Our Navy project in China wasn't even in the sampan stage in March, 1942, when I started to that land. A one-man force, I had verbal orders to investigate and carryon any work that might be of help to the United States Fleet in the next two or three years.
Admiral Willis A. ("Ching") Lee, later of the battleships, had told me the morning after Pearl Harbor to "get on my horse" and go to China to see what I could do about setting up intelligence and weather services there. During the first two months of 1942 when the war was going from bad to worse, we had been making tentative plans that were more nearly hopes. We had negotiated with Chinese officials, had made the necessary preliminary arrangements, and Admiral King had assigned me as U. S. Naval Observer, attached to the Embassy in Chungking.
The plans were to work hand and glove with the Chinese to establish weather and intelligence units whose reports would be of value to American Forces in the Pacific and in Asia. Weather information was essential to us. Weather was made up in Asia and moved out across the Pacific, and, therefore, might well determine the success or failure of fleet operations, particularly those involving carriers. Furthermore, with the Japanese holding the Malay Peninsula, French Indo-China, and the rich Dutch East Indies, it was clear that the volume of their war economy would depend on the security of the shipping lanes along the China Coast. Intelligence concerning those ship movements would help our submarines make those shipping lanes unhealthy. Our enemy would be in China. We would be able to set up weather and coast-watching units behind his lines only if we could protect them effectively.
In March, 1942, there was no Army Transport Command or Naval Air Transport Service. Commercial lines with no set schedules were the only transportation. Baggage was limited, but expectations of shipments were even more so, so in my zipper bag instead of clothes I carried the elements of a specially designed and laboratory built magnetic mine unit. Flying from India toward China we expected to refuel at Myitkyina, but that was the hour the Japs took the place. We went on nonstop to Kunming, refueled and proceeded to Chungking, landing on the field in the middle of the Yangtze River. The flight of 300 steps leading up to the main highway became a symbol to me of the towering difficulties to be surmounted during the next few years.
In two fast moving weeks I met General Tai Li, Head of the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics of the National Military Council, to whom Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek had assigned the additional duty of cooperating with me. The General pried open crowded Chungking to find me an office and living quarters, selected with me a peaceful valley site 10 miles from the town and its bombings as a spot for future security and growth, and assisted me in the delivery of all my letters of introduction from the Chinese Embassy in Washington. Ordinarily it would take weeks to arrange a two-month inspection trip of the front lines in China, but the General was an efficient operator, and in just two weeks we were off for the coast.
Parts of the mine went with me to a Naval Mine Factory near Changsha commanded by Captain K. C. Tseng. Chinese Navy midshipmen were in training there near a large creek. Although I lectured to them, they were my teachers on the transportation and other difficulties of mine operations in China. To begin with, all mines had to be transported by hand through enemy territory, the heavier ones utilizing as many as 20 coolies. The puppet troops conveniently looked the other way, and the "enemy" generals invited the mine details to dinner. But even after they got the mines to the Yangtze River there was such a continuous and often sudden variation in water depth that, lacking automatic depth mechanisms, mines laid well today might bob on the top tomorrow, or be too deep to touch an ocean liner. So the mine crews stuck around and hand-adjusted the mooring cables day by day.
Officers and enlisted men alike at this factory were handling TNT in a most unorthodox manner. In the process of filling the mines they thoroughly covered the screw threads with thin flakes of TNT and then blandly screwed down the filler cap. They didn't know it was dangerous but my hair grayed a bit right then. The following year Commander Gilfillan, when assigned as liaison to the mine factory, reorganized completely the safety regulations.
As we traveled, General Tai's agents kept coming in everywhere along the coast from Peking, Shanghai, Formosa, Amoy, Hong-kong, and Canton. They were high-ranking, well-educated, finely trained officers, who traveled by foot or junks as much as three weeks to make their reports. I was introduced, allowed to listen and to interrogate with perfect freedom. These people later became the nucleus of our intelligence network.
To villagers I was introduced by General Tai variously as a Salt Commissioner, a member of Chinese Maritime Customs, and a missionary. The Japanese, however, reported me as a Russian Aviation Advisor. Unfortunately the Jap information on General Tai's movements was more accurate, and many of the villages at which we stopped were promptly bombed. In fighting a fire at Foocheng I had reason to regret that my traveling pants were shorts, for my legs were burned. Later a spot of shrapnel didn't increase my walking efficiency. We crossed the Jap lines, however, almost at will.
I separated from the General to walk down the coast, protected always by his network, for which I was developing real respect. A usual day's walk was 80 li but under stress I soon learned to do 120 li, and that is a full 40 miles. A fresh Jap offensive hurried us inland, but the Chinese were destroying the roads faster than we could walk. It was a week before we could catch the truck sent for us—a welcome sight to me now that my legs were very badly infected.
Returning to Chungking, I found that my first 100-ton shipment of TNT was lost somewhere in India. On a quick trip to Karachi, in August, 1942, I met the first reinforcements, Lieutenant Heagy and six men. Arrangements with U.S. Naval Liaison officers in India facilitated future supply shipments out of Assam. In this job Commander D. D. Wight, U.S. Naval Reserve, took the lead and established the nucleus of a good India-based unit. He became so useful that I later asked for his transfer to Chungking where he outstandingly served a tour as my Executive Officer.
Back in Chungking again in September, the Generalissimo was favorably impressed with our plans for what we were calling "Frendship Project." As our activities with the Chinese increased they were augmented in April, 1943, by the Sino-American Cooperative Organization, whose abbreviation in English is pronounced "SOCKO," with a significance of powerful or sudden attack. Also, according to the Agreement, "SACO is organized for the purpose of attacking our common enemy by common effort, employing American equipment and technical training, and utilizing the Chinese war zones as bases. The objects of the common attack would be the Japanese Navy, the Japanese. Merchant Marine, and the Japanese Air Forces in various territories of the Far East; the mines, factories, warehouses, depots, and other military establishments in areas under Japanese occupation." General Tai Li was named Director and I was designated Deputy Director.
From the beginning our biggest headache was supplies. Since the Japanese had severed the Burma Road, everything that went into U.S. Naval Group, China-men, supplies, and equipment-had to be flown from Calcutta over the Hump into China. Some of the personnel came only part of the way by plane, and were obliged to cover the remaining distance by truck, sampans, and on foot. From early 1942 until the Stilwell Road was completed in 1945, all our demands from marine mines to jeeps or the gasoline required for those jeeps had to come over the Hump. At first we had to beg personally for every pound that came up, and this restriction of course accentuated the importance of every American-made gun and piece of equipment as well as the supplies and weapons we captured from the Japanese. At the end of three years we were receiving a monthly allocation of 150 tons by air, but that is an infinitesimal amount to equip and supply 80,000 guerrillas and 2,500 Americans.
Over 2,500 officers and men from the Navy, Marines, and the Army, all volunteers, participated in the undertaking of U.S. Naval Group, China. They were carefully screened for physical condition and attitude toward foreigners, and were required to have at least two skills and one useful hobby. Even the medical personnel, and we had about ninety of them, had to be photographers, weather men, paymasters, or chaplains.
China had changed so enormously after the white man's defeats in Asia that the previous Chinese meekness, amounting almost to an inferiority complex, had swung over to an attitude of 150 per cent sovereignty. Many foreigners who had spent years in the Far East were unable to adjust themselves to this change in the Chinese and thereby unconsciously prejudiced working relations. Since one false step could wreck our whole co-operative project, we were usually afraid to use "Old China Hands." All our personnel received from two to eight weeks of indoctrination in the United States before proceeding to the field, and their cooperative attitude was outstanding.
The several undertakings of SACO deserve separate treatment, for the development of operations, weather, intelligence, supply, disbursement, communications, and medical units followed different patterns. Each had its own history of development, although they were at all times highly interdependent.
The Operations Section grew out of a necessary mutual agreement. We wanted weather and special intelligence. The Chinese had no use for weather observations or enemy target observations, since they hadn't the weapons to do anything about it. What they wanted was adequate training and equipment by which the thousands of earnest guerrillas could be put to use to produce visible results. It wasn't until then that I discovered General Tai to be Commander in Chief of all organized guerrilla armies in China, having been so designated by the Generalissimo. To meet their conditions we developed an operations section and charged it with the establishing and maintaining of camps for the training and equipping of Chinese in guerrilla warfare, and with the formulation of plans for the most effective utilization of these troops in field operations after their graduation. The course of instruction in the camps included the care and use of weapons, guerrilla tactics, amphibious tactics, scouting, patrolling, mapping, and general field work. Our students came from the columns of the Chinese Commando Army.
Although the Operations Section at Headquarters in Chungking was a joint staff of Chinese and Americans and had full charge of the training and operations in the fourteen camps, subordinate joint command offered the expediency and facility necessary for the handling of sectional operational matters. Two area commanders were functioning and two more were in process of being set up when the war ended.
Captain I. F. Beyerly, U.S. Navy, was designated COMNAVCHEC (Commander, Navy China Eastern Command). His running mate, General Lee Chung Chih, was in command of all General Tai's operations on the East Coast. Together, Captain Beyerly and General Lee were in joint operational control of Camps One, Six, Seven, and Eight, with about 500 U.S. officers and men, and 50,000 guerrillas. These latter included 26,000 pirates in two groups so diverse in views we called them "Democrats" and "Republicans." The deputy commander of the 18,000 "Democrats," whose headquarters were in Shanghai, was a personable young woman (Page Terry and the Pirates). The commander of the "Republicans," with headquarters on Matsu Island, off Foochow, had a Major General of the Japanese Army on his staff. His Chief of Staff, however, was trained in our Headquarters and came ashore to all our conferences. They had 18 or 20 small steamers working for us which, in the nature of their duties could hardly be labeled, and so were often bombed by Chennault's forces. The pirate chief was constantly incensed, but the only agreement we could work out was that his ships were promised and actually enjoyed safety when at anchor in Matsu Harbor.
The Eastern Command also included about 25,000 "organized irregulars," an important subordinate command of the Commando Army who went by the name of the "Loyal Patriotic Army." They had been formed in 1937 for the protection of Shanghai by General Tai, who was their first field commander. Their work at that time had been specially commended by the Generalissimo. After the Japanese took the city there were 60 per cent of these men working behind the Jap lines at all times. Communists in the area considerably handicapped them, since the L.P.A.'s were ordered not to fight Communists and the latter were under no such orders. The resulting retreats were detrimental to morale, since they were really a high-class fighting group.
Two U.S. naval hospitals were in this area. One Commanding Officer, Commander A. P. Black (M.C.), U.S. Navy, reported that the lights of Shanghai were visible at night from his unit. The capacity of 100 beds each was usually strained by upwards to 300 patients. Dr. Barnett computed that 70 per cent of the casualties were gunshot, shrapnel, and land mines wounds. The rest were mostly diseases directly attributable to malnutrition.
All the "coast-watchers" south of Shanghai were under the Eastern Command and were combined units including intelligence, aerology, and operations functions.
Major E. P. Dupras, U.S. Marine Corps, and General Tao Yee Shan established similar joint operational control in Central China, from Hankow to the Indo-China border. They had about 200 Americans and 25,000 guerrillas, including six columns of Commando Army, plus Lieutenant Joe Champe, U.S. Naval Reserve, with his adventurous Yangtze River Raiders.
We had discovered that when possible it was best to send American personnel with the trained Chinese guerrillas and to allow these Americans full combat participation. Local commanders carried out more actions against the enemy when assisted by Americans in planning and operations. With our own men on the field, the gathering and communicating of intelligence was more efficient. Furthermore, the wholehearted participation of the Americans, including the Medical Units, raised the morale and heightened the fighting spirit of the Chinese soldiers.
Of the 14 established camps, one, Camp Hank Gibbins, was named after an outstanding Army officer who was in our group before he was killed in action. He was assisting Bernard Nicholas Boumann in parachuting into our Medical Unit in Burma when both were shot down. Hank Gibbins Camp was concerned entirely with the indoctrination and training of Americans who were to work with Chinese guerrillas.
The closest co-operation and co-ordination of activities existed "at all times between the American and Chinese in Headquarters, after we learned to have them keep their desks in the same room and to eat together. All Chinese and American Sections attended daily staff conferences at which they discussed problems, established policies, and formulated operational plans. Usually orders, policies, plans, and operation orders that went out to units in the field were signed jointly by Tai Li and Miles, or their deputies Pan Chi Wu and Beyerly, and applied to both Americans and Chinese personnel.
The various camps were located in positions where personnel might effectively attack the Japanese. The camps were prime targets for the Japanese and were moved when necessary. Two camps moved repeatedly for one year. Tons of supplies had to be carried by hand or ox carts. The supply officers had a continuous nightmare. Lieutenant Maury Nee (S.C.), U.S. Naval Reserve, on COMCENCH Staff, moved supplies constantly from Hengyang west, ahead of the Japanese, for six months, and incidentally never lost a bullet.
Sabotage units from the camps carried out constant raids against Japanese garrisons and Japanese-held installations. Among the more daring actions was that of a Marine-led group that planted 40 pounds of plastic and a pressure device 400 yards from a Japanese garrison at Anhwa Station, southwest of Shanghai. This charge derailed and damaged a locomotive and two carriages, killed 8 and injured 20 Japanese troops.
On another occasion, a young naval officer, Ensign Mattmiller from Commander Halperin's Unit Six, learned that a Japanese freighter of about 1,000 tons had put into Amoy Harbor for repairs. With four Chinese guerrillas he commandeered a junk, got hold of a supply of explosives, and set out under cover of darkness to sink the freighter. In a secluded part of the Amoy Harbor shore line they stripped, tied the explosives charges around their necks, and swam out to the freighter. In darkness they moved around the ship, placing magnetic mines and charges of the soft "Comp C" explosive on the hull, the rudder, and the propeller. Then they swam back to the junk.
"As we crawled aboard," Mattmiller reported later, "we saw two big explosions." The next morning, aerial reconnaissance reported that the ship was lying on its side.
To further confuse our "China Navy," 200 Chinese, and Lieutenant Don Wilcox, U.S. Naval Reserve, with two other Americans, composed a cavalry bazooka detachment from Camp Four, in the Gobi Desert. Proceeding toward Peking they were attacked by a Japanese armored column including 6 tanks, 5 Bren gun carriers, and 400 cavalrymen. After a two-hour battle the message we got through Chinese special radio was "one tank, two Bren gun carriers, and 200 Japanese soldiers killed, remainder retreating." Don Wilcox later informed us that he didn't have the crank to his generator and couldn't send a message. Historically it was probably the only naval cavalry unit of this war and undoubtedly the only one mountaing bazookas on the horses decks.
As far as the U.S. Navy was concerned, the guerrilla warfare was a side issue, but the work was interesting and the record impressive.
From June 1, 1944 to July 1, 1945, the guerrillas, at times led by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel, killed 23,540 Japanese, wounded 9,166, captured 291, and destroyed 209 bridges, 84 locomotives, and 141 ships and river craft, besides many depots and warehouses.
One of our major concerns was the establishment of an efficient aerology organization which would send weather reports to American fleet units and bases in the Pacific. The Chinese preoccupation with the weather was entirely concerned with umbrellas. On the other hand the Japanese used weather as a weapon on their long-range bombing missions into Free China. That was one of the proofs offered for the necessity of weather stations.
Asia is the source of Pacific weather. Probable future weather conditions in areas of operations, together with estimates of the enemy's strength, disposition, and psychology, must be considered and given weight in decisions of strategy. So in 1942, we were at a disadvantage because of the well-developed Japanese weather service in Asia, but it was our hope that in time we would enlist weather on our side against the Japanese. Our plan was to set up a weather net flanking the western extremities of Japanese-held territory. To accomplish this we coordinated our efforts with the existing Chinese weather establishments, the Central Meteorological Bureau, the combined organization of Aviation Affairs, and the Chinese National Aviation Corporation. By the end of 1942 the Pacific Fleet and the 14th Air Force were receiving daily weather reports.
We started on a small scale, mostly in Free China. When we tried to expand into occupied China we found communication facilities depleted, and highly inadequate, after several years of war. Weather reports were coming in regularly by runner several weeks late! When the Chinese were tactfully approached about wasted time they said "May You Guanchi," (never mind) "we have lots of runners!" Further research unveiled a sad lack of batteries for their radios. Tons of batteries were on order from the States, but after occupying precious tonnage over the Hump, were received completely dead, having been shipped as deck cargo on stormwashed freighters from the States. The versatile SACO Supply met the emergency by buying the complete output of the American Ever-Ready Battery Company in Calcutta.
With runners retired in the first quarter of 1943, the Navy Weather Organization began to show improvement. By July, Weather Central, located near Chungking, was collecting China weather reports, analyzing, forecasting, and forwarding the results to the Fourteenth Air Force in Kunming. In August we were ready for expansion. With the Chinese we decided to train secret agents, radio operators, coast-watchers, saboteurs, and guerrilla fighters for making weather observations in Occupied China. The course in weather observation consisted of the modified and simplified variations of the Stateside technique adapted to use of light, compact, portable equipment, and a simplified code easily concealed on the person. In September and October approximately 850 students received instructions from American personnel in Lanchow and Hsifong. The instructors soon discovered that if they made an effort to save the face of the poorer students by not making grades public, reprimanding, correcting, or calling attention to poor work in the presence of other students, they received greater co-operation. On one occasion American instructors announced the appointment of ten students out of a large class for special advanced training. The rest of the class immediately lost all interest in their studies, and some even asked for transfer. The amazed instructors found it necessary to extend the advanced instruction to the entire class.
The expanded weather net plan entailed the establishment of as many as 300 stations, 20 of which were equipped to take raysondes, 100 to take pilot balloon soundings, 100 to take surface observations, and the remainder, using portable equipment, to take synoptic observations in occupied areas. For the prosecution of this elaborate program, the Bureau of Personnel had to authorize only a complement of 36 officers and 120 men. In September, 1944, the Weather Central was sending out one canned map a day to the Pacific Fleet. By the following January, four complete broadcasts were being sent daily. Weather reports were also supplied to the planners of our B-29 strikes. Such is the story of how men of the United States Navy established, in the face of countless hardships, the Weather Central and turned the invaluable instruments of weather against the Japanese.
Throughout the whole development, the Americans were acutely aware of one of China's greatest problems-transportation. After years of war, China's motorized transportation system was bogged down. The trucks in China had exceeded by thousands of miles their life expectancy. Many moving parts upon wearing out were replaced by inferior, make-shift parts, which would carry the trucks perhaps another 200 miles before having to be replaced in turn. Wire replaced lost screws and paper replaced worn-out gaskets. The motor fuels generally used were charcoal, alcohol, or tung oil. Motors rust quickly on this kind of diet. Fuel pump gaskets lasted 300 miles and springs averaged 250 miles. Americans soon learned that enormous patience was essential in any operation requiring the use of Chinese transportation facilities…Where it was thought that transportation could be accomplished in a few days, months were sometimes required. For example, mail for Camp Four (in the Gobi Desert) started by plane to Sian; next by train to Pao Ki; by truck, when it worked, to Lanchow; by skin boat (empty goat skins blown up and lashed together to a form of a raft) for 100 miles; then by fast Ox Express of the Chinese Postal Service to Ningshia; and finally by camel or other convenient means to Camp Four. This gave an elapsed time of three months. Equipment naturally took longer as skin boats wouldn't do for heavy loads, so we trucked it up one side of the river in the fall and waited for ice to form to sled it across to the caravan on the other side.
Along with the development of the Weather Central came a development of the intelligence nets. It is an axiom that no intelligence service is good enough, but the amazing thing about SACO intelligence was the great number of active agents and the widespread area they covered. Authentic reports came from the actual court of Hirohito and the secret Diet meetings. Jap headquarters in Amoy were thoroughly covered. The puppet government in Nanking was of course even easier so that none of their plans was kept secret from us.
The big weaknesses were lack of speedy communication and the difficulties in instructing Chinese agents on the type of information we wanted. It must be remembered that during a great part of the war Japanese troops controlled a corridor which split China north and south. This of course necessitated the maintenance of communication lines through the Japanese-held territory. Frequently, Americans disguised as Chinese coolies made their way literally under the noses of the Japanese. As better radio equipment arrived, the situation improved, but even at the end of the war some messages were still coming by runners. As fast as possible we recalled agents from occupied areas and gave them a course in the type of information we needed. Our primary emphasis was on intelligence directly valuable for United States Fleet Operations—a subject about which the Chinese had previously no knowledge, since they had no fleet.
Unit Nine was set up, under Commander C. S. Johnston, U. S. Naval Reserve, primarily for this instruction. We discovered that General Tai had trained, previously to the war, nearly all the policemen in China. As Nationalist Forces withdrew they left the policemen. When Japs arrived they needed police and used the trained ones. These police thereupon were an organized, legally captured Fifth Column, and the best agents we had. Their duties included assisting Japs in guarding airfields, a convenience for many of our purposes. Since they were already trained police we gave them a couple of F.B.I. courses not only in espionage but counterespionage.
A few of the outstanding accomplishments of the Intelligence Section follow.
In the early months of 1944, U. S. naval officers operating as spotters for the Fourteenth Air Force effectively guided planes to targets on several occasions. These officers directed air support from the ground with the use of walkie-talkies.
During the critical Japanese drive on Kweilin in August, 1944, when General Chennault's planes were having difficulty in locating enemy columns advancing through rough terrain northeast of the city, Lieutenant Commander S. E. McCaffrey, U. S. Naval Reserve, a SACO officer attached to the Fourteenth Air Force, joined front-line Chinese forces, established air-ground communications, and stuck to his post only a few hundred yards from the enemy for 19 days in spite of injury from the constant mortar and artillery fire. An officer of the Fourteenth reported, "It was as if our planes were being led by the hand." McCaffrey's bravery and endurance aided the Army fliers to kill 3,000 Japanese troops and knock out eleven 75-mm. guns. Such secrecy was maintained on SACO troops that McCaffrey didn't learn till he received the Silver Star after the war that those Chinese troops protecting him were SACO's own guerrilla forces.
Air-ground liaison of SACO also functioned with planes of Navy Fleet Airwing 17 operating out of the Philippines. In May, 1945, when Japanese troops attempted to evacuate Quemoy Island, near Amoy, a SACO intelligence officer, employing voice contact code, guided Fairwing planes to their targets. About 750 of the 3,000 evacuating enemy troops were killed as a result.
Among the more spectacular observations of SA CO intelligence units was that of the Kunming branch when it sighted, promptly identified, and reported a previously undetected Japanese carrier force en route to the Philippines in October, 1944. In the Battle for Leyte Gulf, Admiral Halsey's fast carriers of the American Third Fleet intercepted the force and annihilated it on October 25-26.
With the SACO intelligence center well developed, U. S. submarines lying off the China Coast surfaced three times daily to listen to direct broadcasts from Chungking, broadcasts that told of where and when Japanese convoys were to be expected. The famed submarine U.S.S. Barb was guided one night to eleven of its kills by a coastwatcher unit headed by Marine Corps Tech Sergeant William M. Stewart. His first radio flash to Chungking said, "11 Japanese transports anchored 2 miles south of me, am sending pirates along to get the dope." Later, when the Barb sneaked in and sank the ships, Stewart radioed bitter complaints that the job was being done at night when he couldn't get pictures.
The effectiveness of our intelligence activities with the Fourteenth Air Force resulted in the organization by Lieutenant Commander R. A. Kotrla, U. S. Naval Reserve, of an operational intelligence group in Kunming.
The assignment of a field photographic interpretation unit to the Fourteenth Air Force at Kunming in early 1943 was the first Navy contribution to that Air Force. Since the Army's interpretation unit at the time was small, the Navy unit was of great value, providing Army, Navy, and Air with accurate evaluations of enemy shipping in the South China Sea and in such important ports as Amoy, Foochow, Takao, and Hongkong. Later, under Commander C. J. Odend'hal, U. S. Navy, an Anti-Shipping Control Center was established with air force and naval intelligence personnel designed to "obtain, evaluate, and disseminate all shipping information from all sources in China and to plan and direct the air effort against Japanese shipping." This effort improved the effectiveness of the reconnaissance flights of Fourteenth Air Force Liberators by 30 per cent. Furthermore, members of SACO, complying with the request of the U. S. Army Air Force, went to various Air Force stations to give courses in recognition, ship identification, and photographic intelligence. A unit mining section advised the air forces throughout the war on mine types and mine laying technique.
At about the same time intelligence units were sent to the Chinese coast near Foochow and Amoy where they established liaison with the local Chinese authorities and worked out means to insure that downed United States airmen would be rescued and brought to U. S. bases. The resulting organization proved very successful. In 1945 alone, it rendered aid to 67 downed U. S. air personnel. There had been widespread belief by United States Fleet units operating off the coast of China that almost the entire coast and a large section inland were completely occupied by the Japanese.
Among those rescued was Don Bell, a United States civilian war correspondent. In a report on the rescue of his party, he wrote:
Imagine our gasps of amazed delight when told that there was a U. S. Naval Station just 80 li [about 27 miles] away. Here we had been shot down less than a mile from a Jap garrison, we had been shelled, we had been chased by motor boats and searched for by Jap planes less than two hours ago—and here was a man telling us that we were within a few hours of safety. We met the Navy within 24 hours. When we saw Tucker [Boatswain’s Mate] swinging along with a Tommy-gun over one shoulder and a bag of iron rations over the other—well, you can talk about a sailor's welcome, but you haven't seen anything.
The general belief was that Japan held all the territory on the China coast and rivers. To correct this misconception, naval officers went from China to American forces in the Pacific, and briefed air crews on the unoccupied sections of the China coast where aid might be acquired in the event of a forced landing.
The Intelligence Section also sent out to SUBSPAC many operational intelligence dispatches on enemy movements. Fourteenth Air Force Liberators, informed by SACO intelligence, were mining the inland and coastal water of China, thereby presenting Japanese shipping with great hazards. This condition, coupled with the knowledge that U. S. Navy coast-watchers were carrying out extensive observations of Japanese ship movements in the harbors and rivers and along the coast of China, forced the Japanese in the last months of the war to direct a large portion of their shipping out to sea where it became easy prey to U. S. submarines.
In December, 1944, the Intelligence Section started a daily bulletin which circulated until the end of the war. It was disseminated to the Commanding General, U. S. Forces, China Theater, COMINCH, CINCPAC ADV, CINCPAC REAR, Com7thFleet, COMAIRPAC, and ComNavU, and the 14th Air Force.
Much of the intelligence work by U. S. Navy personnel in the forward areas was carried on in close proximity to Japanese forces, and often under dangerous conditions. As a result of constant vigilance and the protection afforded by the Chinese, there were no casualties or captures of Americans until December 21, 1944, when a SACO enlisted man named Parsons was captured on Whale Island, Fukien Province, while on regular watch of enemy shipping entering and at anchor in Amoy Harbor. A party of Japanese troops ambushed him and took him prisoner. A little later two other Americans were also captured after a stiff battle, but generally U. S. Navy personnel in Chinese costumes traveled in occupied China without being detected.
Supply problems have been briefly mentioned, but, I might add that whole new shipping and disbursing techniques had to be developed. Standard U. S. packaging was too heavy for a coolie to carry, since his maximum load is 60 lb. for 30 miles-a-day journey. Repacking was done in Calcutta and our "What the Hell" pennant was stenciled on crates and boxes for shipping designation. Disbursing too had problems in fluctuating exchanges, the actual delivery of heavy weights of paper money, and the decision on who holds the sack when the money is lost in the river from an air drop.
Our India Unit was concerned chiefly with the supply of material and personnel. But it included in Assam the largest oxygen manufacturing plant in the Far East. Its output was entirely for the U. S. Army Air Forces for use over the Hump. As new airfields were put in service in Burma this group sent out satellite units.
The medical units functioning under Captain Gordon B. Tayloe (M.C.), U. S. Navy, never numbered more than 90 men and had to take care of 2,500 Americans and 80,000 Chinese guerrillas. Although overworked, they still managed to inspire the best kind of Sino-American good will by doing chores for local people. This included everything from epidemic control to the Caesarean operation that Comdr. Goodwin, arctic explorer, performed on the wife of the Governor of Suiyuan Province in the Gobi Desert.
When the Japanese surrendered in August, 1945, my personal intelligence system was having one of its bad weeks. During the time of the dropping of the atomic bomb and imminent surrender, 17 Chinese and I were being complimented by being chased by two columns of 6,000 Japs under a Major General. By August 21, we got the word and tried to inform the Japs, but they captured our flag of truce. Meanwhile Captain Beyerly had ordered all hands to muster at the nearest Jap-controlled centers. In complying, Lieutenant Swentzel, U. S. Naval Reserve, and his troops from Camp Eight fought a formal engagement with seagoing junks. In the tradition of John Paul Jones, and after extensive damage to his own "fleet," he crossed the enemy's T, raked the Japs fore and aft—with .30 caliber and bazookas—and received the Jap Captain's sword in surrender. This sword is being presented to the Naval Academy Museum.
To carry out his orders, Major Kramer commandeered a Jap "Betty," with crew, to proceed to Tsingtao to collect information. He became a one-man reception committee when Admiral Settle arrived with his squadron.
In Shanghai the large corps of counteragents, acting according to previous instructions, had saved the electric plant and other utilities from 15 major attempts of Jap sabotage. On September 4 the Pootung Pirates Association, under the tutelage of Commander Webb Heagy, and Lieutenant S. I. Morris, U. S. Naval Reserve, and by authority of the Chinese Commander of Shanghai Area, commandeered at night from comfortable and unsuspecting Japs several water-front buildings and a headquarters. During the next two weeks the SACO land Navy, most of whom had never been to sea, learned about minesweeping, examining buoys, dangers to navigation, shore patrols, and the difficulties of assembling a Navy uniform. We had a band, seven bullet-proof cars, dope on the night spots, and some hotel rooms when Admiral Kinkaid arrived with his ships on September 19.
I have attempted to tell of some of the things we did, although our Rice Paddy Navy was aground most of the time. The crew sometimes wondered "where in hell are we at," but somehow kept it going on a straight course. Our efforts had contributed to the victory. We had furnished intelligence information to the U. S. submarines and planes that had strangled the supply lines converging in to Japan's war economy. The instrument of weather had been employed by the U. S. Pacific Fleet and the Army Air Forces, but the outstanding result of Friendship Project was an unprecedented co-operation of four years between two peoples who couldn't even speak the same language. Perhaps the mutual respect and liking developed may be of use in solving some of the world's difficult post-war problems.
As this was being written, we were struck with the news that General Tai Li was killed in a plane wreck near Nanking while on an urgent mission of running down traitors and enemy sympathizers. By the flood of telegrams and letters received by me I am again greatly impressed by the esteem with which our friend General Tai was held in the hearts of the 2,500 Americans who lived with him, who were protected by him—and who were sometimes condemned and criticized for receiving his whole-hearted, all-out support.
Rear Admiral Miles served as an enlisted man in the Navy before graduating from the Naval Academy in 1922. He served two successive tours of duty in the Asiatic Fleet on gunboats, destroyers, and cruisers, and graduated both from the Postgraduate School and Columbia University. From May, 1942, to the end of the war he was Commander, U. S. Naval Group, China.