The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945

by The New York Times

  This is perhaps the most significant feature of Li Pao-shan’s psychological make-up, especially to those of us who knew the chiupa of old—the Liangtze mercenary in the service of some grasping, greedy, selfish war lord. Liangtze means “nothingness,” implying that a soldier is an unproductive person who is, moreover, a parasitic, wasteful food eater. Hence the old saying, “A good son does not become a Liangtze,” for the soldier for centuries right up to recent decades has been considered at the very bottom of the social scale.

  But LiPao-shan, the chiupa of today, upon whose shoulders will devolve the burden of land operations when the Allied counter-offensive comes in the Pacific, is a different individual from the Liangtze of old. No longer outcasts and dregs of society, Li Pao-chan and his chiupa conscript companions are now mostly farmers, workers or students from respectable lao pai shing (peasant masses), who themselves, coming from the soil, fully appreciate the urgent necessity to keep the ruthless, pillaging, exploiting aggressor from invading the good earth, which to the lao pai shing is a most precious heritage from venerated ancestors.

  What a far cry from the Liangtze of old, who never fought when it rained or was too hot, are the inspired volunteers of today! Li Pao-shan’s three Yunnan friends, calling themselves “three going to front youths,” began a recruiting service with pleas through advertisements in the local press: “We lose our homes, our work, our studies. We are driven by thirst and hunger. Pain and distress afflict our daily lives. For all this none other than our race’s enemy the Japanese are responsible. Unitedly should we marshal our resolute will to weather adversities, and we should with our brain and blood fight for final victory on the battlefield.”

  Coming of law-abiding peasantry, Li Pao-shan is much more amenable to discipline and the people no longer fear his coming as they did the predatory Liangtze of old. From the lao pai shing himself, he is sympathetically cooperative to native farmers in districts where he is stationed. The common bond contributes to closer relations wherein Li Pao-shan exchanges helpful farm hints, suggestions and advice. Oftentimes he joins the farmer in putting these ideas to practical use, such as helping to install an improvement which results in betterment of the irrigation system or illustrating a different method of planting or of crop care. At harvest time Li Pao-shan and his comrades will frequently pitch in and help the farmers gather their crops, which service the grateful farmers repay with feasts and information of military value, all of which is knitting the country and its peoples closer together through a wide exchange of ideas and confidence.

  Li Pao-shan’s camp life is simple and Spartan yet progressively constructive. His camp is usually made of mat sheds wherein scores sleep together on one huge earthen platform called “the kang,” which is heated from below through openings from the outside. His regular rations are two meals of rice or noodles daily, with two dishes of vegetables per meal apportioned to each table of eight. On garrison duty he supplements his fare by raising vegetables, pigs, chickens, rabbits and goats. During hand-grenade practice, when grenades are hurled into a river or a lake, a squad is detailed to pick up the stunned or killed fish. His pay is only six Chinese dollars (the Chinese dollar is equal to about five cents in American money) monthly, but since he is unused to luxuries he does not require much more than the simple food and keep which the army supplies. He rises before dawn to the sound of bugles, then has an hour of exercise, which sometimes involves shadow boxing or, more often, merely trotting in a circle while shouting “Ee, er, san, shu” (One, two, three, four). After exercise, all assemble for the flag-raising ceremony, which is followed by the singing of the national anthem.

  Li Pao-shan’s battle experience began almost from the first day he arrived at the front. There is an old Chinese saying that “Newborn calves do not fear tigers”; hence eager fresh recruits are found most useful in attacks, though through recklessness they usually have proved easier targets than veterans, whose experience has taught them better use of cover from the enemy’s fire.

  Soon, indeed, Li Pao-shan saw Japanese at their very worst. He saw towns and villages ruthlessly destroyed, saw the tortured and mutilated bodies of luckless captives, the haggard, terrified faces of survivors, clearly bespeaking the awful ordeals to which they had been witness, while the blackened ruins of peasant homes where lay charred bodies and tatters of women’s clothing offered the lie to a Japanese poster on the tottering wall near by which read, “The Japanese Imperial Army will not disturb the Chinese peasantry.”

  All this aged and hardened him and steeled him in the determination to fight the enemy to the bitter end at whatever cost.

  Once Li Pao-shan’s unit found itself cut off during an engagement. Unperturbed, his commander ordered the unit “to retreat” by advancing, for he knew the Japanese rear was always empty. Whereupon Li Pao-shan and his chiupa comrades became members of a ghost army of guerrillas, legions of whom are operating freely behind the Japanese lines, which actually run only along railways and highways with garrisons at strategic towns and bridges.

  Li Pao-shan quickly learned that guerrillas don’t try to oust Japanese from railways or highways, for they look upon these lines of communications as their principal sources of food supply, clothing, money and, even more important, of arms. Example, a Japanese detachment of three or four thousand has upward of a hundred trucks shuttling between its base and its garrison outposts carrying ammunition, food and gasoline. Glass spikes scattered along the road will halt a transport convoy and while the tires are being changed guerrillas waiting in ambush pour a withering machine-gun fire into the bewildered Japanese guards, finishing them off with grenades.

  A Chinese Army unit during troop drills, China, 1942.

  At other times Li Pao-shan and his band of fellow-guerrillas planted mines under the rail bed, then patiently sat down and waited until a Japanese supply train came along. When the train had been derailed they swooped down and looted the twisted cars.

  A favorite sport of Li Pao-shan and his buddies was to bait garrisons of Japanese who did not dare to leave their fortified shelters after dark. Night after night sham attacks were made, to which the terrified Japanese replied with furious fusillades until they were near collapse from tension and sleepless nights. They learned the guerrilla ghost army creed, which may be summarized as: “Withdraw when the enemy advances; harass him when he settles down; attack him when he is exhausted; give chase when he flees.”

  Li Pao-shan and his guerrilla companions enjoyed the complete confidence of the people. They traveled light and were fed, clothed and protected by the lao pai shing. When the Japanese took the town of Shichiachwang, on the Peiping-Hankow railway where a narrow gauge branches off to Taiyuan, farmers were highly incensed at the Japanese, who attacked almost every woman, young or old. The vengeful farmers made contact with the guerrillas and formed a plan. Slim farmers dressed as attractive girls inveigled the Japanese to pursue them into an ambush, where Li Pao-shan and his buddies quietly dispatched them.

  The time Li Pao-shan spent with the ghost army until his unit once again was able to rejoin the ranks of the regulars gave him increased confidence in himself and in the ultimate victory of his country. For on the battlefields he had seen few live Japanese, and they were usually at rifle-shot distance. But serving with the ghost army he saw the hated despoiler when he was shorn of his awesome armor of tanks, planes and artillery and found him then far from invincible.

  Best of all, he has learned that new-found Allies are bringing him arms even better than those possessed by the Japanese—which just about settles the question of ultimate victory in his mind.

  AUGUST 1, 1942

  AIRCRAFT CARRIER LAUNCHED BY NAVY

  Essex Is First Such Vessel to Take To Water Since the Attack on Pearl Harbor

  By C. BROOKS PETERS

  Special to The New York Times.

  NEWPORT NEWS, Va., July 31—The first aircraft carrier of the Navy to be launched since Pearl Harbor and since the recent decision of our naval exp
erts to concentrate on building carriers at the expense of battleships slid down the ways this afternoon at 2:49 P. M.

  Named by her sponsor, Mrs. Artemus L. Gates, wife of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, the 25,000-ton Essex, first of a scheduled class of eleven similar carriers, slid into the James River as the working men who built her and about a hundred guests cheered. There were ten newspaper men, brought in a plane from Washington by the Navy, and almost all the rest were military men and their wives.

  As soon as she took to the water, however, a crew of workmen began preparations to lay the keel of another warship.

  The ceremony at the Newport News Ship Building and Dry Dock Company’s yard was simple. Almost all the peacetime ceremony was missing. There was not even a band and workers in the yard continued at their tasks without interruption during the two minutes while the Essex slid into the James River and was tended by a fleet of tugs. The public, because of war restrictions, was not admitted.

  KEEL OF ESSEX LAID 15 MONTHS AGO

  The Essex, launched fifteen months and three days after her keel was laid, was almost bare of decoration. The elevated wooden stand for the sponsor and guests and the scaffolding about the prow, however, were adorned with red, white, and blue bunting.

  Rear Admiral K. H. Van Kuren, chief of the Bureau of Ships, presented bouquets, two of yellow roses, one of red roses and one of pink roses, to Mrs. Gates, her daughter, Miss Diana Gates, and her two nieces, the Misses Alessandra and Anne Cheney, who served as maids of honor.

  There was no formal speaker. Soon after 2:30 Admiral Van Kuren issued the order, “Uncover.” All men present removed their caps or hats while a Navy chaplain, Commander Albert E. Stone, blessed the warship. His words, although spoken through a microphone, were drowned out by the noise of the riveters and fitters building other naval vessels in the yard.

  The Essex was scheduled to leave her drydock at 2:45 P. M. She did not get started, however, until 2:47 P. M. Fifteen seconds before the Essex slid down the ways a warning siren sounded.

  A second siren was set off as the carrier started down the ways. At the same instant, Mrs. Gates smashed the bottle of champagne against the ship’s side.

  TUG BOATS SURROUND VESSEL

  Sailors, naval officers and civilian workmen were on the new carrier as she slipped into the water. A few minutes after the Essex cleared her dock a fleet of tug boats led her off to be fitted out and commissioned.

  The keel of the fourth Essex, named after three earlier vessels famous in the history of the United States, was laid on April 28, 1941. She is, the Navy said today, “the first of several new carriers authorized by Congress to make the United States superior to all other nations combined in this category.”

  Navy officers said that they could not mention specifications of the new vessel, such as speed, tonnage, design, ordnance or armor. Jane’s Fighting Ships and other publications devoted to fighting vessels which can be purchased at any bookseller’s, however, give the tonnage of the Essex as 25,000 and point out that she is the first of a class of eleven carriers.

  AUGUST 5, 1942

  NAZIS SWEEP ON IN CAUCASUS AND ADVANCE IN DON ELBOW STALINGRAD LINE DENTED

  By The Associated Press.

  MOSCOW, Aug. 5—German troops have made another fifty-mile advance in the Caucasus to threaten Tikhoretsk, an important junction on the Soviet railway system, and also have gained in the Don River elbow northwest of Stalingrad, the Russians announced early today.

  Driving southwest of Salsk along the severed Stalingrad-Krasnodar railway, the Nazis have reached Byeloglina, and their apparent goal is Tikhoretsk, another fifty miles away. Seizure of Tikhoretsk would outflank the Russian Army still fighting the Nazis at Kushchevka, fifty miles to the north, and enable the Germans to control large segments of Russian railways in the Western Caucasus.

  German reserves succeeded in punching a hole in Soviet positions in the Don River elbow some eighty miles northwest of Stalingrad.

  NAZIS’ RESERVES TURN TIDE

  “In the Kletskaya area and south of it,” the midnight communiqué said, “our troops repulsed many enemy attacks and inflicted many blows on the enemy. Fighting in a large populated place has been in progress for several days. In one sector the tankists of our unit attacking enemy infantry crushed with their caterpillars 270 German officers and men.

  “The Germans threw in many reserves, and only at the cost of heavy losses pressed back our troops somewhat.”

  [The Germans reported the capture of Voroshilovsk, 180 miles southeast of Rostov, and said other forces had reached the Kuban River at several points. Soviet counter-attacks in the Don elbow were described as unsuccessful, and a further advance eastward between the Don and Sal Rivers also was claimed.]

  The push to Byeloglina represents a 125-mile thrust into the Caucasus by the Nazi salient that, after crossing the Don, bridged the Manych River to reach Salsk, then turned southwestward toward Tikhoretsk.

  The Russians acknowledged that they had given ground in the Kushchevka sector (1) and that the enemy had swept down from Salsk to the Byeloglina area (2). The Germans claimed that their forces on the latter front had driven 180 miles south of the Don to take Voroshilovsk (3) and that mechanized spearheads had reached the Kuban River to the west at several points (broken arrows). The Soviet armies south of Tsimlyansk (4) were still standing firm, but in the Kletskaya region (5) west of Stalingrad reinforced Nazi attackers pressed the defenders back. The Russians enlarged their bridgehead south of Voronezh (6).

  KUSHCHEVKA RING THREATENED

  “In the area of Byeloglina,” the communiqué related, “our troops fought heavy defensive engagements against superior numbers of enemy talks and motorized infantry. The Germans are sustaining heavy losses.”

  Already threatened with encirclement, the Russians in the Kushchevka area were falling back slightly under a German drive southward along the Rostov-Tikhoretsk-Baku railway.

  “In the Kushchevka area,” the bulletin said, “the German Fascist troops continuously attack our defense lines. Most of the attacks are repulsed. In one sector only the enemy succeeded in pushing forward. Fierce fighting with varying success continues in the area of a populated place.”

  Cossack cavalrymen equipped with modern weapons were in the thick of the Caucasian fight, but the tone of the Russian communiqué made it only too evident that the German mechanized might was telling in most sectors, except perhaps at Tsimlyansk.

  Earlier Russian reports had said that all Nazi attempts to cross the stream in the Kletskaya region were repulsed and on the Lower Don near Tsimlyansk German forces that poured across bridgeheads apparently were contained in a pocket on the south bank.

  The Caucasus was the most critical zone along the 2,000-mile battlefront, because German troops were nearing the Maikop oil fields, which produce 7 per cent of Russian petroleum, and were striking hard for the derricks of Grozny, which yield another 3 per cent or more. The vast Baku pools near the Caspian were more than 600 miles away. These producers of 75 to 80 per cent of Russian oil were protected by the towering Caucasus Mountains.

  AUGUST 9, 1942

  21 SEIZED IN INDIA

  India Government Announces It Will Meet Challenge With Firm Curbs on Rebels

  BOMBAY, India, Aug. 9—Mohandas K. Gandhi and other Indian Nationalist leaders were arrested today within a few hours after the All-India Congress party had approved a resolution authorizing a mass campaign of civil disobedience to support its demands for immediate Indian independence.

  Among those taken into custody were Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, president of the Congress party; Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Mr. Gandhi’s secretary, Miss Madeline Slade.

  No warrant was issued for Mr. Gandhi’s wife, who was told by police that she could accompany her husband, but who elected to remain behind.

  [Reuters, British news agency, said those arrested were taken by special train to Poona.]

  ROUND-UP FOLLOWS CONGRESS VOTE

&nb
sp; Seventeen arrests were reported to have been made in the city of Ahmedabad, where the round-up started soon after the Congress party session adjourned. The Congress resolution gave complete authority to Mr. Gandhi, 72-year-old leader of the Indian nationalist movement, for a drive aimed at forcing an end to British rule in India.

  The government has placed a ban on gatherings of more than five persons, issuing the order under the Criminal Procedure Code.

  In a statement at New Delhi, the government reply to the Congress party’s resolution said:

  “There is nothing the government of India regret more than this challenge at so critical a juncture but on them lies the task of defending India … that task the government of India will discharge in the face of the challenge now thrown down by the Congress party with clear determination.”

  “I am pledged to the Congress and the Congress is pledged to do or die,” Mr. Gandhi declared in concluding a two-hour address that wound up the meeting of the party’s general committee.

  He said, “We shall make every effort to see the Viceroy before starting the movement,” but advices from New Delhi tonight said the government of India declined to negotiate with the Congress on its demands.

  The New Delhi statement said the government “would regard as wholly incompatible with their responsibilities to the people of India and their obligations to the Allies discussions about a demand, the acceptance of which would plunge India into confusion and anarchy and paralyze her effort in the common cause of freedom.”