Fairly early one morning in the latter part of October 1944, I went down to the Chungking airport. I had with me a U. S. Army travel order to "Dixie." I also had a Chinese Nationalist government "passport." My destination was North China guerrilla territory.
As I watched some Chinese workers loading a transport, I did not imagine the possibility that my assignment might be a long one. I had been given one month by the OWI director in China to survey the anti-Japanese psychological warfare of the Chinese Communist-led forces and their prisoner re-education. I knew that I had an extensive ground to cover and had prepared myself for the work as best I could. I had read leaflets and pamphlets issued by the converted Japanese POWs. I was told that their psychological warfare was so successful that Japanese soldiers were deserting their ranks to go over to the guerrilla forces.
On that clear morning as I waited for the flight, I never thought that I would one day ride a mule to a Chinese civil war front to investigate whether the Nationalists had used American arms supplied for the anti-Japanese war. And many months later, I was as far away as Kalgan, beyond the Great Wall, in a city referred to as the gateway to Inner Mongolia. I had with me large reproductions of American news photos, periodicals, books, movie projector and films. I was an American propagandist in the Chinese hinterland and rural areas.
On that October morning, I walked to the C-47 transport whose doors were ajar, taking in cargo from a truck which was backed squarely against the opening. I saw a slightly-built Chinese worker trying to move an oil drum, his bare foot placed smack at its base as he heaved the top towards him. The drum did not yield.
A tall, husky American corporal emerged from the door of the transport. He called two other Chinese workers who were moving a heavy box on the truck. The workers did not heed him. The corporal jumped down on the truck, grabbed the two by the back of their necks and brought them to the oil drum. The three Chinese tipped over the drum, timing their efforts with a mixture of chants and puffing sounds and rolled it into the plane.
The corporal noticed me. He said: "Hi, Sarge."
"Hi," I answered. "How ya doing?"
"Oh, so, so," he said. "You've Got To Shove Them Around"
Soon our conversation warmed up and he complained about his job.
"These 'slopeys' don't know whether they are coming or going," he explained to me.
"Slopey" was GI jargon for "slant-eyed Chinese," a white supremacist term like "gook" which the GIs use to describe Koreans today.
The corporal leaned heavily on his elbows against the truck-side and looked down at me, sort of relaxed, to tell me a long story.
"You can't talk to these dumb bastards," he said. "You've got to shove them around. Talk to them all day and you get nowheres."
"Do you speak Chinese?" I asked him.
"No, English. But plain enough. I explain to them with motions and everything, and they nod their heads savvylike, like this." And he gave me a demonstration, getting a big kick out of it.
Chinese Laughed At the Corporal's Behavior
A Chinese standing by a duffle bag called: "Hi, Joe!" Pointing to the duffle bag he asked: "Chieh ka?"
"Yeah!" roared the corporal as he turned towards the worker, motioning as though to say; "Throw the whole works into the plane!"
"Everything, everything!" he yelled, and it was plain that all the Chinese understood from his English was loud noise.
The Chinese laughed, amused by the corporal's behavior. The corporal raised his foot, pretending he was going to boot the backside of the worker, which made the latter pick up the bag on his shoulder and run into the transport, laughing as he did so.
Like To Know What Reds Are Like
"There goes my bag," I said to the corporal.
"So you're going up north, Sarge?" He turned around to talk to me. "You know I'd like to see those Chinese Beds myself, not that it matters any to the war effort. I haven't met a Red yet. Like to know what they are like."
He commented that pilots who flew the plane he was having loaded said the Reds up there were fighting the enemy, not like the "slopeys" under "Shanker Jack." This was the GI nickname for Chiang Kai-shek.
"You know," the corporal continued, "I'd take anything than this god-damned job. I didn't volunteer for the army to come all the way to China to be a 'coolie pusher.'"
"I volunteered, too," I said.
The Corporal Was Deeply Embarrassed
"That's one thing I learned in this army—never volunteer! When I enlisted, I signed up to fight the Japs." His voice hit a higher pitch. "I hope to Christ we kill all them sneaking bastards and get this war over with. You can't trust them! You know, we got some of them Japs back home behind barbed wire." And he winked at me with a slight sidewise nod of his head.
"Lose anyone at Pearl Harbor?" I asked.
"No, no kin of mine but we lost a hell of a lot of good boys there." Then he paused and asked: "Where you from, Sarge?"
"Honolulu."
"Hawaiian-Chinese, eh?" He smiled as he looked down at me.
"No, Japanese American."
For a few seconds the corporal was speechless. I almost told him that I had volunteered from behind barbed wire and watch towers.
After the silence the corporal muttered: "No kidding, Sarge . .." and his deflated voice trailed off. Then he added, with obvious embarrassment: "There are some good Japs, hell of a swell guys. You know," and he smiled approvingly, "guys like you!"
"Japs" and "Slopeys" Aren't Healthy Terms
I didn't say a word. After an uncomfortable silence he added: "I didn't mean it bad, Sarge. It wasn't your kind I was talking about, but the other Japs."
"I understand," I said.
We talked for a while longer and I told him that the term "Japs," used to describe the Japanese people, was bad. The militarists and the big financiers were behind the aggressive war. The people didn't have any say.
The use of the term "slopey" was bad, too. My explanation did not make much of a dent on his mind, for his prejudice was deep-rooted.
Then he said all of a sudden: "Doggone it, Sarge," in a serious manner, "What if you guys get captured by them Japs? Wouldn't they give you the works, though?"
No Sympathetic Understanding of the Chinese People
I walked toward the operations building and felt it was a g tragedy that a man like him, and so many other GIs participating in a war of liberation, were giving vent to their prejudices on innocent Chinese because they did not see the real pumose of war activities.
This corporal was unhappy in China, far away from his friends and luxuries, and was unable to bear the boredom in Chungking. If the army had spent some time and effort to orient the GIs and officers with information about China and her people, the morale of servicemen would have been better and they would have developed in them sympathetic understanding for the Chinese people.
The General Tells Us To Forget Rank
What was Gl-Chinese relationship wondered. The air transport crew that people "up north" were active and vigorous. Gis at Chungking headquarters felt it was a break to get a "Dixie" assignment.
The transport brought back fresh vegetables from Yenan and every GI who ate at the mess hall in Chungking knew about "Dixie," for we were told the greens and tomatoes grown in Yenan could be eaten fresh. In the Nationalist a of the human fertilizer used, we could not eat fresh vegetables.
Just after we boarded the plane, the m massed the word around to about three of us enlisted tn now on we were to forget rank. We should not hesitate to talk to him freely and there was to be no wall created by rank. In their area, we must live like them, he said.
An enlisted man said: "In other1 wore io as the1 Romans do."
"I guess that's it," the general said, mi tiat's how the Chinese partisans live.
And we took off from Chungking.