Interview by Samuel Hui and Pan I-jung, January 2014

Where did he grow up?

I was born in Tengchong of Yunnan province in 1922.

What sort of family was he from?

It was a peasant family. My father passed away when I was three year old. Seven years later, my mom died as well. I had two older brothers at the time; my oldest brother was out of town for business. He was 12 years older than me. As for my second brother, he was two years older than me and worked as servant for other families in the town. I was able to grow up because of the helps from my two brothers.

How was his family affected by the Japanese invasion?

I graduated from elementary school in 1938. When 293 Japanese soldiers arrived at Tengchong on May 10^th of 1942, there were three battalions of Yunnan Army under the command of Long Sheng-wu, son of Long Yun, the governor of Yunnan province in the town. Despite the fact that there were 1,000 local Chinese soldiers, they did not fire even one shot against the invader when General Long ordered them to retreat. Those warlord soldiers used to bully local population before the Japanese arrived. However, they did not even think about defending the largest city of Western Yunnan when the Japs were there. Before Long’s troops left, they took all silk, opium, artwork, jade and everything can be sold for money away with them.

When the Japanese entered the town, my home was burned down to the ground. My second brother was forced to leave Tengchong and find a new place located 20 kilometers from the town to live. The Japanese soldiers killed and ate our mules and horses. I will never for

Was he an officer, enlisted, or conscripted?

I was an officer.

If of his own volition, why did he decide to join the Army?

When the Japanese occupied Tengchong on May 10^th, the Second Reserve Division of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Central Army crossed Salween River and arrived at Jiatou located at the north of the town on May 15^th. The Central Army immediately surrounded Tengchong with three of Second Reserve Division’s regiments.

In the same time, a new cadre training school was established in Jiatou to train political cadres for the Second Reserve Division. Because all we young people in Tengchong were unable to go to school anymore, I decided to go to that cadre training school. I was 18 years old at the time.

Did he go to the military academy, and if so, how did he get in, which branch of the Academy was it, and when did he graduate?

I was first trained for one month at Jiatou. After that, I was sent to Dali for further training. The second phase of training took me one year.

What sort of training and equipment did he receive?

At Dali, we had only one year to complete four-year courses for cadets of regular military academy. I was there to be trained how to fight the Japanese in both regular and guerrilla warfare. In addition, I had to learn how to become a political officer as well. After graduating from the Dali Cadre Training School, some of us would be assigned to the local government while the others became political officers or guerrilla fighters.

What unit was he with?

I was assigned originally to the Second Political Group under the 11th Group Army at first as second lieutenant. At that period of time, we had 100 political cadres in the group. Later on, the Second Political Group was temporary put under the command of the 36^th Division. I was re-assigned as an interrogation officer with the rank of captain in the Fifth Regiment of the Second Reserve Division before the Battle of Tengchong.

How would he characterize his leadership?

Well, there were both good and bad officers within the Central Army. For example, our Second Political Group was assigned first to Shenhu Pass to rally the local population to support the ROC Army’s counteroffensive in Tengchong. However, Lt. Col. Huang Fu-cheng, the local commander there had lost support from the people because all he cared about there was to loot his own people. For this reason, there weren’t too many people left at Shenhu Pass when we got there.

The situation in Second Reserve Division was much better. My commander in the Fifth Regiment was Lee Yi. Lee was vice commander of my cadet brigade when I was in Dali Cadre Training School. He was a brave commander. He sacrificed himself on Sep. 14 of 1944, the same day when we defeated the Japanese during the Battle of Tengchong. At that time, he was leading us in a house-to-house search to clear Japanese resistance in the town. He was killed over the Lijia lane when his chest was hit by the Japanese machine gun. Colonel Lee Yi was one of two highest Chinese commanders to be killed during the Battle of Tengchong.

Did he have any military experience prior to the Salween Campaign?

No!

Could he describe his job as an intelligence officer?

I was the assistant of Major Tang Wen-chu, the main interrogation officer of the Fifth Regiment. The mission for us two was to interrogate locals who were suspected to be collaborators. Maintenance Association was established by collaborators in Tengchong to help the Japanese occupation forces. It would recruit locals to gather intelligence from the Chinese units surrounding Tengchong. This is why we needed to find those traitors out from the ordinary people. Because Tang was from Hunan with strong accent, I was needed as a native of Yunnan to help the interrogation. In Second Reserve Division, most soldiers were from Hunan, Guangxi or Sichuan. There were very few native soldiers in the unit.

When did he first go behind enemy lines and where did he go? Did he remain behind enemy lines, or did he periodically return to friendly lines? What kind of intelligence did he collect?

To get the intelligence we need, sometime we need to torture those locals who were suspected to be traitors. A 30-year-old woman who used to come to our camp to sell vegetable was suspected and interrogated by us two. Because she kept denying her involvement of intelligence gathering, we eventually tied her hands up with telephone one wire with the other one plugged into the ground. We began to operate the telephone to and began to operate the telephone to transfer electronic shock through her body which made her incontinent. She eventually confessed that she was working for the Japanese. We found a map of our military camp in her pant which she drawn for the enemy.  

How did he report back to his superiors?

For those traitors who had committed serious crimes, we would turn them up to the division headquarters. Otherwise we would deal with them ourselves.

What was his impression of the civilian population under occupation? How was their morale and health? How did they suffer?

Not all traitors we interrogated volunteered to work for the enemy. I remember there was a guy named Huang who ran a bakery in the town was forced to make food for the Japanese occupation forces. The Japanese threatened to kill his family if he refused to do so. For this reason, he was reported as traitor and arrested by our special task platoon.

Because Mr. Huang was an old friend of mine before the war began. So he asked for my help when I passed through the jail where he was locked up. I then began my investigation in the county side to ask the local population whether Huang worked with the Japanese to oppress the Chinese in the area. Since all people I met there told me that Huang was a good man, the Fifth Regiment decided to release him after I returned to the camp.

Some local traitors tried to bribe Tang and me as well for their release. Two brothers from a rich family working for the Japanese were caught by our regiment. Not only giving a fountain pen to Tang and a ring made of jade to me, they even sent their two sisters to talk with both of us at night. Those two girls said they would marry us if we were willing to set their brothers free. However, we were both too young at that time to be bribed.

Eventually, the family of those two traitors accused us falsely for taking their properties and harassing their sisters to the division headquarters. 

For this reason, Tang and I were sent to the court martial of the Second Reserve Division to confront those two brothers. I explained everything I knew to the chief military judge. The judge then demanded them to speak out the true and threatened to punish them more if those two brothers continued to lie. Fearing for more trouble, they confessed that they had made wrong accusation against Tang and me. Both of them were eventually executed for treason.

Did he work with local guerrillas or other groups? Did he interact with Japanese troops or puppet forces?

After the Battle of Tengchong, I was able to kill a Japanese first lieutenant named Mitsuiyama Shirou. He escaped from the town before the siege was begun and hid in the hill around it with a bag of puppet currency. When the fight was over, he was reported to be hiding inside the house of a local civilian named Chiang Kai-tai at night. We also knew that Mitsuiyama had held Chiang and his family as hostages.

Mr. Chiang was able to convince the Japanese officer to let them go before we Chinese troops were sent to search him inside the house in the dark with electric torch. Mitsuiyama was hiding beneath the bed and trying to attack me with his samurai sword.

I immediately fired my M1 carbine at his chest. Hearing his moaning, I gave him one more shot to send him to the hell. That was the only Japanese soldier I personally killed during the war. 

Usually we were not supposed to kill wounded Japanese solider. However, I hated the Japanese so much at that time for burning my house and killing Chinese civilians. This is the reason why I chose to kill Mitsuiyama.  Inside Mitsuiyama’s bag, I saw the picture of his wife. I know war is cruel, but I still cannot stop myself from hating the Japanese. My wife had bought me airplane ticket for us to visit Japan after the war, but I refused to go.

Still, we treated the Japanese comfort women with humanitarianism. I think we captured about 40 sex slaves in Tengchong. Most of them were Korean while some of them were Taiwanese. Very few of them were actually Japanese. One of the Korean comfort women was pregnant at the time. We took care of them and sent them back to Kunming.

What was his impression of the Japanese defenses?

The Japanese defense of Tengchong was tough. A lot of our soldiers were killed during the battle. A lot of soldiers from the Fifth Regiments died when attacking the Japanese positions at Leifeng Mountain. It was so hard for us to not get shot when we launched the attack from lower position. Without the flamethrower provided by the American, I do not think we were able to win that battle.

We also relied on the air support provided by the 14^th Air Force to knock down the wall around Tengchong. The American bombers bombed 13 holes out from the wall during the offense which allowed us Chinese soldiers to move into the town.

I remembered one time I saw an aerial combat between two American fighters and four Japanese fighters at Leifeng Mountain after I attended a regimental conference. Those American “twin bodies” fighters (P-38) eventually shot down all Jap fighters. I think it is still the happiest moment of my life. Under the order of Chiang Kai-shek, we were able to occupy Tengchong before Sep. 18 of 1944, the 13^th anniversary of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. If we failed to complete this mission before the deadline, all commanding officers above regimental level would be executed.

How did his role evolve as the campaign got underway?

Because so many of our soldiers were killed during the siege of Tengchong, I had to fight like the others on the battlefield despite the fact that I was a political cadre. I used M1 carbine during the battle, and what I feel about this weapon is that it is lighter than Chiang Kai-shek rifle we used before the US jointed the war. We were ordered to attack the town from the Southwestern point.

How did the population respond as the Chinese troops fought through their areas?

Most of the locals ran away from Tengchong before we even launched the attack against the town. For this reason, we encountered very few civilians.

How would he characterize the terrain, the weather, and the enemy? What were the greatest challenges? What did he do after the Salween Campaign?

After the Battle of Tengchong, I was relieved from the military and became a teacher at the local elementary school. Since I was a member of Kuomintang when the Communist took over Tengchong in 1949, I joined the Second Detachment of 145^th Column, a local anti-Communist guerrilla unit operated in Western Yunnan. Again, I served as a political cadre. We fought a six-day battle against the regular PLA unit and local Communist militia before we were driven to Burma on November of 1950.

We were all sent to the concentration camp by the Burmese government as soon as we left the Chinese border. I spent six and half years in Burma as a political prisoner until 1957 when I was chosen with other nine lucky guys to go back to Taiwan.

After I arrived at Taiwan, I served as teacher for three elementary schools before my retirement in 1999.

I do think the United States had contributed a lot to China’s victory against the Japanese invasion. Without the assistance from Washington, we could not resist the Communist invasion against Taiwan during the Cold War as well. The only thing I don’t like the United States about today is that it is on the Japanese side regarding the issue of Diaoyutai (Senkaku) islands. Still, I hope that China and the United States can be friend forever and never go to war again.