The Cold War (7 page)

But even as the Communists were racing to establish themselves in Manchuria, with its rich deposits of coal and iron, so were the Nationalists. They were at the same time bent on taking over as much of North China as possible, and established themselves in major cities such as Beijing and Tientsin. The Communists resisted their drive north, which (in the words of the French military historian Lionel Max Chassin) “produced
clashes … and, as the situation became more confused, each side accused the other of provoking civil war.” Meanwhile, that fall Chiang asked for American help, ostensibly to aid in the disarming and repatriation of Japanese troops, who numbered upward of two million men. By the middle of October 1945, in an operation largely forgotten today, fifty-three thousand U.S. Marines had landed in China. Though the Americans were eager to accommodate their wartime ally, the poor fighting qualities of Nationalist troops and the entrenched corruption of the government dismayed them. The U.S. was determined to persuade Chiang to include the Communists in a ruling coalition. But strict neutrality was out of the question. The presence of American troops blocked the Communist advance and furthered Chiang's grand Manchurian design. With the help of the U.S. Tenth Air Force, he was able to airlift three entire armies north. The Communists responded angrily, attacking American troops, who were notably reluctant to become involved in combat. “Too many Marines who had fought in World War II, and wanted to go home now that it was over, died protecting a bridge or a railroad track in the wasteland of northern China.”

The man who wrote this was a Private 1st Class in the 1st Marine Division named Eugene B. Sledge. He was one of two thousand marines who had arrived in Beijing on October 9 to take over from the Japanese. Sledge was a veteran of Peleliu and Okinawa, and he and his fellow marines were still outfitted in the tropical cotton they had worn in the Pacific. With forty members of a reinforced rifle platoon, he would be sent to protect the division's radio relay station at a godforsaken rail town called Lang Fang. Finding themselves in the unwilling midst of a new war, the marines looked around for someone else to fight the Communists for them. The solution they chanced on could not have been more ideal.

EUGENE B. SLEDGE, who died in 2001, was the author of
With the Old Breed,
an account of his ordeals as a young marine at Peleliu and Okinawa that is widely regarded as one of the most vivid memoirs of World War II. Sledge went on to become a professor of zoology and ornithology at the University of Montevallo in Alabama.

I
N THE AUTUMN OF 1945
, soon after the end of World War II, the 1st Marine Division was sent to northern China. Our mission was to disarm the Japanese, prevent a Communist takeover, and maintain order. Those of us who were stationed in Peking had the “good duty,” and we knew it. But late in October, a sergeant came into the British Legation, where most of the 5th Marine Regiment was billeted, and announced that a detachment from K Company was scheduled to pull a tour of guard duty. A reinforced rifle platoon with two light-machine-gun sections, as well as my 60mm mortar squad, would be sent to protect the division's radio relay station at Lang Fang, which was located along a railroad line midway between Peking and Tientsin. We received these orders with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, but we knew we had not been sent to northern China for rest and rehabilitation.

The next morning dawned crisp and clear. Having been issued ammunition and C rations, our detachment of roughly forty marines and a corpsman, under the command of a lieutenant, boarded five trucks and a jeep and set out for Lang Fang. After we passed through one of the big tower gates in the huge wall surrounding Peking, we looked back and saw Chinese soldiers pulling the gate shut behind us. Our convoy went out into the windswept countryside, while we kept a sharp lookout for possible Communist ambush. Some miles down the road, we moved through an ancient walled village, virtually unchanged since the time of Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. It was crowded with Chinese peasants. Not a single person could be seen outside the walls—grim evidence of the terrible unrest and chaos infecting the countryside.

We soon arrived at Lang Fang, an unwalled village of about five hundred people. Our convoy entered a modern walled compound; atop one small building was a radio antenna. Behind the radio station were our quarters, in
some one-story wooden barracks-type buildings. Several of us were detailed for guard duty along the compound wall. My post was on the fire step overlooking a narrow intersection lined with rows of single-story houses of mud and brick. Looking through a fire port and over the parapet, which had barbed wire stretched on top, I realized that we would be easy prey for any snipers in nearby houses.

Several curious Chinese children gathered in the street, and I began talking with them as well as I could, considering my limited knowledge of their language. I tossed a couple of pieces of C-ration candy to them, and they shouted their appreciation. Immediately, a crowd of about fifty people gathered, shouting and holding out their hands. Those of us who were on the wall soon ran out of candy and started tossing hardtack biscuits to them. They begged for more. Then a sergeant double-timed up and told us to save our rations in case we were cut off. (A chilling thought, to be sure!) In the late afternoon, my buddy and I were relieved by the next watch, and we set out beyond the compound gate in search of fresh eggs.

About a block to our right, we noticed the Japanese camp, which had several imposing brick buildings. Curious about our recent enemy, we went up to its gate, where a sentry snapped to and saluted us. We returned his salute. (All Japanese troops of all ranks saluted all marines regardless of rank. I was told they respected us because we had defeated the best troops they had.) We entered the camp, knowing from what we had seen in Peking that the Japanese were now on their best behavior around Americans. An officer invited us to two tables neatly spread with white tablecloths. On one were servings of tea and cookies; on the other were several fine samurai sabers. The officer saluted, bowed, and, pointing to the tables, said in perfect English, “You are welcome to anything you wish.” Just then, another marine ran up and told us we were not allowed in the Japanese camp yet. The Japanese officer seemed confused by our sudden departure.

Grumbling mightily, we headed back into the village, still in search of eggs. Some Chinese peasants walked past us in the narrow streets; others sat on benches in front of their houses. A few had winter lettuce or other items for sale, but no eggs. The faces of Lang Fang's inhabitants were tanned and weather-beaten, revealing lives of hard labor and exposure to harsh conditions. The image of these terribly poor people, dressed in drab, dark blue winter clothing, and of the barren, windswept brown landscape was depressing.

Across the track, beyond the sooty, tile-roofed brick railroad station, we saw a
group of several hundred Chinese troops bivouacked. They had stacked arms and were lounging around eating rations. Clad in mustard-colored uniforms, wrap leggings, and sneakers, they also wore the type of fatigue cap that made their ears stick straight out. We noted that their rifles were Japanese Arisakas. There were also numerous Nambu light machine guns, the kind that had given us so much misery during the war. In my limited Chinese, I asked each group of soldiers if there were any eggs for sale. Finally, a tall fellow produced a basket of fresh eggs, and we bought a dozen. Suddenly, I noticed that none of these soldiers was the least bit friendly, unlike most of the other Chinese we had encountered; in fact, they were taciturn and sullen. It was unnerving that such battle-hardened veterans as my buddy and me could have been so oblivious to the mood of these troops.

Carrying our paper bag of eggs, we hurried back across the track, only to be met by a frantic runner who told us that those were Communist troops we had been wandering among! As this was the second runner who had been sent after us, we expected to be disciplined. But our lieutenant did not notice us when we eased past him back into the compound. Soon we heard the word going around that there was a strong indication of Communist activity around the village after dark. We realized that we had already had a close call across the track.

In northern China at this time were many different armed groups: Japanese, Japanese-trained and -equipped Chinese puppet-government soldiers, Chinese Communists, Chinese Nationalists, Chinese bandits, and U.S. Marines—all armed to the teeth and vying to fill the power vacuum resulting from Japan's surrender. To the south, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist troops were locked in a bloody civil war with Mao Tse-tung's Communists. U.S. planes were flying Nationalist troops up to Peking to oppose the Communists in the north. In Lang Fang and many other areas, even the surrendered Japanese were allowed to retain their arms, under U.S. supervision, in order to help fight the Communists; they were tough, highly trained, and well-disciplined troops who were best able to oppose Mao's followers until the arrival of sufficient Nationalist forces. The Chinese puppet troops were considered of doubtful reliability, while the bandits had no motivation to fight other than a love of plunder from the helpless farmers. The bandits sometimes called themselves Communists, but only when it seemed convenient; we came to believe that they would side in any fight with whoever they thought would win.

The 1st Marine Division's original assignment, to disarm and repatriate Japanese troops, went ahead on schedule, but as the situation became more
chaotic, many of us increasingly found ourselves fighting the Communists in lonely outposts and along the railroad lines. The Communists bitterly objected to the U.S. presence and fired propaganda blasts at our high command—as well as bullets at marines out in the boondocks. Too many marines who had fought in World War II, and wanted to go home now that it was over, died protecting a bridge or railroad track in the wasteland of northern China.

One of the many incidents involving some of these various forces occurred at Lang Fang on October 26, shortly after the egg quest. Breaking out our C rations for dinner, we heated stew and coffee and boiled eggs. As the orange sun began to sink through the dust and haze, we started to shiver in the chilly evening air. We wore tropical cotton dungarees, and although we had sweatshirts, we had been in the Pacific so long that we were not acclimated to even the slightest cool weather. Some of us walked around inside the compound, trying to warm ourselves.

Just before sunset, a Chinese messenger arrived at the gate with a note from a puppet general seeking permission from our commanding officer to test-fire a light machine gun in a sandbagged position on top of a two-story building near the railroad station. With permission apparently given, we watched several puppet soldiers working with the Nambu. To our amazement, they aimed the machine gun directly at the area where my buddy and I had been among the unfriendly troops; then they fired several long bursts. We all knew that meant trouble.

Initially, however, silence returned as darkness fell. We drifted into our quarters, wrapped ourselves in blankets, and tried to stay warm. The sentries on duty around the wall simply shivered.

Then, in under half an hour, we heard rifle fire in the distance. The order came: “Break 'em out on the double!” Someone yelled, “Everybody outside on the double with weapons and ammo—let's move!” I pulled on my field shoes, grabbed the .45-caliber Thompson submachine gun I had carried through both Peleliu and Okinawa, rammed a twenty-round magazine in place, and tumbled outside. I headed for the fire step with everyone else. We were told to remain neutral in this fight, but if we saw anyone stick his head over the wall, we were to blow it off. The volume of rifle fire increased, and we began to hear the crash of 81mm mortar shells in the village. A Chinese ran through the dark, narrow streets tooting on a bugle. He sounded more like some drunk on New Year's Eve than any bugler I had ever heard. We were all apprehensive. Though the firing was almost unnoticeable compared to Peleliu and Okinawa, we had
reason to be concerned. Here we were, about forty U.S. Marines in the middle of what could explode into a vicious battle between two opposing Chinese forces numbering in the thousands. We had survived fierce combat in the Pacific, and none of us wanted to stretch his luck any further and get killed in a Chinese civil war. We felt abandoned and expendable.

Then the word was passed along that Japanese troops were going out to guard the railroad station with two tanks. Most of us were not assigned to specific guard stations, so we ran the short distance to the wall bordering the road, to watch this incredible scene. With our weapons slung or buttstocks resting on the fire step, we silently watched as the tanks and about thirty infantry passed no more than a few feet from us. Nervously, I fingered the web sling on my Thompson—the impulse to bring up the weapon to aim at our very recent enemies and squeeze the trigger was almost more than I could suppress. The marine next to me expressed my feelings, and probably those of many of the other men, when he said, “It sure is hard not to line 'em up and squeeze 'em off.”

As the lead tank slowly clanked past us, its headlights shining, we saw a Japanese officer in dress uniform and cap, Sam Browne belt, campaign ribbons, and white gloves standing erect in the turret with his samurai saber slung over his shoulder. I wondered if I would ever understand the Japanese military. The infantrymen wore helmets and cartridge boxes but no packs. They carried Arisaka rifles, with bayonets fastened to their belts. The tank treads and hobnailed shoes churned up dust as they went past us and disappeared behind village buildings.

Returning to our previous positions along the wall, we learned that our CO had sent word to the Japanese major that we were neutral, but the U.S. government would hold him responsible if any marine was injured.

The sound of firing lasted until about midnight. Just before dawn, the Japanese came past us and returned to their barracks. At daylight, several puppet soldiers came to our gate and begged for treatment of their wounds. Our corpsman bandaged them, but he was ordered to conserve his supplies for our use. Other wounded soldiers were sent to the Japanese barracks.