Interview by Samuel Hui and Pan I-jung, December 2013

Where did he grow up?

I was born at Yichang of Hubei province in 1921.

What sort of family was he from?

I was from a peasant family. Because my family at that time owned very few lands, we mostly worked for the local landlords. I had two older sisters and one older brother. I am the youngest child in the family. I studied at the local private school for the first three years of my elementary schools. Finally, I entered Heping elementary school in the fourth year.

How was his family affected by the Japanese invasion?

Yichang was an important battle ground after the fall of Hankow on October of 1939 because it was on the middle of the passage for the Imperial Japanese Army to take over Chongqing, the wartime capital of China. However, they failed all the time when they attacked the city due to the difficult mountainous terrain.

Still, the entire city of Yichang was destroyed during the battle. All streets and houses were gone. My family was lucky enough to escape to the county side before the sieges began.

Was he an officer, enlisted, or conscripted?

I was conscribed. Under the government’s policy, one of the three brothers or two of the five brothers in a family must join the army to fight the Japanese invaders. Because my older brother was married already, I was chosen to serve for my family. It was October 10^th of 1938 when I was conscripted.

What sort of training and equipment did he receive?

I spent half month at Gongan of Hubei province for training. Because there was snow every place, we were not able to conduct any field training. We received very limited military knowledge in lecture.

When we were fighting in Guangxi, our entire squad only had four rifles and one machine gun. A soldier was usually assigned with two grenades. However, most of us used whatever we could find. My weapon at that time was a shovel.

We began our march south soon after the beginning of 1939. It was a day after we were served with foods to celebrate the arrival of the New Year. We common soldiers did not notice that we were moving towards Guangxi. In the beginning, we thought we were ordered to make a New Year visit to our division commander. However, we were actually walking to Guangxi from Hubei. We went through Hunan province on our way.

What unit was he with?

I was assigned to the 1^st platoon, 2^nd company, 1^st battalion, 277^th regiment, 93^rd division of the 6^th Army. It belongs to Chiang Kai-shek’s central army.

My army commander was Kan li-chu while my division commander was Lu Kuo-chuan. As for my regiment commander, I remember his name was Li You-chang. Despite the fact that the 6^th Army was part of Generalissimo’s central army, most senior commanders were natives from Guangdong province.

Compared to other units, I think our commanders were very good to the soldiers. At least they were not that corrupt. While soldiers from other units were starving on the battlefield, we were at least fed very well. This is the major difference between our unit and the others.  

Did he have any combat experience prior to the First Burma Campaign?

I first participated in the Battle of South Guangxi between 1939 and 1940. Because the Japanese had far better weapon and equipment than us, the only thing we could do was to retreat.

Usually, we would engage with the Imperial Japanese Army with between two and three other Chinese armies. There were not only regular armies under the central government or regional warlord in the battlefield, but local militias as well.

Sometime even the local militia had better weapon than us because civilians there had tradition to own rifles. I believe some of those units even had Type 82 mortal. This is the reason why the Japanese hated people in Guangxi the most during the war.

We fought in Guangxi for one year. Even though we tried to evade major confrontation, a lot of soldiers from our units were killed when we engaged the enemy near the border between Guangxi and Guangdong provinces. When we attacked Tianma district between Binyang and Nanning, each of our company suffered a loss of 25 soldiers averagely.

Because the terrain in Guangxi was basically a huge plain especially after the harvest, it was a perfect battle ground for enemy tanks and cavalry. Sometime we were even attacked with poison gas.

After the campaign at Guangxi, the 6^th Army was transferred to Anshun at Guizhou province for reorganization. At there, I was trained to operate ZB-26 machine gun. I remember all wounded soldiers in the 6^th Army at that time were replaced by new soldiers during this period of time.

By late 1941, we were ordered to march into the Burmese border in Yunnan province. When we went through Kunming, Long Yun, the governor of Yunnan did not allow us to enter the city because we were loyal to the central government. However, those other units equipped with tanks or armored vehicles still managed to get into Kunming because the Yunnan army was unable to fight against those weapons. For example, the 2^nd Reserve Division was able to do that with their Fiat tanks.

Where and when did he participate in combat?

We entered the border of Burma through the counties of Huhai and Nanqiao. Those two counties were within Yunnan province, but most of the residents in them were Burmese.

As soon as we got into Burma, we were begun to be transported by GMC trucks of the Chinese army. We were deployed to the region of Kengtung of Shan State near the border between Burma and Thailand.

How would he characterize the fighting?

In the beginning, we fought against the intruding Japanese (Thai) Army alongside the British forces. However, the British retreated very soon, and we had to continue the fight against the Axis forces with the clothes and boots the British left to us for a few days. We fought only for few days and retreated as well. I think we were there for one to two weeks.

When we were fighting in Burma, we had better weapons and equipments than the times we were in China. However, a lot of our brothers still died there because of the malaria. Because the British and Chinese defense lines in Burma collapsed, we were ordered by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to return to Yunnan to guard the Chinese border against Thailand.

Did they experience any attacks from Japanese aircraft?

The Japanese still owned the sky when we were in the first Burma campaign. During our engagement against the enemy, the Japanese (Royal Thai Air Force?) fighters always circled around the sky above us. Usually the enemy aircraft would shoot or drop bomb at us.

Were they supported by any American planes?

We did not receive any American air support until 1943. In the earlier period, there were only American transport aircraft, not fighter or bomber.

What did he do after the First Burma Campaign?

After the first Burma campaign, our unit began to be trained by the American advisors. Although I did not speak English at all, we adopted good relationship with the American advisors. They trained us to use M1919 .30 Browning machine gun and .30 Springfield rifle. We were also equipped with 37mm anti-tank gun.

Still, I preferred to use Chiang Kai-shek rifle instead of the Springfield because it is much lighter. Beside, the Springfield’s backlash was too powerful. During this period of time, I was promoted to sergeant.

When the war ended on August of 1945, we were ordered to receive the Japanese surrender at French Indochina. For this reason, we stayed in Laos until 1946. As victors of WWII, we were always welcomed by the locals in both Burma and Laos. Many oversea Chinese residents there volunteered to be our translators. After our mission in Laos, we were deployed to Baoshan of Yunnan province. Originally, the central government wanted to send us to fight the Communist in Manchuria. However, the local government demands us to stay there because we had better discipline than other central army units. For this reason, we remained in Yunnan until the very end of civil war. We had a small fight against the Communist before entering Vietnam in 1950. By 1953, we were finally allowed to enter Taiwan.