Interview by Samuel Hui, 15 November 2013

1. Where did he grow up?

            I was born at Daye of Hubei province in 1925. It was a place producing various nature resources including coal, iron, lime and cement. Because most of the cement businesses were operated by the Japanese at that period of time, none of the Chinese people in the town had any idea of how cement looked like.

• What sort of family was he from?

My family ran coal business until I was six years old when a flood destroyed it. After that, my family went poor and was forced to sell its lands to the others. At that time, I had one older sister and five older brothers. This means that I was the youngest child of all. My father was out of the job after the coal business was shut down while my oldest brother went to work with our cousin in Guangxi province as an officer of local militia.

The reason why my older brother ran to Guangxi province in 1933 was because he was targeted as class enemy by the local Communist leaders. At that period of time, the Communist bandits are murdering people indiscriminately in our town.

• How was his family affected by Japanese invasion?

The Japanese army attacked my home town in 1939, which was two years after the beginning of Second Sino-Japanese War. One of my distant relative named Luo Chi-Chiang was the commander of the Chinese 82^nd Division in the region with mission to resist the Japanese offensive. However, General Luo was an incompetent commander who only nominated important positions within 82^nd Division to his family members.

 As soon as the Japanese attacked Daye, General Luo ordered his troops to retreat southward to Guangxi through the Canton-Hankou railway. Nine of my family members including myself decided to leave our hometown with the 82^nd Division to evade the Japanese occupation.

 It was a tough journey because the Japanese fighters and bombers had never stopped attacking us. I remembered that the Japanese fighter had flown low enough for me to see the pilot’s face. If I threw a rock to the airplane, I think I was likely to hit it. However, I was so scary at that time. My fourth older brother even cried aloud. The Japanese was unopposed wherever they flew, and the Chinese anti-aircraft gun would not fire until the Japanese aircrafts began to head back towards their base.

            The hygienic condition in Xianning, one of the cities we went pass was terrible at that time. I remembered that there were excrements everywhere. During one of those Japanese air raids, I saw several people jumped across the city wall into a pool of shit to avoid the bombs and bullets.

            After arriving at Changsha of Hunan province, the 82^nd Division was forced to be disbanded because many of officers and soldiers in the units found out that they served more like servants to General Luo instead of warriors. My family and I left the division and continued our trip to Guangxi to find my older brother there.

            We eventually found my big brother in Wuming, but he could not take care of us at all because he was only a political officer with the rank of captain. For this reason, we must work to feed ourselves. We were later forced to escape from Wuming again when the Japanese launched an offensive against Guangxi in 1939. I went to Guilin with by oldest brother. My second brother and my nephew died during the evacuation while my third brother was conscribed into the army.

            Later on, my fourth brother got into the Guilin Branch of the Central Military Academy. Without any man to take my mother and sister-in-law (second brother’s wife), both ladies decided to return back to Hubei. In the same time, my oldest brother was re-assigned to the headquarters of the militia command. By 1941, I was left by my family alone in Guilin.

2. Was he conscripted, enlisted or an officer?

            In the beginning, I worked in the laundry only to be paid with enough money to eat everything. One day when I was searching for a new job, I found two attracting choices. While the job to treat patient with sexual disease seemed to have a good payment, I found that being a cadet of the Army Motorized School in Hongjiang of Hunan province seems to be a better choice for me. This is how I became an enlisted man of the ROC Army.

            I passed the entering exam easily and was assigned to the 6^th Education Company. We were sent to Quan County located at Guangxi province for basic training first.  At there, I witnessed how terrible the condition of our military was after four years of war with the Imperial Japan. While the school did not even have a vehicle for us cadets to practice our driving skill, we were not fed very well too.

            When I was ordered to stand as sentry, the school did not even provide me alarm to tell me when I could be relieved from my duty. Usually, we had to burn incense to know when the time was. We ate rice combined with rocks and sands. However, there were still cadets willing to eat two bowls a meal because they were too hungry. The school could not prepare us for shooting drill too since it did not have rifles too. This is the life of us ordinary Chinese soldiers during the war of resistant.

            Four months later, we began our march to the main campus located at Hongjiang of Hunan province. It was a 200 kilometers long journey. We first took a train to Hengyang and began our one-month walk. We had a car without engine with us. For most of the time, our regiment commander, Lin Shih-liang sat in the car while we soldiers pushed it.

            We arrived at Hongjiang during the Chinese New Year of 1941. At there, we finally had meat to eat. At there, we had several Italian-built Fiat tanks, but still not enough vehicles for us to conduct training. We were even ordered to dig a hill near our campus into drill ground for the school. During that critical period of time, China had very little gas, and people would be blamed for just driving a car or taking a bus because they were wasting precious resource of their nation. Things finally changed after the United States declared war on Japan after the attack of Pearl Harbor.

            In the beginning of 1942, the Chinese government began to select cadets from the Army Motorized School to be trained by the American advisors in India. I volunteered to go, but I was too short and thin to be selected since they want cadet with 162 centimeter tall and 120 pounds. However, only very few cadets within our school qualified this demand. At that time, I was the eighth tallest in my company. For this reason, another two companies were opened for other cadets. I was eventually allowed to enter the 7^th Company which did not really care about how tall its soldiers were. The other two companies formed this period were 8^th and 9^th.

            After that, our treatment improved gradually. We were no longer ordered to dig for drill ground, but swimming pool. Also, we finally had meat to eat. After one or two months of waiting, we were transported to Guiyang of Guizhou province by the Dodge trucks of the ROC Army’s 1^st Truck Regiment. From Guiyang, we went straight to Kunming on train in just one week.

            From Kunming, we were sent to India aboard US C-47 cargo planes. Before we went aboard the aircraft, our bodies were checked by the American medic to see if we were carrying any disease to India. After I completed my health check, my arm was sealed to prove that my body was okay.

            We went to India through the Hump. It was a damn cold flight for me when we were flying across Himalayas. We were all given vest to keep ourselves warm during the flight. After arriving at Dinjan on October of 1943, we slept in the camping ground inside a forest. There were leeches everywhere. We had to pay extremely attention to leeches when we washed our hands or defecated in the river.

            Later on, I was assigned to the 3^rd Battalion of the Army Motorized School and began my course at Ramgarh. At there, we soldiers from the 7^th Company were organized into the 1st Tank Battalion under the Chinese-American 1st Provisional Tank Group. In addition, there were soldiers from the 8^th Company and some veterans of the First Burma Campaign from the 5^th Army within our battalion. In China, our government usually described gas as blood of the nation. However, it was more like water in India. Whenever we went, our vehicles could be supplied with gas through the pipeline.

            The training for the 1^st Battalion was only four weeks. In the first week, we were taught to use the .30 caliber machine gun. Then we must learn how to operate the main gun of M3A3 medium tank in the second week. For the third week, we needed to learn how to drive a M3A3 tank. In the fourth week, we had to conduct long distance driving with our tanks in column.

            Once we completed our training, we began to receive M3A3 tanks at Calcutta with the help of an US staff sergeant. While our vehicles and munitions were all made in USA, our uniforms were provided by the British. Before we marched into the battlefield, we conducted two weeks of training in Ledo. After that, I became a tank driver with the rank of staff sergeant. I was assigned to drive tank number 10 in the 2^nd Platoon of the 2^nd Company, 1^st Tank Battalion. Our platoon commander was assigned with tank number 8 as I remembered.

3. How could he characterize the terrain, the weather, and the enemy? What were the greatest challenges?

We began our attack on February of 1944 during the monsoon in Burma. For this reason, it was raining nearly every single day. For most of the time, we had to sleep under the tree to avoid the raindrop. We stopped at Shinbwinyang first before advancing to Walawbum. Usually, our column traveled between 10 and 20 miles per day. However, we some time spent entire day to move only six miles when there were hills for us to climb. Sometime, we needed to mobilize US army’s crane to help us to move our tank up and down the hills.  

The Japanese 18^th Division was stationed in Walawbum, and they had established several defense lines ahead of us. When we arrived at Mungwan (Mangkwan), the aloes over there were high enough to block our view of other tanks. To solve this problem, we had to attach a yellow banner to the antenna of the vehicles.

It was extremely hard for tanks to fight enemy in the jungle because the route was so narrow. We could not expand our column during the advance. While the vehicle for platoon commander maintained in the middle of column, vehicles from three platoons under the 2^nd company rotated to move ahead as scout every day. The tank for company commander was usually behind the platoon which served as the scout that day.

When the battle began on March 3^rd at Mungwan, the 1^st Company was the first unit to encounter the Japanese 18^th Division. We defeated the Japanese there, but the 1^st Company was unable to chase the retreating Japanese because there were trees everywhere to block the movement of our tanks. Our tanks were too heavy to go through a small bridge across the river to Walawbum.

We had to conduct reconnaissance mission together with the US combat engineering to find a perfect spot to cross the river. With the help of American allies, we finally launched attack on March 7^th. As soon as we crossed the river, the enemy retreated. They left all of their stuffs including the official seal of the 18^th Division in Walawbum. The 3^rd Company was the first unit to cross the river that day, and we 2^nd Company did that next day.

Because we were not allowed to turn on the light of our tank when driving in the night, my tank ran into a shell hole. For this reason, my entire tank crew and I were separated from our column. Next morning, a crane pulled us out from the hole. After getting out from that shell hole, I saw the dead bodies of Japanese soldiers all around me. None of those Japanese soldiers were alive.

            Then we moved into our next battlefield, Tingkanksakan which was 20 miles south from Walawbum. Our platoon served as the scout unit during the offensive. We encountered strong Japanese resistance this time. There were Japanese snipers above the trees, which meant that we had to close all doors of the tanks during our advance. It was very difficult for the tanks to move ahead because there were trees everywhere. For this reason, tank crew must chop those vines blocking the route away with knives. If we clash with the tree, ants would be dropped into our vehicle through the seam of the doors. This is why the first tank in the front could not really close its door.

            Without proper English skill, our platoon commander, Chan Hai-chan failed to reach the rally point on time. He was eventually replaced by Huang Teh-hsing, who could speak English better under the order of our commander, Colonel Rothwell H. Brown. We suffered heavy casualties this time because the Japanese understood well about the formation of our tank. Three of our tanks in front of mine were hit directly.

            I saw a driver named Tan Kuo-tung killed in the vehicle because he was unable to open his door when the gun of the tank was directly above it. If we were still using the Italian Fiat tank, I think Tan could have survived the attack because it had another door in the bottom. About eight of Chinese tanks were destroyed on that day. Among them, three tanks were from our platoon. After this battle, we found out that the armor on the side and rear of M3A3 tank was too weak against the Japanese armor-piercing shell. In the future, barbed wire would be added to cover those weak points.

            Because the monsoon took place again on May, the 1^st Tank Battalion stopped the advance and returned to India for resupply. After the monsoon was over, we also participated in the other campaigns in Northern Burma such as the Battle of Myitkyina and Ba Maw. However, the infantries had defeated all the enemies before we even arrived at the battlefield.

4. What did he think of his American comrades and officers? What was their relationship to the Chinese? How would he think about the leadership?

What I know about Americans is that they are much resourceful than us. I remember that Col. Brown was very patient to the Chinese tank crew. Sun Tsan-hsian, one of our drivers had cracked up five tanks during his training in India. In China, he would face court martial for doing that. However, he was never blamed by Brown for doing it.

One time, I accidently drove my tank into a rice field. After realizing that I could not drive the tank out from there, Brown climbed aboard the vehicle personally to save me out of the trouble. Chao Chen-ying, our battalion commander demanded we tank crews to die with our vehicles when they were damaged or destroyed. In Burma, the American did not encourage this kind of idea. During the Battle of Walawbum, I cracked the differential of my tank.

There was engine oil all over the place, and my tank was unable to move forward because of the vines blocking us. For this reason, I spent entire night with my vehicle. Next morning, the US combat engineering took me and my crew out of the battlefield while abandoning our tank. We were soon assigned a brand new tank as soon as we arrived at the parking lot in our base. At that period of time, China was a poor country, and we were all shocked to see how American was fighting a different kind of war from us.

As for the Chinese commanders such as Chao Chen-ying, battalion commander and Chao Chi-hua, the deputy commander, I think they were both smart and brave. With the support of American, we were able to correct a lot of our mistakes very soon on the battlefield. For example, a battery was formed under the 1^st Tank Battalion after the Battle of Walawbum. This unit was formed because we were unable to coordinate with the artillery battalion of the Chinese Army in India during the battle. Our communication system at that time was very bad.

After the Battle of Tingkanksakan, we also began to receive M4A4 Sherman tank from the United States. They were much harder for the Japanese to destroy than M3A3. This made us invincible on the battlefield. From that time on, every platoon had five M4A4 and three M3A3. Since US did not provide enough M4A4 to the Chinese Army in India, only the 1^st and 2^nd Platoons of our company received Sherman.

5. What did he think of American air support?

            We did not receive that many air supports from the US because it was hard for them to hit the enemy target in the jungle. However, we did see American liaison aircraft flying in circle above us sometime.

6. What did he do after the Second Burma Campaign?

After the Japanese surrendered, all of our personnel expect tank drivers were called back to China while all tanks remained in India. I stayed there until 1946 and returned to Shanghai to join the Chinese Civil War.