OSS CBI Photobook 23, Part 1 - Of Arms

We have scanned about a third of this collection of photographs. When they start to seem repetitive, some detail always pops out during the post-scan image adjustments, and that little detail poses interesting new questions.

Here is the top half of Page 23. 

What are those things stacked in that niche?  Spare roof tiles?

Seems like it. So: remember Dad's wine cellar in the Marilla basement?  When he needed wine racks to line one wall down there, he got himself some loads of terra cotta drain tiles. Terra cotta was used before everybody with a wet hayfield switched over to plastic pipe with holes in it. Now that this image has come up, his choice of material seems perfectly natural!

So they are hanging around in Hsinhsiang, negotiating with KMT General Sun, checking around for Tojo's soldiers, and trying not to look conspicuous even though they obviously are conspicuous. Here we have Paul Cyr wearing his KMT outfit while spying around with his field glasses.  See page 64 of MMB.

The negotiations bearing fruit, KMT soldiers continued to be seconded to OSS. This contingent has been issued at least two kinds of weapons, as we can see if we squint at what they are holding.

 

 

 

The man at the far left, sitting in what appears to be the third row, has a Thompson submachine gun. OF the many models developed over time, the M1928A1 (with the "drum magazine" iconic of 1930s gangsters) was followed by the M1A1 (with the 30-round rectangular magazine, such as we can see by the man's right arm) and the M3 "grease gun" (cheapest and so more abundant.)

 

Thompson M1A1

 

Also from that Wiki article: 

"Thompsons had also been widely used throughout China, where several Chinese warlords and their military factions running various parts of the fragmented country made purchases of the weapon, and subsequently produced many local copies.

Nationalist China acquired a substantial number of Thompson guns for use against Japanese land forces. They began producing copies of the Thompson in small quantities for use by their armies and militias. In the 1930s, Taiyuan Arsenal (a Chinese weapons manufacturer) produced copies of the Thompson for Yan Xishan, the then warlord of Shanxi province."

To return to our photo, the man at the left end of what appears to be the second row has a different weapon, a Browning Automatic Rifle.  From its Wiki article:

Browning M1919A4

We see the distinctive holes for air-cooling, such as we can make out in our photo. We see no tripod in our photo; maybe one will show up in a future one.

Notice the ammunition box sitting on the ground to the man's left. The men worked in pairs, with one shooting and one feeding the ammo belt evenly so as not to jam it. 

The last photo at the top of this Photobook page is of this serious man - another man whose identity we will never know. Did he survive this war, and the wars after this?

 

 

 

 

Mission Writeup in Saturday Evening Post, 1946, Part 4

 

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here. 

Part 3 is here.

 

First Lieutenant Tien Sen Shang, who lit the fuses as described, was on the list as member of the second echelon, or second drop - the list from the Zdrojewski Jackal diary we first saw in conjunction with our look at Page 20 of the Photobook. One of those photos is a photo of Tien. Which one?

 

 

Cyr describes Tien as having "sat down with his camera" as the fuses burned and the troop train approached. So it may be that Tien took the photograph we see on the dust jacket of MMB. 

 

Mission Writeup in Saturday Evening Post, 1946, Part 3

 Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here. 

 

 From an earlier post we bring forward this zoomed-in map of assigned areas near railroad bridges:

 

Northrup designed the P-61 "Black Widow" night fighter for the USAAF. The radar is in the nose of the airplane and the radar operator sits in a viewing area in the tail. Wikipedia has descriptions, schematic, and photos.

 

 

 

Mission Writeup in Saturday Evening Post, 1946, Part 2

Team Jackal first echelon jumped to their first field assignment in the previous post.

  

The caption reads: 'It got so cold . . . you could shiver and blame it on the temperature.' Two minutes after this picture was snapped, the men of Team Jackal took the dive - wondering what they would find below. 

 Part 1 is here. 

What happened next? Hsian sent a plane to evacuate Welo and bring out 3 Chinese officers and the next Jackal echelon: Zarembo, Robichaud, and Zdrojewski. 

 

 

 

  

Spoiler: The caption reads The mission ripped holes in Japanese communications and brought the night-traveling troop trains out into the open.  One of the seven bridges was torn apart by a thousand coolies and carried away. 

 

Back to the narrative:

 

 

 

(Note above the usual dysentery, worms, and fever. We have seen photo evidence of physical debilitation in previous posts, and we will see it again.)

 

     

. . . and?   and??  AND??        . . . bloody feet. 

 

The narrative will continue in Part 3.

 

Recall that this is scanned from the Saturday Evening Post of March 23, 1946.  If you like, you can get your own copy on ebay, and have in your possession the same issue of the magazine that our EJZ and CAMZ cut to fit in the Photobook we are going through. 

Reprise Post: Advent Carol: "Czekam na Ciebie"

 Today's reposting is a fourth edit of the original 2013 kolęda post.  The third edit, in 2020, had some nice comments.

 

Czekam na Ciebie,  "I wait for You," expresses longing and yearning for the arrival of the Savior.  The Liturgical Season of Advent is prime time for these feelings.

 

The four candles in the Advent Wreath are lit on successive Sundays of Advent. The First Sunday of Advent - the beginning of each new Liturgical Year - calls to mind the longing of the Gentiles for four thousand years to have the Commandments and the promise of Salvation extended to them. So, naturally, the First Sunday of Advent has the maximum quotient of yearning and is the most bleak. I have started out at full bleak this year, kind of stark in fact, aiming for maximum contrast S1 to S4. What do you think?

Well, at least the candle is making light! - as in the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness grasps it not. 

How does this hymn sound? In minor mode, it sounds yearning. Like this, sung by a church organist with an affecting baritone. And like this, performed in the style of a quiet folk tune.

From Nuty Religijne we can obtain the score with Polish lyrics. Click to enlarge.

  

Source for the Polish lyric is teksty.org:

Czekam na Ciebie, Jezu mój mały,
ciche błaganie, ku niebu śle.
Twojego przyjścia, czeka świat cały.
Sercem gorącym przyzywa Cię.

          I wait for You, my little Jesus,
          Silent supplication to the sky send.
          For your advent, the whole world is waiting.
          Fervent hearts call You.

 

Spójrz, tęskniony na tej ziemi,
przyjdź, o Jezu, pociesz nas!
Szczerze kochać Cię będziemy.
Przyjdź, o Jezu, bo już czas.

          Look upon this Earth with its longing,
          Come, O Jesus, comfort us!
          Truly we will love You.
          Come, O Jesus, because it is already time. 

 

Usłysz Maryjo głos Twoich dzieci,
Tyś naszą Matką na każdy dzień.
O daj nam Słońce, które rozświeci,
grzechu i błędu straszliwy cień.

          Hear, Mary, the voice of your children.
          Thou art our Mother, every day.
          Give to us the Sun, that its light
          Will enshadow sin and terrible error.

 

Spójrz teskniony na tej ziemi,
daj nam Zbawcę, Dziecię Twe.
My dla Niego żyć pragniemy,
Jemu damy serca swe.

          Look upon this Earth with its longing,

          Give to us the Savior, your Son.

          We for Him to be living crave,

          To Him we will give our hearts.

 

 

The Benedictines are still composing Songs of Advent, Pieśni Adwentowe. Here is a compilation of eight of them, the first being  Przyjdź, Panie, w Ciemność Mojego Domu, "Come, Lord, into the Darkness of My Home."  If you "Show More" of the first entry you will see the complete list. The original site is named Duchowa Przystań, "Spiritual Haven."

 

 

  

 

 

Mission Writeup in Saturday Evening Post, 1946, Part 1

Now is the point in our narrative to read Cyr's article in the Saturday Evening Post of March 23, 1946.  An earlier post on this article includes the remarkable and intriguing cover art, rendered by a skilled human being! As well, there is a brief description of the contents of the issue. It was a magazine written for and read by Americans in all walks of life - before we became, somehow, compartmentalized, and hence less familiar with each other. 

First we have the Editor's blurb, in the front of the magazine, page 4. This blurb is very blurby, jollying up the reader to be super excited about the wonderful article in this wonderful magazine. We'll see if that tone bleeds over into the article itself; we will have to distinguish author from editor as we read. 

Cyr, like Robichaud/"Frenchie," served in Europe first, then deployed to China.

 

Well, then, let us turn to page 18 and begin.

This background on Cyr, and these events occuring in the first airdrop into Hsin-Hsiang, are the subject of pages 47-66 of OSS Special Operations in China, our "MMB."  The list on page 47 of personnel in the inital drop includes a fifth man: Robichaud.

The team diary excerpt, on pages 55-66 of MMB, was written by Zarembo, who was not in the initial drop. Zarembo was part of the second drop. 

Previous posts on this subject:

Just the Right Issue of the Saturday Evening Post

OSS CBI Photobook 20 - Jump into Action 

OSS CBI Photobook 20, continued - Jump into Action, continued 

OSS CBI Photobook 21 - Hanging Out While Paul Cyr Meets with the Local Commander in Hsian

OSS CBI Photobook 22 - OSS Field Base near Hsian

We will continue the story!

Julie 

  

 

 

 

OSS CBI Photobook 22 - OSS Field Base near Hsian

 Here is the upper portion of Page 22. It looks like illustration the Field Base for the 30 six-man teams under command of Major Mills, with the base itself under command of Major Gus Krause.  This base, a walled compound formerly home to a Seventh Day Adventist mission, was located a few miles from the walled city of Hsian, as was an airfield of the 14th Army Air Force.  This Field Base is described in MMB pages 29, 30, 38, and 40.

The 200 men were flown in, from Kunming or wherever, to the airfield by transport plane. So this page is arranged to show the base compound where they prepared for team missions and trained Chinese. The team missions required transport from the airfield to a drop zone. Like his brother John said in his funeral oration, for our EJZ and his Field Photo buddies it was a matter of jumping out of an airplane and taking pictures all the way down. How many guys do you see in this photo? I see three in the air. I see one on the ground as a black dot next to his spread-out parachute.  Maybe two.

 

The two guards below carry curved hooks. Are they ready to drag open or shut a pair of large, heavy, fortified doors? This is classic guardhouse and gate design, with the narrow passageway controllable by guards at either end.

Looks like Dad. They're not eating too well. Mills describes how they found local cooks who snagged local pheasant to round out the menus. Good thing.
 

The local Chinese military commander in Hsian city provided troops. Many would then transfer to the OSS compound for training. Some Chinese troops a pictured below in the lower portion of Phtobook Page 22.

  

 

Berent Friele again, working on stuff.

 

The dark parachutes, below, were the red ones such as those pictured on the back of the jacket of MMB.

 This initial drop, May 22 1945, was to an area south of Hsin-Hsiang near the Yellow River. Map and details are to be found in the post Jump into Action.