71-25,286

HOUCHINS, Lee Stretton~ 1927- AMERICAN NAVAL INVOLVEMENT IN THE CHINESE CIVIL WAR, 1945-1949.

The American University, Ph.D., 1971 Political Science, international law and relations

University Microfilms, A XERO)(Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan

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AMERICAN NAVAL INVOLVEMENT IN THE CHINESE CIVIL WAR, 1945-1949

by

Lee Stretton Houchins

Submitted to the

Faculty of the School of International Service

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

International Studies

of the School s-(t() 111

1971 MAY 28 1971 The American University Washington, D. C.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Abbreviations used in Foo1notes • • ...... iv

Map of North China and Southern Manchuria...... vi

Chapter

I. Introduction and Background • . • • • • • • • . . • 1 II. The Dairen Evacuation of Allied POWs and Internees, 2-16 September. . . • • . . • . • • • . ..••.• 8 III. Support of III Amphibious Forces Landings, September - October 1945 • . . . • • . • • . • . • • • . • • . • 33 1. Pre-landing Survey of Chinese Communist-occupied Chefoo, 29 September - 6 October 1945 33 2. The Worton-Chou En-lai Encounter, Tientsin, 25 September 1945 43

3. The Chefoo Conference, 7 - 9 October 1945 46 4. Washington Reaction to the Chefoo Decision 64 5. The Chefoo Decision in Popular Literature 70 6. The Tsingtao Letters, 13 - 16 October 1945 76

IV. The Aftermath of the Chefoo Decision. 83 1. The Wang Flotilla Episode 83 2. The Failure to Sever Chinese Communist Sea Communi- cations Between Shantung and Manchuria 96 v. The First Sealift of Chinese Nationalist Armies to North China and Manchurian Ports • . . . . • • 107

1. Settle at Dairen, 26 October 1945 107 2. The Hulutao Incident 123 3. A Critique of Traditional Interpretations of the Hulutao Incident 134 4. Barbey and Tu Y'u-ming at Yingkow, 2 - 6 November 1945 138 5. The First Sealift Completed, November 1945 158

ii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS (Cont') Page VI. Further US Naval Involvement, October 1945 - September 1947. • • . • • • • • • • • • ...... 160 1. Direct Support of General Li Mi 's Eighth Chinese Nationalist Army, October 1945 160 2. The Second Sealift of Chinese Nationalist Armies 168 3. The UNRRA Mission to Chefoo, February 1946 172 4. The Dairen Courier Run, March 1946 -March 1947 175 5. The East River Column Evacuation, June -July 1946 194 6. The Pile Point and Goose Point Incidents, June and August-September 1947 204 VII. Epilogue ...... 208 1. Wartime Proposals for a Postv.rar Navy 208 2. The Defection of the RCS Chungking, February - March 1949 219 VIII. Conclusions ...... 228

Appendix List of Chinese Personal Nmnes . 234 List of Chinese Place Names 236 Bibliography • • ...... • . . • .• 240

iii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abbreviations Used in the Notes

ACAR Aircraft Action Report

AR Action Report

USAF FE . U.S. Army Forces Far East

BLT. Battalion Landing Team

CNA. Chinese Nationalist Army

CinCPac AdvHQ • Commander-in-Chief Pacific Advanced Headquarters

CinCPacFlt. Commander in Chief Facific Fleet

ComCruDiv. Commander Cruiser Division

ComDes Ron • Commander Destroyer Squadron

ComGenChina. . . Commanding General China

Com Seventh Fl t . Commander Seventh Fleet

Com7thPhibFor . Commander 7th Amphibious Force

CGC. Commanding General China

CT China Theater

CTF .. Commander Task Force

CTG. . Commander Task Group

ERC. . East River Column

GMO. Generalissimo (ChiangKai-shek)

HQ •. Headquarters

KCT. Kungchantang (Chinese Communists)

iv

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. KMT • • • • • . . • • Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalists)

LCI • • Landing Craft, Infantry

LCM. • Landing Craft, Medium

LST • . Landing Ship, Tank

OpOrd . . Operations Order

POA. . . • • Pacific Ocean Area

FLA. . People's Liberation Army

RCN. Republic of China Navy

RCT. • Regimental Combat Team

RCS . • . Republic of China Ship

TG •. . •. Task Group

IliAC. . Third Amphibious Corps

TransRon. . Trans port Squadron

War CoS . Chief-of-Staff, War Department

WarD .•. War Diary

YOG .• • Yenan Observer Group

v

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INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction and Backgrounf!

The autumn of 1945 was a key segment i~ a period which has been des-

cribed as "one of the most baft1ing chapters in the recent history of the Far

East. 111 It also marks the transition to open civil war between the Chinese

Nationalist government and the Chinese Communists.

The sudden capitulation of Japan on 14 August 1945 caught both the United

States and Chinese governments "tmprepared for the task of re-establishing 2 the authority of the Nationalist Government over the whole of China. " The

Soviet government, however, was fully prepared to pursue its interests to the

limits of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements and beyond; it parleyed seven days

of participation in the Pacific War into a massive occupation of territory, in-

eluding all of China north of the Great Wall. Though their place in the Soviet

policy of the times is not yet clear, the Chinese Communists made impressive

gains in the first few days after the Imperial Rescript ending the war and, by

doing so, established sufficient momentum to carry them into full scale civil

war.

1 Charles B. McLane, Soviet Policy and the Chinese Communists, 1931- 1946, New York, 1958, p. 195. 2 Tang Tsou, America's Failure in China, 1941-1950, Chicago and London, 1963, p. 301; and Herbert Feis, The China Tangle, Princeton, 1953, pp. 335-36.

1

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The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) hurriedly issued a directive to General

Albert C. Wedemeyer, the China Theater commander, governing the post­

surrender employment of US military forces in China. Planning at subordinate

command levels was rushed to produce implementing operations directives.

The force assignments which eventually evolved called for the employment

of the Seventh Fleet, commanded by Vice Mmiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, and

the III Amphibious Corps (IliAC), under Major General Keller E. Rockey; US

Marine Corps. The Seventh Fleet would control the Yellow Sea and the Gulf

of P'ohai; sealift several Chinese Nationalist armies from South China to

Dairen, Tsingtao, and Formosa; and transport the III Amphibious Corps

marines ft'om Okinawa to landings at Taku-Tientsin, Chinwangtao, Chefoo,

and Tsingtao. Additional task assignments included the repatriation of Allied

prisoners of war and internees, disarming and accepting local surrender of

Japanese forces on behalf of Chiang Kai-shek, and the establishement of sur­

face patrol force bases at Shanghai and Canton. The III Amphibious Corps

landings in North China took second priority to the landing of the XXIV Army

Corps in the Seoul area of Korea. These operations were to take place under

the operational control of Lieutenant General Albert C. Wedemeyer, Comman­

der, China Theater, headquartered in Chungking. Wedemeyer served also as

Chief-of-staff to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, commanding the armies of

the Chinese Central Government. The imperfect alliance between the United

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States and the Republic of China in the war against Japan, the substantial

tangibles provided Chiang Kai-shek's forces in South China and Burma by

the US government for combat against the Japanese in China, as well as the

less tangible implications of General Wedemeyer's assignment as Chiang's

chief-of-staff, all carried a high potential for conflict between the United

States and Chiang Kai-shek's bitterest enemies, the Chinese Communists.

Nonetheless, there had not developed, by the end of the war, the open hos­

tility of leadership of the Chine::>e Commtmist Party toward the United States

and its representatives in China. The net results of the minimal relationship

between Americans and Chinese Communists on the eve of the Japanese sur­

render was that Mao and his senior spokesmen continued to seek increased

American material assistance for their use against the Japanese and to claim

readiness for direct cooperation with United States forces should they be com­

mitted on the Chinese mainland against the Japanese. For their part, the

Americans remained, particularly after the dismissal of General Stilwell,

committed to Chiang's Central Government and, in deference to him in his

role as chief of state of the Republic, concentrated on defeat of the Japanese

without the direct utilization uf Chinese Communist military forces.

China Theater actively planned for an American landing on the South

China coast and mounted a drive by Nationalist forces toward the coast even

when it became clear that no such landing would take place. In general,

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however, the extent of Nationalist control of Chinese territory had not im-

proved significantly in the final years of the war. The communist New Fourth

and Eighth Route Armies had, in contrast, devoted more than half a decade to

expanding their areas of control. In doing so, they were remarkably successful.

By the closing months of the war against Japan, they controlled the bulk of the

North China plain and most of the coastline between the mouth of the Yangtze

river at Shanghai and the Great Wall. Their position thus improved, the

Chinese Communists were determined to contest Chinese Nationalist attempts

to reestablish Central Government control, and, eventually, to destroy the

Nationalist government. Chiang Kai-shek was, of course, equally deter-

mined to achieve precisely the opposite.

There was sufficient US government awareness of the mutually conflicting

goals and the intensity of the mutual hostility between the Republic and its

revolutionalry adversary to anticipate a certain potential for American involve-

ment in the struggle. Therefore, China Theater's primary Joint Chiefs of

Staff guidance directive for these operations contained the following reserva-

tion: "All provisions. • . [of this directive] apply only insofar as action in accordance therewith does not prejudice the basic principle that the United States will not support the 4 Central Government of China in a fratricidal war. "

4 "Directive to Commanding General, U.S. Forces China Theater,"

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But the restraint was incompatible with the simultaneous requirement

that US naval forces assist the Chinese Central Government in regaining con.­ 5 trol of all areas in China held by the Japanese. The two requirements were

mutually exclusive. The incompatability was further heightened by the addi-

tiona! requirements that China Theater would "assist the Central Government

in the rapid transport of Chinese Central Government forces to key areas in 6 China. n Yet the Joint Chiefs of Staff restraint was re-stated in various forms

and was supplemented with related prohibitions appropriate to their specific

7 areas of responsibility by field commanders.

It is useful to consider this requirement-restraint conflict as an extension-

or even a modest refinement-of H. Bradford Westerfield's "Conflicting Ameri-

can Strategies and the Attrition of Nationalist China " model that he has so

10 August 1945, CinCPacFlt and POA. Joint Staff Study, BELEAGER, Serial 005105, 13 August 1945, Appendix B, p. B-1; emphasis added. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 E. g., "Oral Statement of President Truman to T.V. Soong on Military

Assistance to China, 11 U.S. Dept. of State, United States Relations With China, Washington, 1949, p. 939; ComSeventh Fit message to SeventhFlt, 21 October 1945.

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convincingly applied to the pre-surrender period~ Westerfield's judgment 9 that:

The conduct of American affairs concerning China in World War II was such as to arouse in a re­ examiner a sense of slightly delirious fantasy akin to Alice in Wonderland. There appears a dizzying interplay of courses of action consistently pursued, utterly inconsistent with each other; marvelously logical, yet together thoroughly illogical; on all sides American Don Quixotes tilting at different windmills-courageous, idealistic, dedicated, but characterized by varying degrees of ignorance of Asia, ardently pursuing unobtainable objectives, at odds with each other-in a decidedly secondary theater of war.

is equally compelling when considering the civil war period, particularly the

segment between the surrender and mid-1947.

Tang Tsou 's thesis that the United States government had the power but

not the will to control the outcome of the diplomatic struggle between the

Chinese central government and the Soviets over the interpretation-and the

8 H. Bradford Westerfield, The Instruments of America's Foreign Policy (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, Co., 1963), pp. 112-118. 9 1oc. cit., p. 117.

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mode of execution of agreed interpretations-of the provisions of the 1945

Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, the Yalta and Potsdam agree­ 10 ments and their associated protocals was judged to be valid from the outset.

Another argument tested-or at least examined-is Herbert Dinerstein 's

notion that limited naval intervention, traditionally a relatively prophylactic

style of national action, is substantially less successful in the case of inter-

vention against commtmism.

This study is intended to provide a measure of the applicability of the

arguments by focusing on the requirement-restraint conflict implicit in the

10 August 1945 Joint Chiefs of Staff directive to the China Theater commander

and its perpetuation as US naval policy in the actions of local naval comman­

ders at the operational level. I hope to show that prohibition against support

of the Nationalist government "in a fratricidal war," later broadened to a

prohibition against mere, and vaguely defined-if defined at all-"involvement

in a fratricidal war," posed a nearly constant command consideration and one

that frequently limited the range of options and the selection of courses of

action until the inevitable outcome was institutionalized as a single option:

inaction.

10 Tang Tsou, America's failure in China, 1941-1950 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1963).

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THE DAIREN EVACUATION OF ALLIED POWs AND INTERNEES, 2-16 SEPTJ:,MBER 1945

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Dairen Evacuation of Allied POWs and Internees, 2-16 September 1945.

US Naval units arrived in Dairen ten days after Soviet Army occupation

forces-and only one day after the Soviets completed their occupation of Port

Arthur. Early in the morning of 2 September, Captain Chester C. Wood, Com­ 1 mander Destroyer Squadron Sixty-four, was ordered by Commander Seventh

Fleet to detach from the Seventh Fleet task group operating in the Yellow Sea

and steam for Dairen. Before leaving the task group, Commodore Wood, in the USS

Hubbard, went alongside Admiral Kinkaid's flagship, the cruiser Minneapolis, 2 for detailed instructions and to embark Chinese and Japanese interpreters.

Hubbard and Evans were to evacuate from Dairen an advance party of ap-

proximately 120 allied prisoners of war, who had recently been released from camps

in the Mttl(den area and many of whom were expected to be in need of medical

attention. The ships' companies of Hubbard and Evans were to provide all

possible aid and assistance in making the released prisoners as comfortable

1 USS Harry E. Hubbard (DD-748) and USS Evans (DD-552). 2 Lieutenant F. R. Fette, USNR (Chinese) and Lieutenant Junior Grade E. G. '!'heros, USNR (Japanese). An Associated Press correspondent, Mr. John Grover was also embarked; Evans also went alongside to pick up the Life maga­ zine photographer, George Lacks (Destroyer Squadron Sixty-four War Diary, 1 September - 30 September 1945, entry for Sunday, 2 September.)

8

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as possible and to make an advance survey in preparation for the evacuation of 3 the main grou.p of prisoners and internees. Plans were formulated for carrying

out the Fleet Commander's orders while en route Dairen, where both destroyers

anchored in mid-afternoon of the 2nd. Commodore Wood led his "Dairen Landing

Party" ashore, arriving at the docks without challenge from Soviet authorities-

and without communications with them during the entire approach to the city.

Wood's immediate intention was to establish contact with either the Swedish 4 or Swiss consul. But because it was readily apparent that the city was under

tight Soviet control, Wood decided promptly to seek out the local Soviet comman-

dant.

The Soviet presence in the Dairen-Port Arthur area began with the paradrops 5 of advance units on or shortly after 19 August. According to Soviet Army plans,

the Thirty-ninth Army's 113th and 5th Guards Rifle Divisions were to occupy

----·------3 There were approximately 1500 prisoners of war and internees in all, including French, British, and Dutch nationals; most were Americans. 4 The Swiss consul at Dairen was a Mr. Simon (annotated photographs, Settle Papers). 5 vice Admiral S. Zakharov and Captain First Rank V. Bagrov, "The Victory of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Far East," Kommunist Vooruz­ hennykh Sil (The Armed Forces Communist), No. 15, August 1965, Moscow, translated in Joint Publications Research Service 32, 291, Soviet Military Translations, No. 207, 6 October 1965, p. 103.

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6 Dairen and Port Arthur by the last day of the month. The first large units to

7 enter Dairen were tank forces. Major General Andrei Yemanov arrived at a

nearby airport on 22 August and assumed control of the area as military com­ 8 mandant. There was no opposition when the Soviet tank units entered the

city. The first week of Soviet military occupation was characterized by a gen-

eral lack of discipline on the part of Soviet troops. Military policemen were

6 Colonel General I. Liudnikov, "The 39th Army in the Khingan-Mukden Operation," Voyenno-Istoricheskiy Zhurnal (Journal of Military HistorY), No. 10, October 1965, Moscow, translated in JPHS 33,203, 1 December 1965, p. 8. In a similar, but briefer, article, General Liudnikov gives 1 September as the date that leading units of the Thirty-ninth Army entered Port Arthur (Colonel General I. Liudnikov, "The Storming of the Great Khingan," Izvestia, 3 September 1966). I am grateful to Prof. Harold C. Hinton, Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies, George Washington University, for bringing this article to my attention; to Angus M. Fraser, Institute for Defense Analyses, for pro­ curing a copy of the translation; and to Mr. Maury Lis ann, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, for the translation, itself. 7 Kamura Mitsuo, Manshu-koku kaimetsu hiki [Secret notes on the fall of Manchuria] (Tokyo: Daigaku Shobo, 1960), pp. 160-161; Man-Mo Doha En'gokai (Manchuria-Mongolia Japanese Compatriots' Relief Association), Man- Mo shusen-shi (History of the war's end in Manchuria and Mongolia) [Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 1962], p. 171. 8 Man-Mo shusen-shi, p. 175; New York Times, 3 September 1945.

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not in evidence. The gross disorder frightened the city's Chinese and Japanese

population of approximately 375,000, but local conditions were generally stabi­ 9 lized under an effective military government by 2 September.

Chinese Communist Eighth Route Army units that had crossed by junk from

small ports along the northern coast of the Shantung peninsula began to appear

in the city by the end of August. The Soviet military government was initial-

ly hostile to the presence of Chinese Communist military personnel in their

area of occupation. And, until the Chinese Communists were more effectively

organized to overcome Soviet obstruction, the Russians utilized the existing

structure of local Japanese civil servants for several functions of municipal 10 administration. The majority of Japanese residents who remained in the city 11 were either tmder cover or in custody. 60,000 Japanese military prisoners

were reportedly engaged in the construction of new airfields between Port

Arthur and Dairen and in the construction of artillery and other types of de- . . . 12 f ens1ve positions.

9 DesRon64WarD, .2 September 1945; Commander Transport Squadron Seventeen Action Report: Chinwangtao and Tsingtao, China, Enclosure (K), Intelligence Notes: Dairen, 3 December 1945, p.l. 10 Man-Mo shosen-shi, op. cit., p. 250. 11 Intelligence Notes: Dairen, op. cit., p. 2. 12 David J. Dallin, Soviet Russia and t!te Far East (New Haven: Yale Uni­ versity Press, 1948), pp. 333-334.

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Port and airfield facilities at Dairen and the Port Arthur naval base were

in excellent condition. The only evidence of war damage in the entire city and

port area of Dairen was an office building that had been bombed by a single

B-29. There were no Soviet naval vessels in either Dairen or Port Arthur in

early September; however, naval personnel were being flown into Dairen from 13 Vladivostok in Red Navy Catalina flying boats. There were three small

Japanese merchantmen in Dairen harbor and heavy junk traffic in and out of 14 both Dairen and Port Arthur.

Commodore Wood made his way to General Yemanov's headquarters at 15 the Yamato Hotel. The ensuing conference was "very satisfactory."

Yemanov estimated that there were 1500 prisoners of war and internees, in-

eluding senior naval officers, among the group to be released from the Mukden

area camps. Yemanov agreed to send a radio rn.essage to Soviet authorities

in Mukden to expedite the evacuees' release and transportation to Dairen.

But he refused to allow a member of Commodore Wood's staff to travel to

13 rntelligence Notes: Dairen, loc. cit. 14 Com7thFlt message to POAAdvHQ, 4 September 1945. The Japanese merchantmen may have been mistaken for the several Russian naval vessels reported at anchor by John Grover (New York Times, 6 September 1945. 15 The Destroyer Squadron Sixty-four war diary gives the Soviet

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Mukden for a firsthand observation of the situation. Wood reported the re-

suits of his first encounter with Yemanov to Admiral Kinkaid, Commanding 16 General China Theater, and to Chief of the US Military Mission in Moscow.

According to a contemporary Japanese account, when Commodore Wood's

destroyer squadron arrived to evacuate prisoners of war, the naval comman-

der could hardly fail to notice the constantly parading tanks rumbling through

the city night and day. He interpreted this activity as a deliberate display of

Russian military power. When the American officer confronted the local Rus-

sian commander, he sarcastically remarked: "The was has supposedly ended

already-or so I understand. With whom is your country planning to fight this 17 time? Surely not America ?"

commandant's name as Yamamoff; Commander Transport Squadron Seventeen's Intelligence Notes: Dairen shows Brigadier General Yamanoff. 16 DesRon64WarD, 2 September 1945. 17 Kamura, Manshu-koku kaimetsu hiki, op. cit., pp. 160-161. There is no mention of this incident in the DesRon64WarD. Though the account may be based more on rumor than fact, it probably reflects more ac­ curately the tense atmosphere in Dairen, than does Woods war diary, a record based largely on twice-daily, businesslike message reports to Commander Seventh Fleet.

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In the course of the following week, the American destroyer squadron

commander met each day with the Soviet commandant. Their relations remain­

ed cordial, despite the increasingly obvious procrastination on Yemanov 1s part

in response to Wood's pressing questions for substantive information about the

Mudken internees. On the 3rd, Yemanov volunteered the information that the

internees would probably be sent down from Mukden; and, though it might be

possible for one of Wood's staff to go to Mukden, there was no available air

transport at the moment. Having contacted the Swiss consul that morning,

Commodore Wood spent the entire afternoon with him touring the city. In the

circumstances, there was nothing constructive that the neutral diplomat could

offer. In the evening, Commodore Wood learned that the hospital ship USS

Relief, and perhaps an additional hospital ship and transports, would arrive

at Dairen on the 7th. Wood was ordered by Commander Seventh Fleet to notify

the senior Soviet commander in Dairen that a large group of Seventh Fleet 18 aircraft would fly over the city on the following morning, 5 September.

When Yemanov was informed of the planned flyover by carrier aircraft,

he displayed obvious suspicion of American intentions. The, by now, routine

18 DesRon64WarD, 3 September 1945.

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morning conference then turned to matters relating to the evacuation operation.

Yemanov continued to insist that it was unnecessary to send a naval representa-

tive to Mukden. Wood was informed by an unidentified visiting Soviet general

from Mukden that he had seen some of the released prisoners and internees and

that their release and transportation arrangements were going well; some had

already been evacuated by aircraft. In an interesting sidelight, Wood's report

of the morning conference added that Yemanov seemed jealous of his authority 19 as local commander, vis-l-vis the visiting general from Mukden.

At mid-morning, more than one hundred Task Force 72 aircraft flew over

the city of Dairen in a show of force. To observers on the ground it was an

impressive sight. This spectacular display of American presence was re-

inforced by the appearance, within easy visual range, of a task group of

US naval ships steamLl.g obtrusively off the city. Commodore Wood was

equally impressed by the irate response of Soviet authorities; he was sum-

moned ashore while the carrier aircraft were still flying over the city and 20 was met at dockside by Yemanov and two Russian lieutenant generals.

19 DesRon64WarD, 4 September 1945. 20 lbid. Commodore Wood tentatively identified the newly appearing officers as Lieutenant General Ivanov, commander of Soviet forces in the Liaotung Peninsula area; Lieutenant General Savelieff, a tank division commander

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The Russians demanded to know the reason for such a show of force. They

specifically asked why it was necessary to conduct a demonstration of both

naval and air strength in the area. Wood replied that, in view of current

negotiations regarding the evacuation operation, the massive flyover and the

appearance of a Seventh Fleet task group was routine and should be taken

as a gesture of friendship. Wood's explanation was apparently accepted; the

Soviet generals and members of their staffs came off to Wood's flagship for 21 luncheon on board.

During the luncheon on board Hubbard, Commodore Wood presented

Admiral Kinkaid's compliments to the Soviet officers. Yemanov asked that

Admiral Kinkaid be assured that everything possible was being done to arrange

for an expeditious evacuation through Dairen. The Russians responded to 2 Kinkaid's gesture with the following message?

The Soviet Garrison and Port of Dalny [Dairen or Luta) are greeting the brave allies and their Com­ mander Admiral Kinkaid. We are congratulating

(DesRon 64 WarD, 5 September 1945). Lieutenant General Ivanov is identi­ fied as V. Ivanov, commander of Transbaikal Front parachute units, in Colonel General I. Liudnikov, "The Storming of the Great Khingan, " op. cit. , p. 2. 21 DesRon 64 WarD, 4 September 1945 22 _w_I_."J'l..."d , g~ven. ver b a tim.

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.... our American Allies the end of the war against the Japanese aggressors and wish the Admiral Kinkaid and his ships happy sailing. General Lieutenant Ivanoff, General Lieutenant Savelieff, General Maj­ or Yamamoff. But, despite the congenial atmosphere at the luncheon and the exchange of

courtesies, it is clear that the Soviets were seriously concerned about Am­

erican intentions in the Dairen-Port Arthur area and, particularly, the

significance of the naval and air demonstrations.

Commodore Wood was apparently unaware that two separate air incidents

occurred during air demonstrations earlier in the day. A division of USS

Antietam's Air Group Eighty-nine F6F fighters was fired upon from the bow

and waist turrets of one of a flight of three Soviet Catalinas approximately five 23 miles off the Liaotung Peninsula between Port Arthur and Dairen. The second

incident occurred when a combat air patrol of USS Cabot's Fighter Squadron 32

F6Fs investigated an unidentified radar target thirty-five miles from the task

force. As the fighters closed for identification, the lead aircraft was fired

on by a single Soviet Catalina. Though none of the American fighters was

hit, their pilots were convinced that the Soviet machine-gun fire was "directly

23 Air Group Eighty-nine ACAR No. 18, 4 September 1945.

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24 at them and not by way of warning. rr Despite these, and other incidents in-

volving US and Soviet aircraft, it was not until the end of September that

Seventh Fleet aircraft were prohibited from overflights, without special per-

mission, of Manchuria, including the Liaotung Peninsula, and Korea north 25 of the 38th parallel.

24 Fighter Squadron 32 ACAR No. 8, 4 September 1945. The American pilots involved in these incidents would, perhaps, have avoided any contact with Soviet aircraft; however, the lend-lease Catalinas (PBYs or PBNs) were identical with operational aircraft in current use by the US Navy and other allied air forces. Furthermore, it was difficult to dis­ tinguish between the Soviet red star and Japanese hi no maru ("meatball") air­ craft insignia. A week earlier, a B-29 engaged }n dropping supplies to a prisoner-of-war camp one hundred miles north of the 38th parallel near Hamhung, Korea, was shot down by Russian fighters. When the aircraft's crew was told that the incident was a mistake, the US Military Mission in Moscow was directed to press the Soviet General Staff for an explanation (WarCoS message to CG US Military Mission, Moscow, 4 September 1945). 25 Com7thFlt message to all Seventh Fleet TF commanders, 27 September 1945; US Army Forces in Korea message to Com7thFlt, 27 September 1945. On 15 November 1945, while the Russians were onloading machinery and other Manchurian war booty, a Fleet Air Wing One PBM -5 Mariner patrol plane was fired on by a Soviet fighter after being chased from a reconnaissance run directly across the harbor at Port Arthur (Com7thFlt messages to CinCPclc/POA, 18 and 20 November 1945. Despite a resulting-Commander Seventh Fleet directive

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While engaged in the air demonstration in the Port Arthur-Dairen area,

Task Force 72 aircraft were flying well within the operational zone for US

air forces agreed to at the 26 July meeting between the US and USSR chiefs of

staff at the Potsdam Conference. The air operational boundary ran from Cape

Boltina, through Changchun, Liaoyuan, K'ailu, Chihfeng in Jehol, Peking, 26 Tat'ung, and thence along the southern boundary of Inner Mongolia. The

air operations agreement was formulated in the context of the American ex-

pectation that US bomber aircraft would participate in air operations against the

Japanese in Manchuria. As it turned out, of course, no such bombing opera-

tions took place during the Soviet campaign in Manchuria and North Korea.

prohibiting patrol flights closer than six miles to Soviet occupied territory, a similar incident recurred on 20 February 1946 (United Press, Stars and Stripes [Shanghai], 4 March 1946; Navy Department, Office of the Judge Advocate General, letter to convening authority, 19 November 1946, Settle Papers. The latter incident was not kept secret from the American public, as claimed by Freda Utley (Last Chance in China [New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1947 ], p. 239). 26 Annex to the minutes of the meeting between the Chiefs of Staff of the US and the USSR, 26 July 1945, in Department of Defense, Office of Public Information, The Entry of the Soviet Union into the War Against Japan: Mili­ tary Plans, 1941-1945 (Washington, D. C.: 19 October, 1955), pp. 93 and 97.

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It is important to note that the agreement specified that "depending upon future

conditions, this line [the air operations boundary] is subject to change. 1127

This caveat was included in the verbatim transmittal of the air operations

agreement to Seventh Fleet commanders by Admiral Nimitiz 's advanced

headquarters on 9 August-the day that the Soviet Union entered the war against 28 Japan. But equally important is the fact that the Soviet restriction that

"aircraft crews should be instructed .•• not to fly over such ports as

Vladivostok, because of the danger of being fired upon by anti-aircraft bat-

teries" was apparently not included in the version of the agreement passed to 29 Seventh Fleet. In any case, the agreement clearly applied only during the

course of hostilities with Japan.

The aircraft sweeps over pairen and Port Arthur caused great excite-

ment among Dairen's Chinese residents. Coupled with the appearance of

a naval task group withinsightof shore, the massive air demonstration was

27Ib"d_1_.' p. 97. 28 CinCPac AdvHQ message to Com7thFlt, 9 August 1945, Keelblocks 4 folder. 29 Ibid.; The Entry of the Soviet Union into the War Against Japan: Military Plans, 1941-1945, p. 100.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21

interpreted by them as a prelude to an American or joint Soviet-American oc­

cupation of the area. Several local Chinese took the opportunity to declare

that they would much prefer American to either Russian or Chinese control.

Such spokesmen seemed to have little confidence in the Chinese Nationalist

government's capabilities for effective administration; they claimed to fear

rather than welcome the prospects of the arrival of their own army. It was

generally expected that Chinese Nationalist Army units would arrive in about

a month, and that they would act in much the same undisciplined fashion as did 30 Soviet troops during the first week of Soviet occupation.

The, by now, traditional morning conferences with General Yemanov

continued. On 5 September, the day following the air and naval demonstration,

Commodore Wood made several constructive suggestions with a view toward

securing first hand information regarding the welfare of the Mukden evacuees

and advan<;ing their arrival in Dairen. Yemanov took no positive action in

response to Wood's recommendations that a Seventh Fleet representative be

flown to Mukden; that a carrier aircraft be sent there to "contact the Army

30 Intelligence Notes: Dairen, op. cit. The report of general excitment among Dairen' s Chinese is confirmed in contemporary DesRon 64 WarD entries. But the broad ascription of anti­ Nationalist attitudes should be treated with caution since, obviously, the source of sources of this information may have been pro-communist Chinese·.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22

Team and exert p1·essure on the Russian Commander [in Mukden] for action;"

and that transport aircraft be utilized to expedite the movement of POWs and 31 internees to Dairen. But over the course of the next five days, the situation

began to improve in spite of the Soviet commandant's persistent vagueness and

inaction. On the 6th, Marshal of the Soviet Union Alexander Vasilevsky, the

commander in chief of Soviet forces in the Far East, arrived in Dairen.

Vasilevsky was informed, via Yemanov, that the hospital ship, USS Relief

would arrive in a few days. Impatient with the lack of success in Commodore's

Wood's negotiations for rapid transportation of the internees to Dairen, Com-

mander Seventh Fleet ordered Rear Admiral T. G. W. Settle to relieve Com-

mander Destroyer Squadron Sixty-four as the senior US naval officer at Dairen.

Settle, in his flagship the USS Louisville, with the destroyer Herndon (DD-

638) as escort, was ordered to Dairen with authority to "establish contact and

relations with Russian commanders in Manchuria as necessary [to] arrange

for the release and transportation to Dairen of.•. allied POWs now in Muk­ 32 den area and evacuate them as practicable. "

31 - DesRon 64 WarD 4 and 5 September 1945. 32 com7thFlt message OpOrd 5-45 to Task Group 71.4 (Rear Admiral

Settle in Louisville), 6 September 1945.

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Admiral Settle and his staff were particularly well suited for the task of

dealing with Soviet military officials. Settle had been promoted to flag rank

in early August and assigned as prospective chief of the US Naval Liaison 33 Mission to the Vladivostok headquarters of Admiral Ivan S. Yumashev. A

similar US Army Liaison Mission was formed for assignment to Marshal

Vasilevsky's Soviet Far East Command headquarters at Khabarovsk. The

proposal for the establishment of liaison channels between American and

Soviet operation forces was initiated-entirely, of course, within the context

of coordinated operations against Japan-by a 5 July 1945 letter proposal

from the US Chiefs of Staff to General Antonov, of the Soviet Chiefs of Staff,

in preparation for the Potsdam Conference. During the conference, the chiefs

of the US and USSR military staffs met on 26 July and agreed on major details

of the liaison arrangements to be effective upon the Soviet Union's entry into

the war against Japan. The US missions at Vladivostok and Khabarovsk were

to be balanced by Soviet liaison missions with Admiral Nimitz' headquarters

33 As commander-in-chief of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, Admiral Yumashev was Marshal Vasilevsky's naval counterpart (The Entry of the Soviet Union into the War Against Japan: Militarx__ Plans, 1941-1945, op. cit., p. 99; Raymond L. Garthoff, "Soviet Operations in the War with Japan, August 1945," US Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 92, no. 5 [May 1966]), p. 51.).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24

on Guam and with General MacArthur in Manilla. The Soviets were also auth­ 34 orized to establish a military mission in Washington.

Admiral Settle organized his liaison group in Washington during the first

week of August. Several US Army and US Army Air Corps officers were as­

signed to him for the purpose of cross-liaison with the US Army Liaison

Mission in Khabarovsk. Settle recruited Russian-speaking officers and en­

listed personnel as quickly as he could, but the surprisingly early entry of

the Russians into the war against Japan made it necessary for Settle hurriedly

to gather what qualified personnel he already had at hand, a total of twenty­

five, and fly to Admiral Nimitz' Guam headquarters. By the time Settle ar­

rived in Guam, however, it had become clear that the Russians were no

longer willing to accept liaison missions in either Khabarovsk or Vladivostok.

It had also developed, in the meanwhile, that General MacArthur and Admiral

Nimitz had grown cool to the notion of having Russian officers in their re­ 35 spective headquarters.

34 The Entry of the Soviet Union into the War A~nst Japan: Military

Plans, 1941-1945, op. cit., pp. 94-104.

35 settle letter to Director of Naval History, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, 5 August 1955, Settle Papers.

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Settle's group remained largely intact despite the change in plans for

its utilization. Upon his being ordered to Dairen, Settle's staff included

practically the entire Navy Russian Language Team No. 5 (Liaison and Com-

munications) which had spent five weeks in the naval command ship Catoctin

at Sevastopol during the February 1945 Yalta Conference. The team's com-

mander, Lieutenant GeorgeS. Scherbatoff, nowservedasAdmiralSettle'saide, 36 flag lieutenant and principal Russian interpreter. Also included on Settle's

staff were Captain Samuel B. Frankel and Colonel Teats, US Army Air 37 Corps. While Settle served Commander Seventh Fleet as Senior

Officer Present Afloat, Dairen, his status as Admiral Nimitz' prospective 38 liaison officer with the Russians was held in abeyance...... In the interim between Admiral Kinkaid's orders on the 6th and Settle's

arrival in Dairen in the early afternoon of the lOth, Commodore Wood made

preparations for the arrival of a hospital ship, troops ships and Settle's

task group. Keeping General Yemanov informed of developments in American

36 scherbatoff letter to writer, 30 September 1965. 37 Had the liaison mission agreement been effect, Teats would have served the additional duty of liaison officer with his US Army Air Corps counterparts at Khabarovsk. Captain Frankel was subsequently promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral; his final active duty assignment was as Deputy Di­ rector of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (Frankel interview, 9 May 1967). 38 cinCPac Advanced HQ message to Com7thFlt, 6 September 1945.

---

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26

plans, Wood continued to pressure the commandant on the point of expediting

the rail movement of POWs and internees from Mukden. Through Yemanov,

Wood was granted permission by Marshal Vasilevsky to travel to Mukden.

But, despite this token change in Soviet attitudes, Yemanov effectively negated

Wood's opportunity by insisting that "no plane available and train travel im­

possible. 1139 Even the arrival of Relief and her accompanying destroyer es-

corts on the 8th failed to stimulate enthusiastic cooperation on Yemanov's

part. He continued to plead illness, as he had for the past several days, and

denied having any specific information of value concerning the POW-internee

party. Commodore Wood had the distinct impression that the Russians were

"preoccupied" with other tasks resulting from Marshal Vasilevsky's two day .. 40 VISit.

Yemanov's passive resistance to qpmmodore Wood's learning anything

useful about the welfare of the Mukden group was finally surmounted with

the arrival from Mukden of Lieutenant Colonel J. F. Donovan, US Army. In

slightly more than twenty-four hours after his arrival by air on the 8th,

Donovan made a strong representation to General Yemanov for positive pres-

sure on Soviet officials in Mukden for rail transportation; reported to Wood on

39 ComDesRon 64 .. WarD, 7 September 1945. 40 _1_.,Ib"d. 8 Septem. b er 1 945.

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the relatively good health and high morale of his POW /internee charges;

sent a tentative evacuation plan by blind radio transmission to his POW Field

Recovery Team at the Roten POW camp; talked Commodore Wood out of a

powerful, portable radio transmitter and two of his radio technicians; return-

ed to Mukden; and established immediate, reliable radio communications with

Wood's flagship in Dairen. Late in the evening of the 9th, Donovan reported

that Soviet authorities in Mukden had finally agreed to begin rail movement

of the evacuees. They would travel in two groups, the first arriving in Dairen

on the 11th, and the second the next day. Serious medical cases and elderly

internees had previously been flown out by aircraft to transshipment points in"

C hma. proper or on Ok"mawa. 41

When Admiral Settle's flagship, Louisville, arrived off Dairen harbor on

the early afternoon of 10 September, there was no response from the Russians

to either visual or radio signals. And the Dairen port autho~ity pilots that

41 . Ib1d. , 8 and 9 September 1945. Lieutenant Colonel Donovan accompanied the POW /internees to Dairen; following the evacuation, he rejoined his team at Mukden and was flown to K'unming on 18 or 19 September (Donovan letter to Settle, 21 October 1945, Settle Papers).

,......

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42 Settle had requested did not appear. After an extended conference with

Commodore Wood, Settle assumed the responsibilities of senior US navalaf-

loat commander at Dairen. A meeting was arranged with the local Soviet 43 commandant at his Yamato Hotel headquarters.

Admiral Settle arrived at the Soviet headquarters to find that Lieuten- 44 ant Georgii K. Kozlov had replaced Yemanov as commandant. General

Kozlov had served during the Manchurian campaign as deputy to Colonel 45 General Liudnikov, commander of the Soviet 39th Army. Though Major

General Yemanov was retained, at least for several more days, as Kozlov's

42 settle's request for Russian harbor pilots at Dairen was passed to General MacArthur's headquarters for transmission to appropriate Soviet authorities. But his arrival date at Dairen was given therein as 11 September (Commander Task Group 10.3 message to CinCPac Advanced HQ, 8 Septem­ ber 1945). 43 Commodore Wood was apparently unaware that Yemanov had been re- lieved, (ComDesRon WarD, 10 September 1945). His staff had scheduled a meeting between Settle and Yemanov, presuming the latter still to be comman­ dant. 44 The account of the Dairen meetings between Admiral Settle and General Kozlov are based largely on the approved transcript of an interview with Vice Admiral T. G. w. Settle, USN (Ret.) in Washington, D. C., 6 January 1964, cited hereafter as Settle Interview, subsequent correspondence, documents from the Settle Papers, and George S. Schebatoff letter to writer, 30 September 1965. 45 Liudnikov, "The 39th Army in the Khingan-Mukden Operation, "op. cit., p.4.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29

chief-of-staff or nominal deputy, there is persuasive evidence that he was

relieved for cause. It will be recalled that, beginning with the arrival of

Marshal Vasilevsky on 6 September, Kozlov began to plead illness as an ex-

cuse to cancel both social and professional encounters with Commodore Wood.

Yemanov did not appear at all for the usual morning conferences on the 9th and

lOth-just prior to Admiral Settle's arrival on the scene. It is obvious that

Commodore Wood was unaware of Kozlov's arrival, and it is likely that Kozlov

had already relieved Yemanov by the 8th or 9th of September.

According to local Japanese residents, the initial period of Kozlov's re-

gime as Dairen commandant was characterized by harsh measures for control

of the area, tightened troop d·iscipline, and the reduction of general disorder,

including the suppression of unruly elements representing themselves as mem­ 46 bers of the Eighth Route Army. These observations are corroborated in

part by a member of Admiral Settle's staff. General Kozlov expressed to

Scherbatoff his great dissatisfaction with the behaviour of Russian troops during

Yemanov's tenure as Dairen commandant. He had taken strict disciplinary

measures immediately upon assuming command in Yemanov's place. Kozlov

asked Settle's interpreter-flag lieutenant and other members of his staff to 47 report to him immediately any misbehaviour by Soviet troops.

46 Man-Mo- s h-usen s h i, op. cit., pp. 176,250. 47 Scherbatoff letter, op. cit.

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The first meeting between Admiral Settle and General Kozlov was formal

and businesslike-even cold. Settle stated his orders from Commander Seventh

Fleet, Admiral Kinkaid, regarding the evacuation of released prisoners and 48 internees. Kozlov turned to Yemanov, now Kozlov's Army chief-of-staff,

and ordered him to make all necessary arrangements. Having quickly achieved

his primary purpose, Settle made an effort to soften the atmosphere by offering a

small pleasantry. Kozlov did not respond. But as the meeting was breaking

up,and Settle and his party were leaving the room, Kozlov stopped Lieutenant

Scherbatoff to inquire whether, in view of the heavy demands of his new duties

as commandant, a dinner for the American admiral and ten officers of his

staff at the Soviet headquarters would be acceptable in lieu of a return call 49 aboard Settle's flagship. The commandant's proposal was readily accepted.

---· ------48 Kozlov's new command organization also included naval and political chiefs of staff (Settle interview, op. cit.). The naval chief of staff may have been Rear Admiral V. Tsipanovich, commander of the Port Arthur naval base (Liudnikov, "The Storming of the Great Khingan," op. cit., pp. 6-7). 49 According to Commodore Wood, the invitation was for luncheon, hosted the following day (DesRon 65 WarD, 10 and 11 September 1945); Settle and Scherbatoff are equally specific in the recollection of an all-evening affair. There may have been two separate parties-both obviously enjoyed by the American guests.

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The dinner, served in typical Russian banquet style, lasted from four p.m.

until midnight. It began very formally with toasts to the downfall of all fascists

andtothevictorious American Navy and Red Army. After a few hours, however,

the atmosphere softened considerably. The Russians' reserve slowly vanished 50 as more vodka was consumed. Perhaps more important was the cumulative

effect of the capability of most of the Americans present to speak Russian in

varying degrees of fluency. In any case, cordial relations were established at

the banquet, and Kozlov's staff performed efficiently and cooperatively during

the ensuing evacuation operation. The aircraft Louisville conducted training flights 51 on four occasions during this period without incident.

But, despite their cordialty and cooperation, the Soviet military officials

at Dairen were, throughout, extremely cautious-and even nervous-about 52 American intentions in the face of the overwhelming US naval presence. On

12 September, three Cruiser Division 6 cruisers with their screen of five

50 Admiral Settle's staff had been carefully briefed to eat plenty of food and limit their vodka consumption (Settle interview, op. cit.). 51 uss Louisville WarD, 11 and 12 September 1945. 52 Scherbatoff letter, op. cit.; Frankel interview, 9 May 1967.

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destroyers conducted a naval demonstration off Port Arthur and Dairen, ex-

changing signals with Admiral Settle's task group as they passed the entrance

to Dairen harbor. Settle's group had, by this time, grown to include a cruiser,

two destroyers, five destroyer escorts, in addition to a hospital ship, an at-

tack transport, and two high speed transports (APDs). Sensitive to the impli-

cations of a second show of naval force as the evacuation operation drew to a

close, Admiral Settle requested that the Cruiser Division 6 naval demonstra­ 53 tion scheduled for the 14th be diverted from ~he Dairen-Port Arthur area.

----. ------53 ComCruDiv 6 letter report, serial 0213, 20 September 1945, p. 1. In contrast with the gigantic US Seventh Fleet, the Soviet Pacific Fleet was pitifully small. It consisted of two Kirov class cruisers, one destroyer leader, ten destroyers, nineteen destroyer escorts, forty-nine submarine chasers, seventy-eight submarines, and two-hundred and four motor torpedo boats and assorted auxiliaries (Garthoff, "Soviet Operations in the War with Japan," August 1945, op. cit., p. 52).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER III

SUPPORT OF III AMPHIBIOUS FORCES LANDINGS, SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 1945

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Pre-landing Survey of Eighth Routh Army-occupied Chefoo

The strategic importance of Chefoo, as the gateway to southern Manchuria,

had been recognized by both Nationalist and American commanders in the early

stages of planning for the Beleager operation. Early in August, Generalissimo

Chiang Kai-shek urged that United States forces belanded at Chefoo and the port

city occupied because he considered Chefoo to be as strategically important as 1 Tsingtao. At a mid-September staff meeting at Admiral Nimitz's advanced

headquarters on Guam, General Rockey proposed that a regimental combat team

(RCT) of the 6th Marine Division be landed at Chefoo to disarm the Japanese and 2 occupy the strategic port. China Theatre representatives at the planning con-

ference relayed the Chefoo landing proposal to Chungking where it was approved 3 by Chiang and General Wedemeyer on the 16th.

During the second week of September, several shows of force, designed both

to impress the Japanese and to provide reconnaissance, were flown along the

1 Charles F. Romanus, Sr., "History of the China Theatre" (unpublished MS, Office of the Chief of Military History, Washington, D. C. ; Shanghai: ca. April 1946), p.117; cited hereafter as Romanus MS. 2 Henry I. Shaw, Jr., "U.S. Marine Corps in North China, 1945-1949" (unpublished MS in Historical Reference Section, G-2, Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps), p. V:2:24; cited hereafter as Shaw MS. 3 CGC message to CinCPOAAdvHQ, 16 September 1945, CinCPac WarD, encl. B, p. 4.

33 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34

northern coast of the Shantung peninsula. On one occasion, more than one hundred

aircraft from the carriers Antietam, Intrepid, and Cabot of Task Force 72 were

flown over Chefoo and Weihaiwei within the space of a few hours. Their pilots

reported that there was no sign of the Japanese in either port and that large 4 Chinese flags were waved from the streets. Two days later, three cruisers of

Cruiser Division 6 with a screen of five destroyers conducted a naval demonstra­ 5 tion off Chefoo and Weihaiwei. This performance was repeated on the 14th.

Having learned of the American plans to put Marines ashore at Chefoo 6 and Chinwangtao, General Yeh Chien-ying, Chief-of-Staff of the 18th Army

Group headquarters at Yenan, asked the senior officer of the U. S. Yenan

4 carrier Air Group 10, ACA-2, No. 110, 10 September 1945; Carrier Air Group 89, ACA-2, No. 16, 10 September 1945; Fighter Squadron 32, ACA-2, No. 16, 10 September 1945. 5 ComCruDiv 6 letter report, serial 0213, 20 September 1945, p.l. On the afternoon of the 12th, this CruDiv 6 force conducted a naval demonstration off Port Arthur and Dairen and exchanged signals with Admiral Settle's task group in passing. A second show of naval force off Port Arthur and Dairen, originally scheduled for the 14th, was cancelled on the advice of Admiral Settle, who was winding up the evacuation operation at Dairen, and was performed off Chefoo and Weihaiwei instead. 6 1n connection with the advance notice of American intentions in the case of the Chefoo and Chinwangtao landings, it is worth noting that a CCP agent, working as central government security chief in the Chinese Documents section

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35

Observer Group (YOG), Colonel Ivan D. Yeaton, to confirm his estimate of

American intentions. Simultaneously, the 18th Army Group commander, General

Chu Teh, asked Colonel Yeaton to inform China Theatre that Yenan could not under-

stand why the landings were to be made, since the areas involved were already

under Eighth Route Army control and had been cleared of Japanese troops; that

American landings made in these areas without prior consultation between

American authorities and 18th Army Group headquarters would be interpreted

by Yenan as American interference in Chinese internal politics; and that, in any

case, it was hoped that American landings at Chefoo, Weihaiwi, and Chinwangtao

would not take place. China Theatre in turn informed Chiang K'ai-shek that the

Americans would not comply with the Chinese Communist request, but that the 7 Generalissimo could take whatever action he considered appropriate. Chiang

replied with a statement that United States warships were welcome in all Chinese

ports, Tsingtao, Weihaiwei, Chefoo, Taku, and Chinwangtao being considered

the most important. Admiral Kinkaid accordingly directed his cruiser-destroyer

of General Wedemeyer's China Theatre headquarters, is known to have inter­ cepted classified memoranda from CT to the Generalissimo [General Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports: (Henry Holt and Co., 1958), p. 361]. 7 CT memo to GMO [Chiang K'ai-shek], No. 776-7, 28 September 1945, Dixie Mission Papers, part VIIT, p. 20.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36

task groups to visit or take station in the North China ports, if doing so would not 8 interfere with current requirements or planne.d operations.

Following his taking the surrender, on behalf of the Chinese central govern-

ment, of Vice Admiral Kaneko, IJN, and all Japanese controlled vessels at

Tsingtao on 16 September, Admiral Settle was ordered to proceed to Chefoo in the

USS Louisville to investigate local conditions in preparation for the 6th Marine

Division RCT landing. Settle's specific tasks at Chefoo were to station his task

group and establish himself as SOPA (Senior Officer Present Afloat), Chefoo; to

verify that no Japanese mines were laid in Chefoo harbor and its approaches; and

to locate and protect American property, records, and interests. He cautioned

his task group that "this is the first U.S. force to be stationed at [Chefoo] which 9 is still controlled by troops which were enemies a month ago. "

As his flagship closed Chefoo, Admiral Settle issued instructions to his

flag lieutenant. Lieutenant Scherbatoff was to go to the Japanese naval head-

quarters to inform the chief-of-staff that the USS Louisville and its accom-

panying destroyer had entered Chefoo harbor for an indefinite period on orders 10 from Admiral Kinkaid, "derived from General MacArthur. " Additional

8 ComSeventhFlt message to CTG 70.1, 29 September 1945. 9 CTG 71. 4 memorandum to TG 81. 1 and attached units, 28 September 1945, Settle Papers.

1011Instructions for Flag Lieutenant at Chefoo, 29th memorandum, Settle Papers.

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American naval forces could be expected to arrive from time to time, and,

though Admiral Settle and his staff would remain afloat for the time being, a

naval headquarters or other facilities might later be established ashore.

Scherbatoff was to respond to any initiative from the Japanese admiral at Chefoo

concerning surrender of his ships by indicating that Admiral Settle would be

receptive to forwarding such a proposal to Commander Seventh Fleet for ap­

proval. Following these preliminaries, the flag lieutenant was to obtain im­

mediately detailed information on defensive minefields, determine the status

of American nationals, property, and consular records, and arrange for the

use of Kentucky Island [K'ungt'ung Tao] or one of the other islands in Chefoo 11 harbor for use by recreation parties from the American ships.

If Chinese naval, political, or military authorities were present in Chefoo,

Scherbatoff was instructed to contact their secretaries and arrange for them

to come out by boat for an official call on Admiral Settle. The American ad­

miral was particularly hopeful that his flag lieutenant would be able to locate a

Swiss or Scandinavian consul in Chefoo who might be as helpful as the Swiss 12 consul in Dairen had been earlier in the month.

But when Lieutenant Scherbatoff reached the inner harbor in a Louisville

whaleboat, he found Chefoo to be under the firm control of communist officials

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38

who identified themselves as either members or representatives of the Chinese

Communist Eighth Route Army. The leading spokesman among the local au-

thorities was Mr. Yii Ku-ying, "Commissioner of Foreign Affairs for the

Kiaotung District of Shantung Province and Concurrently Acting Mayor of 13 Chefoo. " The senior Eighth Route Army officer present was Major General

Yi.i Te-shui, commandant of the Chefoo garrison forces. Their initial meeting

was cordial; later in the day, Commissioner Yu sent gifts of liquor and fresh 14 fruit to the flagship. With a full report from his aide on conditions ashore,

Admiral Settle informed Commander Seventh Fleet that Chefoo has been in

communist hands since late August and that the Japanese had fled inland after

evacuating t h e c1"t y. 15

Commissioner Yii made an official call on Admiral Settle on the morning

of 1 October. During their conversation, Settle again requested that the Eighth

Route Army defenses on K'ungt'ung Tao be removed so that recreation parties

from his task group could go ashore. Yi.i Ku-ying agreed, and also agreed to

assist Settle's staff in investigating the status of American properties ashore.

13 uss Louisville WarD, 29 September 1945; Yu letter to Settle, October 2,

1945, Settle Papers. 14 uss Louisville WarD, loc. cit. 15 ComSeventhFlt msg to CinCPac/POA Pearl, 30 September 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39

The clearing of the K'ungt'ung Tao defenses was deferred because of strong

onshore winds and seas until the evening of the following day, when Mayor Yii

asked the local military authorities to issue orders that a Chinese flag be 16 planted on the island when the job was completed. In the meanwhile, mem-

hers of the Eighth Route Army garrison headquarters assisted several naval

officers from the flagship in surveying the Chefoo beaches and their defenses 17 in preparation for the scheduled landing on the 6th Marine Division RCT.

In addition to American properties and landing beaches, the shore party ex-

amined several of Chefoo's historic defense installations, including the eastern

fort.. To the annoyance of the local communist officials, the Americans attempted to 18 enter the barracks of the Eighth Route Army garrison. Naval aircraft

16 Yu.. letter to Settle, Octob er 2, 1945, Sett1 e Papers. 17 Yeh Chien-ying, Chief-of-Staff, 18th Army Group HQ, Yenan letter to Colonel Ivan D. Yeaton, YOG, 6 October 1945, Dixie Mission Papers, part III, p. 14; Chung Hsi-tung, "Po-ch'u Mei-chiin-ti hua-pi" (UnmaskingtheAmericanmili­ tarists), in Chieh-fangchan-chenghui-i-lu (Reminiscenses of the Liberation War), (Peking: Chung-kuo ch'ing-nien ch'u-pan-she, 1961), p. 43. 18 Chung, loc. cit. During the tour of American properties, a curious in- cident occurred. Settle's chief-of-staff, Captain Frankel, recalls that while he and his party were inspecting the American-owned Chefoo Club, he heard a robust voice singing Russian folk songs accompanied by piano music. When he attempted to confront the Russian, he was prevented from doing so by his Chinese Com­ munist guides on the grounds that the singer was "diseased" (Frankel interview, April 7, 1967).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40

continued to survey Chefoo and surrounding areas, with the result that Eighth

Route Army officials also complained to Admiral Settle about the nearly con- 19 t muous. au . ac t'1v1 't y over the c1'ty .

On 4 October, Admiral Settle was directed by Commander Seventh Fleet

to inform the Chinese authorities at Chefoo that American Marines would soon

land to occupy the port city; they would later be informed of the exact date.

Settle passed this information in separate letters to Commissioner Yu and to

the Eighth Route Army Commanding General. Identical requests were sent to

both officials: that mines and beach defenses prepared by the Eighth Route

Army which might endanger or interfere with the landing force be removed;

that Eighth Route Army forces cooperate by making an adequate withdrawal

prior to the landing "in order to avoid the possibility of friction;" and that

arrangements be made for the orderly turn over of the city to occupying units 20 of the Third Marine Amphibious Corps.

The response of Chefoo's mayor was relatively mild. Yu reported to

Settle on October 6th that he had not yet received instructions from his

19 Chung, op. cit. pp. 43-44. 20 .. Settle letters to Yu Ku-ying and ~~commanding General, Eighth Route Army, Shan Tung, China," 4 October 1945, Settle Papers. It is not clear why Settle's second letter was not addressed to the Chefoo garrison commander, Major General Yti." Te-shui, or at least sent via Yii Te-shui rather than Yu Ku-ying.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41

superiors regarding the request for withdrawal of Eighth Route Army units

and the Chefoo municipal apparatus. He expressed the hope that in the mean-

while Admiral Kinkaid might be moved to change his plans. Yii complained of

a certain degree of personal concern, and added that worry and displeasure

was rather widespread among the local population and armed forces. He

anxiously solicited the immediate forwarding of any indication from Admiral

Kinkaid that the landing would not take place, as well as any personal views 21 which Settle might care to give on the matter. Yii also sent copies of com-

munist press releases concerning Kuomintang (KMT) plans to reorganize the

Japanese armies in North China as a volunteer corps for use in anti-people

and anti-communist wars and a Reuters dispatch on the outbreak of fighting 22 between KMT armies and Yunnan troops at the outskirts of Kunming,

The response from Yenan, however, was somewhat stronger; General Chu

Teh transmitted a second protest to China Theater on 6 October. He restated

his previous protest concerning the planned landing at Chefoo and reviewed

a series of telegraph reports received at 18th Army Group headquarters from

21 .. "Unofficial" letter Yu to Settle, October 6, 1945, Settle Papers. 22 Hsin-hua [New China] News Agency releases, Yenan, 4 and 5 October 1945.

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the Yent'ai [Chefoo) garrison headquarters on the activities of Settle's staff

during the pre-landing survey of Chefoo, including the three-point request

from Admiral Kinkaid for Eighth Route Army withdrawal. Chu stated that he

failed to comprehend the justification for such a landing since communist forces

had recovered the city on 24 August and had completely disarmed local Japanese

and puppet troops. Normal order had already been restored; therefore, there

was ''absolutely no necessity' for U. S. forces to land there. An American

landing at Chefoo without prior agreement of 18th Army Group headquarters

would be viewed as interference in Chinese internal affairs, and American

authorities would have to take full responsibility for any 'serious incidents:'

that might arise should a ''forcible landing" be made by the Marines without . 23 such an agreement havmg been met.

23 Yeh Chien-ying letter to Yeaton, Yenan, 6 October 1945, Dixie Mission Papers, part III, p. 14.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Worton-Chou En-lai Meeting, Tientsin, 25 September 1945.

Peking and Nanking have been the traditional prizes in the military

history of modern China. There is strong evidence that, in September 1945,

the Chinese Communists were thwarted in their plans to take Peking before

the Ninety-second and Ninety-fourth Chinese Nationalist Armies could be

airlifted in from the South. When, in the week prior to the landing of the

1st Marine Division in the Tientsin-Taku area, it became obvious that 1 Peking had been added as a ill Amphibious Corps objective, the Chinese

Communists made a dramatic diplomatic move in an attempt to save Peking

for themselves.

The chief-of-staff and senior member of the III Amphibious Corps

advanced party, Brigadier General William A. Worton, personally investi-

gated conditions in Peking before returning to his advanced headquarters at

Tientsin. There he received word that "the people opposed to Chiang Kai-

2 shek wished to talk to him~' Chinese Nationalist authorities were informed

1 Peking was not specifically called-out as a III Amphibious Corps ob­ jective, but General Rockey was authorized by China Theater to "occupy such intermediate and adjacent areas as he deems necessary.•. for the security of his own forces" (ComGenChina message to ComSeventhFlt, 25 September 1945) in CinCPacFlt WarD, p. B-13). 2 Henry I. S haw, Jr., "U.S. Marme. Corps m . Nort h Ch" ma, 1 9 4 5- 1 9 4 9,"

43

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of this development, and a meeting was arranged that night. The senior com-

munist representative who arrived for the meeting was the Chinese Communist

Party's star diplomat, Chou En-lai. He informed General Worton that the

Communists would fight to prevent the Marines from moving into Peking.

The III Amphibious Corps chief-of-staff replied that the Marines would indeed

occupy Peking in accordance with their orders from China Theater; he even out-

lined his plan of movement in order to emphasize the point. Worton further

informed the communist emissary that the Marine landing force was "combat

experienced and ready, that it would have overwhelming aerial [Seventh Fleet] sup-

port, and that it was quite capable of driving straight through any force that the 3 Communists mustered in its path. "

A heated exchange ensued which lasted for more than an hour. Chou's

parting shot was that he would use his influence in Chungking to have the

Marines' operational orders changed. The orders were not changed; ten days

later, three US Marines were wotmded in a clash with Chinese Communist

unpublished manuscript, US Marine Corps, HistoricaL Branch, n. d., (projected Vol. V to USMC Operations in World War II, scheduled for publi­ cation in 1969), p. V:2:32. 3 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45

elements as they moved up the road from Tientsin toward Peking in the first 4 of a series of minor incidents involving the Marines and CCP military forces.

According to General Worton, Colonel Brown, second in command of

Worton's advance party, notified the local chief of Tai Li's Chinese National-

ist secret police organization of the planned meeting. One of Tai Li's agents

was substituted for General Worton's "number one boy." Tai Li wanted an

opportunity toassassinate Chou En-lai, but G€neral Worton, having agreed

to meet with Chou, would not allow Chou to be disturbed while on the premises 5 of Worton's advanced quarters. It is not clear how Chou managed to escape.

4 Ibid. 5 Transcript of interview with Major General William A. Worton, USMC (Ret. ) , US Marine Corps, Historical Branch, 10 February 1959, pp. 6-7. Worton had met Chou En-lai many years earlier in Peking while playing basketball against a team of Chinese students (fuid., p. 7). This episode is not mentioned in Kai-yu HsU, Chou En-lai, China's Gray Eminence (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1968).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Conference at Chefoo, 7 - 9 October 1945.

While Admiral Settle was conducting the pre-landing survey of Chefoo,

III Amphibious Corps units were consolidating their occupation of the key

northern Hopeh region, which included the cities of Peking and Tientsin, and

the important Kailan coal mines to the north. A battalion of the 7th Marines

had landed at Chinwangtao, one hundred and thirty miles north of Taku, on

1 October. They found themselves in the midst of a tense situation between

Japanese and puppet troops manning a perimeter defense and opposing regular

Eighth Route Army and attached guerrilla forces. Under the heavy cover of

Task Force 72 aircraft on 3 and 4 October, the Marine Battalion Landing Team

(BLT) commander at Chinwangtao was able to pull the Japanese and puppet

troops off the perimeter defense; take formal surrender of the Japanese gar­

risons at Chinwangtao, and the resort town of Peitaho ten miles to the south; 1 and entrain most of the disarmed Japanese troops and civilians for Tangshan.

1 Henry I. Shaw, Jr. , 11 US Marine Corps in North China, 1945-1949;' MS, unpublished manuscript, US Marine Corps, Historical Branch, n. d., (projected Vol. V to USMC Operations in World War TI; scheduled for publication in 1969), p. V:2 :26, cited hereafter as Shaw MS. Commander Seventh Fleet War Diary, 3 and 4 October 1945; and Commander Cruiser Division Six Letter Report, 8 October 1945.

46

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A communist delegate from the Ei1.rhth Route Army units investing Chin-

wangtao sent a delegate to welcome the Marines, but he was recognized by

local puppet troops and promptly shot. The ensuing skirmish lasted for two

days until the Marines were able to restore order. Welcoming letters ar-

rived from communist units stationed ten miles to the north at the Manchurian 2 border town of Shanhaikuan, where the Great Wall meets the sea.

Lieutenant General Uchida Ginnosuke 's northern Hopeh force of 53, 000 3 men surrendered to General Rockey at Tientsin on 6 October. Major Gen-

eral George E. Stratemeyer flew up from Chungking to attend the surrender

ceremony in the place. of General Wedemeyer, who was absent in Washington.

On the same day, as the 5th Marines moved from Tientsin to Peking to cover

the arrival of the Ninety-second Chinese Nationalist Army (CNA) by lOth Air

Force C-46 airlift from Chihkiang, the first incident involving direct conflict

2 A small detachment of Russians had occupied Shanhaikuan from the end of August till the end of September, when they departed with about 100 Japanese prisoners. The Russians continued occasional patrols into Shanhaikuan during the month following the Marine landing at Chinwangtao.

For a detailed account, ~ee III Amphibious Corps (IliAC) Headquarters, Intelli­ gence Memo No. 4, 22 October 1945 . 3 The 118th Division, the 9th Independent Mixed Brigade, and the North China Special Guard Unit (Charles F. Romanus, "History of the China Theater," chaps. 14-18, unpublished manuscript, Office of the Chief of Military History,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48

between Chinese Communists and American Marines occurred. The Marine

reconnaissance parties which reached Peking on the 5th had encountered con-

siderable delay from a series of roadblocks. The following day, as the first

elements of the Ninety-second CNA arrived at Nanyuan airfield, an engineer

group started out along the Peking-Tientsin road to destroy the roadblocks,

but became involved in a firefight with a group of communist troops twenty-two

miles northwest of Tientsin. Three Marines were wounded. It appeared that

Chou En-lai's threat to General Worton was about to be carried out. The fol-

lowing day a rifle company, supported by a platoon of tanks and air cover from

task Force 72 aircraft, and backed-up the engineers, moved out along the same

route. The roadblocks were removed, allowing the 6th Marines convoy to reach 4 Peking on the evening o{ 7 October. A week later, a communist officer, identi-

fied as "General Ho Tai-Ho, Chief of Staff, Communist 18th Army Group [sic],"

called at General Rockey's III Amphibious Corps headquarters to apologize for 5 the 6 October roadblock incident.

The final North China landings on the III Amphibious Corps schedule were

a regimental combat team at Chefoo and the bulk of the 6th Marine Division

Department of the Army; cited hereafter as Romanus MS. 4 Shaw, op. cit. , p. V :2:58. 5 com7thFlt Daily Summary, 12 October 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49

at Tsingtao. Both were scheduled for 10 October. But in view of Admiral Settle 1s

earlier reports to Commander Seventh Fleet on the situation at Chefoo, Ad-

mira! Barbey, Commander 7th Amphibious Force, and General Rockey were

ordered to proceed to Chefoo in Barbey's command ship, Catoctin, to dis-

cuss the projected landing with Admiral Settle. Barbey and Rockey left Tientsin

immediately after the 6 October surrender ceremony. With a view toward

impressing the Chinese Communists at Chefoo "with our strength and sin-

cerity," Barbey asked Admiral Jerauld c. Wright to accompany him with 6 his Cruiser Division 6 force of four cruisers and six destroyers. Under-

water demolition teams and minesweepers were directed to clear the beaches 7 and beach approaches at Chefoo and Tsingtao on the 9th. But prior to their

departure for Chefoo, Admiral Barbey and General Rockey conferred on board

Barbey's command ship Catoctin anchored off Taku Bar. With Admiral Settle's

reports of Eighth Route Army occupation and control of Chefoo at hand, and

after a discussion with Barbey, Rockey recommended to China Theatre head-

quarters that the 29th Marine regimental combat team not be landed at the

communist-held port at this time. Rockey reported that there were no Japan-

ese troops there to disarm, and no American POWs or civilian internees, and

6 ComCruDiv 6 Letter Report, op. cit. 7 Com7thPhibFor WarD, 6 October 1945.

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that the Chinese Communist forces at Chefoo would "resist the introduction of 8 Nationalist troops or officials. " China Theater took no immediate action on

this recommendation. Rockey and Barbey, whose orders to land the 29th

Marines regimental combat team were still in effect, were directed by Com-

mander Seventh Fleet to proceed to Chefoo to investigate the situation obtaining 9 there.

Within minutes of Catoctin's anchoring in Chefoo harbor at mid-morning

on 7 October, Admiral Settle came on board to report. An hour later, Mayor

YiiKu-ying arrived for a conference with the American commanders. In mid-

afternoon, the conference was shifted ashore to Mayor Yu's yamen, where it

continued for three hours. The afternoon meeting was also attended by the

local political commisar, General Chung Hsi-tung, and Yii Te-shui, the Chefoo 1 garnson· command er. O Dur1ng . the1r . VISI . . t as h ore, the A meriCan. o ff"ICers .10un"" d

Chefoo to be almost lifeless, though heavily patrolled by Chinese Communist

8 nockey letter to Vandegrift (Commandant of the US Marine Corps), 13 October 1945, Historical Branch, HQMC. Rockey's recommendation was made to China Theater headquarters be­ cause operational control of his IliAC passed from Commander Seventh Fleet to Commanding General, China Theater, upon the IliAC's becoming established ashore. 9 Ibid. 10 uss Catoctin WarD, 7 October 1945.

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troops. In contrast to Tsingtao and Chinwangtao, the local population appeared . 11 to be "apathetic and fearful. "

General Rockey and Admiral Barbey were not aware of the Chu Teh pro-

test of 6 October during their negotiations at Chefoo on the 7th. The protest

was broadcast that day by the New China News Agency. The 6 October protest

was probably immediately transmitted by Colonel Yeaton to Chungking; in any

case, the 7 October broadcast would have been monitored there. But the point

is that there is no record of its existence being known to the American negotia-

tors in Chefoo until it was brought to their attention by their Chinese Communist 12 adversaries. During the second day of conferences at Chefoo, the full text

of the Chu Teh protest was distributed in an obvious attempt to influence the

outcome of the negotiations. A "special extra" handbill edition of the local

11 cinCpacFlt WarD, 8 October 1945. For a vivid accnJmt of conditions in Chefoo and several conversations with missionaries and other European residents which took place during the Chefoo negotiations, see George Moorad, Lost Peace in China (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc. 1949), pp. 79-80. 12 1 use the term "adversary" in the context of Kenneth T. Young's per­ ceptive analysis of Chinese Communist diplomatic style found in the chapter entitled "Adversary Negotiating with Peking," Negotiating with the Chinese Communists, The United StatesExperieuce, 1953-1967 (New York: McGraw­ Hill Book Company, 1968), pp. 371-390, passim.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52

newspaper, restricted entirely to the previous day's Yenan broadcast on the 13 subject, was delivered to members of the American negotiating team.

Despite its polemical style- and its obvious errors, particularly as to

dates-the Chung Hsi-tung narrative of the conferences at Chefoo is generally 14 correct in its broad outline. Furthermore, it provides interesting details

13 Yent'ai jih-pao, 8 October 1945, original and full translation in Settle Papers. Curiously, the handbill edition circulated at Chefoo on 8 October is dated with the year given in Western style, as 1945, rather than the more common contemporary practice of elating the year from the founding of the Chinese Republic in 1912. 14 chung Hsi-tung, "Po-ch'u Mei-chiin-ti hua-pi" (Unmasking the American militarists), in Chieh-fang chan-cheng hui-i-lu (Reminiscences of the Libera­ tion War), compiled by the editors of Hung-ch'i p'iao-p'iao (Red Flag Flying), [Peking: Chung-kuo ch'ing-nien ch'u-pan she, 1961], pp. 43-45, an independent translation of which was used in preparation of this paper. Identical versions have been published as "Po-ch'u Mei-chi.in-ti hua-pi" in Jen-min jih-pao (Peking), 10 October 1960, and as "Meng-chi.in tsai Yen-t'ai (The 'Allied Army' in Yent'ai) in Chieh-fang chiin wen-i (Liberation Army Litera­ ture and Art) [Peking}, No. 7 (July), 1957, pp. 62-68. An abridged English version, Major-General Chung Hsi-tung, "Unmasking the U.S. Invaders," was published in China Reconstructs, January 1964, pp. 36-40. I am grateful to Rear Admiral Kemp Tolley, USN (Ret.), for bringing the latter version to my attention. The chronology of the Chung Hsi-tung narrative is compressed in that it

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which, if correct, serves to fill out the picture of what actually transpired

during the Chefoo negotiations. Chung's account confirms the impression of

contemporary American records that Yu Ku-ying was the principal contact

between the Chinese Communists at Chefoo and the visiting US naval comman-

ders. Chung Hsi-tung stayed in the background; his role however, was cen-

tral. He was lmown to the American negotiators as political commissar of 15 the Chefoo military headquarters or garrison. He served also as secre-

tary of a joint action committee of local Chinese Communist Party, govern- 16 ment , an d m1'l'ta 1 ry orgamza. t' wns. Bu t the conf erence sesswns. as h ore were

held in YuKu-ying's yamen, the office of the Foreign Affairs Bureau, not in 17 Chung Hsi-tung's office (if he had one). This, despite the fact that, by his 18 account, Chung was the senior official of the two. Yu Te-shui is unnamed

describes events alleged to have taken place on 6 and 7 October. Each day begins with dramatic occurances at dawn. Actually, the pace was relatively leisurely; the Catoctin arrived at mid-morning on 7 October and departed late in the morning of the 9th. 15 Commander 7th Amphibious Force War Diary, 1 June - 30 November 1945, 7 October 1945 entry. 16 Chung, Hsi-tung, p. 44. 17 fuid. 18 Their subsequent careers tends to confirm this fact. By 1959, Chung Hsi-tung had risen to serve as the People's Republic of China ambassador to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, while Yii Ku-ying was serving in a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54

in the Chung Hsi-tung narrative; his role is also described as secondary­ 19 though by no means trivial.

The Chinese side in the negotiations was hypersensitive to the implications

of American occupation of Chefoo as a threat to their control of the northern

coast of the Shantung peninsula and the consequent loss of sea communications

between Eighth Route Army forces in eastern Shantung and the Northeast

Provinces (Manchuria):

They [the Americans] intended to seize Chefoo and establish bases between Chefoo and Weihaiwei so as to control the coastline at the neck of the Gulf of Chihli in

relatively minor post as vice chairman of the Port Arthur-Dairen People's Municipal Government (US Department of State, Biographical Reference Aid, Directory of Chinese Communist Officials, BA-63-7, May 1963). Chung Hsi­ tung currently serves as People's Republic of China ambassador to the Republic of Tanzania. 19 Both Chung Hsi-ttmg and Yi.i Te-shui were represented to their Ameri­ can counter-parts as Major Generals. As is well known, military ranks were not utilized by the Chinese Communist military until 1955 (and were abolished on the eve of the Cultural Revolution in 1965). Chtmg was, however, fre­ quently identified as a Major General during the period 1955-1965. Yii Te­ shui, on the other hand, probably never rose above the rank of Senior Colonel. In 1958 he served at that rank in the Nanking Military Region (Chieh-fang chi.in pao [Peking], 12 August 1958).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55

an attempt to cut off sea communications between 20 Shantung and the Northeast. Once we abandoned Chefoo, we would have a dif­ ficult time holding the ports at P'englai, Fushan, and Weihaiwei. Our problems would then become more critical, especially our sea communications with the Northeast provinces. The direct aim of the American forces to cut off these lines of communication. The resulting situation could be even more disadvantageous 21 to us [than the mere loss of Chefoo].

During the course of the Chefoo encounter, Chung Hsi-tung was in direct

telegraphic communication with the Chiaotung Military District headquarters 22 and the Chiaotung District Party Committee. Chung reported the results

of Yii Ku-ying's first meeting with Barbey, Settle, and Rockey on board the

Catoctin to the military district headquarters as soon as Yu returned from

20 1b"d_1_.' p. 45 . 21 Ibid.' p. 49. 22 The Chiaottmg Military District Headquarters was probably located at Laiyang, mid-way between Chefoo and Tsingtao (Com7thPhibFor message to Com7thFlt 13 September 1945). The Shantung Military Region Headquarters was at Linyi (Lini) about one hundred and twenty miles southwest of Tsingtao. The major Chinese Communist military unit operating in the Chiaotung Military District in October 1945 was The 5th Independent Brigade, commanded by Wu K'o-hua and P'eng Chia-ching, political commissar (H. F. Chan, com­ piler, "The Evolution of the Fourth Field Army" [unpublished map with

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the ship. He claims to have had district party committee and military district

directives on hand by the end of the first day. If Chung's staff was not in di-

rect communication with Yenan, it was at least able to monitor Yenan radio,

and must have done so in order to produce the Chu Teh protest distributed on 23 8 October.

Chung Hsi-tung's main outline of the negotiations is entirely credible.

The American principals-Hockey, Barbey, and Settle-are properly identi-

fied. YiiKu-ying returned from Barbey's flagship with the news that the

Americans intended to land US Marine units for the purpose of either outright

takeover of the city, displacing Eighth Route Army forces, or to enter into a .. joint occupation of the port. At the second meeting, in Yu's Foreign Affairs

yamen, the American's wished to discuss with Chinese military officials the

time and place of landing, billeting for American units ashore, and the assign-

ment of responsibility for defense sectors. Admiral Barbey is alleged to have

suggested that a joint landing plan be drafted by representatives from the Chinese

and American military staffs, then submitted to senior officials on both sides

supporting chronological organization charts and notes, xerox, Hong Kong, Jtme 19G9]) 23Ib.d_I_., pp. 45, 49. Chung also claims that "several brief telegrams from the Central Commit­ tee [of the CCP] in regard to our attitude toward the American forces" were re­ ceived at the end of the first day of negotiations (p. 49).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57

for approval. Rockey is quoted as stating that the objective of the Marine

landing was to disarm the Japanese in the area; Chung rosponded by pointing

out that the Japanese had been driven out of Chefoo more than a month earlier.

There was mention of clearing mines from the approaches to the landing

beaches. The American side explicitly asked if the Chinese would accept a

joint military occupation. The Chinese were requested to withdraw Eighth

Route Army units, but the police and municipal government apparatus could

remain. But the discussions were inconclusive. It was agreed that both sides 24 would consult their respective superiors before conducting further negotiations.

A particularly noteworthy feature of the Chung Hsi-tung account is the im-

plication that the Chinese Communists at Chefoo were well informed on the

policy restraints which limited American courses of action:

What would be the result of our [refusing to allow the Americans to land] ? It was possible that the Americans might abandon their landing attempt in the face of our justified con­ demnation. Our assessment of the general international situ­ ation at the time led us to conclude that this could happen. We estimated that the Americans were reluctant to readily expose themselves as aggressors. They would probably hesitate to exchange their banners of 'alliance' and friendship merely for

24 _.liJ_lTh"d -· ' pp. 44 - 48 •

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the sake of Chefoo. Therefore, our 'hard' position 25 might induce them to soften their attitude.

As Admiral Barbey's aide and flag lieutenant recalls: "Chung Hsi-tung had

extraordinary intelligence resources; he damned near read our instructions 26 to us."

The outcome of the discussions at Chefoo, as recorded by Admiral Barbey's 27 staff, was that:

Communist officials indicated that they would not op­ pose the landing of United State.s troops, but were determined to prevent the influx of any Chinese Na­ tionalists. They specified the following conditions to assure an unopposed landing: 1) Advance information be given regarding the landing. 2) No Kuomintang officials or troops be present [during the landing]. 3) No interference with the existing [Chefoo municipal] civil or police administration.

25 Chung Hsi-tung, pp. 49-50. 26 Maillard interview, 23 April 1969. 27 US Navy, Commander Seventh Amphibious Force (Vice Admiral Daniel E. Barbey, USN), Report of Operations in Korea and North China, 15 August- 19 November 1945, 22 December 1945, Enclosure A, Movement of Occupation Forces to Korea and North China (CAMPUS-BELEAGER), pp. 6-7; cited

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But it is not clear whether Barbey's report was considered by Admiral Kinkaid,

General Stratemeyer, (acting as Commanding General, China Theater), or

Stratemeyer's China Theater headquarters in Chungking. Vice Admiral Barbey,

as Commander 7th Amphibious Force, and Admiral Kinkaid, as Commander

Seventh Fleet were, in their turn, the responsible officers on whose recom-

mendation China Theater should have made the final decision whether the landing

at Chefoo would be carried out. Available records indicate, however, that China

Theater responded to the III Amphibious Corps (General Rockey) commander's

report and recommendations. Furthermore, China Theater appears to have acted

on the report and recommendations sent to China headquarters on 6 October-a day

prior to Barbey and Rockey's arrival at Chefoo.

The records show that on 8 October China Theater headquarters dispatched

a memorandum to Chiang K'ai-shek giving him General Rockey's recommenda- 28 tions on October 6th: The following has just been received [8 October ?] from the Commanding General, 3rd Marine Amphibious Corps: (a) The 8th Route Communist Army is in Chefoo. (b) There are no Japanese troops in Chefoo. (c) There are no United Nations prisoners of war or American civilian internees in that city.

hereafter as Barbey Report; emphasis added. 28 china Theater Headquarters Memo to GMO[Generalissimo], 8 October

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Under these circumstances there seems to be no apparent reason for the entry of American troops in Chefoo. It is believed that the presence of Chinese Central Government officials with United States Forces will surely involve our forces. The Commanding General, 3rd Marine Amphibious Corps recommends that: (a) We do not land at Chefoo at this time. (b) If required to land, that no Chinese Central Government officials accompany us or are permitted to enter the area until the situation clarifies itself. In the light of the above, your desires with regard to the landingsChefoo are requested.

General Rockey's headquarters was informed within a matter of hours that 29 the Generalissimo had accepted his recommendations.

So the Chefoo landing of the regimental combat team was cancelled. The

29th Marines were diverted to Tsingtao on 10 October-on the orders of Com- 30 mander Seventh Fleet.

1945, No. 807-7, Dixie Mission"Papers, Part VITI/20; emphasis added. Compare with Rockey letter to Vandegrift, 13 October 1945, op. cit. 29 China Theater message to ComGen ITIAC, 8 October 1945. 30 Com7thFlt message to Commander Task Force 78 (Barbey), 10 October 1945, paraphrased in CinCPacFlt War Diary, 10 October 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61

The Chefoo episode took place, it will be recalled, during General

Wedemeyer's absence in Washington. The sequence of events surrounding

the Chefoo decision invites speculation on alternative outcomes had Wedemeyer

been in closer touch with the Generalissimo in Chungking-or with his naval com-

manders: Kinkaid, Hockey, and Barbey.

There is also the important possibility that the effect of Wedemeyer's

absence in Washington, compounded by his deputy's absence in Tientsin, was

further exacerbated by preparations for the movement of China Theater head­ 31 quarters from Chungking to Shanghai on 14 October. The move began soon

after 2 October; it was originally scheduled to be completed by the 15th. A

large liaison group remained in Chungking during the transitional period, but,

considering the importance of the tasks at hand in North China, it would seem

essential for the China Theater deputy commander to remain in direct contact 32 with the Generalissimo's headquarters. The removal of the China Theater

headquarters to Shanghai was decided upon "against the advice of many persons,

but it was felt that the army's job in many respects could be done better [in

31 com7thFlt message to CinCPac/CinCPOA HQ (Pearl Harbor), 12 Octo­ ber 1945. 32 Like his predecessor Genera] Stilwell, Wedemeyer also acted as Chief­ of-Staff of Chiang Kai-shek 's armies.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62

33 Shanghai] than in remote Chungking. n But the "army's job" in China at the

time had already been reduced almost entirely to logistic support of the draw-

down of US Army Forces China and the dismembermant of the China Theater

command structure, itself.

Despite China Theater headquarters bland report of Chiang Kai-shek's

acceptace of the Chefoo decision, the Chinese Central government was ob-

viously preoccupied with the loss of Chefoo. On 17 June 1946, during the

second truce period negotiations, Chiang K'ai-shek demanded that Chinese Com-

munist forces evacuate Chefoo and Weihaiwei so that the port cities could be 34 taken over by the Chinese Nationalists. The Chinese Communists, of course,

refused. Two days later Chefoo and Weihaiwei were shelled in an action that

maked the first active participation in the civil way by units of the Chinese Nation-

alist Navy. A group of Nationalist LSTs, previously handed over by the US Navy,

and an ex-Japanese gunboat sortied from the American supported Chinese naval

33 The Charge in China (Robertson) to the Secretary of State, Chungking, 2 October 1945, FRUS, 1945, China, pp. 573-574. 34 US Department of State, US Relations with China, with special reference to the period 1944-1949 (Washington, D. C., Aug. 1949), cited hereafter as US Relations with China.

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35 training center at Tsingtao for the raid on Chefoo and Weihaiwei. The

results of the attack were probably considerably less effective than claimed

by Nationalist Navy spokesmen at the time.

35 History of Peiping Executive Headquarters, 1946 (microfilm), Second Quarter 1946, entry for 19 June 1946, p. 102.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Washington Reaction to the Chefoo Decision.

Slightly more than a week prior to the convening of the conferences at

Chefoo, John C. Vincent, the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs

of the US Department of State, recommended that the plan to occupy Chefoo

"should be abandoned in favor of occupation by Chinese [Nationalist] troops. 111

In a memorandum to the then Under Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, dated

27 September, Vincent recalled his earlier memorandum on the subject, and

the substance of briefings by military staff officers on 25 September covering

the situation in North China. Vincent reminded Acheson that the briefing

officers had described plans for the landing of Marines to occupy the Tientsin­

Peking area, Tsingtao, and Chefoo. The State Department officials had also

been briefed on reports of the massing of Chinese Communist military forces

near Tsingtao and similar concentrations in the Tientsin-Peking area. "if I

were sure," Vincent memorialized, "that these dispositions of American

Marines were in fact tmder way I would suggest a memorandum to the

1 Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Vincent) to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson), subject: Occupation of Chinese Cities by American Troops, [Washington], 27 September 1945, FRUS 1945, China, pp. 570-571.

64

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President. 112 He suggested, as alternatives, that the matter be brought

"orally and informally to the attention of the President" or the Assistant

Secretary of War, John J. McCloy. Vincent felt that the president should

be prepared to discuss the situation with General Wedemeyer when the latter

called on Mr. Truman. Unless there were "over-riding military reasons

for carrying out these dispositions of American Marines, " Vincent argued, 3 the plan should be abandoned. 4 In his reply to Vincent, Under Secretary Acheson stated that he had

twice discussed the problem with the Assistant Secretary of War. McCloy's

first reaction to Acheson's inquiry was that the occupation plan about which

Vincent was concerned was the residue of an earlier plan for the occupation

of several ports by American troops. McCloy thought that he could arrange

for the plan to be dropped. After a conversation with General Wedemeyer,

2 . Ibid.' p. 570. ···Such dispositions of American Marines were, of course, "in fact under­ way"; the reasons for Vincent's implied lack of confidence in the briefing of­ ficers is unclear. 3 Ibid. ' p. 571. 4 Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Acheson) to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Vincent), subject as in note 1, above, [Washington,] 28 September 1945, FRUS, 1945, China, p. 571.

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however, McCloy changed his mind. Based on the need to repatriate four

million Japanese, half of whom Wedemeyer said were armed, the visiting 5 commander of China Theater stated his position:

It was most essential that the ports [including Chefoo] should be strongly held and that the evacuation [of Japanese repatriates] should take place in an orderly way •.•• the ports in question were those in the neighborhood of which trouble was most likely to start between the [central] Government troops and the others and that therefore the presence of American troops would strengthen the position of the National Government, help to prevent any disorders from starting, and was desired by the Generalissimo.

Even earlier, Vincent had recommended that, if "they [the US Army] do

envisage occupation of Chinese cities other than Shanghai by American troops 6 to 'maintain order,' that the matter be placed before the President. " Vin-

cent was alarmed by General Wedemeyer's public statement, as reported in 7 The New York Times, that plans were under consideration for the use of

5 Ibid.; emphasis added. Acheson's memorandum contains the final, cryptic sentence: "McCloy had asked General Wedemeyer to get in touch with you [Vincent]." It is doubt­ ful that Wedemeyer and Vincent discussed the matter further. 6 Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Vincent) to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson), [Washington,] 20 September 1945, FRUS, 1945, China, pp. 566-567. 7 New York Times, 14 and 16 September 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. American troops to occupy several Chinese coastal cities, Peking, and sections

of Manchuria. The aim of these moves would be to assist the Central Govern-

ment in reestablishing their authority in major cities and ports. Though he

was aware of plans for American 'service troops' to enter Shanghai, Vincent

was uanble to secure authoritative information about other planned troop move-

ments. Vincent predicted that trouble could occur if "non-National Government

forces (Communist or otherwise) "attempted to control the cities occupied by

American troops. Vincent speculated on the dilemma posed by the choices open to

occupying American troops in "choosing between (1) using force to prevent

occupation of a city by non-National Government troops (probably Communist)

or (2) turning [a city] over to non-National Government troops (probably Com­ 8 munist). " But Vincent failed to anticipate the category of dilemma that faced

Barbey and Rockey at Chefoo: the establishement of US military occupation

of a Chinese city already held in force by "non-National Government troops

(Communist)."

On 11 October, the same date that the 29th Marines would have landed 9 at Chefoo, Congressman Michael J. Mansfield described the presence of

8 vincent memo to Acheson, 20 September 1945, op. cit. , p. 567. 9 The originally scheduled date of 10 October could not be met because of severe typhoon sea conditions en route.

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five of Admiral Wright's cruisers at Chefoo as an exercise in gunboat diplo­ 10 macy. In a speech in the House of Representatives, Mansfield charged that:

The landing of the First and Sixth Mari.B.e Divisions and the dispatch of the cruisers to Chefoo constitute an unwar­ rented interference in the affairs of China and, while these moves undoubtedly have the approval of Chiang Kai-shek, I feel that we are making a serious mistake in furthering this gunboat policy.

Mansfield further observed that:

• . • the landing of the veteran First Marine Division at Taku••• the landing of elements of the Sixth Marine Division at Tsingtao on [sic] yesterday, and the sending of five cruisers to Chefoo. . . . have created a poten­ tially dangerous situation for us because, first, it might cause the Russian forces in Manchuria to refuse to with­ draw in the 3-month period agreed to with China and, second, in case of local civil war between Kuomintang and Communist groups in that area we might be unable to maintain a hands-off policy. It must be remembered that Shantung and Hopeh Provinces are in reality next door to Russian-occupied Manchuria, and also that these

10 us Congress, The Congressional Record, vol. 91, part 7 (79th Congress, 1st Session, September 11, 1945 -October 18, 1945), pp. 9629-9630.

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two provinces contain sizeable Communist elements which might decide to maintain their separate status [from the 11 Central Government]. • •

Congressman Mansfield's remarks were rather faithfully recorded in

a Russian correspondent's despatch datelined New York, October 11, and

featured on the foreign news page of the 16 October issue of Izvestiva. A

full translation was, in turn, promptly transmitted to Washington without 12 comment by Ambassador Harriman in Moscow.

11 Ib"d_I_., p. 9630. 12 The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) telegram to the Secretary of State, Moscow, 17 October 1945, FRUS, 1945, China, pp. 581-582.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Chefoo Decision in Popular Literature.

A body of mythology surrounding the Chefoo incident began to develop

when, inearly October 1947, two vice consuls from the Tsingtao consulate

visited Chefoo in the company of UNRRA officials and missionary repre­

sentatives. Vice Consul Service's version of the decision at Chefoo was

based upon interviews with the custodian of the British consulate (a Chinese)

and "a reliable foreign resident who was promised anonymity. "l Ac­

cording to these sources, Admiral Settle announced a change in Ameri­

can plans-to the effect that the Americans would not land at Chefoo-only

after Chinese communist forces had withdrawn from the city, leaving "a

few token troops in the waterfront area." The military evacuation took

place at night, it was reported, while the Chinese Communist civil authori­

ties assembled their professional belongings in preparation for a quick de­

parture. Both of Service's sources claimed that the communist officials had

1 The American Consul General at Tsingtao (C. J. Spiker) letter to the Secretary of State, subject: Notes on Reported Circumstances of US Navy Decision at Chefoo in 1945, 30 October 1947, Settle Papers. Spiker's letter identifies the vice consul only as "S·ervice." The style of ascription employed by the junior reporting officer is remarkably similar to the reporting of Vice Consul Richard M. Service from Chengtu in early

70

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no intention of offering important resistance to the Americans. 112 The com-

munist withdrawal was alleged to have been welllmown to the residents of

Chefoo before the American naval vessels departed. Service's two-man

opinion sample led him to the qualified conclusion that:

It is entirely possible that the asserted withdrawal of communist troops from Chefoo was known to the Ameri­ cans at the time, and that the decision not to land was based on other considerations of policy. It appears that Chefoo's population thought the American authorities were dissuaded from action by a smooth-talking com­ 3 munist Mayor [Yii Ku-ying]. The late Anna Louise Strong has also reported on the Chefoo decision.

Ascribed, by implication, to yi_i Ku-ying the Strong account resembles a

compressed summary of the Chung Hsi-ttmg memoirs:

American naval vessels, he [the Chinese mayor] said, entered Chefoo harbor in the first week of October and asked the local Chinese authorities to surrender the city. The latter refused, saying that they had already driven

1945; see the Vice Consul at Chengtu (Service) letter to the Ambassador in China (Hurley), 20 January 1945, in FRUS, 1945, China, pp. 178-180. Chefoo was held by Nationalist forces from 1 October 1947 to 15 October 1948. 2 spiker to Secretary, op. cit. 3 Ibid.

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out the Japanese, that perfect order prevailed and the Americans might take a look, but that it was 'unseemly for an allied power to take a Chinese port from a Chinese army.' Discussion grew more acrimonious through several days till the mayor remarked: 'It would be a pity if World War Til should start in Chefoo!' The Americans then withdrew to their ships, asking the Chinese to come on board the next morning for an 'im­ portant conference. ' That midnight two hundred gunboats full of puppet troops recently serving Japan arrived from American­ held Tientsin and siezed an uninhabited island facing Chefoo two miles out. Shore sentries reported them. At four in the morning Chefoo troops went to the island in junks, caught the invaders sleeping, and completely routed them. A few hours later the American vessels steamed away without notice and without waiting for that 'important conference.' All Chefoo folk concluded that the Americans had planned that puppet attack in order 4 to take the port themselves ••.

In a passing reference to the episode, deJaegher and Kuhn have described it

4 Anna Louise Strong, The Chinese Conquer China (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1949), pp. 69-70.

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as one in which "· .• the Chinese Communists had triumphed over the Ameri- 5 can Admiral Daniel E. Barbey. " 6 The Herbert Feis account of the Chefoo episode is undocumented ex-

cept for a single reference to Moorad, quoting Admiral Barbey's explana-

tion to correspondents of the decision not to carry through with the landing of 7 Marines. Furthermore, Feis' version is lacking in accuracy on several

points. "This port [Chefoo] was only sixty-five sea miles from Dairen"

(p. 365). This is an apparent perpetuation of an error originally made by

Moorad in reference to the distance between Chefoo and Port Arthur (Moorad,

p. 79). "Under Communist control [Chefoo] might serve similarly well as a

point from which the Communists could move forces. • . into Shantung,

where they might surround the American Marines at Tientsin" (p. 365). 8 Tientsin is in Hopeh. "American military headquarters decided to send the

5 Raymond J. deJaegher and Irene Corbally Kuhn, The Enemy Within (Garden City, N.J. : Doubleday and Co. , Inc. , 1952), p. 255. 6 Herbert Feis, The China Tangle, The American Effort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall Mission (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Uni­ versity Press, 1953), pp. 365-367. 7 George Moorad, Lost Peace in China (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1949), p. 90. 8 Feis may have meant to say Tsingtao, rather than Tientsin; in which case, the statement would read correctly.

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cruiser USS Louisville and several destroyers to land Marines to take over

the port" (p. 365). As has been shown above, the mission of Louisville's

flag officer was to investigate local conditions, not land troops. "On October

4th, an American colonel went ashore and asked the Communists to leave

the port" (p. 366). The request for withdrawal of Eighth Route Army troops

from Chefoo was actually delivered by Settle's aide and flag lieutenant, 9 Lieutenant Commander Scherbatoff. "On [October) the 7th, General Chu

Teh sent [a) second ••• (protest) to American military headquarters in China •

• • " (p.366). Chu Teh's second protest on the planned landing at Chefoo was

contained in Yeh Chien-ying's letter to the Yenan Observer Group at Yenan

on the 6th. "The American naval vessels that were carrying the Marines

were already off the port of Chefoo" (p. 366). The Chefoo landing force, the 10 29th Marines, was still four days out from its intended landing. Tbis error

is compounded by Tang Tsou, who, relying on Feis, States that "the American 11 transports had hovered off the port [Chefoo] for several days."

9 settle interview, op. cit. 10 Henry I. Shaw, Jr., "US Marine Corps in North China, 1945-1949," unpublished manuscript, Headquarters, US Marine Corps, Historical Branch, n. d., p. V:2:63. 11 Tang Tsou, America's Failure in China, 1941-1950 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963), p. 308.

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An important omission in the Feis account is the fact that Chinese Com­

munist officials at Chefoo expressed conditional agreement to the planned

American landing. Furthermore, the Barbey-Rockey recommendations

not to land was conditional in terms of time and the explicit expectation that

China Theater headquarters might require that the landing be made despite

their recommendations.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Tsingtao Letters, 13-16 October 1945.

As a result of the cancellation of the regimental combat team landing and

the occupation of the port of Chefoo, the 29th Marines went ashore with the

bulk of the 6th Marine Division at Tsingtao between the 11th and 16th of

October. The initial landings were conducted under heavy cover from Task

Force 72 aircraft.

Two days later, the 6th Marine Division Commander, Major General

Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., received an emissary with a letter from Lo Jung­ 1 huan commander of Eighth Route Army Forces in Shantung. The letter

1 Henry I. Shaw, Jr., "US Marine Corps in North China, 1945-1949," MS, unpublished manuscript, US Marine Corps Historical Branch, n. d., (projected Vol. V to USMC Operations in World War II; scheduled for publica­ tion in 1969), p. V:2:74, and Charles F. Romanus, "History of the China Theater" (unpublished MS, U.S. Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, n. d.), p. 56. The latter identifies the Communist Shantung Army commander as both "General Lo Jtm Hoang" and General Hoang." Lo Jung-huan was serving at this time as political commissar, as well as acting commander, of Lin Piao's 115th Division and, concurrently, as politi­ cal commissar of the Shantung Military Region headquartered in central Shantung. In the spring of 1939, Lo led elements of the Eighth Route Army's 115th Division into Shantung, where he spent the remainder of the war against the Japanese. He was Secretary of the CCP Shantung Sub-bureau in March 1943 and was elected to the CCP Central Committee during the Seventh (April­ June 1945; Yenan) Party Congress. Lo subsequently served as the political

76

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evidenced the Chinese Communists' willingness to assist the Marines in dis-

arming local Japanese and puppet forces and in maintaining peace and order

in the Tsingtao area. The communist commander questioned the Americans'

attitude should the Eighth Route Army contest the arrival of central govern-

ment troops in Tsingtao; it was obvious that it was intended to land National-

ist units in Tsingtao under the cover of US occupying forces, an act which, he 2 claimed, was certain to result in open warfare in Shantung. It is ·equally

obvious that the Chinese Communists were at least partially aware of Chinese

Nationalist-American plans to sealift the Eighth CNA from Kowloon to Tsingtao,

though it was to be another two weeks before the Eighth CNA was assembled at

Kowloon for loading on Transport Squadron 17 transports and a month before 3 it would arrive in Tsingtao.

General Shepherd "politely refused a personal conference with the KCT 4 [Kungchantang; Chinese Communist] leader, " and replied to other points

commissar of Lin Piao's Fourth Field Army in Manchuria. For a brief biography of Lo, see Union Research Institute, Who's Who in Communist China (Hong Kong: 1966). 2 Ibid. 3 Romanus MS, op. cit., pp. 115-116; Commander US Naval Forces Western Pacific, Narrative History of Seventh Fleet, 1 September 1945 to 1 October 1946, p. 4. 4 Romanus MS, op. cit., p. 56.

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raised in the letter as follows:

1) The mission of the 6th Marine Division was a peaceful one:

to disarm Japanese forces.

2) The Marines could not and would not cooperate in any way to

destroy Japanese or Chinese puppet forces.

3) Assistance from Chinese communists forces was neither re-

quired nor desired; "should any disorders arise [in Tsingtao],

my Division of well-trained combat veterans will be entirely 5 capable of coping with the situation. "

4) The landings of Chinese Nationalist troops in Tsingtao was

a matter beyond his [Shepherd's] control, but the 6th Marine

Division would remain neutral in the event of armed conflict

between KMT and Commtmist forces.

As commanding general of the III Amphibious Corps, General Rockey

was careful to inform General Wedemeyer's China Theater headquarters of

6 the proposed Shepherd reply. Lo Jung-huan's emissary returned several

5 Shaw MS op. cit., V:2:74. 6 It is not clear, however, whether China Theater Headquarters re­ sponded; the incident was not included in the Daily China Theater Situation Summary until 24 October.

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weeks later in another attempt at securing cooperation between the US

Marines and Eighth Route Army forces. On the second visit, the officer

brought photographs of communist ammtmition production and other defense

preparations. On both occasions, he was placed under protective custody in

order to prevent his being either assaulted or killed by local Nationalist 7 officials or agents.

The exchange of letters between General Shepherd and Lo Jung-huan

marks a change in the nature of the contacts betwen U.S. naval force comman­

ders and the Soviets or the Chinese Commtmists. Once the 6th Marine Division

was ashore at Tsingtao, the last of U.S. grotmd forces to be employed in

North China had been committed. By the end of October, the 1st Marine Air

Wing relieved Task Force 72 of all responsibilities in support of the III Am­

phibious Corps. From the point of view of the Chinese Communists, they had

made great progress in their contest with the Nationalist government for

control of North China and entry into Manchuria. To be sure, the Americans

7 Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Colonel Charles W. Harrison, USMC, inter- view with General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., USMC (Ret.), Washington, D. C., 14 July 1959, US Marine Corps Historical Branch files.

•

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had secured the key Peking-Tientsin-Chinwangtao triangle astride the coastal

route from North China to Manchuria, and two KMT armies, the Ninety-second

and Ninety-fourth (a total of 56,000 men), had been airlifted in mid-October

to Peking and Tientsin to establish central government control in this vital 8 area. But the Chinese Communists had achieved virtual control of the

Shantung-Hopeh coast from Tsingtao to Taku, and their forces were rapidly

flowing into Manchuria from Chahar and across the P'ohai Gulf, from such

Shantung ports as Penglai, Chefoo, and Lungkou. Shantung itself was dom-

inated by Commtmist Armies to the extent that Governor Ho Ssu-yuan com-

plained that two-thirds of the province had been occupied by Communist

troops and that only the railway lines of some of the larger cities remained 9 under the control of central government forces. Late in October, General 10 Ch'en Yi's New Fourth Army moved north of the Yangtze. Eighty thou­ 11 sand New Fourth Army troops were transferred to General Lin Piao;

8 The Ninety-second and Ninety-fourth CNA were originally planned to re­ lieve the Mariens in Hopeh, and the Eighth CN A to relieve the 6th Marine Division at Tsingtao. 9 Kuang-hua jih-pao (Shanghai), 23 September 1945 (American Consulate­ General, Shanghai, Chinese Press Review). 10 The China Press (Shanghai), 22 Oct. 1945, quoting a Chinese Communist sopkesman in Chungking. 11 F. F. Liu, A Military History of Modern China, 1929-1949, Princeton, 1956, p. 228.

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these forces were rapidly flowing into Manchuria from Chahar via the Shan­

haikuan corridor and across the P'ohai gulf from northern Shantung ports

and Weihaiwei. Eight Nationalist divisions which drove up into Hopeh and Shan­

tung were defeated after a week's bitter fighting in early October near Hantan 12 on the Peiping-Hankow railway. This defeat clearly demonstrated the Com­

munists' ability effectively to block the ground movement of central government

armies to the North China area. With the roll-up of American air transport in

China, the only way in which additional Nationalist armies could be moved north

was by sea. The amssive sealift which ensued, perhaps the greatest in military

history, shifted nearly half-a-million Chinese troops from South China and

Indochina to North China and Manchuria. The first phase of the sealift, prior

to the Marshall Mission, involved the lifting northward of the Thirteenth and

Fifty-second Chinese Nationalist Armies (CNA) from Kowloon and Haiphong and

the Eighth CNA from Kowloon to Tsingtao. Necessary shipping was provided by

Seventh Fleet transport squadrons. It was originally planned to land the Thirteenth

and Fifty-second CNA at Dairen; the task of obtaining diplomatic clearance for

the landing of Chinese armies in a Russian-occupied port being left to the Chinese

central government. Chiang K ai-shek had indicated in mid-September that he

12 Mao, op. cit., pp. 65 and 68n.

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was extremely anxious to expedite the movement of his armies to North China

and the Northeast but was informed that there was insufficient surface trans­

port available in the Western Pacific until after the completion of the III 13 Amphibious Corps landings. During October and November, junk traffic

in both directions increased between ports in Southern Manchuria and the

Liaotung Peninsula held by the Russians or Chinese Communists and the

Eighth Route Army controlled ports along the northern Shantung coast.

13 The Chinese request was presented by T. V. Soong to President Truman, via the State Department, and relayed back to China Theater for his recom­ mendations (Operations Division, War CoS message, 16 September 1945).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER IV

THE AFTERMATH OF THE CHEFOO DECISION

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The "Wang Flotilla" Episode, Chefoo, 19-29 October 1945.

Early in the morning of 19 October, a group of eight small steamers and

four junks arrived at Chefoo and anchored well offshore in the outer harbor.

A few hours later two Chinese officers came aboard Admiral Settle's flagship.

One of them introduced himself as Colonel Sun Chen-hsien, commander of the

twelve hundred-man 1st Regiment, 27th Brigade, and chief-of-staff to Brigadier Gen­

eral Wang Shi-shan, overall commander of the KMT forces under the Shantung 1 provincial governor, Ho Ssu-yuan. Sun stated that his orders were to occupy

Chefoo, and later to takeover Lungk'ouand Weihaiwei. He requested that the

American cruiser division commander provide him with gunfire support for

an assult landing against the Eighth Route Army elements occupying Chefoo.

Settle declined, stating that he would provide neither active support nor

"benevolent neutrality." Colonel Sun replied that he would land his force on

K'ungt'ung Tao and await further orders from General Wang. Settle reported

the essentials of the interview to Commander Seventh Fleet and asked the

1 comCruDiv 6 WarD, 19 October 1945. The Chung Hsi-tung memoir, op. cit., has Colonel Sun's force arriving Chefoo on the morning of the 17th and identifies him as Chia Fang, a battalion commander in the puppet army of Chang Li-yeh which had been stationed in Chefoo during the Japanese occupation.

83

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III Amphibious Corps (IliAC) headquarters at Tientsin for further details on 2 general Wang and the legitimacy of his 37th Brigade. He then ordered his task 3 unit to clear Chefoo harbor for Weihaiwei.

Admiral Settle's sudden departure for Weihaiwei apparently took Chefoo's

mayor by surprise; in a letter dispatched to Admiral Settle at Weihaiwei the follow-

ingdayYiiKu-yingexpressedhis disappointment at not having had the opportunity

to exercise his responsibilities as local foreign affairs commissioner in a dis-

cussion with the American Admiral on the significance of Wang Flotilla's

presence at Chefoo. Yu warned Settle that Eighth Route Army units at Chefoo

might again "be compelled to resort to a self-defense war in order to protect 4 what accomplishments we have so far been able to achieve. " In the mean-

while, the destroyer Hart reconnoitered Chefoo harbor reporting that Colonel

Sun's regiment was established ashore on K'ungt'ung Tao with its flotilla

anchored close-in to the island's southern shore.

2 Sett1 e m . t ervww, . op. c1"t . 3 wang' s forces were held in disrepute in the IliAC area, partly because of their habit of stealing coal from trains in the Marine area of responsibility. (Ibid.; Richard W. Johnston, United Press release, Chinwangtao, North China, 30 October 1945, in the San Francisco Chronicle, 31 October 1945). 4 •. Yu letter to Settle, 20 October 1945, Settle Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85

When the USS Shields sailed into Chefoo harbor on the 21st, Sun's force

was found to have grown to an estimated 1, 500 men and his flotilla to nine 5 powered craft and thirty-three junks. It is not clear whether his force had

been augmented by additional sailings of General Wang's forces from the

Tientsin-Taku area, or from prizes taken during an at least partially success-

ful attempt to blockade the port of Chefoo. A Task Force 71 cruiser-destroyer

unit had been stationed off Taku since the 19th for "observation against the exit 6 from Tangku of Kuomintang troops, rr but no such departures were reported.

At all events, the communist mayor of Chefoo later complained to Admiral

Settle that the Wang Flotilla had captured nine communist ships and fishing 7 boats, killing ten crewmen in the process. Shields also reported that some

of the Wang flotilla were "wearing U.S. colors alone or with Chinese [National­ 8 ist] colors. "

At this particular point in the sequence of events at Chefoo, Commander

Seventh Fleet, issued a priority directive which set forth specific policy

5 ComCruDiv 6 WarD, 20 October 1945. 6 ComCruDiv 16 WarD, 19, 21 October 1945. 7 •• Yu letter to Settle, 26 October 1945, Settle Papers. In the Chung Hsi- tung account, loc. cit., the KMT group raided all ships leaving or entering Chefoo harbor that passed by K'ungt'ung Tao. 8 ComCruDiv 6 WarD, 21 October 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86

guidance for Seventh Fleet units in their contacts with Chinese Communist

military or civil elements. Though the U. S. recognized the central government

as the government of all China, strict neutrality was to be maintained with

communist military and local administrative officials, "without recognizing

their authority. 119 All operations were to be carefully planned and executed

in a manner which would offer the minimum risk of clashes with communists

or entanglement in possible Chinese civil strife. In view of scheduled sea-

lifts of Chinese armies by Seventh Fleet transports, the directive added that

landing areas would be chosen where communist resistance was unlikely.

And in a final note of caution, Admiral Kinkaid clearly stipulated that his

fleet units would not participate in any clash that might develop between com­ 10 munist and central government forces.

The destroyer Shields returned to Chefoo on the 22nd and reported that

the Wang flotilla remained moored close to the island with most troops em-

barked. Shields' commanding officer was informed by local communist officials

that the 2, 000 Eighth Route Army troops in the Chefoo garrison were prepared

9 ComSeventhFlt message to Seventh Fleet, 21 October 1945. 10 Ibid.

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to resist invasion by Kuomintang (KMT) forces. Admiral Kinkaid, complaining

that he was still not certain of the legitimacy of General Wang's force, announced

that the Shields would return to Chefoo the next day to insure that the flotilla 11 ceased flying the American colors.

In the midst of the dialogue concerning the Wang Flotilla's use of U.S.

National colors, and the local uncertainty concerning the origin and authority

of the 37th Brigade's leadership, a representative of General Wang called on

General Rockey's IliAC headquarters at Tientsin, Wang's agent carried a letter

explaining that his unit at Chefoo haf been organized with KMT approval.

It had sailed from Taku for Ch'angshan Tao, the southernmost island in

the Miao chain that forms a natural island barrier across the P' ohai Strait

between P'englai and the southern tip of the Liaotung peninsula. But his force

had been blown off course in a storm; he had also lost a small fuel tanker. As

a result, Wang's troops were stranded on K'ungt'ung Tao off Chefoo, where

they were short of both ammunition and water and in constant fear of communist

attack. Wang requested US Navy protection and assistance in withdrawing his

troops to Ch'angshan Tao. This request was forwarded to AdmiraJ Kinkaid,

11 . Seventh Fleet Daily Summary, 22 October 1945.

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who, perhaps perplexed by the ambiguities of his own policy guidance direc­ 12 tive of 21 October, chose to take no action.

While Wang's representative was conferring with General Rockey, his

alleged regional superior, Shantung governor Ho Ssu-yuan, was in Chungking,

where he announced at a press conference that two-thirds of Shantung had been

occupied by communist troops, and that only a few of the province's compara-

tively large cities (such as Tsingtao, Tsinan, and Weihsien) were controlled

by central government forces. The entire province, he claimed, was in a

state of extreme confusion, largely because Japanese and puppet troops had

adopted the habit of identifying themselves and their competitors as "old units

of the Eighth Route Army, new units of the Eighth Route Army, New Eighth

Route Army, False Eighth Route Army, Yenan Eighth Route Army, or Shantung

Eighth Route Army. " Governor Ho complained further that these troops wore

innumerable types of insignia, and that bandits were taking advantage of the 13 situation to seize local power.

12 seventh Fleet Daily Summary, 24 October 1945. Whether or not Wang's letter to General Rockey accurately described his original intentions, it is not clear why Kinkaid did not approve Wang's request for naval escort to Ch'angshan Tao, as a means of minimizing the risk of further clashes between the 37th Brigade and the Eighth Route Army garrison at Chefoo. 13 Kuang-hua jih.... pao (Shanghai), 23 October 1945. Unless otherwise noted,

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Admiral Settle sent the USS Shields back to Chefoo on the 23rd with a

letter to the "Officer Commanding Chinese troops off Chefoo, 11 ordering him

not to "use the American flag in your ships and boats, and not to show the 14 American flag in any other manner, br any purpose whatsoever." Colonel

Sun's interpreter stated that his regiment had no radio contact with General 15 Wang, but expected him from Taku within two days. Settle's cruiser-

destroyer task unit continued to patrol riff: Chefoo and Weihaiwei for another

week, and his destroyers Shields and Haraden made daily investigative sorties

into Chefoo harbor.

Since the arrival of the Wang flotilla on the 19th, none of the ships of

Task Force 71 was stationed at Chefoo; they had operated instead out of

communist-controlled Weihaiwei, where they enjoyed the hospitality of the

communist mayor, also a "Commissioner of Foreign Affairs," Mr. Yu Chou.

The communications between mayors Y\£ Ku-ying at Chefoo and Yu Chou at

Chinese newspapers cited hereafter are taken from American Consulate General, Shanghai, Chinese Press Review. 14 settle letter to ''Officer Commanding Chinese Troops off Chefoo," 22 October 1945, Settle Papers. There is no evidence that Sun's interpreter could read English or that Settle's order was fully understood. 15 Seventh Fleet Daily Summary, 23 October 1945.

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Weihaiwei were effective. Yii Chou kept Yu Ku-ying reasonably well in-

formed on U.S. Navy arrivals and departures from his port, and Yu Ku-

ying apparently had no difficulty in having his frequent letters to Admiral 16 Settle delivered through the good offices of his Weihaiwei counterpart.

In a lengthy communication of the 26th, Yu' Ku-ying reported to Settle

on 1'conditions obtaining at Chefoo." Yi.i. identified the Wang flotilla as a

puppet force which had oppressed Chefoo's inhabitants during the entire

Japanese occupation of the city, until they were driven out by the com-

munists. He claimed that the puppet troops were seizing a number of

ships and boats, were attempting to blockade the port, and had "even

opened fire in the direction of Chefoo. " The people were determined to defend

the city and had repeatedly requested that the military and administrative

authorities take the necessary steps to destroy the flotilla. Because they persisted

in flying both the American and Chinese (Nationalist) flags, it was obvious that

the 1st Regiment rascals intended to disturb the friendly relations existing

between the Americans and the local government of Chefoo. Yii wondered what

measures Settle was willing to take against them. Though the residents of

Chefoo were grateful for Settle's having declined the flotilla commander's

16 Yu.. letters to Settle, 20, 22, and 26 October 1945, Settl e Papers.

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initial request for support in an assault against the city's defenses, they were

nervous, Yi:i[reported, because of the contacts that had been made between

the flotilla and American warships on several occasions in the past week.

Following an additional, rather emotional, discussion of the implications of

continued US Navy inaction in response to the flying of the American flag

by Chinese puppet troops, Yii closed with the bland remark: " I submit

the foregoing simply for the purpose of keeping you fully informed of the 17 conditions prevailing at Chefoo. '' As was the case with General Wang's

letter to lilAC headquarters, there was no further Seventh Fleet action re-

suiting from Commissioner Yu's letter; but there also were no further con-

tacts between Settle's ships and the Wang flotilla commander.

17 Yu.. letter to Sett1 e, 26 Octob er 1945, Sette1 Papers.

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On 29 October, Eighth Route Army authorities at Chefoo reported to

the USS Shields that their garrison had attacked K'ungt'ung Tao at dawn 18 that day and had driven the survivors off the island. The communists

claimed to have killed one hundred men of Colonel Sun's 1st Regiment, 19 captured one hundred, and routed the remainder.

Admiral Settle's flagship, the USS San Francisco, returned to Chefoo

harbor on the 30th, the day after the communist assault on K'ungt'ung Tao.

He discussed the Wang flotilla episode with communist officials ashore and,

according to their account, explained that it had been necessary for him to

leave Chefoo temporarily on the 19th "in order to avoid involvement in the 20 Chinese civil war. " The following day, upon the completion of his last

portcall at Chefoo, Settle advised Commander Seventh Fleet that "in view

18 ComCruDiv 6 WarD, 29 October 1945. 19 seventh Fleet Daily Summary, 2 November 1945. According to Chung Hsi-tung, the force on K'ungt'ung Tao was completely destroyed in a brief but fierce battle; after having refused to surrender, its com.,. mander committed suicide by jumping into the sea (Chung Hsi-tung, loc. cit.). 2 °Chung Hsi-tung, loc. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93

of our equivocal position in Communist controlled ports, [I] recommend re­ 21 consideration of our policy retaining ships in the Weihaiwei-Chefoo area. rr

San Francisco aircraft tracked the remnants of the Wang Flotilla as it pas-

sed eastward along the northern coast of the Shantung peninsula. As the flotilla

passed Weihaiwei, it consisted of only three powered craft with three junks in

tow. Reports were also received III Amphibious Corps headquarters that the

Chinese Communists were concentrating their forces along the northern Shantung

coast. Naval aircraft observed that fortifications were under construction on the 22 high ground overlooking Chefoo harbor. Settle's cruiser division was dis;olved

as a tactical unit of Seventh Fleet on 4 November, the same day that the remnants 23 of the Wang flotilla arrived safely in Tsingtao.

There are several points of relevance in the Wang flotilla episode. It was

subsequently interpreted by the Chinese Communist government as a prime ex-

ample of collusion between the US Navy and Kuomintang-associated puppet troops

to effect the diplomatic victory by the Eighth Route Army side in the negotiations

that resulted in the cancellation of the landing of US Marines at Chefoo earlier in

the month. The episode effectively demonstrates the ambivalent attitude on the

21 comCruDiv 6 WarD, 31 October 1945. 22 seventh Fleet Daily Summary, 31 October 1945, 4 November 1945. 23 ComCruDiv 6 WarD, 4 November 1945.

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part of locally involved American operational commanders toward the use of

puppet troops. More importantly, was the lasting effect of Admiral Kinkaid's

directive which outlined a comprehensive and specific policy governing inter­

action between Seventh Fleet units and Chinese communist forces. The policy

of mere non-involvement in "fratricidal warfare" was now refined to require

"strict neutrality." The Seventh Fleet commanders were now left to cope with

the inherent contradiction between the implications of a neutral posture vis -a-vis

Chinese Communist military and civil officials and the explicit requirement that

the authority of such officials not be recognized.

The ascription of legitimacy is inherent in the concept of neutrality. Any

assistance Admiral Settle might have been moved to provide for the Wang flotilla

was specifically prohibited by the Seventh Fleet directive that units would not par­

ticipate in Nationalist-communist clashes under any circumstance. The new

policy clearly had its impact on plans to land Chinese Nationalist armies at Man­

churian ports in late Uctober and early November. Landing areas selected for

these operations must, according to Kinkaid's guidance, be ones where communist

resistance was unlikely. It was already too late; Chinese Communist forces were

well advanced in their preparations to command those areas of southern Manchuria

that were suitable for the landing of Nationalist force.

Finally, the attempt of the Wang flotilla to occupy Chefoo and establish a

beachhead from which other ports along the northern coast of Shantung could be

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taken, demonstrates an appreciation of the strategic importance of Chefoo,

Weihaiwei, P'englai, and Link'ou. It was from these ports that major Eighth

Route Army and New Fourth Army units moved to consolidate the Chinese

Communist position in Manchuria. It is doubtful that the Wang organization

would have been able to carry out their plans, even if they had managed to main­

tain their foothold at Chefoo. Significantly larger forces would be required before

a viable beachhead could be established in the area. Had the US Marine regimen­

tal combat team been put ashore as originally planned, it is likely that it would

have been able to cover the subsequent landing of larger Chinese Nationalist

units and to effect a degree of control at least as effective as that maintained by

the US Marine, Nationalist, puppet, and residual Japanese forces coalition that

obtained in the Tientsin-Chinwangtao-Peking triangle.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Failure to Sever Chinese Communist Sea Communications Between Shantung and Manchuria.

The strategic importance of the north coast of the Shantung peninsula was

twofold. First, in the race for Manchuria between Chinese Nationalist and

Chinese Communist forces that developed during the fall of 1945 and continued

well into 1946, then a stabilized two-way traffic between communist forces on

both sides of the P'ohai strait until the Nationalists managed to gain control of

the principal northern Shantung ports in October 1947. In October of the fol-

lowing year, the Nationalists lost their tenuous handholds on the northern Shan-

tung coast. But the central government forces were never able to control the

trans-P'ohai seaborne traffic, and it is probable that the southward flow of

communist forces and supplies contributed heavily to the defeat of the Nationalist

forces in Shantung during the second phase of the Shantung campaign between

February and October 1948.

The heavy flow of communist forces from Shantung to southern Manchuria

probably began in late August 1945, as soon as the ports of Chefoo, Weihaiwei,

P'englai, Lungk'ou, and Liching (about thirty miles up the Yellow River) were

secured by Eighth Route Army and associated Shantung militia forces. The peak

northward flow appears to have accelerated during the fall and early winter so

that, by the end of the year, more than half of the communist troops that were

96

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1 in Shantung when the war ended had been transferred to Manchuria by sea.

The early stage of the trans-gulf movement was directed by Lo Jung-huan,

political commisar of the Shantung Military Region and acting commander of 2 Lin Piao's 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army. All powered craft and

large sailing junks in the P'ohai were commandeered. In the first phases of

the seaborne movement, the bulk of the troops moved were native Shantungese.

Because of the historic cultural and linguistic affinity between the peoples of

northern Shantung and southern Manchuria, and the traditional traffic of Shan-

tung migrants to Southern Manchuria, the first Chinese Communist troops to

reach the Liaotung peninsula and southeastern Manchuria were ideally suited

1 Kusano Fumio, Chiigoku sen'go no dotai (The situation in post-war China) (Tokyo: Kyoiku Shuppan Kabushiki Kaisha, 1948), p. 144. 2 Ibid. ; Howard L. Boorman, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1968), vol. III, p. 434. According to research notes provided by Colonel William w. Whitson, the forces crossing from Shantung were led Ch'en Kuang, commander of the 115th Division; Wan I, 115th Division deputy commander; and Huang K'o-ch'eng. See Colonel William W. Whitson, ..Ihe Chinese Communist High Command, 1928- 1969: A study in Military Politics, forthcoming, Praeger Publishers (New York). Huang K'o-ch'eng was the commander of the 3rd Division, North Kiangsu Military Region (H. F. Chan, "The Evolution of the Fourth Field Army;• op. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98

for the establishment of an Eighth Route Army presence in a culturally familiar

env1ronmen. t • 3

Despite the fact that these moves had begun in late August, they were not

noticed by Seventh Fleet and III Amphibious Corps intelligence officers until

November, when IliAC Marine Air Wing aircraft began flying regularly scheduled 4 reconnaissance flights along the Gulf of Chihli. Late in October, it was widely

3 Kusano, loc. cit. See the Imperial Japanese Government Railways, An Official Guide to Eastern Asia, Vol. IV, China (Tokyo: 1915), pp. 134-135, for a description of Shantung labor migration patterns between northern Shantung ports and south- ern Manchuria a generation earlier. 4 A possible explanation for the heightened awareness of US Marine forces to the strategic importance of the trans-P'ohai junk traffic is the remarkably accurate intelligence studies on Shantung and North China prepared in late August 1945 for the IliAC landings planned for Taku, Tsingtao, Chefoo, and Chinwangtao (III Amphibious Corps, Intelligence Study, North China Theater of Operations: Peip'ing, T'ien-ching, Chinwangtao, Ch'ingtao, Chih-fou, Wei-hai­ wei, 29 August 1945; 6th Marine Division, G-2 [Intelligence] Study of the Shan­ tung Province, China, Theater of Operations, late August [ ?] 1945). Both studies fail to indicate that several of the North Shantung ports were already in Eighth Route Army hands, but both provide a comprehensive and realistic appreciation of the potential of Chinese Communist forces in Shantung. The 6th Marine Division study contains the following observation: A mere glance at the map ••• will indicate im­ mediately the strategic importance of the [Shantung]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99

reported in the Chungking press that Chinese Communist forces in eastern 5 Shangtungwere massing near Chefoo, P'englai, and Weihaiwei. It was

several weeks before Commander Seventh Fleet announced that the intended

purpose of the movement of Chinese Communist forces from Shantung to

Manchuria was for training and equipping the troops involved, possibly with 6 Russian aid. In late November Marine air reconnaissance sighted eighty

ocean-going junks off Lungk'ou, eight powered craft and fifty sailing junks

off Chefoo, barracks areas at Weihaiwei jammed with troops and their

baggage trains, countless small craft throughout the Miao islands, and one 7 of the northernmost of the Miao islands, T'ochi Tao, occupied by troops.

peninsula. By controlling the area, any major power would have aerial coverage over the sur­ rounding seas as well as over ..• the Liaotung Peninsula. . • • In addition, a naval power would find the best harbor in North China at Ch'ing-tao, plus better than average facilities at Yen-t'ai [Chefoo), which is directly across from Dairen. This would certainly facilitate control over the passageway leading to the Gulf of Chih-li (p. I-4). 5 chungking press release, 23 October 1945, cited in Romanus MS, p.l17. 6 com7thFlt Daily Summary, 15 November 1945. 7 China Theater Daily Situation Summary No. 88, 23 November 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100

In December, air reconnaissance reported defenses under construction

at Lungk'ou and the nearby town of Huanghsien and increasingly large supply

dumps on the beach at Lungk'ou. Other reports indicated Chinese Communist

heavy barges, probably from Dairen unloading at Chefoo.

Eighth Route Army forces moving through Changi toward the coast were

recruiting extensively; they claimed to be going across the strait to recei·.re 8 weapons and supplies from the Russians. Four poorly equiped Chinese Com-

munist divisions, accompanied by women and children, were reported to be

moving northward across the Chiao-Tsi (Tsinan-Tsingtao) railway enroute

Chefoo for embarkation to Manchuria. Twenty-four powered craft and twenty 9 junks were reported at Chefoo on the lOth. On the 11th one hundred forty

junks were reported sailing from Chefoo heavily loaded with unarmed Chinese . 10 Communist troops. A large body of troops was concentrated at Lungk'ou

on the 17th. Simultaneously, it was reported that the Chinese Communists

had organized a transportation center forty miXes down the west coast of the

8 China Theater Daily Situation Summary No. 93, 30 November 1945; CT Daily SitSum No. 94, 1 December 1945; CT Daily SitSum No. 96, 5 December 1945; CT Daily SitSum No. 99, 7 December 1945. 9 CT Daily Intelligence [Sum No.] Summary No. 202, 14 December 1945. 10 1bid.

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11 Liaotung peninsula from Yingkow. The next sighting at Chefoo indicated

twenty motor barges in the harbor, with manned defenses along the beaches. 12 At Weihaiwei, eight barges were observed, wearing Chinese Nationalist colors. 13 The use of a junk-lift terminal at or near Yingkow was confirmed on the 21st.

The small craft count at Lungk'ou and Chefoo on the 22nd was eight and thirty­ 14 two, respectively. Late in January, it was determined that the Chinese Com-

munist forces in Manchuria had established a headquarters and supply instal­ 15 lation at Changho and P'itzuwo on the eastern shore of the Liaotung peninsula.

The Chuangho headquarters may actually have been established as early as 16 September 1945 by the 115th Division.

11 cT Daily IntSum No. 204, 17 December 1945; CT Daily IntSum No. 206, 19 December 1945. 12 com7thFlt Daily Summary, 18 December 1945. 13 cT Daily IntSum No. 208, 21 December 1945. 14 cT Daily IntSum No. 210, 24 December 1945. 15 Romanus MS, appendix B1, p. 3. 16 H. F. Chan, op. cit. The Chan map shows Shantung forces moving directly by sea from Lungk'ou to Hulutao, P'itzuwo, Chuangho, and Antung (Tatungk'ou). The entry into the Yingk'ou area is shown as overland from P'itzuwo and Chuangho, across the Liaotung peninsula. Chan indicates a 115th Division garrison at Chaungho, with the note that the "mainforce of the Shantung Military Region 60, 000, plus two brigades of the 3rd Division, New Fourth Army, crossed the Po-hai from Shantung to Northeast China in Sept. 1945."

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Thus far, the Chinese Communist seaborne traffic had proceeded in two

stages. The first phase, probably beginning in late August 1945, was largely

a mass movement of armed Shantung Military Region forces to the Northeast.

During the second phase, at least as early as October, unarmed troops began

moving north, with military equipment and other supplies shipped down to the

Shantung coast on the return voyage. Though the northward movement of

Shantung troops continued, a third stage began in the spring of 1946 when well-

equipped troops returned to Shantung from Manchuria via the, by now, well-

established sea route across the P'ohai strait. Forty-three thousand fresh

Chinese Communist troops were reported in May 1946 to have landed in Shan-

tung-the bulk of the near Jehchao, below Tsingtao, and the remainder at

Chefoo. All were involved in attacks on the Tsinan-Tsingtao railway and in- 17 creasmg. pressure on Am erwan. occup1e . d T sm . gt ao.

The Chinese Communist hold on ports on both sides of the strait was firm.

The central government's Supreme National Defense Council had prematurely

announced on 18 March that eighteen major North China and Manchurian ports

were temporarily open to foreign shipping. By June, military realities forced

the Nationalist government to reverse itself in regard to Chefoo, Hulutao, 18 Yingkow, and Antung (Tatungk'ou). As noted above, Chinese Nationalist

17 Chinese News Service (New York), 24 May 1946; 1st Marine Division Periodic Intelligence Report, 30 June 1946. 18 Chinese News Service (New York), 6 June 1946.

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naval units delivered a desultory attack on Chefoo and Weihaiwei on 19 June.

Nationalist plans to seize Miao Tao, the large, southernmost island in the

Miao chain (and just opposite P'englai), for use as a naval base for the inter-

diction of junk traffic, were also cancelled in June on orders from Chiang

Kai-shek. Nonetheless, several small and overaged Nationalist gunboats

began patrolling the strait from coastal bases at Tsingtao, Taku, and Chin­ 19 wangtao. The Nationalist 1st Coastal Defense Fleet, headquartered at

Tsingtao, became operational in May 1946. It's major responsibility was to 20 sever the Chinese Communist sea route between Shantung and Manchuria.

By the second half of 1946, the Chinese Communists were able to

expand their trans-P'ohai fleet to include five steamships, in addition to

smaller motor vessels, motor-sailer junks, and sailing junks. Most of the 21 larger vessels plyed the route between Dairen and Chefoo. The motley

nature of the Chinese Communist fleet-as well as a characteristically Chinese

19 1st Marine Division Periodic Intelligence Report, 30 June 1946. 20 Republic of China, Ministry of National Defense, Military History Bu.,­ reau, Civil War in China, 1945-1950, 2 vols. translated by the staff of the China Military History Project, US Military Advisory Assistance Group, China (Taipeh: 1965), vol. 1, p. 197. 21 1st Marine Division (Reinforced) Intelligence memo No. 46, 6 August 1945.

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style of improvisation-is demonstrated by the fact that one of the largest

ships employed was the one hundred year old Hsint'ai, the oldest ship car­ 22 ried on the Lloyd's of London register of world shipping. There is no

direct evidence that Soviet ships were employed, either by the Chinese, or by

the Russians themselves, in the Shantung-Manchuria sealift, though such in­ 23 volvement was reported and has been claimed. In any case, the traffic

continued without serious interruption by Chinese Nationalist naval forces

22 The Times (London), 23 October 1948; China Review (London), vol. 2, no. 1 (December 1948), p. 9. The Hsint'ai was originally built by Scots engineers at Leningrad in 1840 for a Russian grand duke. Renamed Tungus, she sailed between St. Petersburg and Vladivostok until the Russian Revolution, when she was purchased by Denbigh and Co. before passing to Chinese commercial interests. During the Pacific War, she was operated by a Japanese steamship company. She was seized by the communists shortly after the war and pressed into ser­ vice on the Dairen-Chefoo run. When Chefoo was threatened by the National­ ists in September 1947, the Hsint'ai escaped to Tientsin (ibid.) 23 An early report by General Rockey's staff has a 2, 700 ton Soviet trans­ port delivering arms and ammunition to Eighth Route Army troops in the Chin­ wangtao area (Commander 7th Amphibious Force, Operational Summary No. 8, 10 October 1945). See also Freda Utley's reference to a Chinese Central News Agency claim, in June 1947, that Soviet ships participated in the Dairen-Chefoo traf­ fic (Last Chance in China [New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1947], p. 262- 263).

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and, apparently, without serious effort to effect interdiction at sea. In late

1947, however, the Nationalist ground forces campaign in Shantung began to

show some success with the result that Nationalist forces were able to seize

and hold the Shantung ports for several months. Lungk'ou, P'englai, and

Weihaiwei were in Nationalist hands from late September 1947 to late March

1948. Chefoo was held by the Nationalists from 1 October 1947 until mid­ 24 October 1948. During the twelve-month period of Nationalist control of

Chefoo, and particularly during the six-month period when all the northern 25 Shantung ports were in their hands, the traffic was effectively interrupted.

But, by that time, the importance of the ports to the People's Liberation

Army had lessened considerably. As one observer noted in his analysis of

the Kuomintang force's 1947 Shantung campaign:

24 civil War in China, 1945-1950, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 199-200, 205-210; Wang Wu-tung, "Chiang's Retreat to the Yangtze?," China Digest (Hong Kong), vol. 5, no. 1 (November 2, 1948), p. 3: K. H. Wu, "China's Civil War in 1948," China Digest, vol. 5, no. 5 (December 28, 1948), pp. 4-5. 25 Anna Louise Strong, "Russians Walk Softly in Dairen," China Weekly Review, 20 September 1947, p. 76; "Nanking, US Seize 100 Ships," China Weekly Review, 4 October 1947, p. 144. Almost immediately, Anna Louise Strong complained of an effective blockade of "all Chinese commercial shipping from Dairen by the Kuomintang Navy" and the denial of entry to Shantung ports "considered the best trading area because you are protected after reaching port."

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The avowed Nationalist objective in the Chiaotung [northeastern Shantung] peninsula was to capture Chefoo and smaller communist ports and break ocean communications with Manchuria. The Na­ tionalists succeeded in this objective. But the usefulness of Chefoo and other ports to the com­ munists was virtually over. The communists simply moved out of them and pinned down still more Nationalist garrison forces which would have been infinitely better employed in action at 26 1, 000 other points.

The Nationalists, themselves, were not insensitive to the high cost of main-

taining garrison forces in the Shantung ports. When pressures against them

began to build early in 1948, Chinese Nationalist units of Li Kuo-t'ang's 1st

Coastal Defense Fleet (or 1st Squadron) evacuated the able General Fan

Han-chieh's Eighth CNA divisions from Chiaotung ports to Hulutao. Again 27 in October, the Thirty-ninth CNA was evacuated from Chefoo to Hulutao.

In the long run, Chefoo served the Nationalists most usefully as an escape route

for the extrication of armies that would otherwise have been trapped in northern

Shantung.

26 Michael Keon, "Nationalist Failure in Shantung Pointer to War's Future," China Weekly Review, 7 February 1948, p. 286. 27 Civil War in China, 1945-1950, op. cit., vol. I, p., 205; Frederick Lee, "When will the Communist Forces Cross the Yangtze?," China Weekly Review, 14 February 1948, p. 316; F. F. Liu, A Military History of Modern China: 1924-1949 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956), p. 259.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER V

THE FIRST SEALIFT OF CHINESE NATIONALIST ARMIES TO NOHTH CHINA AND MANCHURIAN PORTS

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Settle at Dairen, 26 Oc_tober 1945.

As Transport Squadron Seventeen steamed northward from Kowloon with the

Thirteenth CNA, and with the on-loading of the Fifty-second CNA at Haiphong

under preparation, Admiral Kinkaid ordered Admiral Settle's task group to

Dairen "to report on local conditions and furnish any information which would

be of value in [the] event [that] Dairen is designated [as the] discharge port for

1 the 13th Army. "

Dairen was first indicated as a landing place for Chinese Nationalist troops

transported from the South in US Navy transports when, in mid-September,

T.V. Soong passed Chiang Kai-shek's request to the President Truman for

the transport of three Nationalist divisions to Dairen before the end of the

month, by which time the Soviets were then expected to begin a withdrawal from

Manchuria. Soong expressed the specific concern that, if Nationalist troops

were not deployed to Manchuria by the end of the month, the vacuum would

probably be filled by Chinese Communist forces. Because of the urgency of

the situation, Chiang believed that a least three divisions-thirty thousand

men, the nominal equivalent of a standard Chinese Nationalist army-would

be required. War Department officials doubted that available shipping in the

1 Commander Seventh Fleet message to Commander Task Force 71, 26 October 1945.

107

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Western Pacific could be positioned rapidly enough to initiate a lift of Chinese

Nationalist troops before the end of September. China Theater, General

Wedemeyer, was requested to submit recommendations on the Chiang-Soong 2 proposal for moving troops into Manchuria. China Theater's initial response,

expanding the requirement to lift two armies to Manchuria, discussed above,

did not specify Dairen as debarkation point for the troop movements.

China Theater attempted to inform the senior Soviet military official in

Manchuria that Chinese armies would be unloaded at Dairen beginning 25

October. In a message transmitted on, or shortly before, 15 October, China

Theater notified General MacArthur's headquarters that the Thirteenth and

Fifty-second CNAs would disembark at Dairen between the 25 October and

12 November. American liaison personnel would accompany the Chinese troops

to supervise unloading, but would leave Dairen with the departure of the naval

2 war Department, Chief of Staff, message to Commanding General US Forces China Theater, 13 September 1945. Citing Chinese Delegation to the United Nations, China Presents Her Case to the United Nations (New York, 1949), p. 12, Tang Tsou dates the Soong re­ quest as having been delivered on the lOth, a date consistent with the forwarding date noted above. For the dialogue concerning interpretation of the Dairen-related provisions of the 14 August 1945 Sino-Soviet (Wang-Molotov) Treaty of Friendship and Al­ liance, see FRUS, 1945, China, pp. 966-971.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109

transports involved. China Theater asked that the "senior Soviet commander 3 in Manchuria be advised. " MacArthur's headquarters, somewhat disinterested-

ly, it seems, replied that "SCAP has no direct communications with Soviets in . 4 Mane h urra. "

The continued availability to Commander Seventh Fleet of the special talents

and recent relevant experience of Admiral Settle's special liaison group was as-

sured when, after consultation with Admiral King and General Wedemeyer, Ad-

miral Nimitz extended Settle's assignment to Admiral Kinkaid. Nimitz suggested

that Settle and his afloat staff be retained in the vicinity of southern Manchuria

until the Chinese central government established itself in effective occupation of 5 that area. The US naval attache, Moscow, was duly informed of this decision.

By 22 . October, Admiral Kinkaid found it necessary to prepare for the

possibility that it would be necessary to shift the Thirteenth CNA troop lift from 6 Dairen to Hulutao. In his orders to Settle, Commander Seventh Fleet noted that

3 supreme Commander Allied Powers (MacArthur; Tokyo) message to Com­ manding General China, 15 October 1945. 4 Ibid. 5 commander-in-Chief, Pacific/Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Ocean Area (Admiral Nimitz) message to Commander Seventh Fleet and Commandel'-in-Chief US Fleet (Admiral King), 22 September 1945. 6 Commander Seventh Fleet Daily Summary, 22 October 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110

Dairen was the "desired and originally planned destination" for the Thirteenth

CNA. The army would be landed at Dairen if current negotiations between the

Chinese and Russian governments were successfully concluded in time. Kinkaid

stated that it was known that the Russians objected to a landing on the grounds

that it was a free [commercial] port. Transport Squadron Seventeen units would,

until the situation clarified, rendezvous near Taku Bar and be prepared for di-

version to either Dairen or Hulutao. Settle was directed to keep Seventh Fleet's

amphibious and cruiser/destroyer forces informed of developments during his

call at Dairen. Kinkaid added the guidance-or caution-that: "Settle is not

responsible for obtaining Russian assent [to land Chinese Nationalist troops at] 7 Dairen, which is [the] responsibility of [the] Chinese government. " In essence,

Settle's task at Dairen was to investigate the situation obtaining there and, in

accordance with a cardinal principle of naval command, to keep his seniors ad-

vised.

When Settle's flagship, the USS San Francisco, and her escort approached

Dairen harbor early in the afternoon of 26 October, the Russians once again did

8 not respond to radio or visual signals. Lieutenant Commander Scherbatoff

7 Com7thFlt message to CTF 71, 26 October 1945. 8 Commander Task Group 71.6 (Commander Cruiser Division 6) message, 26 October 1945, Settle Papers.

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took the Admiral's barge in to the beach and proceeded to Lieutenant General 9 Kozlov's headquarters in the old Yamato Hotel. It was originally intended

that, following Scherbatoff's call on the Dairen commandant, Admiral Settle

would come ashore for a conference with Kozlov. Perhaps forgetting that

Scherbatoff was a native speaker of Russian, Kozlov placed a long distance

telephone call to Marshal Malinovsky's Changchun headquarters, while

Scherbatoff was seated across Kozlov's desk. Kozlov asked for guidance on the

agenda that Scherbatoff had produced. Malinovsky advised Kozlov to use diplo-

macy and tact, with the immediate result that, instead of waiting for Settle

to come to his office, Kozlov indicated his williness to call on the visiting

American admiral on board his cruiser flagship. Kozlov summoned another

Soviet general and two "Soviet consuls in Dairen." All four changed into dress 10 uniforms and accompanied Scherbatoff out to the San Francisco.

Kozlov's attitude during the conference in San Francisco's flag messroom 11 was brittle. He had not received advance notification of Settle's arrival.

9 scherbatoff had been promoted since his last visit to Dairen. The Yamato had been renamed the Red Star Hotel (George Moor ad, Lost Peace in China [New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1949], p. 184). 10 . Scherbatoff letter to writer, 30 September 1965. 11 settle interview, 6 January 1964; Settle letter to writer, 5 January 1968.

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He clearly stated his position: He had received no instructions regarding

the debarkation of Chinese Nationalist troops in Manchurian ports, and he could

not permit such landings at Dairen without instructions from his superiors.

Kozlov claimed that it was his understanding that the original Sino-Soviet

agreement on Manchuria was still effective and, according to its terms, no

Chinese Nationalist troops would enter Manchuria until late November. He re­

fused to discuss the adequacy of Dairen port facilities for handling the debarka­

tion and transhipment of a Chinese Nationalist army. He stated that only Chinese

or Russian naval vessels were permitted in Port Arthur, and, under free port

rules, only merchant vessels were allowed in Dairen. Foreign naval vessels

could enter Dairen only after high-level agreements had been secured, including

specific arrangements, and the Dairen military commandant appropriately in­

structed by higher Soviet military authorities. These matters should be dis-

cus sed through the Chinese miss ion now attached to Soviet military headquarters at

Changchun. Despite his well-briefed and effectively presented position, Kozlov

found it necessary to inquire whether Chinese Nationalist troops would be landed

without Russian consent. Settle emphatically replied that Americans would not 12 land Chinese troops at Russian-occupied ports without Soviet agreement.

12 ComTaskGrp 71.6 message to Com7thFlt, 26 October 1945, Settle Papers.

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General Kozlov asked that Admiral Kinkaid be informed that it was impor-

tant that American State Department officials should not arrive without prior

notification, and then only by merchant vessel rather than naval man-of-war.

Kozlov considered Admiral Settle's visit an imposition, particularly in view of

his not having received advance notification of the USS San Francisco's arrival.

He felt that, if Settle's flagship and escort remained in Dairen, it would only

"increase the difficulties which Russian occupation forces had in controlling 13 unruly classes." Conditions in the city of Dairen, itself, Kozlov stated,

were orderly, but intermittent skirmishes continued between his forces and 14 "coastal pirates" and "bandits" outside the city.

At least a part of Kozlov's admitted difficulties in local administration

stemmed from the activities of Eighth Route Army elements which had begun

moving across to Dairen from the northern coast of the Shantung peninsula

at the end of August. With the Soviet military occupation, and the resultant

reduction of Japanese participation in civil administration, sharp, emotional

clashes occurred as various factions-Chinese Nationalist sympathizers,

Chinese communists, and local Manchurian interests-emerged. Soviet mili-

tary authorities anticipated the grasping of civilian leadership by Eighth Route

13 settle intervies, op. cit. 14 ComTaskGrp 71.6 message to Com7thFlt, 26 October 1945, Settle Papers.

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Army elements and their subsersive efforts to disruptpublicpeace andorderand 15 generate confusion. The planning by Kozlov and his political commissar for in-

creased Chinese Communist participation in the municipal government were

completed in late October and were put into effect on 8 November.

15 By October 1945, the term Eighth Route Army was commonly used throughout North China and Manchuria to describe armed communist elements whether or not they were actually organized units under Eighth Route Army control or the leadership of ex-Eighth Route Army officers. Most organized, erstwhile Eighth Route Army units in Manchuria were incorporated into Lin Piao's Northeastern Democratic Allied Army in November 1945. (0. Edmund Clubb, Twentieth Century China [New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1964], p. 262; H. F. Chan, compiler, " The Evolution of the Fourth Field Army" [unpublished map with supporting chronological organization chart and notes, xerox, Hong Kong, June 1969]). The plaintive remarks of Ho Ssu-yuan, Nationalist governor of Shantung, at a 22 October 1945 press conference in Chungking illustrate the problem: "The entire Shantung Province has been thrown into ex­ treme confusion. All Japanese and puppet armed troops have claimed themselves as old units of the 8th Route Army, new units of the 8th Route Army, New 8th Route Army, False 8th Route Army, Yenan 8th Route Army, or Sahntung 8th Route Army. They have all kinds of insignia, too innumerable to mention. • . • Bandits are now exploiting this transitory situation to seize power and money."(Kuang-hua jih-pao, Shanghai, 23 October 1945.)

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Though they did not dominate the new city government structure, Eighth

Route Army personnel held key posts, including directorships of Finance,

Education, and Public Security bureaus, and the Chief of the Municipal secre-

tariat. Both the mayor and vice-mayor had come across from Shantung; the 16 latter, Ch'en Yli-t'ao, was an Eighth Route Army officer. The collaboration

between occupying Soviet military government officials and armed Chinese

16 Man-Mo Doho En'gokai (Manchuria-Mongolis Japanese Compatriots' Relief Association), Man-Mo shusen-shi (History of the war's end in Manchuria and Mongolis) [Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 1962], p. 250-251. Detailed des­ criptions of the emergence of Chinese Communists in the municipal adminis­ trations of Dairen, Port Arthur and other Manchurian cities through mid-1946 are fotmd on pp. 209 (Changch'un), 214 (Mukden), 235-236 (Liaoyang), and 250-252 (Dairen). The identification of the Dairen mayor, Li Tzu-hsiang, the former chairman of the Shantung Natives Committee under the Japanese, is corrobora­ ted in Headquarters, 1st Marine Division (Reinforced), Intelligence Memoran­ dum No. 4, 20 June 1946, and Intelligence Memorandum No. 46, 6 August 1946, as is the identification of Ch'en Yili-t'ao. The former report claims that Li, an elderly man, was a mere figurehead and that Ch'en Yiin-t'ao was "the real policy maker in the municipal government!' The latter report states that Chinese Communist armed forces attached to the Dairen city government in mid-summer 1946 were commanded by a Chao Tung-ping [ ?].

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116

communists in Dairen was by no means unique. According to a recent Soviet

source, the Soviet army commanders relied on "fighters of the 8th [Route)

Army" in establishing a new Chinese police organization in Manchuria. Chinese

Communist Party municipal committees were established in Mukden, Dairen, 17 Port Arthur, and other Manchurian cities shortly afterwards.

Kozlov's hard line during the conference with Settle was interspersed with

moments of soldier-to-sailor fellowship: "We [Kozlov and Settle] are just a

pair of good Army and Navy men who must carry out, with unquestioning obedi­ 18 ence, the orders of our seniors. " Bu~ overall, Kozlov was playing a care-

ful game of calculated obstruction. When the American commander raised the

question of the Russians' failure to reply to visual or radio messages from his

flagship, Kozlov replied that there was "no practical channel for communica­ 19 tion. " As the meeting came to a close, Admiral Settle posed a final question:

17 A. M. Dubinsky, "The Liberation Mission of the Soviet Union in the Far East (1945)," Voprosy istorii, August 1965, pp. 59-60, cited in Raymond L. Garthoff, "Soviet Intervention in Manchuria, 1945-1946," Orbis, vol. X, no. 2 (Summer 1966), pp. 538-539. 18 Sett1 e interview, . op. cit. 19 Ibicl.

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Would the Soviet forces in Dairen fire upon him should he return under orders .. 20 from Admiral Kinkaid? "Kosloz merely shrugged his shoulders in reply. "

With his mission completed, Admiral Settle transmitted a message report

to Admiral Kinkaid giving a comprehensive outline of the conference proceedings.

Settle added the recommendation that, in the future, naval vessels call at Dairen

only after arrangements had been completed with Soviet military occupation

headquarters in Changchun, and assurances that Dairen military authorities 21 had received appropriate instructions had been secured. Settle cautioned the

Seventh Fleet Commander that "direct radio or signal station communication 22 with Dairen impossible. "

Settle saw no useful purpose to be gained by remaining in Dairen; he, in

fact, considered it "highly undesireable" that he do so. San Francisco cleared 23 Dairen harbor late in the evening for Weihaiwei to await further orders.

201bid. 21 ComTaskGrp 71.6 message to Com7thFlt, 26 October 1945, Settle Papers. 221bid. 23 Admiral Kinkaid approved Settle's departure from Dairen several hours after the fact and announced that the mission was completed (Com 7thFlt mes­ sage to Commander Task Force 71 [Rear Admiral Francis S. Low], 27 October 1945).

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Nine hours before Settle filed his Dairen report, Admiral Kinkaid expressed

the judgment that Soviet clearance for a landing at Dairen appeared doubtful.

But, restrained by a prior commitment to the Generalissimo, Kinkaid deferred

landing the Thirteenth CNA at an alternate port until the agreed deadline of 24 noon on the 27th had passed. With Settle's report in hand, Kinkaid promptly

but tentatively approved the landing of the Thirteenth CNA at Hulutao and de­ 25 ferred the loading of the Fifty-second CNA at Haiphong. 26 In a conflicting Soviet account of Admiral Settle's mission to Dairen, it

is claimed that the Dairen military commandant received a radio request for

permission for the American squadron to enter Dairen harbor. The commander

of the Port Arthur naval base, Rear Admiral V. Tsipanovich, transmitted a

"categorical" order for the approaching American ships not to enter the port,

but to stop well offshore opposite 'Dashandao Island' [sic; Tasanshan Tao],

more than ten miles from the harbor entrance. The American squadron stopped

as directed, and a representative of the squadron commander came ashore by

motorboat to call on Kozlov. The representative again requested permission to

24 7thFleet Daily Summary, 26 October 1945. 25 Com7thFlt message to CTF 78 (Vice Admiral Barbey; Seventh Amphibious Force), 26 October 1945. 26 Colonel General I. Liudnikov, "The Storming of the Great Khingan, " Izvestia, 3 September 1966, Mr. Maury Lisann, trans.

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enter the port. Kozlov then notified Colonel General I. Liudnikov, commander

of the Soviet Thirty-ninth Army, that the Americans were demanding to enter

port. Liudnikov confirmed the prohibition against the entry of US naval vessels. 27 An even more senior Soviet military official, Marshal K. Meretskov, directed

Kozlov and an interpreter to proceed to Admiral Settle's flagship for a confer­ 28 ence. After an exchange of conventional greetings, Settle stated that his mis-

sion was to conduct a reconnaissance of the Dairen area for the possible landing

of the Fiftieth [sic] and other Chiang Kai-shek armies being transported from

Shanghai. Kozlov stated that he would not allow Chiang Kai-shek's troops to be

stationed on the Kwantungpeninsula. The "squables" continued for an hour. Settle

finally complained that he would report Kozlov's refusal to allow the American

ships into Port Arthur; two hours later, his ships go underway and cleared the

area.

The above interpretation of events contains obvious errors; on the other

hand, it does make, at least by implication, several relevant points. Settle

27 Marshal Kyril A. Meretskov, commander of the First Far Eastern Front­ one of the three Army Group commands under Marshal Vasilevsky, commander

of Soviet Forces in the Far East (RaymondL~ Garthoff, "Soviet Intervention in Man­ churia, 1945-1946," Orbis, vol. X no. 2 [Summer 1966], p. 528; Garthoff, "Marshal Malinovsky's Manchurian Campaign," Military Review [October 1966], p. 51). 28 settle is properly identified as to rank; as a Seventh Fleet squadron

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received no message, visual or radio, prohibiting his entry into port. Kozlov

had denied receiving radio or other notification of Settle's arrival. Settle did

not request permission to enter the harbor-nor did Scherbatoff-the San Fran-

cisco steamed directly into the inner harbor and anchored close to Louisville's

anchorage the previous month. The conference on board Settle's flagship did

not consist in an hour of squabbling; the substantive exchanges between princi-

pals were formal, firm, and precise. Both sides presented categorical posi-

tions through their respective interpreters without heat or display of personal

feelings. Settle did not state that he would report to Kinkaid the Dairen com-

mandant's refusal to allow Settle's ships to enter Port Arthur-Settle had no ' ,., intention of entering Port Arthur. Finally, San Francisco was underway im­ 29 mediately after her barge returned to the ship-not "after two hours. "

commander; but, phonetically, as "T. J. V .," rather than T. G. W. ,Settle. 29 settle interview, op. cit.; Scherbatoff letter, op. cit.; and Settle letter to writer, 5 January 1968, containing specific comments on the Lisann trans­ lation of the Liuclnikov account. George Scherbatoff, the only American to go ashore during Admiral Settle's second visit to Dairen, might be amused by Carsun Chang's brief description of the episode: In October [1945], when American warships were patrolling off Dairen and some American sailors went ashore on a sight-seeing visit, the Russians made such a fuss as if a landing of the Chinese Nationalist army with the support of the American

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The Liuclnikov account does, however, reinforce the Settle-Scherbatoff

recollection that San Francisco's appearance at Dairen on 26 October stimulated

serious concern amoung senior Soviet commanders in Manchuria. Whether or

not Kozlov received his orders from Marshal Meretskov or Marshal Malinovsky,

it is clear that at least one of the second-senior Soviet officers in the Far East

was directly involved in formulating Manchurian occupation policy. Another

probable element in the Soviet commanders' concern over the US naval presence

in Dairen in late October 1945 is the fact that the Russians had sent their first

Soviet naval force to Dairen only a few weeks earlier. The first Soviet Pacific

Fleet units reached Port Arthur and Dairen when the Soviets finally opened a

Vladivostok to Dairen-Port Arthur shipping route on 1 October. The first force

to arrive consisted of a frigate [destroyer escort?], four minesweepers, and

two large submarine chasers. The Soviet command meticulously provided

adequate notification of this initial transit, requested procedural information,

and approval for emergency port calls at western Korean ports below the 38th 30 parallel. But this convoy had returned to Vladivostok by the time Settle ar-

rived on the 26th. Finally, there is evidence that American planners in Wash­ 31 ington had formulated plans to occupy Dairen and Port Arthur. Knowledge of

fleet was about to be forcibly attempted. (The Third Force in China [New York: Bookman Associates, 1952], p. 164). 3 °Com7thFlt messages to CinCPacAdvHQ, 28 and 30 September 1945. 31 see, for example, Dean Acheson's specific reference to an American

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such plans would undoubtedly have reinforced Soviet concerns about American

intentions.

Lieutenant Commander Scherbatoff, who spent more time with Kozlov and

his staff than any other visiting American naval officer, has made the judgment 32 that:

There is no question in [my] mind that the powerful US Navy contingent that had entered the Dairen port terrified the Soviets who could not match the gunpower of our ships. . . It is, further, [my] impression that the Soviet High Command, realizing its disadvantage, would have given in to the US demand if a little more insistence had been exercised-unfortunately, Admiral Settle was overruled by higher authorities.

plan to "occupy several [Chinese] ports, including those now occupied by Soviet troops" (Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Acheson) to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Vincent), [Washington,] 28 September 1945, FRUS, 1945, China, p. 571. emphasis added). 32 Scherbatoff letter, op. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Hulutao Incident, 27-28 October 1945.

When it became apparent that the Russians intended to obstruct the

landing of Chinese Nationalists troops at Dairen, Admiral Kinkaid directed

that plans be developed for an alternate landing at Hulutao, a sheltered, 1 deep-water harbor on the northern reaches of Liaotung Bay. It was the

Seventh Fleet commander's understanding, at this point, that the Russians 2 had given their assent to a landing at Hulutao. Meanwhile, China Theater

headquarters learned that late on October 24th, after obvious hesi-

tation and delay, President Chiang had informed the Soviet ambassador in

Chungking that two of his armies, the Thirteenth and Fifty-second, would

debark at Hulutao or, alternatively, at Yingkow, on or about the 29th. The

Soviet ambassador was also notified that US Seventh Fleet reconnaissance

aircraft would overfly Hulutao and Yingkow and was requested to inform the 3 senior Soviet commander in Manchuria. China Theater cautiously reinforced

1 com7thPhibFor WarD, 27 October 1945, and Com7thPhibFor, Report of Operations in Korea and North China, 15 August 1945 to 19 November 1945, 22 December 1945, p. B-7; the latter is cited hereafter as Barbey Report. 2 Com7thFlt message, 25 Oct. 1945. 3 Charles F. Romamis, Sr. , "History of the China Theater" (unpublished

MS, Office of the Chief of Military History, Washington, D. C.: Shanghai: ~· April 1946), Chap. XVI, "Recovery of Manchuria," p.14; cited hereafter as Romanus MS.

123

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this notification by asking the War Department in Washington to pass a similar 4 advisory to the Soviet government via the American Mission in Moscow. In

the event that the Russians raised an objection to such flight activity, President

Chiang ordered two Nationalist reconnaissance aircraft to Tientsin to assist the 5 Seventh Fleet.

Admiral Barbey, as Commander 7th Amphibious Force, departed Tsingtao

on 25 October for Hulutao to assess the situation in that port 11 in case" .Hulutao

would be officially designated as the debarkation point for the Thirteenth and 6 Fifty-second Chinese Nationalist Armies (CNA). Seventh Fleet aircraft re-

connoitered Hulutao on the 26th, probably without benefit of the Soviet approval

relayed to China Theater by Chiang Kai-shek's headquarters, for US naval air

operations in the Hulutao and Yingkow areas. A restriction was added that

US aircraft were not to operate east of Yingkow, especially over Dairen and 7 Port Arthur. Both the Seventh Fleet and 7th Amphibious Force commanders

Tl~e Soviet ambassador in Chungking was A. A. Petrov (U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945, Vol VIT, The Far East, China [Washington, D. C.; Government Printing Office, 1969], p.1040, note 82). Cited hereafter as FRUS, China, 1945. 4 china Theater HQ message, 25 Oct. 1945. 5 Rom anus MS, loc. cit. 6 Com7thFlt, Daily Summary, 24 October 1945. 7 Romanus MS, "Recovery of Manchuria," pp.13, 15.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125

8 clearly expected Hulutao to be occupied by Soviet forces, and for this reason,

Admiral Barbey called at Weihaiwei to pick up a Russian interpreter, Lieutenant 9 D. F. Kueseff, USNR, from Admiral Settle's staff. While there, and "in an en-

deavor to gain firsthand knowledge of the political and military situation," .. Barbey met with Commissioner Yu Chou, the communist mayor of Weihaiwei,

and two representatives of local military units, Captain Chang and Lieutenant 10 Yang. This encounter may account for the forewarnings enjoyed by communist

military officials during Barbey's visit at Hulutao the following day.

The USS Catoctin (AGC-5), Barbey's flagship, arrived at Hulutao on the

morning of 27 October. His flagship and escort, the USS L. C. Taylor (DE-415),

anchored close-in with the national colors and international call signs flying.

Shortly afterwards, Catoctin's barge, also flying national colors, was despatched

to the docks with an unarmed party of officers who were to contact local authorities.

As the barge approached the inner harbor, the boat officer was able to observe

a group of men in dark green uniforms run halfway out the breakwater, take

covered positions, and begin firing. A single shot was fired. Lieutenant Com- 11 mander William L. Maillard, USNR, Barbey's flag lieutenant, ordered the

8 Maillard interview; Com7thFlt message 26 October 1945. 9 Com 7thPhibFor Operational Summary, 26 October 1945. 10 com7thPhibFor War Diary, 26 October 1945. 11 Now United States Congressman Maillard and a Rear Admiral, US Naval Reserve.

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coxswain to return to the Catoctin. As the boat turned, fifteen to

twenty rifle shots were fired, though larger caliber weapons may also have been 12 employed. The boat was hit only once, and there were no casualties.

The troops observed appeared to be Chinese, yet Admiral Barbey's

officers were unable to determine with certainty that Soviet troops were not in-

volved. Resolved to make another attempt to "contact local officials," Barbey

reported the incident by high priority message to Commander Seventh Fleet.

His reservations concerning the identity of the troops ashore are reflected in

the final sentence of his message report: "Was action taken my [25 October 13 message request] to notify Russians of my intented visit to this port ?"

Late in the morning, another boat was sent into the dock area where con-

tact was made with Chinese Communist officials without incident. The boat

party observed that barricades and trenches had been constructed near the

piers and adjacent beaches. Troops could be seen digging additional trenches

on the heights overlooking the harbor. Several Chinese national flags were

12 Com7thPhibFor War Diary, 27 October 1945: Barbey Report, loc. cit. 13 '' Com7thPhibFor message to Com7thFlt, 27 October, 1945. Admiral Kinkaid replied within two hours, assuring Barbey that his estimated time of arrival at Hulutao had been passed to China Theater headquarters for trans­ mission to Soviet authorities in Chungking (Com 7thFlt message, 27 October 1945).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127

displayed, but there were no indications of the presence of Soviet forces or . . 14 t h en representatives.

A small Chinese tug came alongside the Catoctin in the early afternoon

with Lieutenant General Lau Shokai [sic) who represented himself as the com-

manding general of Chinese Communist Fourth Route Army units in the Hulutao 15 area. The communist commander was accompanied by a Colonel Jang Jang 16 [Chang Chang?], "Head of Battle Department. 11 The tug came from an area

14 com7thPhibFor message to Com7thFlt, 27 October 1945. 15 The communist general's name is given as Lan Shok Hai in the 27 Octo­ ber 1945 entries in the Com7thPhibFor and USS Catoctin War Diaries. The 28 October entry in the latter diary shows Lau Shoe Hai, while a 29 October 1945 United Press release from Hulutao identifies the general as Lau Shou-Hai, "commander of troops of the Northeast People's Army in this entire area (The China Press [Shanghai) 30 October 1945). A meaningful identification of the commander is further complicated by its being transformed to "Lieutenant General Hai of the Communist Fourth Route Army" by presumably knowledgeable staff officers at General Wedemeyer's Shanghai headquarters (Headquarters China Theater message, 28 October 1945). Tang Tsou identifies the communist troops at Hulutao as contingents of General Ch'en Yi's New Fourth Army (Tang Tsou, America's Failure in China [Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1963], p. 311n). 16 Barbey Report, p. B-7; USS Catoctin (AGC-5) War Diary, 27 October 1945. I have been unable to identify either Lau Shok-hai [?] or Chang Chang [ ?] • It is most likely that the troops at Hulutao were under the operational

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in Hulutao harbor several miles from the docks near which the morning's

firing incident occurred. Though Lau [ ?] was in apparent command of local

troops, it is unlikely that he was directly involved in the firing incident. In

any case, the general apologized for the firing incident. He stated that he

had received information that Nationalist troops were being brought into the

area in American transports and that his subordinates had assumed that a

landing was in progress. He also indicated that the Chinese Communists in-

tended to take over control of Manchuria as the Russians withdrew; that his

control of the 16th Military Subdistrict, commanded by Li Yun-ch'ang, which included the entire coastal area from Shanhaikuan to Antung. This information was reported to China Theater Headquarters by the U.S. Yenan Observer Group, before 1 November and was confirmed by Chinese communist representatives in Chungking on that date (Romanus MS, ''Recovery of Manchuria, p. 19. ). See Union Research Institute, Who's Who in Communist China (Hong Kong: 1969), cited hereafter as WWCC, Vol. I, p. 411, for a brief biographical sketch of Li Yun-ch'ang. A strategic analysis of the Chinese Communist-Chinese Nationalist race for Manchuria is found in 0. Edmund Clubb, "Manchuria in the Balance, 1945-1946," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. XXVI, No. 4 (Nov. 1957). pp. 377-389. Valuable details of the movement of Eighth Route Army units into Manchuria and the activation of guerrilla forces northward from the Shanhaikuan

corridor are found in Kusano Fumio, Chugoku sen'go no d~tai (The Situation in Postwar China) [Tokyo: Ky

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forces would oppose a landing of Chinese Nationalist troops; and that they "were 17 frankly suspicious of the presence of an amphibious commander. n

In order to avoid giving the impression that he was retreating from Hulutao

in the face of" a few rifle shots," Barbey delayed his departure from Hulutao

until the next day. Lau [ ?] returned to the Catoctin for a forty-five minute of-

ficial call on the Admiral on the morning of the 28th. Chang [ ?] visited the flag­ 18 ship in the afternoon. Catoctin was not underway for Chinwangtao until evening.

In view of the situation at Hulutao, Admiral Barbey recommended to Admiral

Kinkaid that no central government troops be landed at Hulutao or in the vicinity

of any Chinese Communist controlled port "unless the United States is prepared 19 to become involved in the Chinese Civil War. " Barbey recommended further

that, with a view toward avoiding similar incidents "involving the United States

flag," LSTs or Liberty ships be turned over to the central government to be

operated by Chinese crews in transporting Nationalist troops to North China 20 ports for the purpose of fulfilling existing American commitments.

Kinkaid, meanwhile, had informed Chiang Kai-shek that, unless he re-

ceived assurances by midday on the 27th that the Soviets would permit the

17 Barbey Report, loc. cit. 18 uss Catoctin War Diary, 27 and 28 October 1945. 19 Barbey Report, op. cit. 20 Ibid.; Romanus MS, "Recovery of Manchuria,'' p. 16.

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landing of the Thirteenth CNA at Dairen or that an unopposed landing at Hulutao

could be accomplished, he would land the Thirteenth CNA at Taku and delay the 21 loading of the Fifty-second CNA at Haiphong. This plan was changed as the

result of a conference between the two naval commanders on board Kinkaid's

flagship on the morning of the 29th. The decision not to land Chinese National-

ist troops at Hulutao would stand, so long as there was continuing uncertainty

regarding Soviet opposition or approval, and until it was clear that the landing

area at Hulutao was secured by central government troops, "thus precluding

any opposition by Chinese Communists or other dissident forces. 1122 The

Thirteenth CNA, however, would now be put ashore at Chinwangtao, rather than 23 Taku. The loading of the Fifty-second CNA at Haiphong was ordered for

21 Com7thFlt message, 26 October 1945. 22 China Theater Administrative Headquarters (Shanghai) message, 28 October 1945. 23 Chinwangtao (Ch'inhuangtao), the northernmost ice-free port on the China coast, is seventeen miles south of Shanhaikuan where the Great Wall meets the sea. The port was built to serve the Kailan mines and could accom­ modate Admiral Barbey'stransports. Troops would require lighterage, but Chinwangtao is approximately 160 miles closer to Manchuria than Taku. (Headquarters, III Amphibious Corps, Intelligence :study, Theatre of Opera­ tions. North China, 29 August 1945, pp. 42-47.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131

movement to Chinwangtao or Tak.u. The landing of the Thirteenth CNA was

covered by Ninety-fourth CNA troops brought up from the Tientsin-Taku area, 24 while Task Force 72 aircraft flew air cover.

Both China Theater and Chiang Kai-shek's headquarters were notified that

it had been decided to land the Thirteenth CNA at Chinwangtao instead of Hulutao, 25 as the "best possible solution in the circumstances. rr President Chiang, how-

ever, persisted in his desire to land his troops in a good harbor as far up into

Manchuria as possible. He began making increased diplomatic efforts to hold

the Soviet government to the terms of the 14 August Sino-Soviet agreement on

Manchuria. Petrov, the Soviet ambassador in Chungking, was asked to forward

a request to Moscow that Marshal Malinovsky's forces provide cover for National-

ist landings at both Hulutao and Yingkow. According to Feis, it is not clear

whether this request was refused. In any case, the Hulutao landings were can-

celled.

On the 31st, Admiral Barbey was advised by Admiral Kinkaid that Chiang

K'ai-shek had been informed of a Russian guarantee for the safe landing of the

Fifty-second CNA at Yingkow. After gathering a small assortment of amphibious

landing craft, Barbey made final preparations for sailing on 1 November to

24 com7thFlt Daily Summary, 29 October 25 Herbert Feis, The China Tangle (Princeton, N.J.: The Princeton University Press, 1953), p. 385.

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investigate the feasibility of landing Nationalist troops at ¥ingkow and to make

appropriate recommendations to Commander Seventh Fleet. Meanwhile, Barbey

received a report that,during a conference at Changchun, Manchuria, on the 29th,

Marshal Malinovsky had informed Chiang Kai-shek's senior representative,

General Hsiung Shih-hui, that the Soviets would assist in the landing of Nation­ 26 alist troops at Yingkow, Hulutao, and Ta Sungha (Tatungk'ou). The Russians had

even indicated their willingness to provide vehicles for movement of the troops 27 inland from the ports. Central government officials in Chungking., however,

were claiming that Eighth Route Army elements had already grouped along the 28 railroads behind the Hulutao, Yingkow, and Antung railheads. But Barbey had

already seen for himself that a landing at Hulutao would probably involve his

amphibious force in open combat between Nationalist and Chinese communist

forces. Furthermore, Ta Sungha, in the Yalu River delta was unsuitable for

26 Barbey Report, op. cit. , p. B-8. General Tu Y"ti-ming, prospective field commander of the Chinese National­ ist Armies committed to Manchuria, conferred with both Hsiung and Malinovsky in Changchun on the 29th; he returned to Peking· for a conference with General Ho Ying-ch'in, Chiang K'ai-shek's chief of staff, the following day([ Ta Kung Pao, 2 November 1945], U.S. Information Service, U.S. Consulate General Shanghai, Chinese Press Review, reel 02415) . 27 Feis, The China Tangle, op. cit., p. 385. 28 The New York Times, 30 October 1945 (Henry Lieberman, Chungking, 29 October 1945).

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an amphibious landing, and it was more than forty miles from the nearest rail­ 29 road at Antung. The only remaining possibility for an unopposed landing in

Manchuria was at Yingkow.

29 Barbey Report, loc. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A Critique of Traditional Interpretations of the Hulutao Incident.

The Hulutao incident is mentioned in a least a dozen secondary works, but

a majority of them contain errors of greater or lesser degree of importance.

Several of these errors are self-perpetuating, others merely reflect the con-

fusion of the complex diplomatic and military forces at work at the time. A

major point of misunderstanding centers on the immediate purpose of Admiral

Barbey's visit to Hulutao. Clearly, Barbey sailed his flagship and her escort

to the Manchurian port for the sole purpose of investigating conditions there in

preparation for, what, by then, could only be planned as a possible landing of

Chinese Nationalist troops. Barbey was then acting as Commander 7th Amphi-

bious Force, not, according to 0. Edmund Clubb and Jacques Guillermaz, as 1 Commander Seventh Fleet. Barbey was neither escorting Chinese Nationalist 2 troops, nor did an American convoy of naval transports actually approach 3 Hulutao, as reported by Anthony Kubek and David J. Dallin. Tang Tsou states

1 o. Edmund Clubb, 20th Century China (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 262; Jacques Guillermaz, Histoire du Parti Commun­ iste Chinois (1921-1949) (Paris: Payot, 1968), p. 273. 2 Anthony Kubek, How the Far East Was Lost: American Policy and the Crea- tion of Communist China, 1941-1949 (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1963), p. 171. Nor were US Marines in Manchuria as Kubek claims, loc. cit. 3 Alexander J. Dallin, Soviet Russia and the Far East (New Haven: Yale Uni­ versity Press, 1948), p. 252.

134

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4 incorrectly that Chinese Nationalists were present with Barbey at Hulutao.

An official Chinese Nationalist version of the episode includes the claim that

Nationalist troops landed at Hulutao on 27 October, that they were fired upon

by Chinese Communist forces, and, as a result, "had to turn back to Tsingtao. 115

Another erroneous report that Chinese Nationalist troops were actually at

Hulutao on 2 November is found in a publication of the Congressional Quarterly . 6 S ervwe.

Hulutao was not, as was asserted by Casseville, in Soviet hands until 8 7 8 November 1945. Admiral Barbey's recollection, published in his memoirs,

4 Tang Tsou, America's Failure in China, 1941-1950, op. cit., p. 329. 5 Chiang Kai-shek, Soviet Russia in China (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, Inc., 1957), p. 143. These errors are pa:rtially corrected in the second edition (1958), p. 151, and fully corrected in the current revised, abridged edition (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.: 1965), p. 99. See also Sin-ming Chiu,

A History of the Chinese Communist Army (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, Inc., 1964), p. 105. 6 Congressional Quarterly Service, China and U.S. Far East Policy, 1945- 1966 (Washington, D. C.: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1967), p. 38. 7 General Henry Casseville, De Chiang Kai Shek a Mao Tse Tung (1927-1950) (Paris: Payot, 1953), p. 132. 8 . Damel E. Barbey, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (ret.), MacArthur's Amphi- bious Navy; Seventh Amphibious Force Operations, 1943-1945 (Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1969), p. 340; Maillard interview, op. cit. , in response to a specific question on this point.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136

that a small detachment of Russians "without local authority" was present during

the Hulutao incident is not supported by his contemporary account, nor by his

flag lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander Willaim Maillard. Barbey's post-Hulutao

conference with Admiral Kinkaid was held, as is shown above, on 29 October not 9 10 the 28th as given by Herbert Feis. Herbert Feis also states that Hulutao was

occupied by Soviet authorities. Barbey's delay in sailing from Hulutao was

specifically intended to demonstrate that he would not be driven off, but would

leave only on his own initiative. Nonetheless, Freda Utley, deJaegher and Kuhn,

and Anthony Kubek have, in their turn, chosen to describe unfairly Barbey's 11 departure as a retreat or "forced" retreat. According to the late Senator

9 Feis, The China Tangle, op. cit., p. 385; where the Seventh Fleet commander's name is given incorrectly as "Kincaid."

lOib.d_1_., p. 384.

11 Freda Utley, Last Chance in China (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1947), p. 67; Raymond J. DeJaegher and Irene Corbally Kuhn, The Enemy Within (Garden City, N. Y.: D')ubleday and Co., Inc., 1952), p. 255; and Anthony Kubek, How the Far East Was Lost, loc. cit.

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Joseph McCarthy, "Barbey was •.• compelled to pull out of the Manchurian 12 port of Hulutao [sic] after Chinese Communist soldiers fired on his launch. "

A more recent version, by Soviet historians B. G. Sapozhnikov and V. B.

Vorontsov, obviously relying on Tsou, incorrectly have "Chiang Kai-shek's 13 men landed in Hulutao. . . "

12 . Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Amenca's Retreat from Victory, the Story

of George Catlett Marshall (New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951), p. 99.

13 "The Liberation Mission of too USSR in the Far East during World War II, Istoriya SSSR (History of the USSR), No. 4, July-August 1965, pp. 28-48 (Soviet Military Translations No. 207, Joint Publications Research Service, JPRS 32,291, 6 October 1965).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Barbey and Tu Yu-ming at Yingkow, 2-6 November 1945

Yingkow (Yingk'ou) is situated on the eastern bank of the Liao River, about

fourteen miles from the mouth of the river, where itempties into the sea at the

northeastern edge of Liaotung Bay. (See map p. vi) Yingkow remained a small

fishing village until the opening in 1858 of a treaty port at Newchwang (Niuchuang),

fifty miles farther up the Liao River. A British consulate was first established

at Yingkow in 1860; a Chinese Government customs post was opened in 1864; and,

in 1866, the headquarters of the Governor of Shanhaikuan were relocated there.

Yingkow grew in importance with the development of the Manchurian interior,

the completion of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the Russo-Japanese War, and,

particularly, the linking of Yingkow with the Chinese Eastern Railway. In the

early decades of this century, Yingkow developed as a primary Manchurian com­

mercial port, second in importance only to the great commercial port at Dairen 1 (Luta).

1 An Official Guide to Eastern Asia, Vol. I, Manchuria and ChOsen (Tokyo: The Imperial Japanese Government Railways, 1913), pp. 128-129. The name of the Tientsin Treaty port, Niuchung, was transferred by local usage to Yink'ou with the establishment of the British consulate as the "Newchwang consulate. " The resulting confusion over these two place names has persisted in, for example, Albert Herrman, An Historical Atlas of China, new edition, Norton Ginsberg, ed. (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1966), pp. 52-53, "The Ch'ing (Manchu)

Dynasty; Boundaries of 1900 A. D~', where the 1864 opening of customs service

138

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Though hardly an ideal port for the direct debarkation of Chinese National-

ist armies directly from their naval transports, the Liao River estuary did pro-

vide a sheltered anchorage suitable for lighterage of troops a short distance up

river to Yingkow and the railhead of the feeder line which joined the Dairen-

Mukden line. Soviet plans called for the occupation of Yingkow by Thirty-ninth 2 Army tank brigades on 25 August, but Soviet advance units entered the port 3 city two days ahead of schedule on 23 August, the same day that similar units

moved into Dairen and Port Arthur. On 29 August, Russian authorities ordered

the evacuation of all Japanese nationals from Yingkow, and, according to a

Japanese resident, Eighth Route Army elements began to appear shortly after­ 4 wards. An isolated intelligence report that Yingkow had been occupied by

at Yingk'ou is ascribed to Niuchuang; Saishin Chuka-minkoku Manshu-teikoku jimmei chimei binran (Manual of Chinese-Manchurian personal and place names) {Tokyo: Taimusu Shuppansha, 1939], part 4, p. 134, where Niuchuang and Yingkow are given as equivalent place names; and The National Geographic Society map "China Coast and Korea," October 1953, which gives Newchwang as the principal alternate for Yingkow. 2 colonel General I. Lyudnikow [Luidnikov], "The 39th Army in the Khingan­ Mukden Operation," Voyenno-lstoricheskiy Zhurnal (Journal of Military History), No. 10, October 1965, Moscow, translated in JPRS 33,203, 1 December 1965, p. 8. 3 Man-Mo Doho En'gokai (Manchuria-Mongolia Japanese Compatriots' Relief Association), Man-Mo shusen-shi (History of the war's end in Manchuria and Mongolia)[Tokyo: Kawade Shob1> Shinsha, 1962], p. 171. 4 Ibid. ' p. 242.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 140

Chinese Communist forces was received by ITI Amphibious Corps headquarters

at Tientsin on 29 October and forwarded to Admiral Kinkaid by China Theater 5 the following day.

Chinese central government pressures for the landing of the Thirteenth

and Fifty-second Chinese Nationalist Armies at a Manchurian port continued to

mount. General Tu Yti._ming, Chiang Kai-shek's recently appointed peace pre-

servation officer (senior field commander) for the Northeast provinces ( Man-

churia), returned to Tientsin on the 28th after talks in Changchun with Marshal 6 Alexander Vasilevsky, commander in chief of Soviet Forces in the Far East.

Tu agreed with Admiral Kinkaid's decision to land the Thirteenth CNA at Chin-

wangtao and ordered a division of the Ninety-fourth CNA to move up from Peking

5 Romanus MS, "Recovery of Manchuria," p.18. 6 Tu is misidentified as Tu Li-ming or Tu Li-min in the bulk of contem­ porary US Naval and diplomatic correspondence: see, for example, Barbey Re­ port and FRUS, China, 1945, passim. Tu was appointed as peace preservation officer for the Northeast provinces on 15 October 1945 [Howard L. Boorman, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1967), vol. 3, p. 328; cited hereafter as BDRC]. For the unhappy history of General Tu 's experience as a field commander in the Burma campaigns, see Theodore H. White, ed., The Stilwell Papers (New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc., 1948), pp. 56-79, and Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sunderland, United States Army in World War IT, China­ Burma-India Theater, Stilwell's Mission to China (Washington, D. C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1953), passim.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141

7 to cover the Thirteenth CNA 's debarkation. On the 29th, General Tu returned

to Changchun where, after consulting with General Hsiung, the director of

the central government's Provisional Headquarters in the Northeast, he con­

ferred with Marshal Malinovsky that evening. Upon his return to North China

the next day, Tu reported to General Ho Ying-ch'in, commander-in-chief

of the Chinese Nationalist armies, in Peking and called on General McClure,

Wedemeyer's deputy chief-of-staff, US Forces, China Theater. In a press

interview, General Tu stated that Marshal Malinovsky had agreed to guaran­

tee the safe landing of Chinese Nationalist troops at Yingkow and had approved

detailed plans for such a landing. Soviet authorities, according to Tu, had

insufficient local forces available to cover Chinese Nationalist landings at

Hulutao and Tatungk'ou and, therefore, were in total agreement on the arrange­

ments for a Yingkow landing. Tu publicly announced his intention personally to 8 lead his Thirteenth Army on the Yingkow landing.

Simultaneously, a parallel report from the Generalissimo's Chungking

headquarters of a Soviet guarantee of a safe landing at Yingkow was passed

to Admiral Kinkaid by China Theater. The Generalissimo added that, though

7 Romanus MS, "Recovery of Manchuria," p.18. 8 Ta Kung Pao, 2 Nov. 1945 (Tientsin, 1 Nov. 1945).

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Yingkow was not the most suitable port for the unloading of large troop trans-

ports, the "early entry of Chinese troops into Manchuria was an urgent neces-

sity." Chiang asked that Stratemeyer and Kinkaid make every effort to

facilitate the landings at Yingkow. Chiang observed that further delay would

result in Chinese troops being far out of position quickly to take over Man­ 9 churian territory in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal.

Ho Ying-ch'in, in turn, reported to China Theater that, according to Marshal

Vasilesky, Malinovsky's immediate superior, Soviet forces would with-

draw from Yingkow between the lOth and 12th of November. In a message

to Commander Seventh Fleet, General Ho stated that the Soviet military

commanders had guaranteed a safe landing for central government troops

at Yingkow and requested that the Fifty-second CNA be landed there. Ad-

miral Kinkaid declined to make a definite commitment, but did announce his 10 intention to reconnoiter the port of Yingkow. At this point, China Theater

informed Chiang Kai-shek. that Admiral Kinkaid would further study the

possibility of landing the Fifty-second CNA at Yingkow and would make the

landing "if it is physically possible and [if] he has definite assurances that

9 . Romanus MS, "Recovery of Manchuria," p. 18 1 °Com 7th Fit, Daily Summary, 31 October 1945.

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there will be no opposition from the Russians or dissident Chinese. "ll By

the same message, China Theater's Chungking liaison office was directed

to inform the Generalissimo of Kinkaid's request that "the Russians at Ying-

kow" be notified of his intention to land Chinese troops on the 6th or 7th of Nov-

ember and that a US warship would reconnoiter the port prior to the landing.

To emphasize the tentative nature of current Seventh Fleet plans regarding

a landing at Yingkow, China Theater added that the Generalissimo would be

informed when a definite decision was made. Noting General Ho Ying-ch'in's

recent request that the remainder of the Thirteenth CNA be landed at Ying-

kow and the Fifty-second CNA at Yingkow and Tatungk'ou, China Theater

observed that "it is not feasible to deal with two agencies [Chiang Kai-shek

in Chungking and Ho Ying-ch'in in Peking]'' on matters relating to the debarka-

tion of the Chinese armies. Henceforth, all decisions would, after due con-

sideration of Kinkaid's views, be made between China Theater headquarters 12 and central government headquarters at Chungking.

In an indirect attempt to insure that Soviet authoriities in Manchuria

were fully informed of American intentions, China Theater requested that

11 china Theater Administrative Headquarters (Shanghai) message, 31 October 1945. 12 Thid.

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the. Generalissimo notify Ambassador Petrov in Chungking and asked the

Chief of the US Military Mission in Moscow to inform appropriate Soviet of-

ficials of China Theater's intentions to conduct reconnaisance by US aircraft

and surface vessels in the Yingkow area in preparation for the "possible" 13 landing of Chinese Nationalist troops on or about 6 November.

Wedemeyer's staff cautiously advised the senior US Marine commander

in the Peking-Tientsin area that, despite the fact Yingkow was under considera-

tion as a possible point of debarkation for the Fifty-second CNA, it might be

necessary to land the army at Chinwangtao on the heels of the Thirteenth CNA.

The Ho Ying-ch'in request that two divisions of the Thirteenth CNA be diverted

to Yingkow from their scheduled landing at Chingwangtao was passed to

Commander Seventh Fleet on 2 November-but the unloading of the Thirteenth

CNA from Transport Squadron Seventeen transports at Chinwangtao had already

begtm on 30 October and was completed before dark on 1 November. On the

same day, Tu Yii-ming requested that he be authorized to proceed to Yingkow

with a party of Chinese Nationalist staff officers to participate directly in the . . . 14 reconna1sance actl v1 ty.

13 China Theater Administrative Headquarters (Shanghai) message, 31 October 1945. 14 Romanus MS, "Recovery of Manchuria," p. 20.

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General Tu's request was approved. He and his party embarked at Chin-

wangtao in the USS Lawrence C. Taylor (DE-415) for Yingkow on the 2nd. The

Catoctin, Barbey's flagship had sailed for Yingkow from Chinwangtao on the 15 evening of 1 November. Barbey was accompanied by two LCis and an LSM.

An additional destroyer escort, the USS Melvin R. Nawman (DE-416), was also 16 underway to rendezvous with the Catoctin off Yingkow the following morning.

The Catoctin anchored twenty miles below Yingkow on the morning of 2 Nov-

ember. Admiral Barbey sent an advance party, led by his chief-of-staff,

Captain Stephen G. Barchet, up river in two LCis to arrange conferences

with local authorities. The advance party found a Russian Lieutenant Colonel

Leonev [Levonev ?] in charge of a small garrison of four hundred Soviet

troops who were in apparent control of the town. The Americans encountered

15 uss Catoctin (AGC-5) War Diary, 1 November 1945. "Landing Craft, Infantry" and "Landing Ship, Medium." Both types of landing craft were well suited for reconnaissance in the lower reaches of the Liao river and for troop lighterage, should a landing be approved. In the light of events at Yingkow in the ensuing days, it is interesting to note the coincidence that the Catoctin had served as flagship and communications center for the American delegation at the Yalta Conference. 16 uss Melvin R. Nawman (DE-416) War Diary, 2 November 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146

Chang Tsun [ ?] , the Chinese mayor of Yingkow, who represented himself as

a Nationalist sympathizer, as did the local police on duty in the Yingkow water-

front area. The latter operated from a small office building nearby. Several

claimed to have been members of the Yingkow civil police force for many 17 years.

There were, however, fifteen hundred irregular Chinese troops in the town

who, though they readily identified themselves as communists, disclaimed

allegiance to Mao Tse-tung. They were an unfriendly group and appeared to

have no direct dealing with Leonev's Soviet garrison. The Russians, who

had no advance notice of the American's arrival, were friendly. Lieutenant

Colonel Leonev agreed to visit Admiral Barbey aboard the Catoctin the next 18 day. But Leonev and his staff failed to attend the luncheon hosted by

Admiral Barbey; when the advanced party returned to Yingkow on the 3rd,

Leonev was absent. It was learned that, after the conference on the previous 19 day, Leonev had traveled forty kilometers to obtain instructions.

17 Except as indicated, this account of the conferences at Yingkow is based in large part upon Com7thPhibFor War Diary, 2-5 November 1945, and Com- 7thPhibFor, Report of Operations in Korea and North China, 15 August 1945 to 19 November 1945, 22 December 1945, pp. B-8 - B-10. 18 Maillard interview, 23 April 1969. 19 Relying on a China Theater deputy chief-of-staff memorandum dated 6 November, Romanus states that Leonev traveled to Mukden for instructions Romanus MS, "Recovery of Manchuria, " p. 21.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147

In his first report from Yingkow, on the evening of the 2nd, Admiral

Barbey stated that he considered it inadvisable for Tu Yti"-ming's recon-

naissance party to visit Yingkow town pending further investigation by his

staff. It was, in Barbey's judgment, necessary that he remain in the

Yingkow area for a few more days in order accurately to assess the proba-

ble attitude of local Soviet and Chinese Communist troops to a Nationalist 20 landing and the advisability of the landing, itself.

The senior Russian officer in charge of the Soviet garrison during the 21 second day of the encounter at Yingkow was Junior Lieutenant Kostinew.

Kostinew had been educated in Eng-land and had no difficulty communi-

eating with members of Barbey's advance party. Continuing to demonstrate

a friendly attitude toward the Americans, Kostinew escorted them to the

Soviet garrison headquarters and personally drove Barbey's flag lieutenant 22 on a tour of the area in a light armored vehicle.

On the morning of the 3rd, while his advance party was ashore, Barbey

reported the results of the first day's contacts between his representatives

2 °Com7thPhibFor message to Com7thFlt, 2 November 1945. 21 Moorad, op. cit., p. 92. Moorad's brief account of the Yingkow affair is based on information provided by the Chicago Tribune corres­ pondent, Joseph Hearst. 22 Maillard interview, op. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 149

and the Soviet commandant. Lieutenant Colonel Leonev, Barbey reported,

claimed to have no knowledge of an agreement between General Tu Yu:.ming and

Marshal Malinovsky, the terms of which allegedly provided a Soviet guarantee for

the safe landing of Nationalist troops at Yingkow. Leonev had no instructions

that covered a situation involving a clash between local communist troops and

Nationalist troops if a landing were attempted. Furthermore, Leonev ex­

pected to pull his garrison out of the Yingkow area shortly. In the meanwhile,

he had no intention of allowing his forces to become involved in any conflict 23 between rival Chinese groups.

In the first twenty-four hours following the arrival at Yingkow of Barbey's

staff representatives, the number of communist troops in the area doubled in

size-fifteen hundred to three thousand. The additional troops had ar­

rived by train and junk. There was definite evidence that a "considerable"

number of the recently arrived troops had travelled by junk from the Shantung

peninsula. They were armed with rifles, grenades, and about thirty light

automatic weapons and had taken control of about one thousand locally im­

pressed laborers for the construction of harbor defenses. More ominous

23 com7thPhibFor message to Com7thFlt, 3 November 1945.

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was the report that Yingkow's mayor, Chang Tsun, had been taken into custody

by local Chinese Communist forces after his conference with the American

staff officers the day before. Other Chinese whom the advance party had con-

tacted were questioned by a fresh group of police officials under communist 24 control.

On the evening of 3 November, Barbey's second day in the Yingkow area,

General Tu Yii-ming arrived from Chinwangtao in the destroyer escort USS Law- 25 renee C. Taylor. Tu 's party was promptly quartered on board Barbey's 26 flagship where the General held a press conference. He informed the press

correspondents-both American and Chinese-that the Fifty-second CNA was

enroute in Seventh Fleet transports for a landing at, and the occupation of,

Yingkow. Tu stated that, in accordance with his 29 October agreement with

24 com7thPhibFor message to Com7thFlt, 3 November 1945. 25 Not "in a small Chinese ship" (Daniel E. Barbey, MacArthur's Amphi­ bious Navy: Seventh Amphibious Force Operations, 1943-1945 (Annapolis, Md.: US Naval Institute, 1969, p. 340). 26 Tu's party was reported to include the following: Major General Wang Yung (or Wang Yung-An); Colonel (or Lieutenant Colonel) Yuan Chun Hen (or Yuan Chunthen); Lieutenant Ching Shou Tsung (or Tsing); a 'civilian political advisor' or Russian interpreter; a 'war correspondent' and three other Chinese civilians (USS Catoctin (AGG-5) War Diary 3 and 10 November 1945; War Diary of Commander Seventh Amphibious Force, Vice Admiral Daniel E. Bar­ bey, for 1-31 November 1945, entry for 3 November 1945).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150

Marshal Malinovsky, the Russians had guaranteed a safe landing for Chinese

troops in the Yingkow area at any time prior to 10 November. He was certain

the Russians would live up to the agreement and was confident that Chinese

communist elements would be cleared from the area prior to the landing.

According to General Tu, his agreement with MalinovsL.:y provided for a

Russian withdrawal from Yingkow on 10 November and, further, that the with-

drawal would continue in stages until all Soviet forces were out of Manchuria 27 by 2 December.

Following the press conference, Admiral Barbey advised Commander

Seventh Fleet that he intended to accompany General Tu in a destroyer es-

cort the following day to an anchorage closer to Yingkow. General Tu could

then pursue "his conference" with Soviet officials. Barbey's estimate of

the situation at the end of the second day at Yingkow was that: "Under present

conditions any attempt to land Nationalist troops in [the Yingkow] harbor area

will meet communist resistance. [The] Russians will remain aloof from any

conflict although definite instructions may be received [at] any moment to 28 alter [their] present attitude. " Barbey speculated that the safe landing

27 Com7thPhibFor message to Com7thFlt, 3 November 1945. 28 com7thPhibFor message to Com7thFlt, 3 November 1945.

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guarantee allegedly made by the Russians may only have been a friendly gesture

offerred in the belief that Tu Yii -ming would be unable to land his troops at 29 Yingkow prior to the 10 November deadline.

At 6:30a.m. on the morning of the 4th, Admiral Barbey and General Tu

embarked in the destroyer escort Nawman for the short cruise up river from 30 the estuary to an anchorage off Yingkow town. Barbey was informed by

Junior Lieutenant Kostinew, as second in command of the Soviet Yingkow

garrison, that Lieutenant Colonel Leonev had departed for Mukden for in-

structions, but that Leonev was expected to return the next day. Claiming that

he had no instructions which would authorize him to deal with General Tu's

"reconnaissance party," Kostinew refused to negotiate with them. He did,

however, guarantee the safety of the Chinese Nationalist officials should they

wish to confer with local Chinese Communist officials, whom Kostinew was

confident he could produce. The conference between exclusively Chinese

29 Ibid. 30 uss Melvin R. Nawman (DE-416) War Diary, Sunday 4 November 1945. Vice Admiral Barbey's party included Captain Barchet, Com7thPhibFor Chief-of-Staff; Lt. Cdr. Maillard, Flag Lieutenant; Lt. Cdr. Jibb; Lt. Cdr. Bourget; Lt. Keuseff, Russian interpreter; and Captain Tweddell, USMCR, Chinese interpreter. Tu Yu-ming's party included Major General Wang; Colonel Yuan; Lt. Chin; Mr. An [ ?], Russian interpreter; and Mr. Lee, correspondent (Ibid.; Catoctin and Com7thPhibFor War Diaries, 3-10 November 1945).

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officials was arranged; the communist side was represented by the deputy

mayor of Yingkow and his entourage, including two armed escorts. Lieuten-

ant Commander Maillard recognized one member of the local Chinese com-

munist group as having been present during the conference at Chefoo the 31 previous month. The results of the Chinese conference were even less

fruitful than Barbey's conversation with Junior Lieutenant Kostinew. To the 32 amusement of the Soviet Lieutenant, a single rifle shot was fired at the

party from an unidentified source among the uneasy and hostile crowd of 33 Chinese in the dock area. Late in the afternoon, both the American and

Chinese parties returned to the Nawman for the trip down river to the mouth

of the Liao. Barbey and his staff transferred to his flagship, while General

Tu and roughly half of his group stayed aboard Nawman for an overnight 34 voyage to Chinwangtao.

The remnants Tu Yii-ming's party, now led by Major General Wang, re-

turned to Yingkow on the morning of 5 November. They were accompanied

by several members of Barbey's staff. Lieutenant Colonel Leonev did not

appear; the entire Russian garrison had pulled out during the night, leaving

31 Ma1"11 ard m . t erVIew, . op. c1"t • 32 Moorad, op. cit. , p. 91. 33 com7thPhibFor message to Com7thFlt, 4 November 1945. 34 uss Melvin R. Nawman (DE-416) war Diary, Sunday 4 November 1945.

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Yingkow in the hands of Chinese Communist forces. The friendly civil police

encountered on previous days along the Yingkow waterfront had disappeared,

and their headquarters were deserted. They had been replaced by Chinese

Communist guards who claimed to have orders to prevent anyone from coming

ashore. The deputy mayor eventually appeared with his two "gunmen" to con­

firm the Russian withdrawal and to announce that Chinese Communist forces 35 would "resist any effort to land troops in [the] Yingkow area. " On the trip

from the Catoctin's anchorage up to Yingkow and return, Barbey's staff officers

observed a general intensification of activity by Chinese Communist forces,

including the construction of trenches and barricades along both sides of the

river.

In view of these developments and his recent experience at Hulutao,

Admiral Barbey transmitted a lengthy estimate of the Yingkow situation to

CommanderSeventh Fleet. Barbey concluded that Russians had no intention

of assisting Nationalist forces in the reoccupation of Manchuria, preferring,

instead, to allow Chinese Communist or other irregular troops take over as

they withdrew. Contrary to the 29 October Marshal Malinovsky guarantee of

a safe landing of Chinese Nationalist troops at Yingkow, and despite

Malinovsky's request that the Nationalist advance party arrive at Yingkow

35 com7thPhibFor message to Com7thFlt, 5 November 1945.

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at the earliest moment to confer on detailed landing arrangements with the

local Soviet garrison, the Russians, in fact, had no intention of assisting the

Chinese central government in the reoccupation of Manchuria. All evidence

indicated that the Russians preferred to have Chinese Communist forces or

other irregular troops take over as they withdrew. In his message report,

Barbey noted that Soviet authorities "must have been well aware that the

Chinese Communists held [Hulutao] in strength" when they made the original

suggestion that Nationalist troops be landed there; that the recent influx of

Chinese Communist troops into Yingkow was carried out largely by means

of Russian controlled railroads; and that, "when it became necessary for the

Russians to make good on the 29 October agreement, " they withdrew from 36 Yingkow without notice. Barbey cited as additional evidence of Russian

recalitrance his observations that the Soviet refusal to allow the landing of

Chinese Nationalist troops at either Dairen or Port Arthur was based on

legal technicalities; the refusal of Soviet officials at Yingkow to confer with

the Chinese advance party on the grounds that they had no instructions was

suspect because the Russians were known to be in telephonic and aircraft

36 Com 7thPhibFor message to Com 7thFlt, 5 November 1945. On the latter point, Barbey mistakenly referred to the presence of Russian officers at Hulutao, as well as at Yingkow.

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communications with their superiors in Mukden; and, finally, the repeated

statements of Russian officers at Yingkow that Americans and Russians 37 should not involve themselves in the ongoing Chinese civil war.

In addition to his analysis of Soviet intentions regarding Nationalist

troop landings, Barbey reported General Tu Yii-ming's enthusiastic commit­

ment to meet the central government's schedule for the movement of troops into

Manchuria as the Soviets withdrew and, especially, the strategic importance

of Yingkow in terms of ready access to south-central Manchuria. Barbey also

reported General Tu' s request that, in the event of an American decision not

to put the Fifty-second CNA ashore at Yingkow, proper, an alternate landing

be made on some undefended beach in an adjacent area. In response to this

request, Barbey's officers reconnoitered the local area. An excellent landing

beach with good roads leading inland was located about twenty miles south of

Yingkow. There were, however, uniformed men-perhaps Japanese-working

in the fields behind the beach. Small groups of unidentified, uniformed men

had appeared along other coastal beaches closer to town; these groups took

cover when one of Barbey's LCis approached.

Barbey was convinced that the landing of Nationalist troops at Yingkow

itself would be resisted, though a beach landing in the alternate landing area

to the south would probably meet only slight opposition. The latter course of

371bid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156

action would, however, "undoubtedly cause intense resentment in all com-

munist areas and will definitely identify us as active military participants 38 in the civil war now brewing. " The amphibious force commander made

the only recommendation possible within the framework of his orders to

avoid involvement in the Chinese civil war: that no landing be attempted in

the Yingkow area. A certain sense of frustration is evidenced by his further

recommendation that "[in order] to avoid repetition of odysseys in which

our transport squadrons have become involved in recent endeavors to dis-

tribute Chinese Nationalist troops in non-communist areas •... Liberty

ships plus amphibious ships and craft in sufficient numbers to lift one rein-

forced division be immediately assigned to the Chinese government to be 39 manned by them and operated under their flag. rr

In anticipation of Admiral Kinkaid's reply, Admiral Barbey ordered

Transport Division 36 to proceed to Chinwangtao, where the 25th Division

of the Fifty-second CNA was disembarked on 7 and 8 November. The division's

eleven thousand troops were ill-equipped with heterogeneous armes and

were observed to be in poor physical condition. Twenty-five 25th Division

troops had died during the long voyage to Chinwangtao from Haiphong. The

38 Ibid. 39 :D:>id. , emphasis in original.

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25th Division immediately began the long march up along the Shanhaikuan 40 corridor into Manchuria under General Tu Yti-ming.

---·------···--- 4 °Com7thPhibFor War Diary, 7 November 1945. Unlike the so-called "sponsored" Eighth and Thirteenth Chinese Nationalist Armies, the Fifty-second was mostly equipped with captured Japanese weapons and material. For an account of General Tu' s misadventures as a commander of Nationalist forces in Manchuria, see F. F. Liu, A Military History of Modern China, 1924-1949 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1956), chap. 19, passim, and 0. Edmund Clubb, Twentieth Century China (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1964), pp. 282-291. Most of Tu's command was destroyed Midway between Mukden and Chinchow during the Nationalist retreat from Manchuria in October 1948. Tu escaped by air, but was captured at the great battle of Hwai-Hai in January 1949. Details of his capture are found in Ch'en Mou-hui, Tsai hung-se tui-wu li ch'eng-chang[Growing up in the Red Army) (Peking: Chung-kuo ch'ing-nien ch'u-pan she, 1959), p. 168f. Tu was released from prison in December 1959 (Republic of China, Ministry of National Defense, Intelligence Bureau, San-nien lai fei-hsiu chung-yao tsu-chih jen-shih hui-pien [A compilation of important organizations and personnel on the Chinese mainland during the past three years] [Taipei: 1961], p. 203).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The First Sealift Completed, November 1945.

After being diverted from Dairen, the first echelon of the Thirteenth CNA

was unloaded at Chinwangtao by TransRon 17 on 30 October. The landing was

covered by the 1st Marine Division BLT previously landed at Chinwangtao,

Ninety-fourth CNA units moved up from Tientsin, and an additional Sixth Marine

Division BLT lifted in from Tsingtao. The entire twenty-nine thousand man

Thirteenth CNA was off-loaded in two days. The twenty-seven thousand troops

of the Fifty-second CN A were put ashore between the 7th and 13th, and by mid-

November General Li Mi's Eighth CNA was off-loaded at Tsingtao. Li Mi's

troops were quickly engaged in heavy fighting with Eighth Route Army elements

as they attempted to push-off along the railroad towards Weihsien and Tsinan 1 to relieve the Japanese garrison holding the provincial capital.

When Admiral Barbey relieved Admiral Kinkaid as Commander Seventh

Fleet on 18 November, the Thirteenth CNA and units of the Ninety-fourth CNA

had forced the entrance to Manchuria against Eighth Route Army units at 2 Shanhaikwan. General Tu Yu-ming's Fifty-second CNA was close behind.

1 Romanus MS,] op. cit., p. 79. 2 Chinchow, "the first strategic point inside Manchuria," was occupied on 26 November, "some five weeks after the Nationalist forces reached Dairen and were denied entry" (Tsou, op. cit., p. 330).

158

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The Eighth CN A, desperately low on ammunition, remained bogged down out-

side Tsingtao. Despite his "directive from the United States Government

[which) prevents me from giving such assistance to KMT troops being employed

against KCT [Communist) forces or any dissLlent groups," General Wedemeyer

notified Washington and the Central Government military headquarters that he had

directed General Shepherd at Tsingtao to turn over to the Eighth CNA the "maximum

amount of [1 ifle, machine gun, and mortar] ammunition. • • over and above the 3 requirements of the Sixth Marine Division. "

The only remaining Seventh Fleet commitment involving Nationalist troops

was the sealift of the forty-five hundred personnel of the prospective Northeast

[Manchurian] Garrison Command Headquarters from Hon Gay, Indo-China, to 4 Hulutao. This operation was not completed until late in December.

3 China Theater message to Washington, 25 November 1945, cited in Romanus MS, op. cit., p. 121. 4 Romanus MS, op. cit., p. 49.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VI

FURTHER US NAVAL INVOLVEMENT, OCTOBER 1945 - SEPTEMBER 1947

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Direct Support of General Li Mi's Eighth CNA

As Transport Squadron 17 approached Tsingtao in early November with

the Eighth CNA on board, it seemed certain that Li Mi 's Nationalist army

would be heavily engaged with Eighth Route Army units once it had cleared 1 the Tsingtao area of 6th Marine Division responsibility. The perimeter

defense of the city was, in fact, in the hands of Japanese troops as was much

of the Tsinan-Tsingtao railway. The Japanese troops were kept on the line

even after General Shepherd had taken the surrender of General Nagano Eiji 2 and his 5th Independent Mixed Brigade on 25 October. Shepherd advised Li

of this fact as the US naval transports closed the eastern Shantung port city.

He added his assessment that, despite communist troops having established

1 Li Mi 's Eighth CN A consisted of the 1st Honored Division (Wang Po­ hsUn), the 103rd Division (Liang Hsiao-chai), and the !66th Division (Wang Chih-yU); the 48th and Temporary 19th Divisions were apparently left behind in South China (Romanus MS, op. cit., p. 123; see Harry H. Collier and Paul Chin-chih Lai, Organizational Changes in the Chinese Army, 1895-1950 [Taipei: Office of the Military Historian, May 1969], p. 215). 2 Romanus misidentifies General Nagano's unit as the 5th Imperial Army (Romanus MS, op. cit., p. 56); See Collier and Lai, op. cit., p. 218 for a com­ prehensive listing of Japanese Army units in China down to the brigade level.

160

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themselves within fifteen kilometers of the city, an opposed landing was not

expected. There was sufficient rice available for one month's rations, with 3 ample wheat as a substitute in the future.

The debarkation of the nearly 24,000 Eighth CNA troops and their equip-

ment was completed on the 16th. Li Mi's army immediately pushed-off along

the Tsingtao-Tsinan railway, already under attack by communist elements,

despite its being under guard by Japanese patrols. Li Mi 's goal was to clear 4 the Tsingtao-Tsinan railway and to relieve the Nationalist garrison in Tsinan.

It was estimated that twenty thousand troops New Fourth Army troops, who

had been led north from Kiangsu by Ch'en Yi in October, were now deployed

to block the Eighth CNA's path. Li Mi's first contact with communist forces

on the outskirts of Tsingtao occurred on the 21st. A battalion of Liang Hsiao-

chai's 103rcl Division was badly mauled in a night attack by a communist force

of 9, 000 men, with the result that the Nationalists were forced to retreat to the

outskirts of Tsingtao. Joined by the 1st Honored and 166th Divisions, Liang

3 commanding General 6th Marine Division message to USS Chilton (APA- 38), 10 November 1945. 4 Hou Shou-i's Twelfth CNA and Ch'en Chin-cheng's Ninety-sixth CNA (Collier and Lai, op. cit., pp. 247-248).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162

started westward again and was able to secure Lants 'un, twenty-five miles 5 northwest of Tsingtao by the 25th.

With the Eighth CNA, particularly the 103rd Division, bogging down in

heavy fighting with communist forces, Li Mi sent his deputy commander, Wang 6 Po-hslin, to consult with General Wedemeyer in Shanghai. Pleading that the

103rd Division had quickly expended the ammunition for the American rifles,

machine guns, and mortars with which the division was equipped, Wang re-

quested Wedemeyer's immediate assistance. Wedemeyer promptly radioed 7 Washington and Ho Ying-ch'in, Chiang K'ai-shek 1s senior commander, that:

As you know, my directive from the US govern­ ment prevents me from giving such assistance to KMT [Kuomintang·] troops being employed against KCT [Kungchantang; Chinese Communist Party] forces or any other Chinese dissident groups. However, I re­ quested the Commanding General [Shepherd], 6th Marine Division located at Tsingtao to contact General

5 Rom anus MS, op. cit., pp. 119-120; Seventh Fleet Daily Summary, 26 November 1945. 6 rncorrectly identified in Romanus MS, op. cit., p. 120, as Wang Po. 7 Commanding General, China Theater, message to Washington, 25 Nov­ ember 1945, as cited in Romanus MS, op. cit., pp. 120-121.

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Li Mi, the Commanding General of the Chinese [Nationalist] Eighth Army and to turnover to the Eighth Army the maximum amount of [rifle, machine gun, and mortar] ammunition. . • over and beyond the requirements of the 6th Marine Division. Undoubtedly, continued fighting will make demands for increased quantities of am­ muntion, not only for the Eighth [Chinese Nationalist] Army but also for the other Chinese Central Government armies operating in North China. Inasmuch as I am not in a position to provide US assistance under such circumstances, I recommend urgently that the Chinese Staff make plans to utilize airplanes available to the CAF [Chinese Air Force] including their heavy bombers for rapid transportation of ammunition stocks located in [South China]. Further, I recommend that no more armies be sent to North China without at least fifteen days supply of am­ mtmition, preferably thirty days.

It is clear that Li Mi's difficulties had been anticipated prior to his army's

first contact with the communists. On 20 November, Wedemeyer had directed

General Rockey to discontinue supplying motor fuel and ammunition to Chinese

Nationalist units in the III Amphibious Corps area until Wedemeyer's head­

quarters had completed "studying resupply of Chinese operating [in] North

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8 China. " But with Wedemeyer's new directive, obviously prompted by the

nearly desperate situation of Li Mi 's Eighth Army on the outskirts of

Tsingtao, in hand, Rockey promptly complied and also requested the imme-

diate shipment of additional ammunition stocks to his own forces in Tientsin 9 and Tsingtao.

Effective Chinese Communist opposition to the Eighth CNA's advance,

however, continued unabated. It was now estimated that there were thirty

thousand troops of New Fourth Army origin in the vicinity of Weihsien, the

major city halfway between Tsingtao and Li Mi's Tsinan objective. 1st

Marine Air Wing reconnaisance confirmed that communist forces had re-

moved the rails and destroyed the roadbed along a twenty-seven mile segment

of the Tsingtao-Tsinan line from Weihsien eastward. Closer to Tsingtao, at

the farthest point of the Eighth CNA's advance, the communists had used ex-

plosives at twenty-foot intervals to destroy a two-mile segment of the rail

line southeast of Lunts 'un. During the first week in December, the Eighth

CN A extended its area of control along the railway to Chiaohsien, sixty miles

west of Tsingtao, but its forward movement was again slowed by rail cuts and

8 commanding General, China Theater, message to Commanding General, III Amphibious Corps, 20 November 1945. 9 Commanding General, III Amphibious Corps, message to CinCPac, 27 November 1945.

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more direct New Fourth Army resistance, including the use, for the first time, 10 of artillery. Advance Eighth CNA elements reached the vicinity of Weihsien

in mid-December, but when the first cease fire was imposed, on 10 January,

the main body of Eighth CN A was halted eighteen miles east of the city-and

only halfway to Tsinan. Meanwhile, on 26 December, Li Mi 's orders to move

toward Tsinan were realistically rescinded. The Nationalist high command

cited supply difficulties and an acute shortage of motor transports as the 11 reason for the change.

Despite the unimpressive beginning of the Eighth CNA's civil war cam-

paign, Li Mi 's army survived relatively intact to serve in 1946 and most of 12 1947 under Ku Chu-t'ung's Hsuchou Pacification Command headquarters.

Striking north from the Tsingtao-Tsinan line toward the Chiaott.mg coast, the

Eighth CN A engaged in bitter combat with elements of Ch 'en Yi 's Shantung

Field Army at Pingtu and farther west until late in 1947. In December of

1947, the remnants of Li Mi's forces were reorganized as the 8th Division

and drove toward Chefoo, in the Chiaotung region of northeastern Shantung,

HaiTI Amphibious Corps Periodic Intelligence Report, 31 December 1945. 11 china Theater Operational Summ.ary, 1 January 1946. 12 collier and Lai, op. cit. pp. 304-305.

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where some accompanying units were ferried across the P'ohai Gulf to reinforce 13 Nationalist forces in Manchuria. But Li Mi 's army was broken up by late

1948 when he took command of the Thirteenth CNA for the ill-fated Hsuchou 14 (or Haui-hai.) campaign from November 1948 to January 1949.

Li Mi, himself, managed to survive the Hsuchou battle, despite the inept

leadership of General Tu Yii-ming, whose forces Admiral Barbey had attempted

to put ashore in Manchuria in the fall of 1945. With the remnants of his 13th

Army Group, Li crossed the Yunnan frontier into Burma in 1949, occasionally

crossing back into China for harassment operations against the Chinese Com-

munists. His exiled para-military force was euphemistically labelled by the 15 Taiwan regime as the 13th Organizational and Training Command. Li was

13 william W. Whitson and Paul Chin-chih Lai, Chronology of Military Campaigns in China, 1895-1950. (Taipeh, n. d.), pp. 360,364,366-67,384. 14 For Li Mi's role in the Huai-Hai campaign, see Jacques Guillermaz, Histoire du Parti Communiste Chinois, 1921-1949 (Paris: Payot, 1968), pp. 400-404; Lionel Max Chassin, The Commtmist Conquest of China (Cam­ bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 192-199; and F. F. Liu, A Military History of Modern China, 1924-1949 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), pp. 260-264; and, particularly, 0. Edmund Clubb, "Chiang Kai-shek's Waterloo: The Battle of the Huai-hai," Pacific Histori­ cal Review, Vo. XXV (Nov. 1956), pp. 389-399. 15 Wh't 1 son and L m, . op. c1't • , p. C - 68 •

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167

eventually evacuated to Taiwan, though many of his troops remained in Burma,

as do some today.

The relatively favorable civil-war record earned by the Eighth CNA, and

particularly by Li Mi himself, tends to obscure the importance of the Ameri­

can decision to support his army during the crucial weeks following the landing

at Tsingtao in November 1945. Had the Eighth CNA not been resupplied with

US Marine ammtmition by General Shepherd, it is likely that it would have been

either destroyed or driven back into the 6th Marine Division's area of respon­

sibility at Tsingtao. In such circumstances, the pressures of Ch'en Yi's

Shantung Field Force against Tsingtao may have been even higher than those

which developed tmtil the base American foothold was evacuated in 1948, with

the probable result that the strategic Tsingtao base would have been lost to

both the Americans and the Nationalists. With Tsingtao gone it would have

been exceedingly difficult to maintain the American military-essentially

naval-presence in North China. And, with no major port available north of

Shanghai, it would have been impossible for Chiang Kai-shel; to extract the

remnants of his Manchurian and North China armies by sea.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Second Sealift of Chinese Nationalist Armies.

With the Northeast Garrison Command contingent disembarked at Hulutao,

the first phase of the northern sealift was completed on 26 December 1945.

Unlike the other movements in the first sealift, the bulk of the Northeast Gar:-

rison Command was transported in six Liberty merchantmen assigned to Com- 1 mander Seventh Fleet for the purpose. But General Wedemeyer, the China

Theater commander, was by now rather cool to the notion of the naval sealift

mode of continuing US involvement. When, for example, Vice Admiral Barbey,

who had relieved Admiral Kinkaid as Commander Seventh Fleet on 19 November,

announced his intention to revisit Hulutao in order to verify Nationalist control

of the port prior to landing the Northeast Garrison command, Wedemeyer re-

plied that, though the planned debarkation at Hulutao was not objectionable, 2 "present directives obviate sending an American advance party to that point. "

Wedemeyer had already decided that, "under current [China) Theater direc- 3 tives, American resources could not be utilized. " For this reason-to reduce

1 commander Seventh Fleet messages to CincPac, 10 November and 18 December 1945. 2 china Theater message to Commander Seventh Fleet, 29 November 1945; Commander Seventh Fleet message to China Theater, 26 November 1945. 3 Romanus MS, "Recovery of Manchuria," p. 32.

168

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American involvement-the six Liberty ships used on the North East Garrison

Command lift, and specially modified as troops transports, were turned over

to the Chinese Central Government in January to be manned by Chinese crews.

As it turned out, these ships were diverted to semi-official Chinese commercial 4 interests for use in their original role as merchantmen.

But the Generalissimo persisted in his plan to sealift six Chinese National­

ist armies to Manchuria. At the same time, American capabilities to move

the armies were declining drastically. Seventh Amphibious Force transport

divisions had, in November, been released to peacetime assignments elsewhere

or were on duty with the "Magic Carpet" repatriation of American servicemen.

Most of the LSTs available to Commander Seventh Fleet were involved in the

staggering task of repatriating over four million Japanese from China, Man­ 5 churia, Formosa and Indochina. Seventh Fleet LSTs were so involved when,

in December, they were made available for the sealift of Chinese Nationalist

armies to Hulutao. It was not until February 1946, however, that China Theater

4 1t will be recalled that Admiral Barbey had recommended the turnover of

Liberty ships and assorted amphibious craft following his abortive attempt to

find a suitable, unopposed landing site near Yingkow. 5 Barbey Report, op. cit., enclosure C, p. 2; Commander Naval Forces

Western Pacific, Narrative History of Seventh Fleet, op. cit., 5-6.

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was able to resolve his policy dilemma and to rationalize his agreement 6 to a compromise plan. Five Chinese Nationalist Armies, the New Sixth,

New First, Seventy-first, Sixtieth, and Ninety-third, were to be sealifted

to Hulutao and Chinwangtao from Shanghai, Kowloon, Canton, and Haiphong.

Because of the limited availability of LSTs, this operation, which began in

February, was not completed until mid-May. Since Hulutao was closed

by ice during the winter, the New Sixth, New First and Seventy-first CNAs

were offloaded at Chinwangtao before mid-April. The Sixtieth and Ninety­ 7 third CNAs were ashore at Hulutao during the first two weeks of May. The

6 By which time(on 8 January 1946), Admiral Barbey had been relieved by Admiral Charles M. Cooke, Jr., as Commander Seventh Fleet. 7 Romanus MS, op. cit:·; .table 22; Narrative History of Seventh Fleet, op. cit., pp. 10-11. The most notable of senior Chinese officers involved was the New First CNA commander, Sun Li-jen. Sun, a Virginia Military Institute graduate, had served with distinction in Burma. Though initially successful in Man­ churia, he lost his command to a Whampoa man in April 1947 and served as Tu Yu-ming's deputy for a few months before being removed from field com­ mand by Chiang Kai-shek. See Boorman, BDRC, op. cit. For an account of the Manchurian experience of several of the second sea­ lift CNAs, see Robert B. Rigg, "Campaign for the Northeast Railway System (1946-1947)," Military Review, Vol. 27, No. 9 (Dec. 1947), pp. 27-34.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 171

entire second sealift exercise took place during the first Marshall Mission

truce. Presmneably, policy conflicts were resolved on the grounds that

Hulutao and Chinwangtao were occupied, though tenuously, by Chinese Cen­

tral Government forces.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The UNRRA Mission to Chefoo, February 1946.

1 Shortly after the first cease-fire agreement of 10 January 1946, General

Marshall indicated an interest in the active participation by ITI Amphibious

Corps Marines in organizing the distribution of United Nations Relief and

Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) supplies. Marine officers and UNRRA

officials flew from Tsingtao in light observation aircraft to the Chinese Com-

munist New Fourth Army headquarters of General Ch'en Yi at Linyi, one

hundred and thirty miles to the southeast, to develop agreeable plans for

the delivery of UNRRA supplies to several communist controlled cities in

Shantung. The 3rd Marine Brigade commander, Brigadier General Samuel L.

Howard, flew into Chefoo in a Marine OY observation aircraft to make ar­ 2 rangements with local communist authorities for a delivery mission. Eighth

1 See US Department of State, US Relations with China, with Special Reference to the Period 1944-1949 (Washington, D. C.: August 1949), pp. 136-138. 2 Henry I. Shaw, Jr. ,"US Marine Corps in North China, 1945-1949~' MS, unpublished manuscript, US Marine Corps Historical Branch, n. d., (projected Vol. V to USMC Operations in World War II; scheduled for publication in 1969), p. V:4:22, cited hereafter as Shaw MS.

172 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173

Route Army officials at Chefoo disclaimed any requirements for food, but a 3 agreed to accept medical and other supplies.

Following General Howard's report, General Marshall's Peking Execu-

tive Headquarters requested that Commander Task Force 78, Rear Admiral

Albert G. Noble, (Commander Amphibious Group 1) assign an appropriate 4 number of his ships to a Chefoo UNRRA lift. The amphibious group com-

mander complied, but not without first registering his lack of enthusiasm for

a task involving the direct support of the Eighth Route Army Chefoo garrison

at the focal point of the Shantung-Liaotung junk traffic pattern. Admiral

Noble's reluctance may lk1.ve stemmed from the fact that the major portion of

his amphibious task force was then committed to the sealift of the Chinese

Nationalist New First Army from Shanghai to Chinwangtao en route Manchuria.

3 Jnterview with Admiral Albert G. Noble, USN (Ret.), Washington, D. C., 9 April 1967. 4 commander US Naval Forces Western Pacific, Narrative of U.S. Seventh Fleet, 1 September 1945 to 1 October 1946, p. 11. Task Force 78 amphibious forces also conducted the massive UNRRA lift up the Yangtze between February and August 1946, when sufficient LSTs and LSMs were turned over to UNRRA and Chinese government shipping agencies for them to takeover the river operation (ibid., pp. 8-9, 11. ); see also Com­ mander US Naval Forces Western Pacific, Narrative History of Seventh Fleet and Naval Forces Western Pacific, 8 January 1946 - 14 February 1948, pp.3-4, 7.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174

In any case, two Task Force 78 LSTs transported two hundred tons of UNRRA 5 supplies from Tsingtao to Chefoo, where the cargo was offloaded under a 6 heavy guard of Eighth Route Army-manned machineguns on 7 February.

5 Chinese News Service (New York), 7 February 1946. 6 Noble interview, op. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Dairen Courier Run, March 1946-March 1947.

It was not until March 1946 that the US Government was able to re-open

a US Consulate in Dairen. Admiral Settle was again directly involved. US

State Department preparations for the reopening of American consulates in

Manchuria apparently began just prior to Settle's 26 October 1945 visit to

Dairen. During a mid-October visit to Chungking, the US Consul General

at Shanghai, Paul R. Josselyn, informed both the Chinese foreign minister

and the Soviet ambassador of American plans for the "immediate reopening"

of consulates at Dairen and Harbin [Haerhpin]. Foreign Minister Wang

anxiously suggested that the prospective American consuls and their respec­

tive entourages defer their departure until it was certain that Chinese National­

ist civil and military authority was established in Manchuria. In contrast,

Petrov, the Soviet ambassador, expressed no special concern nor objection

and simply suggested that, upon arrival at Dairen and Harbin, the American

officials contacted their Soviet consular counterparts for assistance regarding

transportation and other problems. Josselyn, in charge of preparations, re­

quested that a Seventh Fleet destroyer at Shanghai be made available for the

movement of the prospective consuls and their staffs to Dairen. But as a re­

sult of the Settle-Kozlov encounter on the 26th, Commander Seventh Fleet

would not provide a US man-of-war for the task without authorization from

175

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 176

higher naval authority. As alternatives Josselyn considered the use of a

small, inconspicuous coastal merchantman or a special aircraft. He sug­

gested, also, that 0. Edmund Clubb, Consul General at Vladivostok, be made

available, particularly for initial diplomatic contacts with Russian officials 1 at Dairen.

The problem of the appropriate means of transporting the prospective

consular team was not resolved until late February 1946. General George c.

Marshall, now President Truman's Special Representative to China, objected

to the use of a Seventh Fleet destroyer on the grounds that it would imply the

1 The Consul General at Shanghai (Josselyn) telegram to the Secretary of

State, October 30, 1945, FRUS~ China, 1945, pp. 1466-1467. According to Moorad, the Soviet ambassador in Chungking "blandly agreed [with the proposal to post American consular officials in Manchuria] but said he could not provide transport or safe conduct" (George Moorad,

Lost Peace in China [New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1949], p. 141). Josselyn recommended that the consular groups include a wide variety of participants: consuls general, consuls, Russian-speaking Chinese clerks, one junior economic analyst, a Russian-speaking intelligence officer, as­ sorted interpreters, couriers, US Information Service personnel, an army officer representing the US Military Attache in Chungking, and representatives of the Socony and Texaco oil companies. Josselyn realistically recommended against the inclusion of Office of Strategic Services intelligence personnel in the party (Josselyn telegram to Secretary, op. cit.).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177

projection of American military power. The Deputy Chief of Naval Opera- 2 tions, Admiral Charles M. Cooke, Jr., responded with the suggestion that

the consul be taken in by Liberty or Victory class merchantman under loose

escort of a man-of-war well within radio range. This plan was apparently

approved by the Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal,and implemented in 3 due course.

Mr. Leo D. Sturgeon, Josselyn's original candidate for the spot, finally

reached Dairen on 10 March 1946. A Waterman Steamship Lines Liberty

ship, the SS Check Knot, was assigned to Admiral Settle's operational control 4 for the purpose of transporting Sturgeon and his staff to Dairen. The Check

2 It was Admiral Cooke who relieved Admiral Barbey as Commander Seventh Fleet on 8 January 1946. 3 walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Dairies (New York: The Viking Press, 1951, pp. 140-141. Forrestal's 27 February 1946 diary entry, "Consul at Dairen," includes the following judgment: "If we back down on this action it seems to me we enter into a long road of appeasement such as we did in our failure to exercise the right of entry to the Japanese mandated islands after the last war." For an early, wide-ranging account of the Soviet-Chinese Nationalist dis­ pute over the status of Dairen, see David J. Dallin, Soviet Russia and the Far East (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), pp. 333-338. 4 stars and Stripes (Shanghai), 18 March 1946, p. 1; Settle letter to Captain Norman Nicholson, 5 May 1947, Settle Papers. Admiral Settle was, by this time, serving as Commander Naval Forces,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178

Knot's guns were removed at Shanghai prior to departure. Escorted by the new

destroyer McCaffery (DD-860), Sturgeon and his party sailed in the Check Knot

for Dairen. McCaffery broke off just over the horizon from Dairen, while the

Check Knot entered the port alone. Local Soviet authorities again claimed no

foreknowledge of the Liberty ship's destination or intentions. But cordial rela-

tions developed, and Sturgeon was allowed to stay in Dairen for a full week be­ 5 fore Captain James Coleman's merchantman brought him back to Shanghai.

The American consulate, Dairen, was finally placed in full operation on

7 April 1946, when Captain Coleman took another consul, Mr. H. Merrell 6 Benninghoff, to Dairen along with staff, equipment, and vehicles. In May,

Mr. Benninghoff was able to inform the State Department via the US Embassy

in Moscow that Soviet officials in Dairen would allow additional consular of-

ficials to be posted there via an American merchanship. On 5 June, a consular

party was disembarked at Dairen from the SS Ringsplice. The Ringsplice was

North China, and, concurrently, Commander Task Force 71. 5 Ibid.; Captain Coleman was selected for the mission partly because of his previous experience in Russian ports and his knowledge of the Russian language (ibid. ) . 6 Ibid. The party included Vice Consul and Mrs. Patch and Mr. Eggerton, Texas Oil Col, (Commander Task Group 78.4 operational report to Commander Seventh Fleet, "Tsingtao Dairen Diplomatic Courier Trip," 27 November 1946).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 179

restricted to a 48-hour stay by local Dairen authorities on the grounds that

Dairen was a closed port. Though the consulate's radio equipment was landed

and a radio station set up, the Soviets would not allow the station to operate.

The Chinese radio operator was refused landing clearance because his creden­ 7 tials were incomplete. But, due to the increasing pressures of Russian

censorship, communications with the Dairen consulate deteriorated during the

summer and fall of 1946. By November, communications had diminished to

the point that they were totally unsatisfactory, and it was necessary to arrange

an alternate means of communications. On the 19th, the Soviet embassy in

Nanking and the Soviet consulate general, Shanghai, were notified that an un-

armed LCI (Landing Craft, Infantry) courier vessel would arrive at Dairen on

the 21st. The LCI-1090 was selected from Rear Admiral Roper's Amphibious 8 Group Three (Task Group 78).. Her guns removed, the landing craft arrived off

Dairen on the morning of the 21st.

Ignoring a radio message from Soviet port authorities forbidding entry,

LCI-1090 continued on into the inner harbor, where she was boarded by a sm~all

7 Commander US Naval Forces Western Pacific letter to the Chief of Naval Operations, 8 March 1947, endorsing CTG 78,4 operational report to Commander Seventh Fleet, 23 December 1946. 8 commander Seventh Fleet Operation Plan No. 1-46, Annex A (revised), 1 October 1946.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180

party of Soviet medical officials and a Japanese pilot. Shortly afterwards,

the Soviet authorities rescinded their previous order,and the LCI-1090 was

moored by mid-morning. The ship was met by Consul General Benninghoff,

Vice Consul and Mrs. Patch, Mr. Eggerton,resident official of the Texas Oil,

Co. , acting Soviet Consul General Mr. S. N. Petrov, and a Lieutenant Colonel .. 9 representing the Soviet Commandant, Darien, Major General V. U. Kozhanov.

The number of personnel permitted ashore was limited by Soviet officials to the

LCI-1090's commanding officer, two other ship's officers, the consular radio

operator, and the State Department courier. A naval medical officer, the

Seventh Fleet Public Information Officer, and a naval intelligence officer

(Russian language specialist) were restricted to the ship and were unable to go

ashore. The radio operator was allowed to join the consular staff, but Soviet

authorities ordered the commanding officer to depart within twenty-four hours.

Two eleven hour extentions were granted, however, and LCI-1090 was underway 10 early on the 23rd.

9 Also present were Petrov's interpreter, Lieutenant Petrashevsky, "and several other Soviet officers and civilians whose names and functions were not clear" (Commander Task Group 78.4 operational report, 27 November 1946, op. cit). 10 united States Pacific Fleet, Commander United States Naval Forces Western Pacific, Narrative History of Seventh Fleet and Naval Forces Western Pacific. Narrative of Seventh Fleet, 1 September 1945 to 1 October 1946, dated

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181

The first extension was negotiated by Mr. Benninghoff via telephone

with the acting Soviet consul general; Benninghoff also arranged for a brief

call on General Kozhanov by himself, Vice Consul Patch, and Commander

Edward L. Yates, USN, as Commander Task Group 78. 4. The effectiveness

of the conversation with the Dairen commandant was limited by unusually

severe language difficulties. Commander Yates managed to register a re-

quest for extension of the LCI-1090's visit until the morning of 23 November.

He also invited the commandant and his staff to come on board for a film

showing in the afternoon. There was no immediate response to these initia-

tives. At Benninghoff's suggestion, Yates conveyed Commander Seventh Fleet's

regards, adding that Admiral Cooke "might like to call at Dairen. "ll Within

an hour of the termination of the interview, the consulate received word that

Kozhanov had approved Yate's request for an extension and had accepted his

invitation to visit the LCI-1090. Kozhunov's two hour visit on board the LCI-

1090 was uneventful.

Benninghoff's account is noticeably more positive regarding the suggestion

that Admiral Cooke visit Dairen: "We took the liberty," he reported, "of

20 February 1947, a similar document, provides overlapping chronological coverage, but very little in the way of historical detail. 11 . Commander Task Group 78.4 operatwnal report, 27 November 1946, op. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 182

conveying. . . your [Cooke's] hope that you would be able to visit this port

soon. The General expressed his thanks. It would be useful, from the policy

standpoint, if you or some other flag officer could come here, but such mat- 12 ters would have to be arranged at the government level. "

Benninghoff's proposal was not, however, well received by Admiral

Cooke. '·The Seventh Fleet commander observed that: 13

... [the] visit of a Flag Officer to Dairen would not be adviseable at this time, since such a visit might be interpreted by the Soviets as official recog­ nition of or acquiescence in their assumption of sole and unilateral authority in Dairen."

Though not an unlimited success, the LCI-1090's first courier run to Dairen

achieved its principal objective without unusual or unexpected difficulties. On

her December run, the LCI-1090 carried two press correspondents and an

American business man, in addition to the State Department courier. Passage

for the business m:m, a representative of the Standard-Vacuum Oil Company,

12 Benninghoff to Cooke letter, [American Consulate General, Dairen, China] 22 November 1946. 13 Commander Seventh Fleet letter to Chief of Naval Operations , 10 December 1946, endorsing CTG 78. 4's, 22 November 1946 operational report, op. cit., forwarding Benninghoff's letter to Cooke, 22 November 1946, op. cit•

.•.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 183

14 requested by the US consulate general, Shanghai. Commander Seventh Fleet,

Admiral Charles M. Cooke, Jr., took full responsibility for the passage of

two correspondents, who jointly represented the Shanghai Press Correspon-

dent's Association. Their accompaniment was contingent upon their specific

agreement that they would not be allowed ashore in Dairen without prior ap·-

proval of Soviet authorities, and that no photographs would be taken, even

from the ship, without similar Soviet approval. As in November, Soviet

diplomatic authorities were notified of the courier vessel's expected arrival

at Dairen on the 18th; notification on this occasion included identity of the

passengers and the Commander Seventh Fleet restrictions on their activity

while in the Soviet port. It is important to note that Soviet authorities were me

merely notified; prior clearance for the Dairen portcall was not requested 15 after the early June visit of the SS Ringsplice.

14 The Shanghai consulate had been trying for nine months to arrange for the entry of American oil company representatives at Dairen (Josselyn tele­ gram to Secretary, FRUS, China, 1945, loc. cit.). Passage was also requested for a Texas Company representative; Benning­ hoff so informed the Acting Soviet Consul General, Dairen, on 16 December (memorandum from the American Consulate General, Dairen, to the American Embassy, Nanking, 21 December 1946). 15 Commander Naval Forces Western Pacific letter to Chief of Naval Operations, 8 March 1947, endorsing CTG 78. 4's 23 December 1946 opera­ tional report, op. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 184

Quarantine and immigration proceedures were noticeably more thorough

when the LCI-1090 arrived in Dairen on her second courier run on 18 Decem-

her 1946. Four naval officers and a civilian from the Port Director's office

boarded from a tug at the quarantine anchorage. The immigration officer,

Navy Lieutenant Oryol, anticipated the presence of correspondents on board.

He inquired about their names and affiliation and was told that, though William

H. Newton was a correspondent for the Scripps-Howard Alliance, and Mark

Kaufmann a Life magazine photographer, they jointly represented the Press 16 Correspondents' Association of Shanghai.

When the LCI-1090 moored at midday, the ship was again met by Benning-

hoff, Patch, Mrs. Patch, and the Texaco representative, Mr. Eggerton. The

Acting Soviet Consul G€neral, Petrov, was absent. The Dairen commandant's

representation consisted on this occasion of Major Feodor Dimitrievich

Tikhonov and his interpreter, Lieutenant Ribalenko. Major Tikhonov made

it clear that his instructions provided only for the landing of Commander Yates,

the LCI-1090's commanding officer, and his "first officer." Tikhonov asked the

senior US naval officer present how long he wished to stay in port; Yates

16 Ibid; ComTaskGrp 78.4 operational report, 23 December 1946. According to Moorad, the only American correspondents to visit Soviet occupied Dairen were Sergeant Rick Wilson of Stars and Stripes and Richard Cushing, Associated Press. See Moorad, op. cit., pp. 184-185 for a brief account of their February 1946 encounter with General Kozlov.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185

replied forty-eight hours. Tikhonov assured Yates that the request for a visit

ashore by Mr. Poole and the two correspondents would be referred to his im-

mediate superior, Lieutenant Colonel Ivanov, the Darien commandant's chief- 17 of-staff.

With the consulate's supplies, mail, and the courier landed, Commander

Yates and t.vo of his officers made an official call on Mr. Benninghoff at the

consulate. Yates asked Benninghoff to arrange a courtesy call on both the

commandant, Kazhunov, and the mayor of Dairen. The following morning,

19 December, Vice Consul Patch was informed by the acting Soviet consul

general that Mr. Poole, the Standard Vacuum representative, and the two

correspondents, Newton and Kaufmann, would not be allowed ashore. Consul

General Benninghoff attempted to negotiate the issue with Petrov several hours

later. Petrov claimed that the decision rested with the Dairen commandant,

who would permit no one to land except the diplomatic courier tmless prior

notification had been received through Soviet channels. Benninghoff pressed

for an interview with General Kozhanov, but was told that the commandant was

absent in Port Arthur. Benninghoff then asked Commander Yates to delay the

LCI-1090's departure for twenty-four hours in order that he might contact 18 Kozhanov the following clay.

17 Ibid. 18 Ibid.; Memorandum from the American Consulate General, Dairen, to the American Embassy, Nanking, op. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 186

In the meanwhile, Commander Yates, accompanied by two of his officers,

neither of whom was the commanding or executive officer of the LCI-1090,

called briefly on Dairen's mayor, deputy mayor, and secretary. Their con-

versation centered mainly on local social and economic conditions; the issue . . 19 concermng Poole and the correspondents was not d1scussed ..

Consul General Benninghoff continued his efforts to contact General

Kozhanov throughout the morning of 20 December. Both Benninghoff and

Patch called at Kozhanov's office in the early afternoon in an attempt to secure

the commandant's approval for visits ashore by the other American passengers,

particulCJ.rly Mr. Poole. Told that Kozhanov was not there, Benninghoff went to

the commandant's quarters. While a sentry was inside seeking instruction~,

Major Tikhonov arrived on the scene and entered the commandant's quarters.

Tikhonov returned a few moments later to inform Benninghoff and Patch that

the LCI-1090's departure was already an hour overdue. Tikhonov's rude

manner was tmsettling to Benninghoff, who was convinced that General Kozhanov

19 ComTaskGrp 78.4 operational report, 23 December 1946, op. cit. Commander Yates' report identifies the mayor merely as "Mayor Chih" (ibid.). Dallin, though he gives no source, identifies the mayor as Chih Tse­ hsiang (Soviet Russia and the Far East, op. cit., p. 336. See p.ll5, above, for sources identifying the mayor as Li Tzu-hsiang.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187

was, in fact, available in his quarters. Benninghoff was certain that he had

heard Kozhanov's. voice from inside the commandant's quarters; he also sus-

pected that the telephone conversation the previous morning between Acting

Consul General Petrov and the commandant's office "was 'canned' and that it 20 was arranged beforehand. "

While Consul General Benninghoff returned to the consulate to ask Yates

and his party to return to the ship, Major Tikhonov returned to the pier, along

with Navy Captain, Third Rank, Popov. Tikhonov had, earlier in the after-

noon informed Commander Yates that the LCI-1090 was expected to take de-

parture promptly at 1400 in accordance with previous arrangements. At 1525

he requested that Commander Yates move the ship to the outer harbor "within

twenty minutes or 'he would not be responsible for the consequences. "' Tikhonov

offered to provide a lmmch to bring the courier and the LCI-1090's commanding

officer out to the ship in the outer harbor. As Commander Yates was getting

the ship tmderway, Mr. Benninghoff, the courier, and Lieutenant (jg) White

arrived. The LCI-1090 was immediately underway for Tsingtao, her second 21 courier run completed.

20 Memorandum from the American Consulate General, Dairen, to the American Embassy, Nanking, op. cit. 21 CTG 78.4 operational report, 23 December 1946, op. cit.; ComNavFor­ WesPac endorsement, 8 March 1947, op. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 188

The awkwardness that developed over the December 1946 courier run to

Dairen was less a matter of what actually transpired there than the impact

of an interpretation of events reported by one of the Commander Seventh

Fleet-sponsored correspondents. The Scripps-Howard reporter, William H.

Newton, represented the Soviet major's actions as an ultimatum, and so des-

cribed them in a newspaper story widely circulated in the United States. The

US Department of State took a cooler view, adopting the official position that,

considering their narrow interpretation of the existing Sino-Soviet treaty,

the Russians were within their rights until such time as a peace treaty was

signed between the Soviet Union and Japan. Invoking the notion of "insult to

the flag," the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain vigorously challenged the

State Department explanation. Newton was eventually criticised as an op-

portunist by one of his Shanghai journalist colleagues, Robert P. Martin, and 22 the matter dropped from public vies.

In early January, Nationalist government sources in Nanking reported

that Chinese Nationalist units had been dispatched by land to take over

Dairen. But their drive down the Liaotung peninsula had been hal ted "tern-

porarily" at P'ulant'ien, forty rail and road miles north of Dairen, by

22 rsreal Epstein, The Unfinished Revolution in China (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1947), p. 399-400. This is the substance of the "international repercussions" referred to in the Settle to Nicholson letter (op. cit.).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 189

23 Chinese Communists forces. The Nationalist units involved probably in-

eluded the Seventy-first CNA, which had finally taken and held Yingkow on 3

April 1946. Other Nationalist forces involved in the drive into south-central

Manchuria were the New Sixth CNA, which had reached Niuchangch'eng and

Haich 'eng by 29 March, the Fifty-second CNA, which found itself heavily

engaged by Communist forces at the coal and iron center at Fushun in late

March, and the New First CN A which was proceeding northward toward 24 Ch'angch'ung from Mukden. Opposing communist forces at P'ulant-'fen'

had probably originated in the P'ohai, Luchung, and Chiaotung Military Dis-

tricts of the Shanttmg Column and had probably crossed the P' ohai. At the

time of the P'ulant'ien clash, Lin Piao's Northeast Democratic Allied Army

had been functioning for more than a year. It is possible that Wu Jui-lin's

1st Independent Division, Man-Man (South Manchuria) Military Region, was

mvo. 1ve d • 25

23 Peiping Executive Headquarters History, 2 January 1947 entry. 24 Romanus MS, "Recovery of Manchuria," p. 61. 25 H. F. Chan, compiler, "The Evolution of the Fourth Field Army" (unpublished map with supporting chronological chart and notes, xerox, Hong Kong, June 1969).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190

On the arrival of the LCI-1090 on 23 January, Major Tikhonov insisted

that only the State Department courier and Commander Yates, the Task Group

commander, be allowed ashore. He stated that if this request was ignored,

and if the ship was not underway promptly after forty-eight hours, he would

have to report the "unpleasantness." Commander Yates persisted in are­

quest that the LCI-1090's commanding officer and his intelligence officer be

permitted to land. Tikhonov countered with a promise to bring Yates' re­

quest to the attention of General Kozhanov, and assured Yates that a response

would be forthcoming. No answer was, in fact, received. A small recrea­ 26 tion party on the adjacent pier was ordered back on board by a Soviet officer.

The Dairen courier nms settled into a routine with the third (January

1947) trip. The Soviet authorities had demonstrated their intention to care­

fully control the exercise locally, while the Americans managed to avoid the

difficulties implicit in a continuing Soviet insistence upon permission, rather

than notification, of each courier ship arrival. Both the US Ambassador to

China, Leighton Stuart, and Admiral Cooke recommended that the protesta­

tions of the Soviet Consul, Dairen, that permission should be requested from

26 ComTaskGrp 78. 4 operational report, 27 January 1947.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191

27 the Soviet Foreign Office for each courier run be ignored. By the fourth

courier run, in early March 1947, Soviet procedures were noticeably relaxed.

Tsingtao medical clearance certification was readily accepted, Mrs. Benning-

hoff was permitted to land without difficulty, and Commander Yates was allowed

to designate an additional US naval officer to come ashore. Once again Yates

persisted in an attempt to get Lieutenant (j. g.) White an opportunity to leave

the ship. Major Tikhonov rather quickly consulted with the Dairen comman-

dant, returning with an invitation to arrange an official call on General Kozhanov

through Petrov, the acting Soviet Consul General. Kozhanov had also approved

Commander Yate's bringing an additional US naval officer ashore. Yates and

his entourage called on Kozhanov the following morning. His proposal that

the crews of courier vessels arriving in the future should be allowed to tour

the city was cotmtered with the suggestion that such a request should properly

be channeled through the State Department to Moscow. The visiting Americans 28 were then invited to attend a physical culture film showing at a local theater.

27 ComNavForWestPac endorsement, 8 March 1947, to ComTaskGrp operational report, 27 January 1947. Admiral Cooke's endorsements to both the second and third operational reports by Commander Yates are dated 8 March 1947. The late filing of the second endorsement, claimed to be an administrative oversight, may have been more the result of the notoriety that developed as a result of Mr. Newton's news story. 28 comTaskGrp 78.4 operational report, 10 March 1947.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 192

By the third and fourth courier runs, in January and March 1947, Am-

erican authorities had accustomed themselves to the notion that the Soviets

would allow the monthly courier run to function as precisely that, and nothing

more. No further attempts were made to bring individuals to Dairen who

were not directly related to consular functions. As long as no one came

ashore other than the courier vessel's commanding officer and the State

Department courier, the Russians created no difficulties. They were, in 29 fact, increasingly "friendly and cordial. "

The "ultimatum" interpretation of the incident persists. Citing personal

correspondence with the, by then retired, Seventh Fleet commander, Admiral 30 Charles M. Cooke, Jr., Anthony Kubek's version is as follows:

It is of interest to note and report the treatment of the United States in 1946 by the Russians who established a 12-mile zone outside Dairen. When Admiral Charles M. Cooke sent a ship up there to give supplies to the predecessor of Angus Ward, the Russian commander gave the ship officer and the one

29 Narrative History of the Seventh Fleet, op. cit., pp. 23 and 28. 30 Anthony Kubek, How the Far East Was Lost: American Policy and the Creation of Communist China, 1941-1949 (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1963), pp. 415-416.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193

who was delivering supplies to the Consul General an ultimatum to leave the port within an hour or two. The United States government refused to take any proper action against the Russians at that time. The so-called (by the State Department) Agrarian Reformers not only followed their Russian preceptors, but they were guided by these preceptors stationed in great numbers at Peiping at the time.

David J. Dallin has described the entire second courier run episode

as one in which "a crisis was precipitated, and the United States openly

entered the picture." His accotmt, presumeably based on Newton's repor­

tage; though no source is given, has the Soviet authorities ordering the 31 LCI-1090 to leave within forty-eight hours, the moment she docked.

31 soviet Russia and the Far East, op. cit. , p. 33 7.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The East River Column Evacu!ltion, June-July 1946

The East River Column was formed from two separate guerrilla detach­

ments which had begun operations against the Japanese in the East River region

following the fall of Canton in October 1938. The first unit, led by Wang Tso-

yao, operated for a time under central government orders from the 4th War

Zone headquarters. Resisting a subsequent Kuomintang order to disband,

Wang's detachment continued to operate independently behind Japanese lines.

The second unit, led by Tseng Sheng, originated as a force of slightly over

one hundred, named the Seamen's Guerrilla Column. It was reorganized in

1939 as the 3rd Independent Guerrilla Column of the 4th War Zone. The Wang

and Tseng units joined forces in late 1939 as the East River Column, with 1 Tseng as column commander and Wang Tso-yao as chief-of-staff. As did

1 Tseng Sheng, "Kuan-tung jen-min k'ang-jin yu-chi chan-cheng hui-i" (Reminiscences of guerrilla warfare in Kwangtung during the Sino-Japanese War), Nan-fang jih-pao, 3 September 1951; also in Feng Pai-chu, et. al., Kuan-ttmg jen-min k'ang-jih yu-chi chan-cheng hui-i (same title as article, above) (Canton: Hua-nan jen-min ch 'u-pan she, 1951), pp. 8-13. See also "South-Marching Kwangttmg-Kwangsi Column," China Digest (Hong Kong), Vol. VI, No. 12 (September 21, 1949), p. 18; Isr·ael Epstein, The Unfinished Revolution in China (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1947), pp. 193-197; and Union Research Institute, Who's Who in Communist China (Hong Kong, 1966), cited hereafter as WWCC, pp. 578-579. For brief references containing useful details of East River Column

194

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 195

other communist guerrilla units, the East River Column skillfully assisted

downed allied airmen in addition to its other anti-Japanese activities. By

the end of the Pacific war, General Tseng had received letters of commenda-

tion from both Generals Joseph W. Stilwell and Claire L. Chennault, as well

as personal letters of gratitude from more than twenty-five American flyers 2 whom the East River Column had rescued and returned to their bases.

An early peak in Nationalist military operations against Tseng's forces

was reached in March 1940, when Hsiang Han-ping held the bulk of the 3 Kwangtung People's Anti-Japanese Guerrillas under attack for six months.

strength and activities during 1944 and early 1945, see Ho Kan-chih, A His­ tory of the Modern Chinese Revolution (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959). pp. 341, 408, 426; Yeh Chien-ying, "Report on the General Military Situation of the Chinese Communist Pnrty in the War of Resistence" (Yenan, 22 June 1944), in Stuart Gelder, eel., The Chinese Communists (London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1946), pp. 73-102; Jacques Guillermaz, Historie du Parti Commtmiste Chinois, 1921-1949 (Paris: Payot, 1968), pp. 315-316; and Chalmers A. Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Chinese Communist Power (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962), pp. 67-69. 2 North China Marine (Tientsin), 27 July 1946, p. 8. 3 Hsiang Han-ping was an experienced column leader in the Koumintang forces Fifth Encirclement Campaign, October 1933-November 1934, against the Kwangtung-Kiangsi base area; perhaps as a result of his failure against Tseng Sheng's forces in 1940, Hsiang found himself leading a Nationalist engineer regiment as late as 1944 [William W. Whitson and Paul Chin-chih Lai, Chronology of Military Campaigns in China, 1895-1950 (Taipeh: n. d.), p. 162 and chart 54-4].

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196

Again in 1943, Tseng Sheng's forces were under heavy attack from Chang

Kuang-ch'iung's 187th Division, independent units, and local Kuomintang

m1'1' 1t1a. . 4

The East River Column, still under mounting pressure from the National-

ists, first publicly accepted orders from the Chinese Communist Party head-

quarters in Yenan in December 1934, when Yenan sent Lin P'ing, an ex-

perienced communist guerrilla from Kiangsu, to join Tseng Sheng as his 5 political commissar. When the war with Japan suddenly ended, Chu Teh

ordered the commander-in-chief of Japanese forces in China to surrender his

Kwangtlmg units to Tseng Sheng at the Tungkuan headquarters of the Kwang- 6 tung base area. The Yenan headquarters obviously considered Tseng Sheng's

command to have an important role in the transition from war against the

Japanese to civil war with the Kuomintang.

Chinese Nationalist armies, returning to the South China coast after

Japan's surrender, turned immediately to the task of clearing the East River

Column from their Kwangiung base area. By early 1946, the Nationalists had

employed the New First, New Sixth, Forty-fifth, Sixty-third, Sixty-fourth, and

4 . Tseng, op. Cit. , p. 3. 5 Personal communication from Prof. Ezra F. Vogel, East Asian Research Center, Harvard University. 6 Quoted in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. IV (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961), p. 39.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197

Sixty-fifth CNAs against the East River Column. Traditional encirclement

7 campaign tactics were utilized in this unsuccessful attempt.

In mid-March 1946 serious fighting was reported between Kuomintang

and communist forces in the river region east of Canton. The Kwangtung

provincial government complained that the East River Column was effectively

harassing Chinese Nationalist units moving down the Canton-Kowloon railway

for embarkation to Manchuria. Armed with American bazookas, the East

River Column's Flying HorseSquadronhacl executed a particularly successful

attack against Kuomintang units in the vicinity of the ERC's old base area at 8 Tungkuan, mid-way between the Canton and Kowloon railheads.

The East River Column's 3, 000 guerrillas continued to threaten impor-

tant lines of communication in the area northeast of Canton, despite their

base area being surrounded and their inability to break out to the north. At the

same time, however, the Nationalists had been equally unsuccessful in their

attempts to penetrate the East River Column's mountain strongholds, much

less clear the area and destroy the East River Column as an effective fighting 9 force. In order to circumvent the few operational restraints generated by

7 Tseng Sheng, op. cit., p. 5. 8 The Stars and Stripes (China edition; Shanghai), 18 March 1946, p. 3. 9 Headquarters, 1st Marine Division (Reinforced), Intelligence Memoran- dum No. 48, 13 August 1946, p. 1.

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Marshall mission directives, local Kuomintang officials at first claimed that

the East River Column was merely a collection of bandits and thus subject to 10 attack. But after extended negotiations, a plan put forward by the U.S.

Army representative on Field Team 8 at Canton, Colonel Paul R. Miller, pro-

viding for the evacuation of the East River Column to communist-held Chefoo, 11 was approved by the Peiping Executive Headquarters. The East River Column's

political commissar was sent to Nanking to represent the communist side during 12 the evacuation negotiaions by the Committee of Three.

In late April, six Marines were flown to Kowloon from Peiping, attached

to the Canton field team, and further assigned, with Nationalist and communist

counterparts, to sub-teams. A full month of local negotiations at Canton was

required before agreement was reached between opposing Chinese sides on the

evacuation plan. The sub-teams then spent three weeks collecting widespread

East River Column units at various assembly points. After burning surplus

10 1st Marine Division (Reinforced), G-2, Periodic Report, No. 7, 1 July 1946, pp. 2-3. 11 Ibid. 12 office of the Chief of Military History, History of the Peiping Executive Headquarters (1946), Section I: General History of the China Area, 3rd quarter 1946, p. 35 (microfilm reel no. NRS-270).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 199

13 weapons in accordance with the evacuation agreement, the East River Column

began a ten day trek to an embarkation beach at By as Bay, forty-five miles

northeast of Hong Kong. A total of 2, 725 East River Column guerrillas, in-

eluding 262 young women, completed the march to the sea. All were given a

complete course of U.S. Navy immunization shots. Three hundred effectives

were mustered out after the group's safe arrival at the embarkation point, so 4 that the total force sealifted to Shantung amounted to slightly more than 2, 4oo/

The three LSTs of Task Force 78 (Amphibious Group 3), assigned by Com-

mander Seventh Fleet to transport the East River Column to Chefoo, were

13 The East River Column's motley armament included American, British, Belgian, Japanese, and Russian rifles and pistols, Thompson submachine guns, and • 50 caliber machine guns removed from the wreakage of American aircraft (North China Marine, loc. cit.). The East River Column was allowed to proceed to Shantung with no more than one rifle per man (1st MarDiv Intelligence Memo No. 48, op. cit. , p. 4). 14 fuid. ; North China Marine, op. cit. , pp. 1, 8. Lin P'ing remained behind to continue his guerrilla activities in Kwangtung. By late 1948, a 600-man guerrilla unit was operating effectively in the East River district, and, on New Year's Day 1949, the headquarters of the Chinese People's Liberation Army announced that Lin P'ing had been appointed leader of the Kwangtung-Kiangsi-Hunan guerrilla column. The operation of other columns in the Fukien-Kwangtung-Kiangsi and Kwangsi-Yunnan-Kweichou border areas was announced simultaneously. See China Digest (Hong Kong), vol. V, 28 December 1948, and vol. VII, 25 January 1949.

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delayed by typhoon weather enroute Byas Bay. Because the East River

Column encampment on the evacuation beach was surrounded by hostile Na-

tionalist troops, the communist column commander feared that the truce would

--·expire before the East River Column could be safely loaded aboard. But the

Task Force 78 LSTs arrived late in the afternoon of 29 June, the last day

prior to expiration of the truce, and the East River Column was loaded out in

record time.

The embarkation operation was covered by the Hong Kong-based USS

George (DE-697), but the operation went smoothly and was unopposed by local 15 Nationalist troops. After spending the night at anchor in the bay, the small

convoy was tmderway for Chefoo. As the LSTs and their escort passed

Tsingtao, the USS George broke off briefly to refuel at Tsingtao and to take 16 on board a representative from Admiral Nobel's Task Force 78 staff. The

George arrived Chefoo a full day ahead of the approaching East River Column-

laden LSTs. As she entered Chefoo harbor, the George's crew were at their

battle stations for more than an hour, but, once ag·ain, their presence was not 17 contested.

15 USS George (DE-697) Deck Log, 29 June 1946. 16 The same Commander Edward L. Yates, who was soon to take an LCI courier into Rus_3J_m:r.::b.eld Dairen on several occasions between November 1946 and March 1947; see "The Dairen Courier Run, March 1946-March 1947, "above. 17 USS George (DE-697) Deck Log, 4 July 1946.

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After anchoring in the outer harbor on the morning of the 5th, the Am-

phibious Group 3 LSTs made their way by turn to the mole where the East

River Column contingents were off-loaded to an enthusiastic welcome by an 18 East China Liberation Army honor guard. The three LSTs returned to

their anchorage, where they remained until underway for Tsingtao on the

morning of 6 July. The USS George stayed in Chefoo harbor for an additional

day before taking departure. Just before midnight on the 6th, in something

of a contemptuous gesture, a small Chinese craft came alongside the George

to deliver the baggage brought from South China by the East River Column 19 evacuees.

East River Column cadres of the rank of platoon leader and above were

sent to formal schools and the 2700-man column was filled out with recruits

from local Shantung peasant militia and defectors from the 187th Division of 20 the Forty-sixth Chinese Nationalist Army. Tseng's new unit was combat

18 "South-Marching Kwantung-Kwangsi Column, " loc. cit., text and photograph. 19 USS George (DE-697) Deck Log, 5-7 July 1946; appropriate LST-585, 589, and 1026 entries, 5-7 July 1946. 20 The 187th Division does not appear in the 1946-1947 table of Chinese Nationalist Army organization; the Forty-sixth CN A was reorganized as the 46th Division at some time during the period [Harry H. Collier and Paul Chin­ chih Lai, Organizational Changes in the Chinese Army, 1895-1950 (Taipei: Office of the Military Historian, May 1969), p. 248].

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ready and designated the Kwangtung-Kwangsi Column of Ch'en Yi's East

China Field Army on 1 August 1947. Tseng's new column participated in

Ch'en Yi 's East China Field Army 1947 counter-offensive in Shantung and,

as part of the Third Field Army, the battle for Tsinan in August 1948 and the

great battle of Huaihai in April 1949. In late 1949, the Kwangtung-Kwangsi

Column marched south in the final phase of the Chinese civil war. Tseng

Sheng resumed his political career as a member of the CCP South China

Bureau, while continuing concurrently in several Kwangtung military posts.

When the People's Liberation Army adopted a conventional system of military

ranks in 1955, Tseng chose to be commissioned as a Rear Admiral in the

Navy service arm of the People's Liberation Army. He subsequently served 2 as mayor of Canton and vice-governor of Kwangtung. !.1.

The evacuation of the East River Column to Chefoo was the only time that

US Navy ships were utilized in the redeployment of Chinese Communist mili-

tary units. But more importantly, the reinforcement of Ch'en Yi's Shantung

21 . . "South-Marchmg Kwangt1mg-Kwangs1 Column," op. cit., pp. 18; Who's Who in Communist China, loc. cit.; Huang Chen-hsia, Mao's Generals (in Chinese; no Chinese title given) (Hong Kong, Research Institute of Contem­ porary China, 1968), p. 494. Though inaccurate on several points, the brief Huang Chen-hsia biography of Tseng Sheng remains useful.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 203

forces in the Chefoo area measureably strengthened~the Chinese Communist's

military and, especially, the political hold on vital seaports, particularly at

the moment when the first Marshall Mission truce had just ended. It was to

be more than a year before Nationalist forces were established in Chefoo

and other ports along the northern Shantung coast. Trans-P'ohai junk traffic

continued without real interruption in the meanwhile-to the mutual advantage

of communist forces on both the Manchuria and Shantung sides of the strait.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Pile Point and Goose Point Incidents, June and August-September 1947.

An exchange of fire between Seventh Fleet units and Chinese Communist

troops took place near Tsingtao in June 1947. The salvage vessel USS Deliver

(ARS-23) surprised a group of Chinese who were attempting to loot a pontoon

that had gone adrift and stranded on the beach at Pile Point, directly across the

mouthof Chiaochou bay from the city of Tsingtao. The Deliver's efforts tore­

cover the pontoon drew small arms fire from Chinese Communist troops in the

vicintity. Two destroyers, the Benner (DD-807) and Hawkins (DD-873) were

called in to support the recovery operations. The Deliver was again taken under

small arms fire. The Deliver and Benner then laid down a covering fire while

the Hawkins put a landing force ashore. The Chinese troops were driven off

and the pontoon was recovered. There were no American casualties and only 1 slight dammage to the bridge of the Deliver.

The Pile Point incident was one of two rare instances in which fire was ex­

changed between Chinese Communist military forces and US naval ships. In

October, 1945, another US Navy salvage vessel, the USS Seize (ARS-26), was

subjected to thirty-five minutes of 25 caliber machine gun fire from what were

1 Seventh Fleet Narrative History, op. cit. , pp. 33-34.

204 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205

probably communist New Fourth Army associated forces at Ward Reach, six

miles above Ch'ichou, on the Yangtze river. The Seize was part of a small

convoy returning to Shanghai from Hank'ou; when taken under fire, she was

attempting to aid the fleet tug, USS Ute, which had been damaged by mines. The

Seize returned the fire with her 50 caliber machine guns and 40 millimeter can-

non. As in the subsequent Pile Point incident, there were no American casual- . 2 ttes.

Two months later, an incident occurred which personally involved Cornman-

der Seventh Fleet in direct negotiations with Chinese Communist military officials.

While participating in exercises with Seventh Fleet Uhits operating in the Yellow

Sea off Tsingtao, the pilots of three Marine Corsair fighters were forced to ditch

their aircraft after unsuccessful attempts to return to their home airfield at

Tsingtao during bad weather. Two of the Corsair pilots were promptly recovere·d,

but the third pilot and his aircraft fell into communist hands in a marshy beach

area near Goose Point on the~outh coast of the eastern tip of the Shantung pro-

montory, one hundred miles northeast of Tsingtao. Search operations by Tsingtao-

based Patrol Squadron 41 Mariner seaplanes were hampered by low ceilings and

poor visibility on the 27 August, the day that the Marine aircraft were overdue.

2 uss Seize (ARS-26) Action Report, 22 October 1945; New York Times, 24 November 1945.

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On the following day, the search was continued along the Shantung coast, and

one of the downed Corsair's, rudely camouflaged with straw matting, was located

within three hours. One of the Mariner search aircraft was hit by light ground

fire from nearby communist forces and returned to Tsingtao with an oil leak.

The remainder of the search track was flown on around the peninsula, across 3 Weihaiwei and Chefoo, to P'englai without further incident.

Within two hours of the sighting of the downed aircraft, the USS Tucker

(DD-857) arrived on the scene and anchored three miles offshore. A fifteen­

man landing party went in to the beach in a motor whaleboat where it was

joined by the platoon-sized Marine detachment from the heavy cruiser St. Paul

(CA-73). Additional Fleet Air Wing One aircraft joined in the rescue operation.

The pilot of a small, maneuverable SNJ Texan trainer observed that the downed

Corsair had been "booby trapped." Two wires led from the camouflaged air­

craft to a Chinese Communist soldier seventy-five yards away. The landing

party was warned by message drop, and they managed to cut the wires before

discovering a crude bomb planted in the Corsair's wing. There was no sign of

3 shaw MS, op. cit., p. V:5:49; Commander US Naval Forces Western Paci­ fic, Narrative History of Seventh Fleet and Naval Forces Western Pacific, 8 January 1946-14 February 1948, p. 39; Commanding Officer, Patrol Squadron 41, letter report to Commander Fleet Air Wing One, subject; International Incident; report of, 7 September 1947.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 207

the missing pilot, nor evidence that he had been injured during the ditching.

The landing force then searched a nearby hamlet with negative results. When

the landing force approached a larger village to the south, it was taken under

rifle and mortar fire, took cover, and returned the fire. The landing force

withdrew to the beach without casualties; three Chinese Communist soldiers 4 were apparently wounded in the exchange of fire.

Additional Seventh Fleet ships gathered off Goose Point, in a fruitless

effort to contact responsible Chinese Communist officials ashore and arrange

for the downed Corsair pilot's release. A week passed before arrangements

were made for substantive negotiations. Commander Seventh Fleet, now

Admiral Charles M. Cooke, Jr. , and the US Vice Consul at Tsingtao flew

to the scene on 4 September in a Patrol Squadron 41 Mariner. After another

week of protracted negotiations and exchanges of notes and messages, satisfac-

tory terms were agreed upon. The Chinese Communists finally accepted Admiral

Cooke's letter explaining the circumstances surrounding the ditching of the

Corsiar, one thousand dollars in cash, and medical supplies by way of compen-

sation for damages allegedly sustained. The pilot, Lieutenant Winters, USMC, 5 was released unharmed on 10 September.

4 Ibid. 5 seventh Fleet Narrative History, loc cit.; Shaw MS, loc. cit.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VIT

EPILOGUE

·'

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Wartime Planning for a Postwar Chinese Navy

Soon after the entry of the United States into the Pacific War, the Chinese

government initiated a request, via the senior Chinese military attache in Wash­

ington, for training of Chinese naval officers in the United States. A January

1942 letter from Major General Chu Shih-ming to the Director of Naval Intelli­

gence pointed out that twenty Chinese naval officers, presumably serving in other

roles in the Chungking area, had been trained in submarine warfare in Germany

in 1937. General Chu suggested that these officers were ideally suited for

further submarine training in the United States with a view toward eventual em­ 1 ployment in the war against Japan. This demarche was promptly reinforced by

a note from the ChineEe Ambassador at Washington requesting US State Depart­

ment endorsement of the Chu proposal. The State Department duly forwarded the

proposal to the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, who, in turn, advised that

the Navy Department was willing to provide the submarine training requested by

1 Rear Admiral T. S. Wilkinson, Director of Naval Intelligence, letter to Major General Chu Shih-ming, Military Attache, Chinese Embassy, Washington, D. C., 8 April1942, Miles Papers, as, unless otherwise indicated, are all documents cited in this subchapter.

208

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2 the Chinese. Secretary Knox appended an additional Chinese government propo-

sal, recently forwarded via the naval attache in Chungking, for the training of 3 fifty carefully selected Chinese naval line officers.

The submarine training was to be conducted at San Diego, California.

General Chu was asked promptly to supply further information as to the arrival 4 of the Chinese naval officers in the United States. But despite this relatively

prompt attainment of high level approval-secured by April 1942 -the training

scheme was not effected for more than a year. It was necessary for US naval

authorities to inquire into the nature of the delay. Chiang K' ai-shek was

asked that US naval officers in Chungking be allowed to screen selectees for

training in the United States and that preliminary training in "ordinary naval 5 subjects" be accomplished prior to their arrival in the United States. In the

meanwhile, the Chinese government had initiated its first request for Lend-Lease

2 The Secretary of the Navy (Frank Knox) letter to the Secretary of State (Cordell Hull), Washington, D. C., 6 April1942. 3 wilkinson letter to Chu, op. cit. 4 Knox letter to Hull, op. cit. 5 Naval Attache, Chungking (Lt. Col. J. M. McHugh, USMC), letter to Chief, Second Section, General Staff, Military Affairs Commission, Chungking, 20 Nov­ ember 1942.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 210

aid of two hundred naval auxiliary and small craft; no specific types were 6 designated.

The training of Chinese naval officers in the United States finally got under-

way in 1943, but submarine training was arranged in the United Kingdom, not in

the United States, as originally requested. The delay has been ascribed, at least

in part, to conflict among various interests groups in Chinese naval circles. The

Chinese Navy, both its top leadership and the entire structure, was dominated by 7 the British trained Mawei (Mamoi) or Fukien clique. The Commander-in-Chief

of the Chinese Navy, Admiral Ch'en Shao-k'uan was well know as a Mawei man, 8 and his pro-Britich attitudes troubled local US naval officials in Chungking.

This concern soon took the form of a subtle contest for influence between Ameri-

can and British interests for paramount influence in the planning for and building of

6 . Captam J. C. Metzel memorandum, subject: Chinese Requests for Naval Vessels, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, n. d. [ca. January 1946 ?]. 7 see Ch'en Shao-k'uan, "The Navy," in Kwei Chung-shu, ed., The Chinese Yearbook, 1935-1936 (Shanghai: The Commercial Press, Ltd., 1935), p. 568, for 1932 statistics on provincial origins of officers and other ranks exclusive of the Tsingtao and Kwangtung Squadrons. 8 us Naval Observer, Chungking (Miles), letter to Captain Jeffrey C. Metzel, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, quoted in Metzel memorandum to Lt. Col. Boone and Comdr. Jarrell, subject: Chinese Navy, [?]October 1943; emphasis added.

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the postwar Chinese Navy. It was the opinion of the Naval Observer, Chungking,

Captain Milton E. Miles, that the United States government should take the neces-

sary initiatives to insure that the re-equipping and manning of the Chinese Navy

would proceed under American auspices. Captain Miles pressed for the transfer of

small naval craft to the Chinese Navy. He argued that he had been "warned"

that the Chinese would soon make such a request, but that "it would .•. be better

if we made the proposal to them, thereby gaining considerably more prestige 9 than be merely acquiescing to their request. "

Miles' recommendations had their effect. In late 1943 and early 1944, Navy

planners in Washington engaged in a protracted exchange of correspondence de-

signed to stimulate presidential approval for the "reactivation" of the Chinese

Navy. Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet,

called the attention of the Sevretary of the Navy to the fact that the 1942 invitation

to the government of China for training of their naval officers in the United States

was based on reasonable prospects for small scale Chinese naval participation in

the war against Japan. King observed that the Chinese responded in terms that

made it clear that their principal interest was to rebuild a navy for operations in 10 a postwar environment. A lengthier, more comprehensive, memorandum was

9 Ibid. 10 Headquarters of the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (King) memor­ andum for the Secretary of the Navy (Knox), 8 December 1943.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212

sent to the Joint Chiefs of Staff which contained specific recommendations for

quarterly increments of fifty officers and five hundred men into six-month courses

of refresher and operational training with US fleet units and the furnishing of US

destroyers and smaller types to be fought by the Chinese. The main thrust of

the King memorandum to the Joint Chiefs was that, given adequate naval equipment,

experienced Chinese naval personnel could make a meaningful contribution in the

PaCI.f. 1c w ar. 11

A draft Memorandum for the President on the reactivation of the Chinese Navy

was prepared for Secretary Knox• s signature in mid-December. This document,

however, was couched in terms that reflected China's postwar naval potential for 12 the prevention of future Japanese aggression. It also indicated that the Chinese

naval attache in Washington, Rear Admiral Liu Ten-fu, had transmitted a Chinese

government suggestion that there were sufficient experienced Chinese naval per-

sonnelathandto man two cruisers, a destroyer squadron, and a large number of

smaller ships. But the Knox draft, probably circulated among senior Navy planners,

11 Headquarters of the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (King), mem­ orandum for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, subject: Reactivation of the Chinese Navy, 8 December 1943. 12 Draft Memorandum for The President from the Secretary of the Navy (Knox), subject: Reactivation of the Chinese Navy, 17 December 1943.

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was effectively killed by the cryptic comment of the Europeanist naval planner,

Admiral B. H. Bieri: "Do not think we should attempt this now. We should de­

vote our entire effort to our own training and get the war over [with] fast. 1113

So, as 1943 came to close, the cumulative American effort to rebuild the Chinese

Navy consisted in the educational training (at Swarthmore College) of a total of

forty-nine young Chinese naval officers, only ten of whom enjoyed previous ex­ 14 perience at sea; twenty-eight of the remainder were technical officers.

The dialogue persisted. In January 1944, probably the most experienced

China hand in the US Navy joined in. Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, sometime com-

mander of the Yangtze Patrol and the Commander-in-Chief, US Asiatic Fleet,

now served in retired status as a member of the Special Planning Section of the 15 Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Admiral Yarnell sent an apparently

13 Note attached to Draft Memorandum for The President, 17 December 1943, op. cit. ; apparently in the handwriting of Captain Metzel. See the sub-chapter, "The Navy and Europe," in Vincent Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and the US Navy, 1943-1946, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), pp. 76-80, for a revealing analysis of the fresh conflict between the new breed of Europe-oriented US naval leaders and the traditional, Pacific-oriented leadership. 14 Draft Memorandum for The President, 17 December 1943, op. cit. 15 . Davis, op. cit., p. 13.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214

unsolicited memorandum to Secretary Knox outlining his views on naval assistance

to China. In seven brief paragraphs, Yarnell gave the first indications of concern

on the part of US naval leaders for the postwar viability of the Chinese Nationalist 16 government:

In the post-war years one of the main requisites for peace in the Far East is a strong and stable government in China. When the war ends the problems confronting the Chinese government will be very great. The disband­ ing of the armies, the rebuilding of the devastated areas, the repatriation of millions of people, the solu­ tion of financial problems, etc., require a strong gov­ ernment in power. If the present government in China should collapse, there would result a period of chaos and civil war that might extend over many years and create a major post-war problem for the United States. In order that the present Chinese government remain in power, it is essential that it have at its command a loyal, adequate, and efficient Army and Navy ... it is essential that there be in existance an adequate navy of the necessary types to support the government ..• and to aid in the maintenance of law and order. The United

16 Admiral H. E. Yarnell letter to the Secretary of the Navy, subject: Naval Assistance to China, 8 January 1944; emphasis added.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 215

States is in the best position to aid in the provision of such a navy and should do so as a matter of our own future national interest. • . . it will be necessary to eventually supply the Chinese with suitable types of naval craft if the lat­ ter can be spared from our own war effort• • . . . The aim should be to have in service a number of naval units manned by Chinese personnel adequate to support the Chinese government. • • at the end of the war.

Admiral Yarnell recommended that the President and the State Depart-

ment be informed that the Navy Department considered the matter to be of

major and immediate importance. He added that the United States govern-

ment should take the initiative by informing the Chinese government of its 17 willingness to support the naval rebuilding program.

With the assistance of Captain Metzel, who was in close touch with Captain

Miles, the US Naval Observer in Chungking, and his quasi-official Sino-American 18 Cooperative Organization, Admiral Yarnell drafted a letter to the Admiral Liu,

17 Ibid. 18 For an account of Captain Miles' adventures as deputy commander of this unorthodox and controversial coalition with Tai Li, Chiang .Kai-shek's chief in­ telligence officer, see Vice Admiral Milton E. Miles, USN, A Different Kind of War: The little known story of the combined guerrilla forces created in China by the US Navy and the Chinese during World War II (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216

the Chinese naval attache in Washington, outlining "certain personal views and

comments on the rebuilding of the Chinese Navy which may be of interest to you. 1119

Expanding on his earlier letter to the Secretary of the Navy, Yarnell listed sup-

port of the Chinese central government "in the maintenance of domestic order"

as the most important function of a postwar Chinese Navy. He saw no need for

naval forces in the defense of China against external aggression because the

Japanese Navy would be destroyed at the end of the Pacific War. Admiral Yarnell

suggested that the postwar Chinese Navy inventory contain an escort aircraft car-

rier, six destroyers, twelve destroyer escorts, six frigates, one destroyer tender,

twenty-four motor torpedo boats and a dozen-odd small craft. He stated that the

United States was in the best position to provide such an inventory, and he thought

that such a naval assista..'lce program "would be given due consideration by the US 20 government. n In response to Admiral Yarnell's request for "frank comment,

criticisms, and suggestions," Captain Metzel recommended deletion of the es-

cort carrier, because "as I undertand it, general policy for 'assisted Navies' is

to keep them dependent on our help for Carriers, Battleships, modern Cruisers, 21 and submarines. " Metzel added the caution: Your name carries so much weight

19 nraft Yarnell to Liu letter, 17 January 1944. 20 Ibid. 21 Yarnell memorandum to Metzel, n. d. [1 7 January 1944 ?] ; Metzel memoran- dum for Yarnell, n. d. [ca. 20 January 1944].

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 217

[that] the Chinese would be bound to consider the letter official. For that

reason I would hold it until official letter is acted on-or clear it with Admiral

Horne." It is not clear whether Admiral Yarnell did, in fact, clear the draft

letter to the Chinese naval attache with his active duty superiors in the Office

of the Chief of Naval Operations. In any case, Yarnell dispatched a smooth

copy of the letter, incorporating Captain Metzel' s suggestions regarding the

naval inventory, to Admiral Liu on 26 January 1944. Other than the changes

in recommended ship types, however, Yarnell included procedural ad.vice:

Approval of President Roosevelt should be secured; this cc.·-tld be accomplished

by directing Yarnell's proposal to the State Department as an ,~dependent initia-

tive of the Chinese Embassy in Washington; having secured the President's

approval in this fashion, the proposal would, as a matter of course, be refer-

red to the Navy Department for furnishing final and detailed acceptance of the 22 proposal. Captain Metzel supplemented the Yarnell letter the follc;ving day

with a detailed memorandum on ship types and manning requirements addressed

to a Commander Yang, probably the assistant naval attache at the Chinese 23 EmLassy.

22 Yarnellletter to Liu 26 January 1944. 23 Metze! memorandum for Commander Yang, 27 January 1944.

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The torturous, complicated, and sometimes confused, negotiations and

planning effort continued with no meaningful decisions taken early enough to

bring the Chinese Nationalists into the naval war against Japan. It was not,

in fact, until nearly a year after the Japanese surrender that the first US

naval vessels-five LSTs-were turned over to the Republic of China Navy 24 at Tsingtao.

2 ~arrative of Seventh Fleet, op. cit., p. 12.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Defection of the RCS Chungking, February -March 1949

The pride of the postwar Republic of China Navy was the RCS (Republic

of China Ship) Chungking, the ex-Royal Navy light cruiser, HMS Aurora. The

defection of the RCS Chungking to the Chinese Communists in February 1949

provides a striking illustration of the failure to produce an even modestly

effective postwar Chinese and, more importantly, the extent to which the

policy restraints of 1945 regarding non-involvement in the Chinese civil war

had become traditionalized.

The HMS Aurora, which had a distinguished record in the Mediterranean

during World War II, was turned over to the Nationalists in May 1948, along 1 with the destroyer HMS Mendip. Commissioned in the Republic of China

Navy as the RCS Chungking and RCS Lin•fu, respectively, both ships were

manned by officers and crew who had been under extensive training in the

United Kingdom. Special efforts were made to bring the HMS Aurora up to

first. class material condition and to provide a higher-than-normal level of

spares before the ship was turned over to the Chinese. Many of the en­

gineers and technical ratings were recruited from amongst Chinese merchant

seamen in Liverpool and other ports, but the bulk of the ship's company were

1 The Times (London), 20 May 1948.

219

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220

volunteers sent from China, most of whom seemed to have been university stu.:-

dents. The entire crew had a full year's training, the last four months of which 2 were spent at sea. With a limited number of experienced Royal Navy officers

on board, the new Chinese ships-both of which were larger than anything pro-

vided by the US Navy-sailed for China under the command of Captain Teng Chao­ 3 hsiang, who had been training in England since 1943.

The Chungking arrived in China waters in August 1948 and made a two-day

portcall at Hong Kong before steaming for Nanking. According to several re­ 4 ports substantial numbers of her crew deserted at first opportunity. With what

appears to be very little time spent in additional training or other preparations, the

the RCS Chungking was soon deployed to North China waters as the flagship of

a provisional (three-ship) task force operating in the Gulf of Chihli and

Liaotung Bay. Most of the efforts of the Chungking in the course of a month's

operations were devoted to covering the withdrawal of Chinese Nationalist 5 forces from southern Manchuria and northern Shantung ports. Beginning

2 rnterview with Rear Admiral John Crabbe, RAN, Washington, D. C., 8 July 1966. 3 union Research Institute, WWCC, op. cit. 4 See, for example, China Digest, Vol. IV, No. 8 (24 August 1948), and North China Daily News, 3 March 1949. 5 A rather detailed account of the Chungking's September-October 1948 op­ erations in the area is found in Republic of China, Ministry of National De­ fense, Military History Bureau, Civil War in China, 1945-1950 (Translated

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221

in late September, the Chungking provided covering gunfire for withdrawals

from Hulutao, Chefoo, and Yingkow, and shore bombardment of communist

forces in adjacent coastal areas, as well as the foreign-owned Kailan mines 6 near Chinwangtao. Following the fall nf Hulutao in early November, the

Chungking returned to Shanghai. During her operations in the North, the

Generalissimo, himself, ;;pent some time on board observing the shore 7 bombardment of communist installations and units in the Hulutao area.

Both Chiang Kai-shek and the RCS Chungking returned from North

China waters to a nearly chaotic Central Government political situation.

HsUchow was occupied, in the course of the decisive battle of the civil war,

on 1 December. By 21 January 1949, Chiang announced his retirement as

President of the Republic. Peiping was occupied by the communists ten days

later, and, on 5 February, most Central Government offices were moved to

Canton as Ch'en Yi's Third Field Army massed on the north bank of the Yangtze.

by the staff of the China Military History Project, USMAAG, China [Taipeh: 1965]), pp. 208-215; cited hereafter as Military History Bureau, CWC. 6 Ibid.; see, also, North China :qaily News, 10 March 1949., and China Daily Tribune (Shanghai), 2 March 1949. 7 Military History Bureau, CWC, p. 214.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222

Early in the morning of 25 February, the RCS Chungking sailed from

her anchorage near Shanghai without orders or authorization. Though her

destination was unknown to Chinese naval authorities, it was suspected that the

ship's crew might be defecting and the ship steaming for a communist-held

port. The commander-in-chief of the Republic of China Navy, Admiral Kwei

Yung-chin, promptly asked Admiral Oscar Badger, now commanding US

Naval Forces Western Pacific, for assistance in an air search for the missing 8 Chinese Nationalist flagship. Admiral Badger was willing only to report if

the RCS Chungking was sighted; he was unable to make any commitment be-

yond passive cooperation, adding: "Am sure Adm[iral] Kwei tmderstands 9 that forces of this command cannot participate in fratricidal war. rr

The disappearance of the Chungking was not publicly noticed until 2 10 March, after she had been located at Chefoo by Nationalist reconnaissance

8 US Naval Attache, Nanking, message to Commander Naval Forces Western Pacific, 26 February 1949. 9 Commander Naval Forces Western Pacific message to US Naval Attache, Nanking, 27 February 1949. 10 No rth China Daily News (Shanghai), 2 March 1949; The New York Times, 2 March 1949.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223

aircraft and had been unsuccessfully attacked by Chinese Air Force B-24. 11 bombers based at Tsingtao, where a much reduced US naval presence, but 12 including Admiral Badger's flagship, was still being maintained During

the night following the bombing attack at Chefoo, the Chungking crossed the

Gulf of Chihli to Hulutao where she remained unlocated by searching Nation-

alist aircraft for more than two weeks. While the search was underway,

Chinese naval authorities 0xpressed concern about the Chungking's potential

as a threat to Chinese Nationalist naval merchant shipping. Admiral Kwei

suggested that the British attempt to retake the Chtmgking and that US naval - forces take "direct action" against the cruiser. Both British and American 13 naval authorities declined Admiral Kwei's suggestions.

As the search continued, public speculation concerning the spectacular

defection motmted. Shanghai Chinese language newspapers reported that

the Chtmgking had half a million dollars on board, presumeably destined for

11 . New York Times, 21 March 1949. 12 Badger's flagship, the USS Eldorado (AGC-11), was based at Tsingtao until late in May; the last US naval ship to leave the port, the light cruiser USS Manchester (CL-83), carried the last Marine contingent to leave China on 26 May (Shaw MS, op. cit., p. V:6:41). 13 Chief of Naval Operations message to Commander Naval Forces Western Pacific, 10 March 1949.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 224

removal to Taiwan. Other factors for 'speculation included the excessively pro-

British attitudes of Teng Chao-hsiang, his imminent relief by Captain Lu Teng-

keh, their mutual antagonisms as graduates of different naval academies, and

Admiral Kwei's plans to sail the ship on an "inspection tour" to various ports, 14 me. 1u d"mg Am oy ancI K1ao . hs.nmg on T ruwan. . It was a 1so rumore d t h at C h iang 15 Kai-shek had moved from his home in Chekiang to the coast at Amoy; this

in turn invited speculation as to Chiang intentions to escape to Taiwan.

Admiral Badger reported to the Chief of Naval Operations on 5 March

that the Chtmgking had "considerable silver coin" on board. The Chinese

naval headquarters had been unsuccessful in its attempts to make contact

with the ship by radio. Four Chinese Nationalist B-24s had, in fact, attempt-

ted to bomb the ship on 2 March. Two new, Chinese-manned destroyer es-

corts en route from Pearl Harbor were being diverted to Taiwan on Badger's

orders. The admiral expected that the Nationalists would attempt to destroy

or damage the Chungking as soon as it was located and before it could under-

take an operation against Central Government interests both afloat and

14 See, for example, Sinwen Tienti (Shanghai), no. 61, 10 March 1949; North China Daily News, 4 March 1949. 15 North China Daily News, 14 March 1949.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225

16 ashore. But the impact of the defection of the Chungking had already taken

effect: The RCS Huang-an, an ex-Japanese destroyer, defected from Tsingtao

to the communist port of Lienyun, Kiangsu, one hundred miles to the south, 17 on 13 March.

Nationalist bomber pilots renewed their attacks on the Chungking as

soon as she was located at Hulutao on 19 March. They were, after three 18 days of bombing, able to claim that they had sunk the ship.

With the Chungking settled to the bottom of the harbor at Hulutao, Peking

radio claimed that US naval forces had a part in the sinking. The communists

charged that the bombers which sank the ship had United States markings, and 19 that three American submarines were also involved. The following day, 20 however, Peking radio admitted that the bombers were Chinese Nationalist.

16 Commander Naval Forces Western Pacific message to the Chief of Naval Operations, 5 March 1949. 17 North Ch. rna Dm.1 y News, 2 0 March 1949. 18 Commander Service Squadron 3 message to Commander Naval Forces Western Pacific, 21 March 1949. 1 9-The New York Times, 26, 27 March 1949. 20 fuid.; an acknowledgement that seems to have been forgotten in the writing of Mao Tse-tung's "Farewell, Leighton Stuart!," Selected Works, Vol. 4, op. cit. , p. 34. See also China Digest, Vol. 5, No. 12 (5 April 1949), p. 12.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 226

It was also announced that the entire crew of the Chungking had been welcomed

by a joint telegram from Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh, who urged that the defec-

tion of the Chungking serve as an example to the remaining ships of the Kuomin-

tang Navy. "Since the Chinese people are going to build up their own powerful

defence ... with ..• a navy and air force, you will be the vanguards participa­ 21 ting in the building of the People's Navy. rr

Though the Chungking experience may not have been a factor, the defec-

tion of the bulk Lin Tsun 's Second River Defense Squadron as the Third Field 22 Army crossed the Yangtze on the night of 22 April had its effect in Washington.

A flurry of messages among Admiral Badger, the Naval Attache in Nanking,

and the Chief of Naval Operations resulted in the acknowledgment that, by

23 May 1949, fifty-two Nationalist naval vessels were claimed by the commun­ 23 ists to have surrendered.

Unlike his Royal Navy, counterpart, Admiral Briand, Admiral Badger

chose not to maintain a station ship at Nanking to serve the US Embassy staff

and its platoon of Marines. As the Chinese Communists were preparing to

cross the Yangtze near Nanking, Badger assured Ambassador Stuart that he

21 ch·ma D1ges· t , 1oc. c1·t . 22 see F. F. Liu, A Military History of Modern China, 1924-1949, op. cit., p. 267, for a brief description of the episode; also Military History Bureau, ewe, op. cit. ' p. 224. 23 US Naval Attache, Nanking, 13, 23, and 28 May; Commander Naval Forces Western Pacific, 30 April and 4 May.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 227

would send one of his combatants upon three days notice. Stuart did make such

a request, but gave ten days notice. Admiral Badger, unwilling to risk con-

flict with Third Field Army forces, declined to send a ship unless overruled by

the ambassador. Fortunately, Stuart accepted Badger's judgment on the mat-

ter, probably avoiding the fate of the HMS Amethyst, Consort, Black Swan,

and London, all of which suffered heavy material and personnel casualties while

caught in withering Third Field Army artillery fire in the Yangtze narrows be- . 24 1owN ank~mg.

24 Jolm Leighton Stuart, Fifty Years in China (New York: Random House,

1954), pp. 232-233.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VIII

CONCLUSIONS

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Conclusions

Though China policy discussions continued in Washington during most

of the 1945-1949 Chinese Civil War period, and though changes were implemented

in several aspects of that policy, the prohibition against support of either side­

involvement-in so-called fratricidal warfare continued throughout the period of

conflict with the ambiguous requirement to support a central government engaged

in full blown revolutionary civil war. Even the terminology remained unchanged

over a span of nearly four years. What did change, though rarely once the China

Theater command organization was dismantled on 1 April (appropriately) 1946,

was the interpretation of the restraint in an operational situation involving US

naval units. While China Theater still had command of Seventh Fleet units, the

interpretation was often flexible-in the negative direction-if not arbitrary, as

was the case when Lieutenant General Wedemeyer prohibited Admiral Barbey's

visit to Hulutao for the purpose of determining whether local Nationalist forces

were in suffici::mt control of the port to land the Northeast Garrison Command

in November 1945.

One fixed interpretation does, however, stand out: the local policy which

allowed the Japanese troops to continue bearing arms in a defensive, and I suspect

occasionally offensive, role against communist forces. This proxy mode of in­

volvement was so widespread that their eventual repatriation directly, and

adversely, affected Nationalist capabilities to seize and maintain territory,

especially along the railway lines on North China.

228

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The ,corolary to Tang Tsou 's argument that the United States govern-

ment had the power but not the will to control the outcome of the diplomatic

struggle between the Chinese Central Government and the Soviets over the inter-

pretation of the provisions of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements is that the

United States lacked the will to pursue her own rights-direct and peripheral-

vis-a-vis-those same agreements. This situation obtained despite overwhelming

American power to control events, particularly with regard to the landing of

Nationalist troops at Dairen and Yingkow in October 1945.

Dairen courier run difficulties of December 1946 were quite different; by

that time American naval power in the area had drastically declined, and the more

immediate concern of the Soviet authorities might well have been the close ap-

proach of advancing Chinese Nationalist armies.

Qualified judgments include the view that apparent Soviet obstructionism

and occasionally obvious procrastination regarding the transport of Allied POWs

and internees from Mukden was more the result of the lack of clear, quick, and

detailed guidance available to the Dairen commandant, General Yemanov. This

is coupled with his individual ineptness as the commander of a military govern-

ment in a high tension environment.

Repeatedly, Chinese Nationalist officials, whether on the scene, as at Yingkow, or in a distant. capital of the Soviet occupied region, as was the case during Settle'slate September 1945 visit to Dairen, were left to their own devices

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 230

to negotiate toward desired ends. Their isolation in such situations from their

erstwhile allies was the explicit manifestation of the lack of effective and

meaningful American diplomatic support. Settle was enjoined not to negotiate

with the Soviets on behalf of the Chinese. Barbey, at Yinkow, was not so en­

joined, but he chose literally to abandon his Chinese Nationalist counterpart

in a hostile environment. No American official joined the rotating Hsiung· Til­

chiang team at Changchun in its encounters with Malinovsky, then Vasilevsky,

to lend support to the Nationalist cause.

On the other hand, there is no hard evidence, thus far available, to con-

firm that the agreements claimed by the Nationalists at Changchun were in fact

achieved. Soviet approval for lartdings of Chinese Nationalist armies at various

Manchurian ports was frequently ascribed to Soviet officials. I have found no

record of the assurances coming directly into the· hands of American diplomats

and military commanders, whether in Moscow, Washington, Chungking, or

locally-at Tientsin, Yingkow, or Dairen.

The apparent differences in politico-military style between US Navy and

US Marine commanders in the face of challenge from representatives of the

Chinese Communist military forces break down under close scrutiny. The dif-

..... --- ference between American successes on the beach at Chinwangtao, the road to

Peking, and the outskirts of Tsingtao and American failures at Chefoo and

Weihaiwei was exclusively a matter of delicate balance between Chinese Com­

munist military power and a viable degree of residual Japanese or puppet control.

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The cancellation of the planned landing of the 29th Marines at Chefoo

stemmed, in the first instance, from an apparent failure of command procedure

at China Theater headquarters in Chungking and, indirectly, from the incipient

breakdown in the China Theater command structure, itself. The final decision

not to land was affected most directly by a recommendation filed prior to the

determination of precise, conditional arrangements acceptable to local

Chinese Communist negotiators. Clearly, the latter adversaries enjoyed

rapid, direct communications with the most senior and responsible decision

makers in the Chinese Commtmist command structure.

A second, though admittedly slight, opportunity at Chefoo resulted,

once again, largely from a lack of command guidance from the senior American

commander in the area. It was only after the fact that Chinn. Theater was able

to certify the Wang Flotilla force as legitimate-in the sense that it was acceptable

to the Chinese Central Government. Of equal importance in the outcome of this

Gilbert and Sullivan-like episode was the characteristic American distaste for

the very notion of military flexibility-puppetry-in Chinese society. The re­

sulting misconception of the important role of puppet forces in the period of

transition to civil war conditioned Set-tle's response to a bizarre situation, and

probably the response of his immediate superiors.

Similarly, the Americans grossly misjudged in their obvious expectation

of continuing Japanese resistance after the Imperial Rescript on surrender.

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Their surprise with the docile Japanese behaviour led them to accelerate the re­

duction of American power in the area, leaving their forces directly exposed to

involvement or near-involvement situations.

Internecine and fratricidal professional warfare between senior Ameri­

can commanders contributed directly to the degradation in effectiveness of

action taken in the name of inherently conflicting policies. The senior regional

commander, China Theater-once he returned to the area of operations-was,

seemingly, constantly at odds with his senior naval commander. Both viewed

one another as personal antagonists. The result, of course, was general in­

decision; when decisions were made that would improve American support

of the Nationalist government, they often came too late. Cases in point are

the equipping and training of a Chinese naval transport unit to expedite the

movement of Nationalist armies in the second phase of the race for Manchuria

and the decision to move those armies northward committed to conflict in

Manchuria.

But earlier decisions regarding the rebuilding of a postwar Chinese

navy were equally difficult and even more tortuous. Training of personnel was

undertaken much too late to provide enough trained and experience personnel

to operate naval combatants in the early, crucial phases of the civil war. The

problem was compounded by the programmed procrastination on the part of

responsible American officials controlling otherwise available naval ships.

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From the

in September 1945, the Chinese were immediately denied title to readily

available, navaL combatants in reasonable material condition. Even an ex­

Chinese cruiser, captured by the Japanese in the early days of the Sino­

Japanese war, was not returned. Surrendered Japanese naval ships above

destroyer size were destroyed, rather than turned over to the Chinese central

government. The first ships provided them were unsuitable for modern combat

operations, yet they managed to fight those ships with alacrity during the

closing days of the Manchurian campaign. Those Chinese armies that did

escape the Manchurian maw did so, at least in part, because of effective naval

support by Nationalist First Squadron naval units. Yet, the RCS Chungking

episode and the ensuing train of defections tends to obscure this crucial fact.

On the otherhand, it is by no means certain that even unrestrained

limited naval intervention against the Chinese Communists would have altered

the outcome with Nationalist China's attrition so far advanced even before the

civil war got tmderway. In any case, there is a touchof irony in the fact that

when, on 1 October 1949, a review was held to mark the founding of the People's 1 Republic of China, it was. People's Navy and Marinee who led the parade.

1 china Weekly Review, 8 October 1949.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 234

CHINESE PERSONAL NAMES

Chang Kuang-ch'iung 'f<- ~L Jt Chang Li-yeh 1l j;_ ut

Ch'en Chin-ch'eng ;;Jtt i" tfJi. l.k Ch'en Kuang ;~>ft I'-J ,.~ ~f, t,6 ' Ch'en Shao-k'uan "' ';L Ch'en Yi rt, ~L

Ch'en Yi.in-t'ao pi. ~: ; f.t.

Chia Feng ·;, JT,'L

Chu Teh ;t-~ 1\

Chtmg Hs i-tung ltf u\ ...... t'" Fan Han-chieh ;z.... ;t'- 1~ 11) Ho Ssu-yuan 1"J f\!' ;x~ l,cij Ho Ying-chin M.I\!.' i~ /_ Hsiang Han-ping /fa'- ~ Iff

Hsiung Shih-hui .."'~)\C. ,, " ~ ~~¥

Huang K'o-ch'eng ~. ~'J ~~a .... Kao Chin-pang rOJ" 'i. f'~ • j.l:l Ku Chu-t'ung lftft ii

Li Mi ,~ 5~\ ~b Li Kuo-t'ang /\' I~ ~ s Li Yun-ch'ang 1' it t3

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 235

Lin Piao ;t~ )~

Lin P'ing ;t~'- if

Liu Chu-ying

Lo Jung-huan [Lo Jun Hoang] ~Is.'"'f\, 9:~;jt II\\i_ f Ma Shun-tien ..~ J'IJ! T\..

P'eng Chia-ch 'iang iJ Ja Jl

i~M~ Tang Tsung /t Jfll}~

Teng Chiao-hsiang it~ :JL ~·¥-

Tseng Sheng

Tu Yti-ming /'Ft t e~

Wan I [Wan Yi]

Wang Chih-yii

Wang Po-hsi.in

Wang Shi-shan ?

:r:. /. )r_ J:~ Wang Tso-yao ..:z::.. t t- ''--

Wu Jui-lin &7...... _ :i W,fj) hi1' +-"--

Wu K'o-hua *-_ "?~,.~ ~,

Yeh Chien-ying 't ~IJ .Jl

Yen Hsi-shan ~6, ~~ J_,

~.,.,., vti Chou -=t 1.• '~·~A Yii Ku-ying 1- .Ia'- :11t,. )a Yii Te-shui J ~ J\\...

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 236

CHINESE PLACE NAMES

Antung ~- ,..'Jl

Change hun [Changch 1un; Hsinking]

Ch 1 ang-I [ Changi]

Changshan

Chefoo [Chihfu; Chihfou; Yent 1ai]

Chengtu

Chengtzutuan [Chengtzuta] '-~ + B'i

Chiaohsien tl- ~~~

Ch 1ichou [Kichow] lfr 1•1•1

Chihfen [ Chihfang] ;Jf, t-

Chin chou

Chinwangtao [ Ch 'inhuangtao] ...... Chuangho }J L ;. Uj

Chtmgshan Tao

Dairen [Luta] K i}_ . - Fushan lt~J &lJ

Fushun --1~ ,,,, ,,_ Haich1eng ,.... ~}~' Hankow [Hank 1 ou] ;t u Hantan ~ -~

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 237

Harbin [Haerhpin] 0~ '* ~ Hstichou [Suchow] t+ :H•) :... Hsinking [Changchun] .*lr Jt, ,g i. Huanghsien 'J; ?Jilh ~ Hulutao tq_! ~

Kaifeng ~~ }:J

Kiaochow Bay [Chiaochou Bay] ft'~ ~ 1 1'\ ; ~ ari':'l ,-h. lit Kiaotung [Chiaotung] (district) ''~ .it~ e. ,(p ... K'ailu [Kailu] (!J -

Kilin [Chilin; Kilin; Kirin; Kailan] T ;i~

Kunming [K'tmming; Kunminghsien] ll &Fl

K'ungt'ung Tao .!. '~ J,Jil ~

Laichow (Bay) [Laichow Wan] ..... Laiyang *- r~ Langfeng ~r .t~ ...,_ Lant'sun ~.b. /t-1

Liaotung 'ctJ. , ' /f,

Liaoyang it_ ~~

Liaoyuan }t ;,~,

Lichin [Litsing]

Q Linyi [Lini] ~.t;a.'l .%»~

Lungkow [Lungk'ou] ji., \J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 238

Mawei [Mamoi] .t\

Miao Tao (chain) }if

Mukden (Fengt'ien; Hoten]

Nanyuan I~ k

-#- Niuchuang [Newchwang] 't ~i:.

Peitaiho [Pehtaiho; Peitaho] ~(... j\: ; ClJ

P'englai [Penglaihsien]

Pengtu

Pitsuwo '11,

Pbhai [P'ohai] (strait; gulf) }ifr ~~

Port Arthur [Lushun]

P'ulant'ien

Shanhaikuan [Shanhaikwan] u....' ;. ,_:.r1l-

Shenyang [Mukden] ) i.- p~

Taheshan Tao [Tasan Shan Tao]

•+- Taku t'- )0 Tak'ungtao 1\. }'.., ~ .g Tangshan ;~ aL,

Tatungk'ou [Tatungkou; Tasungha; TaShungha]

T'ochi Tao rot fit~ !,

Tsinan ,,~.if(. tlJ Tsingtao t ~

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 239

..... Tungkuan ;~ ,'!:7r...

Weihaiwei )~ ;~{it ,ei. Weihsien )1'\ :.t- ,,,

'I Yangtsun t·~ ~'t '-, Yent'ai [Chefoo] J•ii>,.51. a

Yingkow [Newchang; New chuang; Niuchung; Yink'ou]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

Asahi Shimbun (A:sahi Daily Newspaper) Tokyo: 8 January, 5 February, 12 June, 17 June, 21 June, 23 June, 1946.

China, New Delhi: Nos. 1-7 (April-October 1945)

China at War, New York: Chinese News Service, Vol. XV, No. 5-6 (November-December 1945).

Chieh-fang Chun-pao (People's Liberation Army Daily), Peking: 12 August 1958.

The China Digest, Hong Kong: Vol. 1, No. 1-Vol. 7, No. 9 (31 December 1946 - 1 February 1950). [Biweekly; superseded by People's China.]

The China Magazine, New York: Chinese News Service, Vol. XVI, No. 1 (May 1946).

The China Press, Shanghai: 10 October 1945 - 31 December 1945.

China Review, London: Vols. 1-2 (December 1947 - October 1949).

China Weekly Review, Shanghai: 20 September, 4 October 1947; 1 February, 14 February 1948.

Chinese News Service, New York:

Hsin-hua jih-pao (New China Daily News), Yenan: 4 and 5 October 1946.

Jen-min jih-pao, Peking: 10 October 1960.

Kwang-hua jih-pao (Kwanghua Daily News), Shanghai: 23 September 1945.

Nan-fang jih-pao (Southern Daily News), Canton: 3 September 1951.

The New York Times, 3 and 6 September 1945, 30 October 1945.

240

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No~eth China Marine, Tientsin: 27 July 1946.

San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco: 31 October 1945.

The Shanghai Herald, Shanghai: 23 September 1945 - 31 December 1945.

The Shanghai Times, Shanghai: 1 August 1945 - 22 September 1945."

The Stars and Stripes (China Theater Edition), Shanghai: September l945, 4 and 18 March 1946, April 1946.

Ta-kung Pao, Tientsin: 1 and 2 November, 1945.

The Times, London: 23 October 1948.

Yen-t'ai jih-pao (Chefoo Daily News), Chefoo: 8 October 1945 .

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Barbey, Daniel E. MacArthur's Amphibious Navy: Seventh Amphibious Force Operations, 1943-1945. Annapolis, Md: US Naval Institute, 1969.

Boorman, Howard L. ed. Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, Vol. III, New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1967.

Brandt, Conrad, Benjamin Schwartz, and John K. Fairbank. A Documentary History of Chinese Communism, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Har­ vard University Press, 1952.

Cas seville, Henry, General. De Chiang Kai Shek a Mao Tse Tung (Chine 1927-

1950). Paris: Charles-Lavauzelle & Cie., 1950.

Chang, Carsun (Chen Chia-sen). The Third Force in China. New York: Bookman Associates, Inc., 1952.

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Chang, Ta-chUn, ed. Chung-kung jen-ming tien (Who's Who in Communist China). Hongkong: Tse-yu ch'u-pan she, 1956.

Chassin, Lionel-Max, General. L'ascension de Mao Tse-tung (1921-1945). Paris: Payot, 1953.

______, The Communist Conquest of China: A History of the Civil War, 1945-1949. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1965. Timothy Osato and Louis Gelas, trans.

Ch'en, Jerome. Mao and the Chinese Revolution. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Ch'en, Mou-hui. Tsai hung-se tui-wu li ch'eng-chang (Growing up in the Red Army). Peking: Chung-kuo ch'ing-nien ch'u-pan she, 1959.

Ch'en Shao-k'uan. "The Navy." In Kwei Chung-shu, ed., The Chinese Year­ book, 1935-1936 (Shanghai: The Commercial Press, Ltd, 1935, pp. 554-580.

Chiang Kai-shek. Soviet Russia in China. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1958.

Ch'ien, Tuan-sheng. "The Role of the Military in Chinese Government," Pacific Affairs. Vol. XXI, No. 3 (September 1948), pp. 239-251.

Ch'in, Lin-shu. Mei-ti yuan Chiang nu-i Chung-kuo (Imperialist US Aid to Chiang; and enslavement of China). K' ang-Mei yuan ch'iao hsiao ts'ung-shu (Anti-US Aid Pamphlet Series), [No. 0870]. Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan she, 1950.

Chiu, Sin-ming. A History of the Chinese Communist Army. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, Inc., 1961. [Xerox; Ph. D. dissertation, University of Southern California, 1958.]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 243

Chu Teh. "How the Chinese People Defeated the Chiang Kai-shek Reactionary Clique Armed by American Imperialism," China's Revolutionary Wars. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1951, pp. 1-13.

_____, The Battlefront of Liberated Areas. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1955. [Second edition; the third edition, revised translation, 1962, is cut by about five pages. The military report given by General Chu Teh on April 25, 1945 to the Seventh Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. ]

"Chiigoku tOichi no reimei (The dawn of Chinese unification), " Sekai Shuho (World News Weekly). Tokyo: Vol. 27, No. 8/9 [combined issue], 9Mar. 1946, pp. 17-22.

Chung, Hsi-tung. "Po-ch'u Mei-chun ti hua-pi" (Unmasking of US imperialists in Chieh-fang chan-cheng hui-lu (Reminiscences of the Liberation War). Peking: Chung-kuo ch'ing-nien ch'u-pan she, 1961. [Compiled by Hung-ch'i p'iao p'iao (Red Flag Flying) editorial staff.]

Clubb, 0. Edmtmd. "Chiang Kai-shek's Waterloo: The Battle of the Huai-hai," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. XXV (Nov. 1956), pp. 389-399.

----', "Manchuria in the Balance, 1945-1946," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. XXVI, No. 4 (Nov. 1957), pp. 377-389.

----, Twentieth Century China. New York and London: Columbia Univ- ersity Press, 1964.

Collier, Harry H. and Paul Chin-chih Lai. Organizational Changes in the Chinese Army, 1895-1950. Taipei: Office of the Military Historian, May 1969.

Dallin, David J. Soviet Russia and the Far East. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 244

Davis, Vincent. Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy, 1943-1946. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966.

de Jaegher, Raymond J. and Irene Corbally Kuhn. The Enemy Within. Garden City, N. J.: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1952.

Epstein, Israel. The Unfinished Revolution in China. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1947

Feis, Herbert. The China Tangle. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 195.3.

Garthoff, Raymond L. "Marshal Malinovsky's Manchurian Campaign," Military Review, Vol. (Oct. 1966), pp. 50-61.

----, "Soviet Intervention in Manchuria, 1945-1946," Orbis, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer 1966), pp. 520-547.

----·, "Soviet Operations in the War with Japan," US Naval Institute Pro- ceedings. Vol. 92, No. 5 (May 1966), pp. 50-63.

Guillernaz, Jacques. Histoire du Parti Communiste Chinois, 1921-1949. Paris: Payot, 1968.

Herrman, Albert. An Historical Atlas of China, edited by Norton Ginsberg. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1966.

Ho Kan-chih. A History of the Modern Chinese Revolution. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959.

HsU, Kai-yu. Chou En-lai, China's Gray Eminence. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1968.

Huang Chen-hsia, Mao's Generals (in Chinese; no Chinese title given). Hong Kong: Research Institute of Contemporary China, 1968.

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Huang, Ray. "Some Observations on Manchuria in the Balance, Early 1946," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 27, No. 2 (May 1958), pp. 159-169.

Johnson, Chalmers A. Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The ./Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937-1945. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1962.

Kamura Mitsuo. Manshu-koku kaimetsu hiki (Secret notes on the fall of Man­ churia). Tokyo: Daigaku Shobo, 1960.

Kubek, Anthony. How the Far East Was Lost: American Policy and the Creation of Communist China,1941-1949. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1963.

Kuo, Yen-ti. "Pacification Campaign in North China," Pacific Affairs. Vol. XX, No. 3 (September 1947), pp. 313-317. [Abridged translation by Quentin Hsu of an article originally appearing in Ta Kung Pao (Shang­ hai), March 11 and 14, as a dispatch from Peking.]

Kusano, Fumio. Chugoku sen'go no dotai (The situation in postwar China). <"'' Tokyo: Kyoiku Shuppan Kabushiki Kaisha, 1948.

Levenson, Joseph R. "Western Powers and Chinese Revolutions: The Pattern of Intervention," Pacific Affairs, Vol. XXVI, No. 3 (September 1953), pp. 230-236.

Li Chai-sum, General. "Organization behind the eriemy lines," How China Trains Her Soldiers and Her Civilians, China Reference Series, Vol. IV, No. 1 (Aug. 1941). New York: Trans-Pacific News Service, 1941. [Edited by George Kao. ]

Liao, Kai-lung. From Yenan to Peking: The Chinese People's War of Libera­ tion from Reconstruction to First Five-Year Plan. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 246

____, The Chinese Peopl_e 's Liberation Army. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1950.

Liu, F. F. (Liu Chih-pu). A Military History of Modern China, 1929-1949. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956.

Liudnikov, I. "The Storming of the Great Khingan, " Izvestia, 3 September 1966.

Lyudnikow [Liudnikov], I. "The 39th Army in the Khingan-Mukden Operation," Voyenno-Istorichesky Zhurnal (Journal of Military History), No. 10, October 1965. Moscow [translated in Joint Publication Research Service #33, 203, 1 December 1965].

Man-Mo DOlio En'gokai (Manchuria-Mongolia Japanese Compatriots' Relief Association). Man-Mo shusen-shi (History of the war's end in Manchuria and Mongolia). Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 1962.

"Manshu mondai no shoten to Kokkyo no tachiba (The Chinese nationalist and communist armies and the focal point of Manchurian questions)," Sekai Shuho (World News Weekly), Tokyo: Vol. 27, No. 29/30 [com­ bined issue], 3 August1946, pp. 15-17.

Mao Tse-ttmg. Selected Military Writings. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961.

----, Selected Works, Vol. IV. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961. McCarthy, Senator Joseph R. America's Retreat from Victory, the Story of George Catlett Marshall. New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1951.

McLane, Charles B. Soviet Policy and the Chinese Communists, 1931-1946. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958.

Miles, Milton E., Rear Admiral, USN. "US Naval Group, China," US Naval Institute Proceedings. Vol. 72, No. 521 (July 1946).

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----, A Different Kind of War. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., Inc. , 1967.

Millis, Walter, ed. The Forrestal Diaries. New York: The Viking Press, 1951.

Moorad, George. Lost Peace in China. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc. , 1949.

Rigg, Robert B. "Campaign for the Northeast Railway System (1946- 1947)," Military Review, Vol. 27, No. 9 (Dec. 1947), pp. 27-34.

Romanus, Charles F. and Sunderland, Riley. China-Burma-India Theater: Time Runs Out in CBI, United States Army in World War II, Vol. 9, Pt. 3, Washington, D. C.: Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1959.

Saishin Cliuka-minkoku Manshu-teikoku jimmei chimei binran (Manual of Chinese-Manchurian personal and place names). Tokyo: Taimusu Shuppansha, 1939.

Sapozhnikov, B. G., and V. B. Vorontsov. "The Liberation Mission of the USSR in the Far East during World War II, " Istoriya SSSR (History of the USSR), No. 4, July August 1965, pp. 28-48. Soviet Military Translations No. 107, Joint Publications Research Service, JPRS 32,291, 6 October 1965.

Shaw, Henry I., Jr. The U.S. Marines in North China, 1945-1949, Marine Corps Historical Reference Series, No. 23, Washington, D. C.: Headquarters, u.S. Marine Corps, 1962. rev. ed.

Strong, Anna Louise. The Chinese Conquer China. Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday and Co., Inc, 1949.

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Stuart, John Leighton. Fifty Years in China. New York: Random House, Inc., 1954.

Tang, Tsou. America's Failure in China, 1941-1950. Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 1963.

----·, "Civil Strife and Armed Intervention: Marshall's China Policy," Orbis. Vol. VI, No. 1 (Spring 1962), pp. 76-101.

Tseng Sheng. "Kuan-tung jen-min k'ang-jin yu-chi chan-cheng hui-i" (Remini­ scences of guerrilla warfare in Kwangtung during the Sino-Japanese war). In Feng Pai-chu, et. al., Kuan-tung jen-min k'ang-jih yu-chi chan-cheng hui-i (same title as article, above) (Canton: Hua-nan jen­ min ch'u-pan she, 1951), pp. 8-13.

Union Research Institute. Who's Who in Communist China. Hong Kong: 1966.

Utley, Freda. Last Chance in China. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1947.

Wedemeyer, Albert C. Wedemeyer Reports!. New York: Henry Holt, 1958.

White, Theodore, ed. The Stilwell Papers. New York: William Sloane As­ sociates, Inc. 1948.

Whitson, W[illiam L.] and Paul Chin-chih Lai. Chronology of Military Cam­ paigns in China, 1895-1950. Taipei: n. d.

Yeh Chien-ying. "Report on the General Military Situtation of the Chinese Communist Party in the War of Resistance" (Yenan, 22 June 1944), in Stuart Gelder, ed., The Chinese Communists (London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1946), pp. 73-102.

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Zakharov, S. and Bagrov, V. "The Victory of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Far East," Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil (The Armed Forces Com­ munist), No. 15, August 1965, Moscow, [translated in Joint Publica­ tion Research Service 32,291, Soviet Military Translations, No. 207, 6 October 1965J.

DOCUMENTS, MANUSCRIPTS, AND GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS

American Consulate General. Chinese Press Review. Tientsin: September 1945 -January 1946 [microfilm].

Chan, H. F., compiler: "The Evolution of the Fourth Field Army" (un­ published map with supporting chronological chart and notes; xerox). Hong Kong: June 1969).

China Military History Project, Military Advisory Assistance Group, China. Major Campaigns in Chinese Modern Military History. Taipeh: 28 March 1966. [A preliminary chronology compiled by Paul Lai under the direction of Lt. Col. W. W. Whitson, Senior Officer China Military His tory Project. ]

China Theater memorandum to Chiang K'ai-shek, No. 776-7, 28 September 1945, Dixie Mission Papers, Part III.

Donovan (Lt. Col. J. F. Donovan, US Army) letter to Settle, 21 October 1945, Settle Papers

Frankel Interview, Washington, D. C. April 7, 1967, 9 May 1967.

Gaimusho Chosa-kyoku (Research Section, Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Sen'go no Soren gaiko (Postwar Russian policy in the Far East). Tokyo: 1948.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 250

----·' (Ministry of Foreign Mfairs). Gendai Chugoku jimmei jiten (Dictionary of contemporary Chinese). Tokyo: 1957.

Imperial Japanese Government Railways. An Official Guide to Eastern Asia, Vol. IV, China. Tokyo: 1945.

"Instructions for Flag Lieutenant at Chefoo, 29th" memorandum, Settle Papers.

"Interview with Admiral T. C. Kinkaid, 1961," MS on deposit at Oral History Research Office, Columbia University.

Maillard Interview, Washington, D. C., 23 April 1969.

Minami Manshu Tetsudo Kabushiki Kaisha Chosabu (South Railway Company Re­ search Bureau). Hachiro-gun oyobi Shin Yon-gun (The Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army), Shina Kosen-ryoku Chosa Iinkai Showa Ju-yo-nendo sokatsu shiryo (Source material on 1940 Chinese military strength; Investigation Committee annual report), No. 2. Dairen: 1941.

North China Force (Task Force 71) War Diary, (cruiser division 6), 4 Nov­ ember.

Republic of China, Ministry of National Defense, Intelligence Bureau. San­ nien lai fei-hsiu chung-yao tsu-chih jen-shih hui-pien (A compilation of important organizations and personnel on the Chinese mainland during the past three years). Taipei: 1961.

----·' Military History Bureau, Military Campaigns in China, 1924-1950. Translated by• Lt.· Col. w. W. Whitson, Patrick Yang, and Paul Lai, Military History Office, US Military Assistance Ad­ visory Group, China. Taipeh: Sept. 1, 1966.

------', Civil War in China, 1945-1950, 2 vols. Translated by the staff of the China Military History Project, USMAAG, China. Taipeh: 1965.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 251

Romanus, Charles F. "History of the China Theater," Chaps. 14-18. Office of the Chief of Military His tory, Dept. of Army. [Unpublished manuscript. 1

Lieutenant George S. Scherbatoff letter to writer, 30 September 1945.

Settle Interview, Washington, D. C. , 6 January 1964.

Settle Letters to Yu Ku-ying and "Commanding General, Eighth Route Army,

Shan Tung China, 11 4 October 1945, Settle Papers.

Settle Letter to "Officer Commanding Chinese Troops Off Chefoo, " 22 Octo­ ber 1945, Settle Papers.

Settle letter to Director of Naval History, Office of the chief of Naval Opera- tions, 5 August, Settle Papers.

Settle letter to Captain Norman Nicholson, 5 May: 1947, Settle Papers.

Shaw, Henry I., Jr. "U.S. Marine Corps in North China: 1945-1949." Un­ published manuscript; Projected Vol. V to USMC Operations in WWII, scheduled for publication in 1969.

US Army, Headquarters, U. S. Army Forces Far East, Military History Section. Japanese Army Operations in China, January 1944-August 1945. Japanese Monograph Series, No. 72. [Reproduced August 1956.]

____. Record of Operations Against Soviet Russia

on Northern and Western Fronts of Manchuria and in Northern Korea, August 1945. Japanese Monograph Series, No. 155. [Reproduced September 1954. 1

US Congress, The Congressional Record, vol. 91, part 1 (79th Congress, 1st Session, September 11, 1945-0ctober 18, 1945, pp. 9629-9630.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 252

US Department of the Army, Office of Military History. The History of Peiping Executive Headquarters. Fourth Quarter (10 October - 31 December 1946).

US Department of Defense, Office of Information. The Entry of the Soviet Union into the War Against Japan: Military Plans, 1941-1945. Washington, D. C.: 1955.

US Department of State. United States Relations With China. Washington, D. C.: US Government Printing Office, 1949.

----·' Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945, Vol. Vll: The Far East and China. Washington, D. C.: US Government Printing Office, 1969.

----'· Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Biographic Reference Aid, Directory of Chinese Communist Officials, BA No. 63-7. Washington, D. C.: October 1963.

----·, The American Consul General at Tsingtao (C. J. Spiker) letter to the Secretary, 30 October 1947, Settle Papers.

US Marine Corps, Headquarters, III Amphibious Corps. Intelligence Study: Theater of Operations, North China. 29 August 1945.

----, 1st Marine Division (Reinforced), G-2, Periodic Report, No. 7, 1 July 1946.

----·, Headquarters, Intelligence Memorandum No. 48, 13 August 1946.

----, 6th Marine Division, G-2. Study of the Theater of Operations: Shantung Province, China. Late August [ ?] 1945.

US Navy, Commander Amphibious Group 3 (TF-78, Task Force BAKER). Operation Order No. 3-49. Shanghai: 8 February 1949. [With change through Change Four, 24 April 1949].

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 253

US Navy, Commander Cruiser Division 6. Operation Order No. 8-45. 5 October 1945.

----·, letter report, serial 0213, 20 September 1945.

------', Commander Carrier Air Group 89. Aircraft Action Reports, ACA- 2, Report 18, 4 September 1945.

----, Commander Seventh Amphibious Force. War Diary, September - November 1945.

------';·Operational Summary, 26 October 1945.

------', Report of Operations in Korea and North China 15 August - 19 November 1945, 22 December 1945.

----, Commander Task Force 72. Action Heport, 27 September - 1 December 1945.

----, Commander Task Group 71. 4. Memorandum to Task Group 81. 1 and attached units, 28 September 1945. Settle Papers.

----, Commander Destroyer Squadron 65. War Dairy 10 and11 Septem- ber 1945.

----, Commander Destroyer Squadron G4. War Dairy 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 September 1945.

----·, Commander Destroyer Squadron 64. War Diary. 1 September 30 September 1945.

----·, Commander Transport Squadron 17, Action Report, Chingwangtao and Tsingtao, China, 3 December 1945.

----, Fighting Squadron 32, Aircraft Action Reports, Squadron Flignt Operations in the Yellow Sea, Period 1 - 12 September 1945, VF-32 ACA Report No. 8, 4 September 1945. No. 16, 10 September 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 254

----·, Commander Seventh Fleet Operation Plan No. 1-46. Almex A (revised) 1 October 1946.

----, Pacific Fleet, Commander Naval Forces Western Pacific. Narra- tive History of Seventh Fleet and Naval Forces Western Pacific. 8 January 1946 - 14 February 1948.

----, Seventh Fleet Daily Summary, 22, 23, 23, and 31 October 1945. ' Naval Forces in China (Office of the Commander, Shanghai). Memo for Commander Seventh Fleet: Plan for Chinese Amphibious Training at Tsingtao, 21 January 1946.

, Navy Department, Office of the Judge Advocate General, letter to convening authority, 19 November 1946, Settle Papers.

----, North China Force (Task Force 71). War Diary, September - November 1945. (Cruiser Division 16).

----, War Diary, November -December 1945. ------'' War Diary, January - April1946. (Cruiser Division 3).

----, US Naval Liaison Officer, Office of the Commander-in-Chief, British Pacific Fleet (Hong Kong). Monthly Reports for November and December 1945.

----, USS Catoctin (AGC-5) War Dairy, 1 November 1945.

----·' USS George (DE-697) Deck Log 25 Jtme - 10 July 1946.

----·, USS Melvin R. Nawman (DE-416) War Dairy, 2 November 1945.

----·' USS Seize (ARS-26). Action Report, 22 October 1945. ----, USS Louisville. War Dairy, 11, 12, 29 September 1945.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 255

----·' Yangtze Patrol Force (Task Force 73). Action Report, 7 Septem­ ber - 25 November 1945. (Cruisor Division 15, Rear Admiral C. Turner Joy). ----, Patrol Squadron 41, letter report to Commander Fleet Air Wing One, 7 September 1947.

United States Senate. Eighty-second Congress, First Session. Military Situation in the Far East. Hearings before the Committee on Armed Forces and the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1951.

United States War Department, Asiatic Theater Morning Brief, 26 October 1945.

Yeh Chien-ying, Chief-of-staff, 18th Army Group HQ, Yenan, letter to Col. Ivan D. Yeaton, Yemm Observer Group, 6 October 1945, Dixie Papers, Part III.

Yii "unofficial" letter to Settle, October 6 ~ 1945, Settle Papers.

Yti letters to Settle, 2, 20, and 22 October 1945, Settle papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.