with a deep moat dug recently just outside the wall in case the invading Japanese Army should advance that far to the west." (MMB 31-32.)

The Photobook has several pages of what is starting to look a lot like Hsian city and the OSS encampment outside the city. Looking ahead, I spy a photo of the tower that looks just like that on the "main street of Hsian" on MMB 35, and is likely the "Drum Tower." I also spy a photo of statuary sitting out in a cultivated field, such as on MMB 43 and 44. That statuary, all lined up in rows, flanked and guarded the entrance road to that ancient royal palace, which was at that time completely buried. After the war the place was excavated, and those famous buried ranks of terra-cotta soldiers found.

Sorry folks, I do not see in the upcoming Photobook pages any images of Dad yukking it up with General Donovan or General Hu, Commander of the KMT First War Area. There are, however, some very nice water buffalo to come.  Stay tuned.

Hu was charged with defense of Hsian not only from Imperial Japanese, but also the Chinese Communists, headquartered "at Yenan, about 300 miles north." (MMB 37) When checking this out on Google Maps, note that the way the English spelling works now: "Yenan" is to the northeast, while "Yan'An," Mao's wartime capital, is directly north of Hsian.

The base compound Mills describes as "about a hundred yards square, enclosed by a stone and clay wall eight feet high." "The Special Operations 'Office' was a dirt-floor, one-room building." "The teams lived in large Army squad tents, one tent per team, and the men slept in their sleeping bags on canvas field cots." The Photobook has images of these things in the upcoming pages, so we will be having a close look.

There are about a hundred men at this base compound outside Hsian. Colonel Mills and his officers disperse them in teams of 9 or so to various areas of operation, some of which are outlined on the map on MMB 546. After squinting at this map a lot, and comparing it with others, I can say with confidence that the thick black line is the Yellow River, flowing south, taking that big bend just northeast of Hsian, and flowing east to the Yellow Sea.

The Ping-Han Railway, single-track according to the map legend, ran north-south from Beijing (Peiping) to Hanzhou:

The virtual loupe lets us enlarge the area of interest, in this case the area to which Team JACKAL was assigned. We see the Ping-Han crossing the Yellow River, between the LION and JACKAL zones. We see the Huang-Ho River, tributary of the Yellow. We see Kaifeng on the south bank of the Yellow. Not shown is Hsinshiang/Xinxiang, but I would place it on the Ping-Han where that black line from Kaifeng joins it. As we will see later, that is the "Hsinshiang-Kaifeng Railway." On May 22, 1945, half of Team JACKAL was flown over Hsinshiang/Xinxiang, at night, on the way to their drop zone. Flown "at 300 feet!" But there was no flack from that dark city. 

The mission was to quit playing whack-a-mole with railway sabotage, and instead wreck all the rail bridges in that area at the same time. This May 22 insertion was the first of OSS team members to Chinese reception committee on the ground.  Who made that first jump ?

Paul Cyr, of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, Commanding:

Albert Robichaud, Lewiston, Maine schoolteacher:

Berent E. Friele, of New York, New York:

 

Below is a photo from MMB52, scanned and tweaked. I kind of have my doubts about the caption. I am thinking "Major Cyr; Boris Chu, Interpreter; B. E. Friele, Radio; Jerry Welo, Photographer." It would be nice to find another photo somewhere of Jerry Welo, for further confirmation of these IDs. If you find one, let me know, all right?

What happened after they hit the ground? When did the rest of the team arrive? Did anybody write anything down? Until next time - keep reading!

 

 

 

OSS CBI Photobook 17

 

 

  Page 17 is the first of several showing us off-duty moments in the HQ near Kaifeng. They seem to have quite a few such moments, and quite a lot of film.

Above: scan of top half of page 17.

 

 Above: scan of bottom half of page 17.

 

This mode of transport will be featured in stories coming up.

 

Robichaud, aka Frenchie

This kind of scene became a classic in after years, right?

Looks like blackjack.

 

 

 

 

Mills, Mills, and Brunner has lists of team members beginning on page 503. Note in the image above that the team name changed over time. 

 

As of May 22, 1945, the eight-member team is set up under Paul Cyr.

Zdrojewski is the only member of the small group that trained together on Catalina who has ended up in JACKAL.

For Friele, at least, we now have a hint. Andrew photoshopped the dollar bill pasted into the Page 16 photomontage:

There's a name we know! Sgt. B. E. Friele. 

 

This photo has the following caption in the "Communications Branch" section

of the OSS Primer Page of the US Army Special Operations History Office:

 

"1SG Berent Friele sending a message at SO Team JACKAL, China, 1945. Friele had previously been the radio operator of Jedburgh Team GERALD in France 1944."

Cyprian Norwid: Ashes and Diamonds

Cyprian Kamil Norwid, (1821-1883), Polish poet and exile, wrote what is known to us now as the "Ashes and Diamonds" poem.

I'll transcribe it in four sort-of verses and interleave some translation. Following that will be a 1958 film clip and a 2008 song video.


Coraz to z ciebie jako z drzazgi smolnej
Wokoło lecą szmaty zapalone
Gorejąc nie wiesz czy stawasz się wolny
Czy to co twoje ma być zatracone

Extant translation for which attribution is hard to find:
"So, often, are you as a blazing torch
With flakes of burning hemp falling about you, flaming.
You know not if the flames bring freedom, or death,
Consuming all that you must cherish."

My translation, more literal and less beautiful - translation of poetry is a fascinating game:
"Increasingly, with you it’s like a blazing torch (tarry splinter)
Around you fall burning shreds
Burning, you know not whether they will become freedom
Or whether all that is yours is to be annihilated;"




Czy popiół tylko zostanie, i zamęt -
Co idzie w przepaść z burzą.
Czy zostanie na dnie popiołu gwiaździsty dyjament?
Wiekuistego zwycięstwa zaranie?

Extant translation for which attribution is hard to find:
If only ashes remain, and want, chaos, and tempest,
You shall be annihilated.
Or will the ashes hold the glory of a starlike diamond?
The Morning Star of everlasting triumph?

My translation, more literal and less beautiful:
Whether ashes only remain, and chaos -
What goes over the cliff in the storm.
Or whether there remains in the bottom of the ash a starlike diamond?
The dawn of everlasting triumph?


For verses 3 and 4, I can only offer my own translation:

Wiary dziś życzę Tobie, że zostanie
Bo na tej ziemi jesteś po to właśnie
By z ognia zgliszcza
Mógł powstać dyjament
Wiekuistego zwycięstwa zaranie

Czy wiesz, że jesteś po to właśnie?!

Faith today I wish you, that it remains,
For on this earth you are for exactly this:
So that from the fire-ashes
could arise diamond:
The dawn of everlasting triumph.

Do you know that you are for exactly that?!



Połóż rękę na sercu,
Otwórz oczy szeroko, i skacz!
Powiedz: Teraz lub nigdy
Zamiast: Będzie co ma być
I nie czekaj aż głód spełni
Twoje cierpienie! Tak!

Put hand on heart,
Open eyes wide, and jump!
Say: Now or never!
Instead of: There will be what will be.
And do not wait until hunger completes
Your suffering. Yes!


Andrzej Wajda's 1958 film Ashes and Diamonds is set in Warsaw just after WWII, at the height of the political and "kinetic" battle for Poland, between the Communists and the patriots wishing to re-establish the independent Republic. It has a famous scene in which the doomed protagonist and the lady find this Norwid poem inscribed on stone in one of the thousands of bombed-out and burned buildings in the city. The hero is in that all-too-familiar situation: with flames and ashes of his world swirling all around, he has to decide whether to fight, or go along to get along. If he fights, what will ensue, for him and for his country? He cannot know; he just fights anyway.

That scene starts at the 9-minute mark of the 12-minute video below. Vade Mecum is an artistic biographical video of the life of Norwid, who was ignored in his lifetime but very much heard today.

And here is Stan Borys singing the first two verses, with visual imagery apt once you know the background. (The exception in my case would be - I don't know from that turtle or whatever it is.)

What Stan Borys sings is  Verse 1, then 2;   1, then 2;   1, then 2,   after which he hums with the storm winds.

Czy zostanie na dnie popiołu gwiaździsty dyjament?


 

More Finds for the Map Collection

G&C Maps Page has been spiffed up with new additions. 

One comes from the very good overview article Second Sino-Japanese War, which provides discussion, illustration, maps, links to video, and references.

"Japanese Empire's Territorial Expansion" clearly shows the location and year of each move, beginning with the 1874 taking of the Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa, and moving on and up through the 1931 invasion of Manchuria and 1939 of Haiman. This illustrates the historical setting of what the US and Allies considered the China Theater of the Pacific War of WWII.

 

What a relief it was to find a couple of good, readable river maps. This map of the Yellow River (Huang He) shows very clearly the course of the river, its tributaries and basin, basic regional topography, important cities, and surrounding regions. Hsian/Xian, at the junction of the Wei and Jing tributaries, was the OSS center of forward operations in the history we are considering.

One city, part of our story, that is not on this map is Kaifeng. That would be the mysterious Kaifeng-on-the-Dollar-Bill, of which we may or may not ever figure out the meaning.

Kaifeng is located east of Zhengzhou, right at the place where the Yellow River bends to the northeast.

The source of this map is an essay that goes into a lot of detail, on historical courses of the river, for example, or the deliberate 1938 KMT flooding of the Yellow River valley to deter Japanese troops.

A map of the Yangtze has similar advantages in clarity, showing just enough detail of the course, drainage basin, geographical relation to the Yellow and the Pearl Rivers, geographical relation to Tibet, India, Burma, and the coast. It shows us Kunming and Hsian/Xian, clearly and on the same map.

Last but not least, a 1959 set of topographical maps of eastern and southern China is available for download from the University of Texas Libraries. The master map looks like this:

 From the landing page, I clicked on Hsian from the list of major place-names, zoomed in a bit, and took a screenshot of the ancient city and the rivers nearby:

This kind of reading and map study is useful in reminding us of the who-what-when-where of the broader stage and action in which fits our JACKAL story, to which we return.