John Birch by Lautz Terry;

Author:Lautz, Terry;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Communists did not allow foreigners to show up in their territory without notification and identification, but they nevertheless went out of their way to help downed U.S. airmen. At the end of the war, General Zhu De informed General Wedemeyer that CCP forces had come to the aid of eighty-four Americans. During these rescues, 110 Chinese officers and men—not to mention numerous Chinese civilians—lost their lives. This, wrote Zhu after the death of John Birch, proved that the Communists were fighting together with America against Japan: “I assure you that this spirit of cooperation has been so in the past and will be continued in the future.”21

It was thanks to the Communists that First Lieutenant Joseph Paul Baglio escaped and survived after bailing out over Japanese-held territory near the city of Taiyuan in Shanxi Province.22 Baglio, a pilot with the 26th Fighter Squadron of the 14th Air Force, was on a strafing mission on June 9, 1944, when his plane was hit by ground fire and began to smoke. He bailed out at an altitude of six hundred feet and landed safely. He carried halazone tablets for water purification, an extra pair of shoes, a .45 caliber handgun, and some Chinese money. Every flier wore a “blood chit,” which was a piece of cloth with U.S. and Republic of China flags and Chinese characters identifying him as an American assisting China’s War of Resistance. A reward was promised for returning downed airmen to Allied lines.

Baglio also had a “Pointie Talkie,” a booklet with a list of English questions, phrases, and words on one side of each page and Chinese translations on the other side. Even without a common language, Americans and Chinese could communicate by pointing. One might ask, for example, “Is this area occupied by the Japanese?” and receive a “yes” or “no” response. The PT, as the booklet was called, was a good idea, but neither of the first two peasants Baglio met, both of whom gave him water, could read Chinese characters. He finally met a boy who was literate and who told him the Japanese were about three miles away. Eventually he was taken to a district magistrate who read the PT from cover to cover while Baglio ate some hard-boiled eggs.

Baglio was guided from village to village and was introduced to a Communist guerrilla leader, who asked for his gun, looked it over, and said he would keep it. The guerrilla gave Baglio a Chinese jacket to wear over his uniform to make him less conspicuous. According to a detailed account taken down by the same Captain Henry Whittlesey who was killed by the Japanese several months later, it was obvious that “a large, protective scouting net” had been set up around the American pilot. Telephones and radios were almost non-existent, but word-of-mouth communication was remarkably efficient. “Every few minutes peasants would come in with reports on the Japs.” Ordinary people provided food and shelter and served as scouts, guides, bearers, and fighters. Baglio concluded that they would give up anything to help the Eighth Route Army.

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