Recent experience, however, had taught Paul caution. He had opened his heart to Marjorie only to be ruthlessly cut down. In retrospect, he realized that he had taken too much for granted. He had been so sure that he recognized her as “the one” Bartleman had promised that he had forged ahead too quickly, and the intensity of his feelings had probably frightened her off. Never again would he “plunge head-first into the Pierian Spring.”
In the meantime, everything in Kunming was in flux. The rice harvest had begun in anticipation of the approaching monsoons. A late summer crop of peace rumors had everyone riveted. Rosie’s intelligence team was trying to track down the source of “a great whisper campaign” that the Japanese had put out peace feelers. With the tide turning against Japan in the Pacific, it was believed that a handful of Japanese officials in Switzerland were attempting to negotiate for an end to hostilities through the OSS organization in Europe. Even their OSS detachment in Kunming was in transition. They appeared to be headed for one of those dreaded periodic reorganizations that sent people whirling off in all directions never to be seen again. Jack Moore, the faithful assistant who had been with Paul since Washington, was being sent to another part of China. Already several people had come by to bid Paul farewell, apparently taking for granted that his present position had also run its course. He found himself trying to pare down on belongings in order “to be light for any eventuality.”
As if that were not enough to deal with, they were all a little on edge due to the cholera epidemic that was upon them. The summer rains had brought flooding of dramatic proportions, and with it disease. The overflowing canals immersed low-lying roads and submerged the paddy fields, in some areas creating small islands where the peasants continued “placidly hoeing crops, amid the rushing brown waters.” The new restrictions prevented OSS personnel from going into town, and brought Paul’s regular forays to Chinese restaurants to an abrupt end. It was the glorious sense of freedom as much as the flavorful food that he missed. It was only the communal mess hall for the foreseeable future, and SPAM in all its many incarnations, but he would “rather stay alive and be bored.”
Betty’s MO group had been working for months on leaflets warning the Japanese that “something terrible was going to happen in August”—all part of an effort to soften the enemy’s morale prior to the American invasion—so that when it actually happened it came as a shock. One of the MO teams, allowing for no cease-fire in the war of subversion, decided to capitalize on the news by putting an extra out on in the streets of Hengyang trumpeting a bomb so powerful that it had blown away the city of Hiroshima. “Until that time the people of Hengyang had accepted every MO fabrication as gospel truth,” Betty recalled. This time, however, they just shook their heads. Such a weapon was simply not to be believed.
They scarcely had time to absorb the terrifying reality of the atom bomb when Mother Nature, in a demonstration of her own terrible power, brought torrential rains down on their heads for days on end. The canals and marshes burst their banks and turned the rice paddies into dark, threatening lakes. The boiling brown water swamped Kunming and, thanks to a well-fortified surrounding wall, turned the OSS compound into a three-foot-deep lagoon. They were forced to commute from building to building in bright orange inflatable life rafts taken from the airplanes, rowing past floating office equipment and assorted military bric-a-brac. In some places, the engineers managed to rig rickety pontoon bridges out of gasoline drums and planks, but about half the time people slipped and fell into the drink. At first, the absurdity of the situation inspired a certain sense of adventure and hilarity. Betty and Julia were intentionally “dunked” more than once by gallant colleagues extending a helping hand. When the water level rose, GIs in hip boots were brought in to rescue secret documents and perishable gear and carry it to higher ground. After a few days, it ceased to be fun. Everything they owned was soggy, dank, and mildewed. “All the toilets and cesspools are flooded, of course,” Paul noted dolefully, “and the amenities of life are impossible to preserve.”
The rising tide drove colonies of large, voracious rats out of the ditches and up into their compound and workrooms. Nothing was safe from their ravenous jaws. One morning Paul discovered that the pack of Lucky Strikes he had left on his desk the previous evening had been devoured. All that was left was a few strips of silver paper and a scattering of rat turds. A young major took to hunting the vermin “as a purely sporting proposition” and knocked off fifteen to twenty a night with his .22 rifle. After days of putting up with Paul scoffing at his stories of the rats’ formidable size, the major brought in proof in the form of a bucket of rat carcasses, soaked in gasoline per the medic’s orders to kill the fleas and lice. Paul measured the biggest one and found that it was, incredibly, twenty-two inches long, not counting the tail. “That’s a big rat,” he wrote Charles, “as big as a beaver, damn near.”
It was the worst flood in a generation. The dislocation experienced by OSS personnel was nothing compared to the havoc the deluge wreaked on the surrounding countryside. Betty recalled Chinese villages of mud huts “melting like chocolate,” the owners looking on helplessly as their few humble belongings were swept away by the current. Farmers drowned in their own paddy fields. Corpses drifted by on the swollen river. Everyone who could fled to the hills, carrying what they were able to in bundles slung on shoulder poles or dragging their belongings on overburdened carts. It was only when the rains stopped that the full horror of the disaster became clear. As the water seeped away, the edges of town filled with washed-out refugees. There were long lines of coffins in the street. Many had been built crudely and with such haste that they were too short for the occupants, whose pale, waxen feet stuck out. Sturdier models boasted a live rooster tied to the top or even K rations, to help speed the departed on their way. Paul was struck by the resilience of the Chinese, “a tough people who never know when they’re licked.” As soon as the sun peeked out, they were busy laying wheat and rice on their roofs to dry and digging under the muddy water for cabbages and onions.
The flooding had scarcely begun to subside when the second atom bomb brought the capitulation of the Japanese. “The sudden ending of the war was taken in stride, with no noise, and work going on as unremittingly as before,” Paul wrote Charles on August 16. “There is work for us to do, of a less violent kind than before, although some violence is still ahead.”
The cataclysmic events of the previous week had completely altered the situation in China. Two days after the Hiroshima bomb, Russia had declared war on Japan and launched a massive offensive into Manchuria. The incoming Russian soldiers only added to the Pandora’s box of pressures and factions in a country torn by years of fighting among the Japanese, Chinese Nationalists, and Chinese Communists. As both the Nationalists and the Communists began moving in to take over the towns and cities formerly occupied by the enemy, tensions escalated. The warlords, many of whom had been playing both sides against the middle, now saw which way the wind was blowing and quickly realigned themselves with the Kuomintang against the Communists. The confusion and uncertainty led to sporadic fighting. Determined not to be drawn into the middle of a civil war in China, Washington instructed the OSS to avoid getting involved in the internal conflict. At the same time, however, Wedemeyer’s troops were ordered to help “sustain” Chiang’s government and aid it in establishing its authority over the countryside. More significantly, U.S. forces were to allow Kuomintang troops to accept Japanese surrenders. It was all too clear to the many OSS intelligence officers scattered throughout China and Indochina that this dream of American “neutrality” was an impossibly fine line to walk and was doomed from the outset.
In the days that followed, OSS headquarters in Kunming went into overdrive. Eight mercy missions were launched to protect the twenty thousand American and Allied POWs and the roughly fifteen thousand civilian internees being held in camps from Manchuria all the way to Indochina. The immediate concern was for the safety of the prisoners in the event tha
t the defeated Japanese chose to ignore the imperial cease-fire order or, worse, chose to inflict reprisals on their captives. Betty’s MO unit began churning out leaflets advising the Japanese that the OSS teams parachuting in were there “for humanitarian reasons only.” All the frantic preparations—for rescue operations, food and medical drops, and evacuation—had to be undertaken despite further flooding, sodden runways, and weather delays caused by low ceilings and poor visibility. Adding to the drama was the uncertain fate of the six-man OSS team dispatched to Mukden in Manchuria to rescue General “Skinny” Wainwright, who along with his men had endured more than three years of brutal captivity since the surrender at Corregidor in May 1942. After thirteen nerve-wracking days filled with wild rumors that the Japanese had murdered Wainwright, the OSS team flashed the news that they had plucked Skinny from the POW camp at Hsian and were bringing him back to safety.
The chaos in the countryside was spreading. There were reports of Soviet troops raping and looting. The OSS “mercy missions” in Mukden were treated very badly, and OSS officers were held up by Chinese troops and robbed of all their arms and valuables by drunken soldiers whose leaders claimed they were “out of control.” There was no redress of any kind and no apologies, and then they were unceremoniously kicked out. The mood in China was changing fast. Even in Chungking, the Chinese troops were becoming increasingly antiforeign and uncooperative. For the past six months, the Soviets had had secret agents in China working hard against U.S. propaganda and intelligence activities and clearly intended to do whatever suited their own interests. The Chinese attitude was that the U.S. presence had served its purpose but now they wanted to be in control and to put the Americans in their place.
By late August, OSS field teams were facing growing conflict with Communists in North China. One rescue party, including a young intelligence officer named John Birch, a Georgia Baptist missionary fluent in several Chinese dialects, encountered a belligerent Communist detachment, which Birch may have further inflamed by addressing the soldiers in what his men later described as a harsh manner. He was warned by his Chinese deputy that this was a dangerous approach but reportedly snapped in frustration, “Never mind, you don’t know what my feelings are. I want to find out how they intend to treat Americans. I don’t mind if they kill me. If they do they will be finished for America will punish them with Atomic bombs.” When he later squared off with one of the Communist officers, who refused to allow the OSS team to continue on to the Allied POW camp near Suchow, a furious Birch attempted to force his way. The Communist officer ordered his men to disarm the OSS team. Birch resisted and he was shot and the rest of the party taken prisoner. Birch was then brutally bayoneted to death, his face mutilated beyond recognition. While many at OSS headquarters in Kunming believed Birch that overzealous—the official investigation concluded that his conduct had shown “a lack of good judgment”—his senseless death after the war was deeply disturbing to the American personnel stationed in China.*
Heppner, just back from a quick trip to Hanoi, informed them that OSS was beset with problems there as well. Thousands of still-armed Japanese soldiers were “keeping order” in French Indochina, Paul reported to his brother, adding that Heppner expected there would be civil war there soon, too. The French refused to recognize the new Republic of Vietnam, and because they suspected that U.S. policy was tacitly favorable to the independence movement, they were working with the British to push hard for “the restoration of white supremacy in the Orient.” The French were more and more openly anti-American and were using agents, wearing stolen U.S. army uniforms, to provoke brawls and disorder to discredit the OSS teams. British agents near Saigon were illegally dropping arms to French guerilla forces, which were using them to pummel the Annamese and put down the independence movement. As a result of the British and French propaganda, U.S. prestige in French Indochina had deteriorated rapidly since VJ Day. If OSS activities in that region were to be curtailed as rumored, the situation would get worse. “It discourages the Hell out of me,” Paul concluded. “The people behind these sorts of activities have learned nothing about the necessity of cooperative efforts along international lines—only how to be more and more skillfully bastardly.”
The streets of Kunming were littered with red paper victory signs and exploded firecracker casings. Some of the signs were in English and bore inscriptions which read “Thank you President Roosevelt and President Chiang!” and “Hooray for Final Glorious Victory!” and “Let us now fight for Peace as we fighted [sic] for War!” Paper dragons sixty feet long were whirled through the alleyways, followed by civilians with flutes, gongs, and drums. For the first time since all the “victory hullabaloos” had begun, the sight of the happy crowds and cheerful cacophony of the firecrackers and instruments gave Paul the feeling that “perhaps the God damned war is really finished.”
The handing out of medals, by both the Chinese and American military, added to the feeling of finality. Paul was unexpectedly pleased with the parachute wings—embossed gold embroidery worn on the right breast of his new wool uniform—that he was awarded by the general of the Chinese Commandos in gratitude for the part he had played in helping to train the first unit of Chinese parachutists. Heppner presented Julia with the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service for her service as head of the Registry of OSS Secretariat, citing her “important work at registering, cataloging and channeling a great volume of highly classified communications. Her drive and inherent cheerfulness, despite long hours of tedious work, served as a spur to greater effort by those working with her.” Morale in her section could not have been higher.
After the high excitement of those early days, the weeks that followed were a letdown. Most of them were emotionally unprepared for the abrupt end of the war. “There was a sudden vacuum which peace had brought,” recalled Betty. “Up to now there had been purpose, urgency, importance in doing what we were doing. Now things suddenly had no meaning.”
The OSS staff would soon go back to their drab civilian lives. They would go back to ordinary desk jobs they barely remembered after years of excitement and adventure abroad. And back to wives who seemed like strangers and children they scarcely recognized. The long months of separation had left Betty estranged from her own husband. Alex had written from Bangkok to say that he wanted to remain in Thailand to start an English-language newspaper there. Betty knew she would not be joining him and would have to break the news that their marriage was over. Dick Heppner had been away from home for years. What would he be returning to? And, more to the point, what did the future hold for their relationship? Betty could not help feeling dazed by the turn of events and more than a little depressed. “I was in love,” she admitted, “and we didn’t know what we were going to do.”
Everyone was making preparations to leave. Tommy Davis had come back suddenly and announced he was returning to the States. He was in a very bad way. A burst ulcer and the subsequent hemorrhaging had nearly done him in, and he was being sent home on a special plane. The OSS brass had decided to “pitch-fork out most of the dames,” so Betty, Julia, and Jeanne were all awaiting their travel orders. Marjorie was staying on, however, and joining the staff of Fortune in Chungking. Al Ravenholt, who was one of the four reporters assigned to cover the signing of the surrender and peace talks (“the lucky dog”), would also be staying on to cover the China theater.* For his part, Paul was determined to stay in China. He had turned down a job with the Pentagon and was hoping he could wangle another year with the OSS as it continued its postwar patching up with Chiang’s government. That would give him a chance to see some more of the country and, he hoped, get to Peking, which he had to visit before he left or he would never forgive himself.
Of their old gang, he would be saddest to see Julia go. “Over the 18 months or more that I have known Julia I have become extremely fond of her,” he reflected in a letter to Charles. “She is really a good friend, and though limited in relation to my concept of la femme intégrale, she still is understan
ding, warm, funny and darling. I hope you will meet her sometime as I believe that even in a U.S.A. context she will show up very well.” She was so “companionable” in so many ways, and he counted her as a “real friend.” He also felt deeply indebted to her. She had been such a comfort and had helped him over many a rough spot by dint of her “simple love and niceness.” Her birthday was on August 15, and Paul had presented her with a sonnet penned in her honor:
How like the Autumn’s warmth is Julia’s face
So filled with Nature’s bounty, Nature’s worth.
And how like summer’s heat is her embrace
Wherein at last she melts my frozen earth.
Endowed, the awakened fields abound
With newly green efulgence, smiling flowers.
Then all the lovely riches of the ground
Spring up, responsive to her magic powers.
Sweet friendship, like the harvest-cycle, moves
From scattered seed to final ripened grain,
Which, glowing in the warmth of Autumn, proves
The richness of the soil, and mankind’s gain.
I cast this heaped abundance at your feet
An offering to Summer, and her heat.
Touched as she was by Paul’s poetic tribute, Julia found it disheartening that “sweet friendship” was what he had in mind. For all his fine words about “heat” and her embrace melting his “frozen earth,” he was still expounding in a platonic vein. Julia had done all she could to fashion herself in the mold of the “worldly” women Paul professed to admire. She had persevered, partly out of the desire to win him and, partly, just hopeful curiosity. She had looked to him as much more than a mentor, hanging on his every word with the intention of both becoming more cultivated and cultivating his interest. To that end, she had read what he read, had eaten what he ate, and had suffered what he suffered—commiserating with all his aches and pains, ups and downs, heartbreaks and setbacks. She had done all she could to impress him with her appreciation of art, music, and food, even to the point of convincing him she was a “gourmet”—a stretch for a woman who could barely fry chicken without starting a grease fire.
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