The situation in Korea today would not be the same if China had entered a period of peace and coalition government after the last war. Peace in China would have meant a great Asian country friendly to both the U. S. and the U. S. S. R., and the two powers co-existing in postwar reconstruction.
Such a condition would have encouraged the promotion of national unity in Korea, for within the extensive borders of China, Korean political groups fought for national independence against the Japanese and nurtured their forces for postwar activities in their native country.
The Korean Provisional Government group maintained its headquarters in wartime Chungking, receiving board and lodging from Chiang Kai-shek's government. This group was led by Kim Koo and its titular head was Syngman Rhee, who was lobbying in Washington that his group would be put in the saddle of the postwar Korean government.
Provisional Government Was Show Window Stuff
Kim Yak-san, a factional leader in the Provisional Government whom I came to know quite well in 1944, told me that, like the Chinese Nationalists, his Provisional Government force was not fighting the Japanese. Kaji Wataru, the anti-fascist Japanese writer, who was having supper with us in a small restaurant in Chungking, remarked that the Provisional Government looked good on paper, and like the Japanese POWs whom Kaji had once re-educated and used against the enemy, and who were now held in custody because Chiang was not fighting, the Koreans were showpieces for Chiang.
Kirn said that the Provisional Government had no liaison with Japanese-occupied Korea and he did not know how the Korean people would receive it after the war. Kaji said that for Chiang, the supporting of the Provisional Government in Chungking provided him with a strong lever in Washington to get backing for his regime. Chiang's representatives would push the idea of a Nationalist China allied with Rhee's Korea, both banking on anti-communism, to survive, working closely with the U. S.
I Meet Underground Agents
From Korea China, in the territory under the Yenan administration Korean Independence League functioned actively, Japanese on the war fronts. The League had its Yenan. Like the Japanese POWs under Sanzo Nosaka, the Koreans carried an intensive anti-Japanese militarist warfare. Not being POWs, League members participated in guerrilla warfare.
The Korean Independence League was located about four! miles from our U. S. Army Observer Section and once or twice a week, I went there on foot. I met Chinese and Korean generals and officers from Japanese-occupied Manchuria where the Koreans, with the support of Chinese Communists, had carried on guerrilla warfare since the early '30s against the Japanese.
In the cave headquarters of the Independence League I met underground agents from Korea who travelled about a couple of thousand miles on foot and by rail, into Yenan, eluding the Japanese intelligence network and police system. We learned about Korea from them, and about the Japanese. The efficiency of the underground was remarkable and they helped our war effort. Koreans from Manchuria and Korea told me of Kim II Sung, and of college students in North Korea going into the mountains to join the guerrilla leaders in their independence struggle.
Peace Was Contingent On Social Change
There were these groups of Koreans in China. Peace and a coalition government in China certainly would have influenced the politics in, postwar Korea. Peace would have meant peaceful political competition, and the bringing about of changes such as land and other reforms to give the peasants a better life. It would have meant liberal policies in government and of broad participation. Peace was contingent on social change for the general betterment.
In China, during the first half of 1945, the U. S. had an opportunity to play a constructive role in achieving such a peace. But we bungled and gave Chiang unqualified support, and before the Japanese defeat he was using American arms against Yenan territory not far from where I was stationed.
And when the war ended, Chiang, with U. S. support, rushed the Provisional Government into Korea. The political and military personnel of the Korean guerrilla forces in Manchuria returned to their homeland. From Yenan I saw the Korean Independence League members begin their march northeastward, a thousand five hundred miles or more to their homes from which the Japanese had exiled them because of their patriotic independence fight.
Koreans Formed a Coalition Government Which General Hodge Outlawed
The Koreans from the north and south formed a coalition People's Republic in Seoul and the Provisional Government elements were unable to sit in the saddle. Then, about a month after Japanese capitulation, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge arrived in Korea as military governor of South Korea, outlawed the existing People's Republic and prohibited any South Korean political group from participating in it. This made it possible for Rhee, who was brought back from Washington, to grab power.
American policy in China in 1945 concretely shaped postwar relationship of powers in the Far East. After Chiang Kai-shek refused to sign Hurley's Five Points which the ambassador thought would bring Chungking and Yenan together, Patrick J. Hurley sided with Chiang.
Change Takes Place In Our Observer Mission
Then one day, our observer section commander, Colonel David Barret, was removed. Hurley considered that he was too friendly with the Communists. With changing tames since then, in the postwar cold war environment, Colonel Barret became the chief of the anti-Communist espionage ring in China. The Peking government caught some of his agents and exposed his activities about a year ago.
General Albert Wedemeyer sent Colonel DePass to Yenan early in 1945, and our new commander called us together as soon as he arrived and briefed us that we were not to have any dealings with the Yenan group. He read us an order from General Wedemeyer, restricting us from discussing hypothetical aid or employment of U. S. resources to assist any effort of any "unapproved political party," activity or persons.
The Order Could Not Be Followed To the Letter
The Yenan officials heard about this. Downed American pilots were being rescued by the Communist-led forces and Yenan's liaison officers told us that this order would not stop them from saving our pilots shot down behind enemy lines. The XT. S. weather unit with Communist field observers, was providing weather information for U. S. bombing operations in North China and in Japan. Weather in Asia moves from inland to the coast and thus our air force had weather information days in advance.
When Wedemeyer's order was read to us, I thought that we were going to close our military mission in Yenan. I began winding up my work.
Colonel DePass carried out the spirit of General Wedemeyer's order to the letter. He spent almost all his time pheasant hunting. Since the war was still going on full blast, we collected intelligence on the Japanese, worked with the Communists on the rescue of the pilots and gathered weather information. We also had some of our observers out in guerrilla bases behind enemy lines.
Yenan Had a Good Laugh At DePass' Contraceptives
One day news reached Yenan that an American intelligence officer and his Chinese 18th Group Army interpreter had been killed in a Japanese attack at a guerrilla front. The American had gone to salvage intelligence material from a train the guerrillas had derailed.
In Yenan, the Communists proposed a joint funeral for the) two who had died on a dangerous mission. Colonel DePass rejected this proposal. He told the Yenan officials to go ahead and hold their service and we would hold ours, separately.
Besides his hunting rifle, the colonel brought to Yenan a big supply of contraceptives. He told us that we were in an outpost without a U. S. medical officer and for this reason we ought not to take a chance. He said he had an ample supply of contraceptives and he was turning them over to an 18th Group Army liaison officer who was also a doctor. Don't fail to use the contraceptives, he warned, especially in isolated Yenan.
A liaison officer asked a GI: "Are you now going to import prostitutes into Yenan?"
The news got around that Colonel DePass had brought us contraceptives and in a place where there was no prostitution, the people had a good laugh.
The Commander's Wife Smothered Her Child To Death
The change in our policy after General Wedemeyer and Hurley replaced General Joseph Stilwell and Ambassador Clarence Gauss, respectively, caught some American observers with the guerrillas unawares. Captain Brooks Dolan had left Yenan for the Shansi-Chahar-Hopeh border region months before Hurley arrived in Yenan. His Chinese interpreter told me the following story about a year later:
Early one morning Dolan was resting in a peasant's hut with a guerrilla unit when the Japanese attacked. The guerrillas, who had extensive underground tunnels, in some areas connecting several villages, hid in a cave under the hut. The Japanese walked overhead. The Chinese commander's wife had a child with her and she hushed him when he began to cry. When the Japanese left and Dolan and the Chinese came out of the tunnel, which was a shallow one, the commander's wife held a dead child in her arms. She had smothered him to death rather than expose Dolan and his guards.
Dolan Was Jarred By the Change In Policy
Before Dolan left the area, he gave a stirring speech, and not knowing of Hurley's about-face or Wedemeyer's orders, he believed we were still striving for a coordinated attack against Japan. He told the Chinese soldiers and peasants behind enemy lines that there was no need to dig any more tunnels. He said the Americans were soon going to land on the coast of Shantung and we would fight with the guerrillas.
When Dolan returned to Yenan and saw the strained relationship between the U. S. observers and the Chinese, he was extremely depressed. He later committed suicide in Chungking. Some said he had personal problems and others said his experiences in North China, tied in with American policy, had a lot to do with his mental state.