Asian American Spies: How Asian Americans Helped Win the Allied Victory by Brian Masaru Hayashi

Author:Brian Masaru Hayashi [Hayashi, Brian Masaru]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, Asia, General, Military, World War II, North America, World
ISBN: 9780195338850
Google: RvrZzQEACAAJ
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2021-11-15T00:29:29.500550+00:00

With Gordon in Washington, DC, Tan and Fenn adopted the new Hồ Chí Minh spy network inside French Indochina. They met with the independence leader in Kunming that spring, whereupon they provided Hồ and his men with arms, equipment, and training, which upset Gordon. Fenn and Tan also began training Hồ and his men in the art of intelligence-gathering. Fenn taught the Vietnamese “the rudiments of military intelligence,” and Tan offered to accompany Hồ on his return to French Indochina to help set up the network. When Hồ was ready to return home, Fenn had Claire Chennault’s pilot fly him to the border, along with his thirty-two person entourage, their equipment, and two Chinese Americans, Frank Tan and Mac Shin. At night and under the cover of the jungle, Frank Tan began the long journey with Hồ, who arranged for horses for the two Chinese Americans to negotiate the muddy slopes. In April, Tan and Shin were in Pac Bo, sending reports to headquarters until Major Allison Thomas parachuted into the area with a supply of some of the latest rifles. The next month they went to Tan Trao with Hồ’s group in a large party armed with Sten guns, Thompson machine guns, and communication gear. By then Gordon had lost control over the GBT while he was in Washington, DC, and the spy organization shifted its ties away from the British and the French and became closely linked with Hồ Chí Minh. When asked to return to headquarters, Tan and Shin refused, choosing instead to stay with the Viet Minh forces for the duration of the war. The pair of Chinese Americans camped at Ha Lua Hill and instructed Hồ’s group in spy craft and radio operations. They radioed in their intelligence reports and assisted the Viet Minh forces in the rescue of downed American aviators. As a result of their work, other OSS agents were able to parachute into the region with the Viet Minh’s prior approval, based in no small part to the life-long friendship Tan and Shin developed with Hồ.30

Despite the pair’s work inside French Indochina, the OSS dropped the GBT. The OSS realized that it no longer needed to secure French Indochina for Operation Carbonado, since the planned invasion of southern China became unnecessary after the successful American occupation of Leyte Island in the Philippines in late October 1944. With transoceanic shipping of Lend-lease supplies to Nationalist China now secure, the OSS focused its operations farther north in China and away from French Indochina. In addition, it was sensitive to the State Department’s position, as US Consul William Langdon shared with others his low opinion of the future prospects for Hồ Chi Minh and his Viet Minh movement.31

General Albert Wedemeyer was an important factor behind the OSS writing off the Gordon-Bernard portion of the GBT. Unlike his predecessor, Joseph Stilwell, Wedemeyer envisioned a large role for SI to play inside China. He placed all Allied operations, including the OSS, under his command. He then issued

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