February - CBI Unit Lineages and History

Gx-CBI Roundup
.
C1HllA-13U'ROOA-I'T2DIA--
FEBRUARY
1957
. t
CHINA-BASED TROOPS will recall the old temple built on top of the Great Wall at
Paoshan. Tile-roofed shops line the narrow main street below. Photo by J. W. Reppel.
U.S. ARMY ENGINEERS' road maintenance camp and sub depot at Loglai. Burma,
mile 51 on The Ledo Road. Photo by J. W. Reppel.
2
EX-CBI
ROUNDUP
February,
Vol. 11, NO.2
1957
Ex-CBI ROUNDUP, established 1946, is a reminiscing magazine published monthly except AUGUST and SEPTEMBERat 2808 E. 6th Ave.,
Denver, Colo., by and for former members of U. S. Units stationed in
the China-Burma-India Theatre during World War II. Ex-CBI Roundup
is the official publication of the China-Burma-India Veterans Association.
Clarence
R. Gordon
Managing
Editor
CONTRIBUTING STAFF -----'iydney L. Greenberg •.•..•••.•.••••..••••.••••...•
, Photo Editor
Joe Carabajal .•...•.....•....•.•.........•.
, ...•...
Staff Artist
Boyd Sinclair •........••••
,.................
Book Review Editor
ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MAnER Sept. 8, 1949, at the Post
Office at Denver, Cola., under the act of March 3, 1879.
SUBSCRIPTION
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Report
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of Address
All Correspondence
Immediately!
to
Ex-CBI Roundup
P. O. Box 1769
Denver
1. Colo.
Letter FROM The Editor
• Cover subject is the late Lt. Gen. Lewis A. Pick, who
died at Walter Reed Medical Center last month. With
his passing the CBI Veterans Assn. has lost an active
member, Roundup loses an enthusiastic subscriber, and
every CBI-er has lost an old friend.
• It was an "India Christmas" for hundreds of Roundup
subscribers who patronized our Bazaar of India during
the past two months. Now, in this issue, we are featuring a number of bargains in "odds and ends" in stock.
Except for sales at reduced prices to our readers Bazaar
of India is strictly a who!e3ale firm now, selling only to
gift, hardware, curio, novelty and department
stores.
• You'll discover in this issue announcement of a storywriting contest, designed to encourage Roundup's rea:lers to put down on paper those memorable experiences
of CBI-Iand. We hope a good many subscribers will send
entries for publication.
The contest lasts all year.
• Once again we are getting low on CBI pictures for
publication.
If you have some you think suitable for
appearance in the magazine, we'd be happy to have a
look at them. Please write your name on reverse side
of each photo, along with explanatory
caption.
All
photos will be returned in good condition.
• We find it necessary to make an occasional reminder
to our readers to be sure and notify us when you change
address. Postal regulations prohibit the forwarding
of
2nd class mail. Thanks.
FEBRUARY,
1957
25th Nurse Passes
• Frances
E. Dunne,
a
member of the Chicago CBI
Basha, who lived at Long
Beach, Ind., died at Hines
Veterans
Hospital in Chicago on Nov. 17th. Miss
Dunne was a nurse with
the 25th Field Hospital. She
was also a teacher in the
Chicago Pub I i c Schools.
Miss Dunne had returned
to Karachi, Pakistan, on the
F u I b rig h t Teachers' Ex~hange Program in 1950. She
returned
to
the
United
States in 1952.
DELORES SMOCZYNSKI,
Hazelcrest, Ill.
Gen. Pick's Death
• General
Pick's d eat h
came as a shock to all of us
who served in CBl. Pick,
Stilwell and Chennault were
synonymous with CBI during war days. Now only one
remains. We're getting older, of course, and too many
of our geherals are going
on ahead.
PAUL R. WINSTON,
Toledo, Ohio
Hindu Fantasy
• My wife and I found the
story "Durga Puja Time"
(J an.) very interesting. The
incredible
explanation
for
the festival is something to
think about when you know
millions of Hindus accept
this fantasy as fact.
STANLEY PEPPER,
Brooklyn, N.Y .
Indian Scaffolds
• Being in the construction
business, I tried to describe
to my associates after the
war the primitive scaffolding system employed by the
Indians. The two pictures in
the January iss u e shows
more than I could ever describe. No contractor in this
country would use such a
crude device, yet it appeared to do the job in India.
PAUL ESTESON,
Springfield, Colo.
3
ToThe
Editor-------------------------Col. Ross Mayer Dies
• Col. Ross W. Mayer, 67,
who served two years with
the air corps in India, diei
Dec. 6th at Lansing, Mich.
After the war he joined the
Warren-Holmes
architectural firm at Lansing, according to a newspaper article.
JOHN G. GOODELL,
Lansing, Mich.
India Pilgrimage
• Sorry to hear the second
"Pilgrimage
to Iniia"
has
been cancelled, but I can
well understand why. Hope
there'll be another w hen
conditions settle down.
MURRAY D. LOEWE,
Paris, Texas
Civilian Employee
• I worked for the Americans in Calcutta and maie
many friends
there
from
ATC, Barrackpore and Hastings Mill. Have heard a lot
about Roundup from friends
who are subscribers.
MAY J. GIBSON,
Olney, Ill.
FELIX A. RUSSELL
Patent
Lawyer
MEMBER OF
General
Stilwell Bosho
Record of Invention Forms
FREE UPON REQUEST
Colorado
Building
Washington,
D.C.
SALWEEN
structions
Engineers.
RIVER bridge on the Ledo Road.
Convoy. is waiting
for into cross.
Tent in foreground
was occup,ed
by U.S. Army
Photo by J. W. Reppe!.
Merrill's Marauders
Am always looking for
news or stories of former
Merrill's Marauiers.
I was
in the 1st Bn .. Red Combat
Team under Lt. Col. Wm.
L. Osborne.
ROBERT J. DAILEY,
Providence, R. 1.
e
83lst Signal Battalion
e The magazine is the best.
Is there any ch3.nce of an article on the efforts of the
83lst
Signal
Service
Bn.
which was headquartered
in
China?
WM. G. FALKENBERG,
Westdiffe, Colo.
Advance Party
• It'll be 11 years ago Dec.
30th when I boarded the
U.S.S. General Stewart
at
the dock in Karachi as a
member
of the Advance
Party (though I did mighty
little advance work) for 25
days at sea through some
rou~h seas and calm weather, too.
RAYMOND F. BABB,
Elizabeth, N. J.
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The Roundup
THIS CHINESE
ing apparatus.
4
COUPLE eorned
its living
Photo by Richard Ingles.
with
this
small
outdoor
weav-
P. O. Box 1769
Denver I, Colo.
EX-CEl
ROUNDUP
---------------------------To
Exper:l Gem Buyer
• Have read with interest
such articles as "Burmese
Gems" (Jan,) which have
appeared in Roundup from
time to time, This story is
the first to show that GI's
did make some good buys,
As a member of Merrill's
Marauders
I was one of
many fellows I knew who
came out ahead, I traied
two useless items (mosquita
repeLent
and
cigarettes,
which I don't smoke) for a
star ruby on which I later
collected $125 from a jeweler in my home town. So
that's proof that at least
some of us did alright in the
Oriental gem business!
FRANK W. DeROCHE,
Jersey City, N. J.
ATC Man Dead
• I have
just
received
word that former
TjSgt:
John Q. Anderson who was
with the ATC at Barrackpore,
India,
has
passed
away. He was 39 and med of
cancer.
EMMETT O. PERSHING,
Erie, Pa.
G~T.WAY
miles
from
The
Editor
TO ti1~ beautiful
Calcu.to.
Hawaii in 1947. Phato
All
U•.S. MilitarY.C:e:r.elery
were disinterred
Ingles.
bodies
7th Bomb Group
• Was a B-24 pilot with
the 11th Bomb Squadron 7th
Bomb Group at Panjaveswar. Would really enjoy seeing some articles on said
Group in print.
DENNIS W. HIGDON,
Powell, Tenn.
See May
/951 and May
/955
issues.-Ed.
IF. YOU DJDN'T knaw belter, you'd think these Chine,e hill folks were
gOing to a costu"e
b,lI.
But their rags are better clothing than some
had, especiolly today.
Photo by Richard Ingles.
FEBRUARY,
1957
at
and
Barrackpare,
transferred
14
to
by Richard
AACS in CBI
• Look forward
to each
new issue. Some day I hope
to see someone's name with
whom I served. Our Signal
Corps outfit consisted
of
teams who installed communications
equipment for
AACS. We were part of
ACS. My team saw service
in all three countries of CBL
We weredne
of the teams
who helped to build the
:ange station near Myitkymao We never stayed in one
location too long so I had a
chance to see a good deal
over there. Time has mellowed many of the "inconveniences"
experienced
in
CBL Rev. Tegenfeldt's article on Myitkyina
(Oct.)
brought back old memories
and I look forward to similar articles on other localities I spent time in.
ALBERT MAIBAUM, Jr.,
Elmhurst, N. Y.
172nd General Hospi:lal
@ Don't
hear much from
the 172nd General Hospital
which saw service in Kunming and Shanghai. Also on
DS with the 18th General
Hos,it:ll back in India and
Eu~ma. Would enjoy hearing from any of the Mess
Personnel of the 172nd. Was
a cook and later a mess sergeant of the 172nd.
KENNETH LEVENGOOD,
Stowe, Pa.
5
General Pick Passes
OF CBI'S most famous and colorful
ONEgenerals,
Lieutenant General Lewis A.
Pick, who supervised the building of the
Ledo Road, died of cancer last month at
Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He
was 66.
General Pick was a man of action who
dreamed great dreams-and
made them
come true. Most men are satisfied if they
can leave behind them one major undertaking, one memorial to their activity.
General Pick left at least three, with his
imprint on two continents.
General Pick and his men built the 483mile Ledo Road in 15 months. When he
arrived in Burma, the Japanese had captured the old Burma Road and the only
way China could be supplied was by air,
over The Hump. In a year, only 45 miles
of the Ledo Road had been constructed,
malaria,
the Japanese,
jungle rot, the
pounding rains of the monsoon had taken
their toll.
"It's the damndest job a man ever got,"
General Pick once told his superior, General Stilwell, who agreed.
In 15 months, the road was finished,
over mountain paS3es, through the densest
jungle. There were 155 bridges, many of
wood-there
was no concrete. General
Pick was told they would fall when the
rains came.
"I don't give a damn," he replied, "we'll
build new ones."
Supplies began pouring over the Ledo
Road, later renamed the Stilwell Road,
but always called Pick's Pike by those
who helped to build it.
General Pick was born in Brookneal,
Va. He joined the Army at the outbreak
of World War I after receiving a civil
engineering
degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He was commissioned a
1st lieutenant in the Corp3 of Engineer3
and was something of an exception in
reaching the post of Chief of Army Engineers without West Point background.
He joined the Regular Army in 1920.
In 1927 he was appointed Orleans District Engineer and during the great Mississippi flood of that year h~ was Herbert
Hoover's engineer assistant on the Relief
Commission serving the stricken area.
General Pick became one of the nation's
outstanding
authorities
on flood control
and water resources. In 1942-43, while
Missouri River division engineer,
with
6
GENERAL LEWIS A. PICK, whose
n~me is
mous with the building
of the
Ledo-Burmo
U.S. Army photo.
synonyRoad.
headquarters
in Omaha, he drew up the
Pick Plan. It was a1 comprehensive
program for over-all control and utilization
of the full water re30urces of the whole
Missouri River basin.
The Pick Plan differed from the Bureau
of Reclamation's
S~oan Plan. The Bureau
and the Army Engineers worked out a
compromise which became law in 1944.
Part of the Pick-Sloan Plan has been put
into effect, but much of it is still on paper.
General
Pick warned
that America
would "dry up and rot on the vine" if it
did not learn to protect and control its
water resources.
He differed with soil conservationists
who argued that strip farming, contour
planting, woodlot3, and terracing would
prevent floods. After the flood of 1951
which covered two million acres in Kansas
and Missouri, the Pick-Sloan
plan was
criticized.
"The biggest flood before this one was
in 1844," General Pick said angrily. "That
was before a plow had been laid to the
Kansas prairies. I believe in soil conservation but it isn't protection against floods."
General Pick charged that if Congress
had given him the money he wanted in
1945 for the Missouri River basin there
would have been no flood.
General Pick was appointed Army Chief
of Engineers in 1949 and held that post
EX-CBI ROUNDUP
---------------------------General
until his retirement
in 1953. Under his
leadership the Army Engineers built air
bases throughout
the world in record
time, including
the Thule Air Base in
Greenland.
Congress criticized
General
Pick for
waste and inefficiency in building bases
in North Africa in 1952. He replied that
the speed required made some short cuts
necessary.
Among the many decorations
General
Pick received
were the Distinguished
Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the
Cloud and Banner decoration of the Chinese government
and membership
in
Great Britain's Royal Order of the .Bath.
The Army cited him for his organizational genius in constructing
$1.5 billion
worth of military installations in the Midwest in the early days of World War II.
At the time of his death General Pick
was director of the Alabama Industrial
Development Board.
The General was well known personally to many CBI veterans. As a member
of the CBI Veterans Association he has
attended at least four of the Annual Reunions, including the first organizational
reunion at Milwaukee in 1948.
General Pick had been a subscriber and
an enthusiastic booster of Ex-CBI Roundup since its beginning in 1946. In his last
Your CBI Story
May Win $100 Prize!
TEN YEARS of publication, Ex-CEl
INRoundup
has featured
a good many
articles, histories and true stories of our
service in China, Burma and India. Except
for the winning entries in "It Happened
In CBI," Roundup has not paid one cent
to the authors of these dozens of articles.
This is significant since we cou'd not heretofore afford to pay for material used.
There are thousands of excellent CBI
yarns stored up in the minds and memories of CBI-ers. To help you to recall
these stories, Roundup is offering a cash
prize of $100 to the subscriber who sends
the best article for publication during the
year 1957.
The entries which the editor feels is
worthy of consideration will be published
in Ex-CBI Roundup.
YOU, the reader,
will judge which articles published during the year is worth the prize. All subscribers will be asked to vote next December and the winner will receive the $100
cash award.
Your story may be from 600 words (one
page) in length to 7,000 words. Longer
FEBRUARY,
1957
Pick
Passes
BULL DOZER ",oving convoy trucks throug"
",uddy
stretch of the Ledo Road. Photo by J. W. Reppel.
letter to Roundup's editor he stated: "The
magazine has certainly been instrumental
in keeping the old CBI gang to~ether
through these postwar years. CBI will live
in our memories
only so long as the
magazine
continues.
Please let nothing
ever interruot its publication for the sake
of us old CBI wallahs."
Funeral services were held and interment at Auburn, Alabama, where General and Mrs. Pick made their home. He
is survived by his wife, Alice Cary Pick,
and a son, Army Capt. Lewis A. Pick. Jr.,
stationed in Germany.
-THE
END.
articles will be considered if the interest
warrants.
There is one rule which must be strictly
adhered to: The story must be true and
should have taken place in CBI during
the war or immediately
afterward.
Your manuscript may concern yourself,
your outfit, any CBI outfit, a history, an
incident, a battle, a humorous
episode,
tr agedy, biography of a CBI-er, etc. Any
yarn that would interest a CBI man or
woman.
Photos accompanying
an article will be
partIcularly
welcomed and all will be returned to the owners.
STORY CONTEST RULES
I.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Contest is open to all paid subscribers to ExCBI Roundup.
Manuscript must be typewritten, double-spaced.
Story must be 600 words minimum, 7,000
words maximum except in special cases which
in the editor's opinion warrants use of more
space.
Send as many entries as you wish.
All articles must be true and with special
interest to CBI veterans.
All manuscripts submitted become the property
of Ex-CBI Roundup and may be published in
the magazine as a contest entry only at the
discretion of the editor.
Winning entry will be chosen by popular vote
of Roundup's readers during December 1957.
Author of winning entry will receive $100 cash
payment upon close of the contest, Dec. 31,
1957.
7
F ReED LANDI NG
IN
By Harry Zinder
This
article, written
specially
for the CBI
Roundup,
June
29, 1944, de:cribes
the adventures of Time and Life Correspondent
Zinder, who was listed as missing after the B-29
raid on Japan. Herein he describes his experiences and rescue from an emergency
landing in
China.
HAD BOMBED our target well and
WEtruly.
And 293, its sleek aluminum
exterior unscratched from flying thru hails
of ack-ack and passing thru at Ieat six
converging searchlights, headed for home
in headlong speed. Thru the intercom
there was happy chatter of relieved crewmen who had been on their first combat
mission and came thru unscathed.
Capt.
Robert Root, 26, of Chicago, turned the
controls over to Lt. Clifford Anderson of
New Rochelle, N.Y., and sat beside me
on the escape hatch.
"Well, 293 is no longer a virgin." He
spoke in the happy little tones of a man
who fi<1ured maybe it wouldn't all work
out well but did. "And for that matter,
neither are we." That was much more
important to short, handsome Root.
The flight engineer, Lt. Pete Coury, of
Sonora. Ariz., took a quick look at his instrument board, ghoulishly lit up by fluorescent lights, and then joined in the conversation.
"She's running like a sewing
machine. We'd better cut our speed, tho,
Captain." Andy throttled back to around
190 miles an hour and we headed over the
Yellow Sea.
We looked out of the side hatches and
just barely saw small fires, twinkling fingers of lights, and heard the steady roar
of more planes.
8
We had been over Japan among the
first few planes and our fires were guiding more and more Superfortresses in their
first all-out strategic bombing of Japan's
mainland.
,
"There's a red light about 90 degrees on
our left," called out S/Sgt. Dan Serritello
from his lonely perch in the tail. Some
anonymous voice on the intercom quipped,
"Guess we're passing thru the 'hook shop'
district."
And then there was warm quiet, glittering stars overhead, and the comforting
thought of food, sleep and maybe three
ounces of Schenley's best when we got
back to base.
In that blackest hour before first light,
we crossed the China coast. We stripped
our Mae Wests, loosened our parachutes
and tried to ca,tch a few winks of sleep.
Suddenly, left gunner T/Sgt. Ellis M.
Doolen of Vernon, Ill., almost screamed
thru the mike, "Number three engine's
smoking!"
Root cut Number three out,
suoke briefly to flight en~ineer Coury,
"What are we consuming?"
Coury gave
the figure. Root checked with Navigator
Lt. James Stanley of Moultrie, Ga., "Let
me know as soon as we've crossed into
Free Chma." He spoke briefly to Radioman Cephus Robinson of Glinchew, Va.,
"Soon's we hit Free China try and contact
some emergency field. We've got to land
there." And 293 plowed on, powered down
by three engines.
We struck Free China at dawn. Stanley
gave the reading to Root and Robinson
EX-CBI ROUNDUP
-----------------------Forced
warmed up his radios. Before us were
treacherously
high ranges of mountains,
clouded over by heavy overcast, which
we had crossed at 14,000 feet coming over.
With three engines and full power we
might - but just might - get over, but
we'd never have enough gas to get back
to base. Root took the only course advisable: an emergency landing in friendly
territory.
Robinson reported that he couldn't make
contact, that something was wrong with
the radio equipment.
Maps were taken
out and airfIelds charted. Root kept 293
stooging in a plateau set in low hills thru
whicn a SlUggISh river ran. He swung her
in easy left and right circles while he consulted with Anderson, Stanley, Bombardier Charles Albright of Reading, Pa., and
Coury. Gas was running low. There didn't seem any chance that we would get
home to complete our mission. We had
only one satisfaction:
we had bombed.
What happened now could only be an unexplainable anti-climax with no material
significance.
Root finally headed the ship for the
river bed, calling thru the' mike, "Emergency Landing!"
We hooked our parachutes tighter, strapped on our jungle kits,
braced against anything that would hold
us. Root was making for a long narrow
grassy field, just north of a village - a
Culnese vlliage, we hoped. Stanley called
out altitudes: "500 feet. 400 feet. 300 feet.
200 feet, 100 feet . . . " and our wheels
struck the soft, patchy grass with the ship
almost nosing over as Root struggled with
the controls. But she didn't. He pointed
the nose slightly up and rolled on, bringing the 50-ton monster that needs 8,500
feet for takf'off to a dead wheels-down
landing in little over 1,500 feet. It was
so miraculous that the crewmen cheered
and our little group around the flight deck
applauded Root's skill.
As we piled out of the ship, we saw
dozens of people from the village running
toward the plane. We stood quietly but
ready. With the fighting so fluid in Honan
province, we weren't exactly sure who
held the village. I looked at them thru
glasses, found a Chinese officer in the
middle and told my friends. They relaxed,
smiled. The Chinese officer, his interpreter and a guard closed in on us. They
were worried. "The Japs," they said, and
pointed north and east, "are very close."
Root and I held a little confab. We decided it would be best to burn the ship,
destroy everything possible, and then get
out away from the village. The Chinese
officer promised to help us in every way
and left a guard with us while he went
off to report our position and try to get
some relief ship to take us away.
He had no sooner reached the edge of
the village when two Jap fighter planes
FEBRUARY,
1957
Landing
InChina
streaked overhead, peeled off for an attack. We hit the dirt in a shallow ditch
about 50 or 60 yards from the Superfortress. The Zero came in first, strafed the
whole left side of the ship, swooped up
in a screaming climb. And then the Oscar
dove in. We hugged the ground closer as
dirt, flowers and mud were splattered up
over us in the ditch from stray bullets.
Two more passes each and the fighters
sped away.
There was a small fire in the ship. Root
and two enlisted men went in to save a
series of maps for us and complete the
destruction
of secret equipment
in this
latest and biggest of all America's bombers. We stood idly by when suddenly the
Chinese called out again, "Ching Pao," and
a distant bell in the village rang urgently.
We looked up and saw this time 15 Jap
ships six bombers and nine fighters
headed our way. We made for the ditch
a~ain, spread out, and frighteningly waited. The fighters peeled off first, all getting in a sound straffing and then they
went up to cover for the bombers. Old
293 was a sitting duck for these twinengined jobs, a great big wounded duck,
sitting in the middle of a green grassy
field. Yet, tho these six bombers dropped
24 bombs of about 100-pound calibre, only
one bomb was a direct hit.
We stayed on in the ditch for a long
while after that, but by noon the Japs
must have felt they had done all the
damage they could. They were determined
to get that plane and anything living in it.
They did a fair job on the plane, which
was blazing with fires all over it. They
saved us the job of destroying it ourselves.
With the help of the Chinese officer and
his men we sneaked out to a little farmhouse near the village and made plans.
We thought first of splitting into two parties and getting away at night. The Chinese were still troubled by the thought of
a Jap raiding party or even paratroops
coming in. But in the meantime
they
treated us marvelously.
They fed us royally, gave us beds to rest in, put a guard
around the house, kept away all unwanted
visitors.
That night the Chinese officer reported
that he had contacted a fighter strip 120
miles to the south and west where arrangements had been made to pick us up
the following day. At four the next morning we arose, walked over to the ship for
the last farewells (there were tears in the
eyes of some of the crew members), and
clambered on Chinese horses for a twomile ride to where the Chinese bus waited
to take us away.
By two that afternoon a B-25 landed
and almost without turning off the engines, took us off. Late that night we
were back at our base.
-THE
END
9
Under Chinese
Communists
Struggle In Tibet
From The Calcutta Statesman
ITH STARTLING suddenness came the
news that Alo Chondze, a Mimang
leader recently imprisoned by the Chinese
at Lhasa, had arrived in Kalimpong after
his release. Accompanying
him was Jayang Dawa, another leader who had been
in jail for 21 months before being released.
In the recent past, news about Tibet had
been reaching us in fitful driblets. Culled
from various sources, the news was often
exaggerated,
sometimes full of con.fusion.
This was perhaps the first occaSlOn on
which two leaders of the people-men
who were actively associated with recent
happenings in the land of closed frontiers
-could
be interviewed personally.
Alo Chondze is a medium-sized
man
with. the eyes of a philosopher: and the
well-knit compact body of a soldIer. Hardly a political leader, was my first impression of him. "I am no politician," he jokingly answered my query, "just an ordinary trader
whom circumstances
have
moulded into a resistance leader. We Tibetans are a peaceful people, bearing no
one a grudge, nor with any inclination
to covet what is not ours. For two years
we suffered humiliation
and the oppression of our conquerors. Then our spirits
rebelled. In 1951 the Mimang came into
existence. It was not a political maneuver
nor was it a preconceived plan; it was a
spontaneous outburst of national feeling,
a fight for our independence."
When I questioned Alo Chondze abo~t
the events leading to his arrest, he saId
that lately there had been much unrest
all over Tibet, especially in Lhasa, following the Chinese government's
announcement of the impending formation of an
autonomous region of Tibet within China.
When the preparatory committee had been
set up disturbances
in Tibet, especially
Lhasa took a serious turn, while leaflets
and posters began to appear in Lhasa
condemning the committee and all it stood
for. In December 1955 there was an angry
demonstration
in Lhasa against General
Chang Kuo-hua
when he came to inaugurate the preparatory committee. After
this demonstration
the Chinese started a
wave of arrests in Lhasa.
On February 29, 1956, Chinese soldiers
in large numbers armed with machine
W
10
Political
Prisoner
Escapes to India
To Tell His Story
guns surrounded Alo Chondze's house and
a posse of Tibetan policemen accompanying the troops entered his house and arrested him without a warrant. Bhoomthang Drunyee
and Lapchuk,
two other
prominent Mimang leaders; were simultaneously arrestEd and the three of them
were placed in a special jail, but in separate rooms. He was ultimately released
with Bhoomthang
Drunyee
on August
29, exactly six months after their arrest.
Lapchuk in the meantime
had died in
jail.
After staying in Ll;1asa for a month and
ten days, Chondze started for India with
four others. By devious routes they arrived in Kathmandu
and later in Kalimpong. "I am not a refugee seeking asylum
in India," he assured me. "I will return
to Lhasa after my mission here is finished." His main purpose was to seek an
interview with Mr. Nehru and plead for
intervention
in Tibet's affairs. He would
also like to tell the free world about actual
conditions in Lhasa.
Describing present conditions in Lhasa
as alarming, Chondze said that prices had
shot up in some cases to 30 times their
level before the Chinese invasion. There
was a large force of Chinese troops surrounding Lhasa at four strategic pointsPedin, Northolinga,
Tship and Drabjethang. At all these points there were
heavy concentrations
of arms and ammunition, tanks and troops. He estimated
that in Lhasa alone there were 35,000
fully-equipped
troops. The aerodrome at
Damshung was the scene of much activity,
with Chinese planes landing and taking
off, presumably
bringing in supplies of
arms and ammunition. Lhasa was virtually under military occupation. Chondze
also alleged that about 800 convicts, mostly robbers and murderers,
had recently
been released from jail by the Chinese
and some had been given administrative
posts.
-THE
END.
EX-CBI ROUNDUP
r
--------------------------To
Chinese Interpreter
• The article on Kunming
and Maj. Keppler's letter in
the January
issue really
took me back to my days in
Kunming
and Tsuyung.
I
was born and raised in that
area. I was the youngest of
four children
which Miss
Cornelia
Morgan
adopted
and served under the U. S.
Army as a volunteer
interpreter. I also helped Maj.
Keppler when his own interpreter was away. I often
served as unofficial guide
to the GI's, not charging for
my services-usually
in exchange for a free jeep ride.
Through the GI's I learned
to drive a jeep and also a
6x6 truck as well. When I
left Kunming
in 1946 the
last group of GI's there was
the graves registration unit.
I went on to Shanghai and
took a job under the A.A.G.
in Nanking. I was offered
a job with the graves registration unit but I had my
heart set on coming to the
U.S.A. During my days with
the GI's I was treated as one
and I recall asking many
times if I cou!d join the
U. S. Army. Now I'm planning to enlist in the U. S.
Air Force, so I think they
will make a GI of me yet!
Would like to hear from
anyone I knew in China.
MICHAEL KAN,
Chicago, Ill.
The
Editor
IND.lANS WASHING
(or should
we soy beoting)
behInd
Barrackpore
Air Base.
Photo by Richard
South Jersey Basha?
• I have rounded up about
a dozen fellows who served
in CBI and we have a gett~gether once a month in my
sIgn shop. I believe we will
eventually find enough from
this South Jersey area to
form a Basha.
WALTER L. CARRE,
Sewell, N. J.
Chicago Basha Party
• A Children's
Christmas
Party was held Dec. 9th for
members
of the Chicago
Basha. John Platt, the internationally
famous magician and a member of the
Chicago Basha presented his
magic act.
DANTE BARCELLA
Chicago, Ill.
'
THEY DON'T
FEBRUARY,
1957
Hsiokwan,
China.
No well-
in the
pond
Philadelphia Basha
• Twenty CBI-ers attending the founding
meeting
of the new Philadelphia
Basha. We voted to constitute ourselves
a membership committee with myself
as chairman, Len Orlando,
recording secretary, Carroll
Bechtel as Finance Officer.
Our next meeting will be
held Jan. 24th, 7:30 p.m., at
Smylies Restaurant,
Roosevelt Blvd. and Rhaun St.,
Philadelphia. Anyone in the
Philadelphia
area interesting in joining our group,
please contact me. We are
certain
membership
will
grow.
HALDOR R. REINHOLT,
6803 No. Broad,
Phila .. 26, Pa.
er
CROWDED STREET in the market
ploce at
dressed people here. Photo by J. W. Reppel.
clothes
Ingles.
sex
in
CALL them
India!
Even
the
weak-
an
empty
steel gasoline
drum is a heavy load.
Photo at Asansol,
by Nick Katsaras.
11
How we took
~'!l!l}ffoon
~
~
"""
From
~~
///
::::-::~~£
Phoenix,
~- -
May
-
1945
By Crosby Maynard
AIR ATTACK
"WELL,
GENTLEMEN, as you may have
surmised, this is it!"
The speaker was a tall, soft-spoken Intelligence Captain of the USAAF; the time
2350 on the night of May 2, the place the Intelligence office of a bomber squadron of the 7th Bomb Group, a B-24 outfit
long and justly famed for their rude disruption of Japanese
communications
in
Burma.
The officer paused to let his words sink
in. (He had said "This is it!" with the air
of a man who had been waiting a long
time to find a really appropriate occasion
on which to use a corny phrase).
A hundred-odd pilots, bombardiers, navigators and air crew members settled on
the long benches and waited. They would
man an element of Liberators that night.
Most of them smoked, slowly and quietly.
As is generally
the case with bomber
crews, there was a notable absence of the
"50 mission, hot-pilot" caps and other sartorial niceties so dear to Hollywood. The
hundred-odd looked en masse, like a group
of garage mechanics who had just finished
a hard and dirty day.
The Intelligence officer continued, in a
clear, level, unemotional voice: "The target tonight," he said, "will ce a five-gun,
dual purpose 75mm battery on the Rangoon river. Tomorrow morning, 0700, is
H-hour, of D-Day. You will be flying in
close support of a large combined land and
naval operation which will take Rangoon
from the Japanese."
12
He explained the importance of the target, told why a flight of 10 B-24's had been
assigned the destruction of an acre of land.
The guns there, he said, enfiladed a vital
turn of the Rangoon river, could raise hell
with incoming landing craft.
"Secondary targets, none," he said. "Targets of opportunity-none.
The target will
be destroyed."
The target some 800 miles
away across the Bay of Bengal, the size of
a radish patch, would be destroyed. Further,
it would be destroyed not earlier than 0630
and not later thari 0645.
The air crews sat quietly, hunched over,
occasionally whispered.
They s t i r red,
changed positions, lit cigarettes.
"The weather," said Intelligence, "is not
so hot."
This was an understatement,
and most
of the crews knew it. From north of the
Andaman Islands, to far up the coast of
Burma-directly
on the line of the mission
-there
was a pre-monsoon "front," replete
with rain, turbulence, and everything else
that makes for difficult flying, night or
day. Most of the crews had flown through
the same weather front the night before.
It had been no picnic. There were whispered murmurs, mostly profane.
The briefing concluded. "There is reason to believe that the Japs have, to some
extent, evacuated Rangoon. There is also
reason to believe that they will resist this
attack to the best of their ability."
The chaplain took over, read from The
Psalms. The air crews raised bowed heads
and spilled out into the night, climbed onto waiting trucks, moved off toward the
dispersal areas.
From dozens of points, hundreds of miles
apart, aircraft of the USAAF and the RAF
droned through the night, Rangoon-bound.
The hulking, slab - sided B - 24's of the
squadron bulled their way across the Bay
of Bengal, first in bright moonlight, then
through thickening overcast, finally into
the heart of the "front." The rains of May
in Burma slashed and crashed against the
pilot's windshield. Vertical lightning showed the peaks of towering thunderheads.
The huge airplanes lurched and yawed and
pounded on.
EX-CEl ROUNDUP
r
------------------------How
At 0605 the lead plane made landfall
over the wet, green, cloud-daubed Burma
coast, turned a few degrees south, headed
for the mouth of the Rangoon river. The
inter-com suddenly came to life. Out of
the drifting overcast, company began to
arrive. First one, then two, then four, and
then more Liberators churned their inexorable way toward the target.
At 0627, the Initial Point (center of rendezvous) was reached.
The pilot of the
lead plane made a lazy 360-degree turn
and then, at 063010, the run to the target
began-IO
seconds late, after flying half
the night through sticky, stinking weather.
By now, the air was lousy with airplanes. At all altitudes, and on all bearings, familiar Liberators, Mitchells, P-47's,
P-5l's, Beaufighters, and strange unfamiliar planes from the fleet air arm flashed
toward and across the many targets. The
early-morning
mists obscured the lower
river and the bay but everyone knew that
behind that mist the invasion forces were
feeling their way toward the beaches,
backing up the paratroopers who had gone
in the day before.
There were laconic exchanges over the
inter-com.
"Jeez, look at that mess of
fighters. There must be an airfield around
here somewhere."
"What the hell kind of
airplane is that? High, at 100a o'clock."
"There goes the RAF-nice
work."
The pilot and the bombardier exchanged
terse comments, surely to identify the
smallish target and then we were on the
bomb run. Another B-24 crabbed across
the bearing and we circled, started the run
a second time. Suddenly, some 400 yards
to our left, a string of bombs floated by
from above, whammed into a network of
trenches.
There was some quiet cursing of the
unknown bombardier.
We made bomb run number three and
we were still unmolested. (If we had been
CBI LAPEL PINS
Price only SI.00 each
(Screw-on Type)
SEND FOR YOURS
TODAY
They are tiny-only
lh-inch high,
%-inch wide-but
will catch the eye
of any CBI-er you chance to meet.
Ex-CHI Roundup
P. O. Box 1769
FEBRUARY,
1957
Denver
1. Colo.
We
Took
Rangoon
getting the attention from ack-ack that
used to characterize
"The Goon," there
wouldn't have been any third run.) This
time we unloaded. The demolition bombs
were spread precisely across the battery
emplacement. Our altitude was low enough
so that the concussion of our own bombs
crashed and ricochetted off the belly of
the airplane. The time was 0637.
We made a long, slow turn away from
the target.
A watery, tan, sun filtered
through the clouds, touched the glittering
Shwe Dagon pagoda five miles away.
Over the inter-com. someone said; "Is
that Rangoon? Well, I'll be damned! I've
been here five times before and that's the
first time I've ever seen it!"
SEABORNE LANDINGS
By Reg.
Fosler
26 INDIAN Divisions embarked
WHEN
for the long voyage all knew the operation to be full of hazards and operational difficulties and the navy knew it
best of all. They knew the shallow water,
only six fathoms, 10 miles from shore
made the usual bombardment support impractical. They knew the danger and the
difficulties
of lowering
small
assault
crafts in bad weather.
On the last day at sea all were keyed up
in expectation
of. D-Day~ It was not entirely a ple'l.sant outlook. At first weather
restricted the heavy bombers and we did
not know whether the Indian paratroops
had cleared the coastal battery at Elephant
Point. Our parent ship was an invasion
veteran-as
the plaque near the ward
room said; she had carried men to Normandy and the Royal Marine crews manning
the LAC's had landed on beaches before.
Many of the LCl's were veterans of every
Mediterranean
and Normandy
landing,
some with eighteen operations. Salerno,
Anzio, Pantellaria,
Reggio . . . they had
been at them all and now we're out here
in the biggest operation yet undertaken
by South East Asia Command.
Durin!5 the last night, the hours before
the 0030 hours reveille, all was prepared
for the dash to the beaches along Rangoon
river. At the last moment, the weather
turned against us, heavy rain and an unpleasant swell. Over the ship's loudspeaker
came Admiral J. C. (Pincher) Martin's
order of the day to the landing craft crews,
with its "guts and good seamanship" motto
to win the day.
The LeI's were able to run right in, but
our ship had to stem the last few miles
dead slow. Then, in the early hours, we
crowded into the cramped assault craft,
32 men scientifically packed, for the longest trip yet made. We were in those
13
How We Took Rangoon-----------------------crafts for six hours, some of them seasick
hours, all of them wet for monsoon rain
added to the discomfort of the heavy
swell.
But we got there and soon after landing,
in greasy, slippery mud, realized that our
biggest bar to progress was not the Jap.
but the weather.
Vehicles were bogged
down in thick oozy mud which threatened
to drag off your boots. Early assault troops,
some of whom had been warned to take
casualties
in taking the first defenses,
reported no opposition, and in an hour or
two the whole operational
picture was
changed. We knew the Japs had left Rangoon. On the day after D-Day the hastily
rearranged convoy, with men of the Brigade, sailed the remaining miles up Rangoon's quays, now lined by thousands of
wildly cheering
Burmese,
Indians
and
Chinese while somewhere in the leading
craft a piper played. So we came to Rangoon and our bigf?"estcapture yet. Desolate,
bomb damaged, derelict and looted - especially looted-though
it is, Rangoon still
remains a fine-looking city.
The most important aspect of the whole
operation is the opening of the port of
Rangoon. This indeed was the primary aim
of 15 Indian Corps' expedition. Almost the
last demolitions carried out by Japs were
of dock installations,
but already naval
and military engineers are at work restoring these. Within a few days of our
first troops stepping ashore new convoys
were arriving off Monkey Point.
When we sailed it seemed odds of 2-1,
some said 3-1, against our convoy reaching
Rangoon before the 14th Army, whose
progress was followed daily with the interest of a race. But the weather which
made our trip unpleasant also helped us
to win the race.
INTO THE CITY
By F. A. Wheatley
MID THE wreckage of Rangoon, one of
the fairest cities of the East, the citizens walked through the torrential rain of
the morning, still dazed, able to grasp
only one fact-"The
British are back."
Overhead
at 200 feet reared supply-dropping Dakotas of the Eastern Air Command.
In the streets were British and Indian
troops, naval men, RAF personnel,
all
greeted with a salute and a smile-a
smile
that had waited three years.
Rangoon was the strangest city in the
world. Not a shop in the busy business
center was open. But the streets were filled
with
thousands
of excited,
liberated,
Orientals.
Carpeting
the streets
were
Japanese currency notes, sodden by rain.
Little boys ran about waving bundles of
10 rupee notes. People were handing over
A
14
hundreds of Japanese rupees to the incoming troops. You were given Japanese
cigarettes from Java that had cost Rs.
IOn a packet. They tasted good, too. The
Chinese handed cups of tea to you. The
Indians greeted you with the old "salaam."
Almost shamefacedly a few tongas began
to appear.
Business
was soon brisk.
Colonels used them to get to brigade
headquarters.
Naval officers went careening round in them. Soldiers roamed around
with Sten and Tommy guns; but there was
no business today. Crowds gathered quickly and excitedly when one man denounced
another
as a collaborator.
Coolly, the
army listened to the spate of denunciation.
Then the British soldier with a "Come on
chum. Let's see the CO about you" would
walk away the accused man to interrogation. Occasionally explosions showed the
Japs had left behind delayed action bombs.
Rangoon is an ugly sight. It has had four
trials by fire-Japanese
bombing in 1942.
British
denial
during
the evacuation,
Allied bombing to deny its use to the
Japanese, and the final destruction by the
enemy before their retreat.
In an office by the wrecked Soortee
Barra Bazar, I found two Indian traders,
Tacoon Mohamed Modan and Ismail Ebraham Ariff, formerly of Bombay, who remained in Rangoon after the evacuation
of March, 1942. This is what they had to
say of prices under Japanese rule. A motor
car tire cost Rs. 10,000. Three and a half
lakhs were needed to buy a secondhand,
pre-war car of good condition. A tablet of
soap was Rs. 150, haircut was Rs. 100.
The Japanese by flooding the city with
worthless rupee notes, printed on the spot,
asked for inflation - and got it. Their
Tokyo-imported
buying agencies bought
hardware, rice, anything available. If you
refused to sell you were likely to be shot.
If you sold, you got worthless notes at a
Japanese fixed price. Coolies got Rs. 15 a
day, but that 15 rupees were valueless as
the cost of living soared. They had their
toughest time over clothes. Many wore
gunny sacks. Others simply went naked.
One of a family would leave his hovel on
business, return, and hand over his scanty
clothing to another member of the family
so that he could go out.
There was a curfew, which meant you
might get shot at in the dark. For the
first six months of occupation there was a
great deal of face-slapping. Just leave the
King's picture on the wall of one's home
and you were clubbed and the picture was
torn up. English conversation in cafes or
shops was forbidden but almost everyone
refused to learn the Nippongo they taught
in schools. News of the world and of the
war was picked up on secret radios and
EX-CEI
ROUNDUP
-----------------------How
WeTook
Rangoon
from pamphlets dropped by Allied bombPanang in 1933. He gave me a cup of tea,
saying "That used to cost Rs. 30." The
ers. News came, too, by word of mouth
Chinese were forced to belong to the
from village to village. The fall of Mandalay was known 48 hours after it hap- . Overseas Chinese Assn., formed by J appened.
anese to see that Chinese cooperated and
kept the peace. "They were mad on spies
Rangoon's water supply line has been
and spying," he said. "When the Japs
cut by bombing. All the water is being
tortured
you, you returned
home and
drawn from wells. "The bombing of the
never said where you'd been or what had
dumps by Victoria Lake was very efhappened."
fective," said these two Indian traders,
"but the finest bombing was when B-29's
"The RAF bombing
was wonderful.
hit Malagon railway yards last November.
There was almost no damage in ChinaThe Central Station, too, is devastated."
town, despite the fact we're so near the
wharves. We used to see British prisoners
In Chinatown, I found Khoo Bong Sum,
working on those wharves, but if we were
head clerk in the general department
of
caught even giving them a friendly nod
the Indo-Burma Petroleum Company bewe were slapped and beaten."
fore the Japanese invasion. He came from
-THE END
"Ganga
Risala"
The Story of Bikaner's
Camel Corps
By Capt.
C.L.Proudfoot
From
the Calcutta
Statesman
ANY THOUSANDS of excited spectators have seen men. of the Ganga
Risala march past in the Republic Day
Parades in Delhi, resplendent in full dress
uniform, astride their gaily caparisoned
camels. But to few of those watching
thousands, do the camel troops mean more
than a sight of the moment, an exciting,
unsual phalanx in the spectacular parade
that passes today-and
tomorrow is forgotten. Which, of course, is incorrect, as
the Camel Corps plays an important and
effective part in India's defense.
For it must be remembered
that the
greater part of India's western land border
runs through the great Thar Desert, and
in these sandy waterless wastes wheeled
vehicles cannot function off the roads.
Man by himself in this desert is a plaything of death and soon becomes food
for the carrion vulture; but a man and a
camel! Here is a combination
that can
move easily over long distance, not very
swiftly it is true, but surely and quietly;
move and fight.
It was for just such a purpose as this
that the Camel Corps was raised by the
Ruler of Bikaner State, in the heart of
the Rajputana Desert, in 1889, and named
after the late General, His Highness Maharaja Ganga Sinhji Bahadur. In 1901 the
Maharaja and his Risala sailed to China
with an Indian Expeditionary
Force and
saw action against the Boxers, bringing
back with them rare trophies that grace
the regiment's quarterguard
to this day.
Again in the 1914-18 war, the Ganga Risala
saw service overseas when it went into
action against the Turks in the Kantara
area and inflicted heavy casualties for the
negligible loss of one Indian officer, 12
other ranks and 18 camels.
M
FEBRUARY.
1957
Throughout the remaining period of the
war the Ganga Risala remained an important part of the E~yptian forces and
was especially entrusted with guarding the
long hnes of communications, and later in
patroling the 250 miles of coastline.
In
World War II, the Risala served in Aden
from September
1940 to November 1942
during which period the forces made an
extensive reconnaissance of over 200 miles
of the hitherto unrecorded interior of the
protectorate. A detachment of the Risala
was included in the striking force that recaptured British Somaliland, and with the
entry of Japan into the 'War took over the
responsibility of guarding the long beaches against enemy action. For long and
useful service in Aden the commanding
officer, Lt. Col. Khem Singh, was awarded the O. B. E.
But in India in 1942 the Hurs under
the Pir of Pigaro had started
the i r
religious rising; they carried out swift
sorties in Sind and after murder
and
pillage retired to hideouts in the trackless Thar Desert. Martial law was declared and more than a brigade of troops
was assigned to suppress the rising, but
without success. Then someone thought
of the Ganga Risala and it was brought
back from Aden in December 1942 and
given the job of settling this troublesome
business in early 1943. This the Risala
set about with gusto, and within a few
months
the dunes
were cleared
and
problem ceased to exist.
On the merging of the State Forces
with the Indian Army, part of the Ganga
Risala was disbanded for a short while
but aIm 0 s t immediately
amalgamated
(with most of its former officers and men)
with the newly-raised Jaisalmer Risala, so
that when it eventually became affiliated
to one of the regiments of the' Regular
Army its name became the 13th Grenadiers (Ganga Jaisalmer).
-THE END
15
Sukkur Supply
Depot
Middle of l\Iowhere
By Ray McCaffrey
Y
OU'VE OFTEN heard the expression
"in the middle of nowhere," usually a
description of some deserted town or site.
In CBI there were many places thusly described, but none more fitting than the
U.S. Army Depot at Sukkur, India, now
part of West Pakistan.
In mid summer of 1942, the U.S. Army,
operating out of Base Depot NO.1 at Karachi, established a supply depot at a desert town called Sukkur (pronounced sucker). The community lies about 250 miles
north of Karachi and some 200 miles south
of Lahore, in the center of the blazing
Sind Desert. Temperatures
as high as 127
degrees at midday are not uncommon.
The nearest large city from Sukkur is
Hyderabad, 150 miles s~lUth on the Northwest Railway. The raIlhead for Sukkur
was Rohri, across the Indus River. A spur
from Rohri bridged the Indus and wound
its way into Quetta, a hill station 200
miles west.
The original mission of the depot at
Sukkur, as far as could be determined,
reflected the early logistical indecision of
the 1942 period. It will be recalled just a
few months previous Stilwell made his
famous walkout of Burma. The planning
thereafter
ran along these lines to establish a supply depot for the "Hamid
Route."
The Hamid Route was one which would
carry the Chinese lend-lease supplies via
rail from Sukkur into Zahidan, Iran, the
end of the line. From there the materiel
would have been carried via the ancient
silk caravan route, eastward to China. This
was the fantastic plan borne of desperation to supply the Chinese with war materials after the Japanese forced the closing of the old Burma Road.
Much of the equipment at the Sukkur
depot when I arrived to assume command
was still marked with "Hamid" stencils.
But, of course, the Hamid Project met an
early death when the Ledo Road plan was
substituted.
The early depot commanders at Sukkur
included a Capt. Page, who was the first.
M/Sgt. Herbert Mosely of Chicago was
among the earliest arrivals and stayed
about 30 months. Mosely admirably adapted himself to the climate and circumstances and was of tremendous value in
the depot functions.
16
I arrived at Sukkur in October, 1944, replacing 1st Lt. Isadore Princethal,
then
commander. He had been there about a
year and was overjoyed to be replaced, as
likewise was I about ten months later!
The depot site was an enclosed railway
yard about 1,000-feet long by 300-feet
wide, sizzling in the desert sun. A contingent of 18 Gurkha guards made up the
protecting
force. Four Chinese civilians
from the China lend-lease organization in
Karachi assisted at the depot since most
of the supplies were destined for China.
A labor force of 150 to 200 coolies did the
actual loading, unloading
and storage.
This was handled through a local labor
contractor, one Rajput Kapur, a wily Hindu. We had no trouble attracting labor as
the Yank scale was considerably
higher
than the British.
Materiel stored at the depot included
thousands of oil drums, steel rods, engineering equipment and some raw materials
for China. When the Hamid mission was
abandoned, the depot's function became
that of a reserve supply depot, handling
the overflow from BaS'e Depot No. 1 in
Karachi.
Gradually, as the Ledo Road opened up,
and the Japs were pushed back in Burma,
the flow of supplies tended to be diverted
into Calcutta and Karachi, and Sukkur's
mission dwindled. By spring of 1945 the
activity had considerably diminished, and
in June Base Depot No. l's personnel entrainei to Calcutta before moving up to
China shortly before the war ended.
The lack of American personnel in Sukkur made life along the lines of a solitary
existence. There was only Sgt. Mosely and
myself! However, we joined the small
circle of British Colonials to help keep
ourselves occupied. In retrospect, I saw
the end of British Colonial life at close
hand, after so long in India.
In fairness, Sukkur was interesting filled with small time Colonial offices and
officials. There was Capt. Doc Taylor,
chief of police, who was responsible for
British rule over a large radius surrounding Sukkur; Mr. Richard Birkett, the railway stationmaster;
Peter Cargill, the revenue officer. who came up frequently from
Karachi.
There
was a true Scotsman
named John Crosby, keeper of the Sukkur
Barrage. one of the largest dams in India
at that time, astride the Indus River, feeding irrigation water to a portion of the
EX-CBI ROUNDUP
-------------------------Middle
very dry Sind Desert.
It was a pleasant interlude at the end
of a hot day to jump in the jeep and set
out along some of the canal roads leading
from the dam. Along the banks of the
canal was some excellent game shooting
- pig, jackals, etc.
I remember vividly how Mosely and I
planned Christmas dinner in 1944. We decided weeks ahead to plan a good dinner
by locally procuring a goose.
However, Christmas Eve came and with
it a rail order from New Delhi, ordering us
Supply For
The Burma Airlift
From I.B
Roundup,
April
5, 1945
BURMA AIRLIFT,
backbone
of
THETheater
aerial and ground combat
supply prior to the completion of the Ledo
Road, is still a lusty carrier of the sinews
of war in the southward cqmpaign against
the Japs.
Starting at scratch in the supply bashas
of Upper Assam, 'a Roundup correspondent
traced the scheme of aerial logistics recently and found that though the targets
of supply in the heart of Burma are more
exciting, the fountainhead
of supply, and
the men who do the trick are solidly interesting.
It goes like this: Air Service Command
and SOS (depending upon which infielder
fields the supply ball); to Combat Cargo
Command; to Tactical Air Squadron or
A viation Engineers or Ground Forces.
In bamboo-poled
godowns in the tea
gardens, the men of Lt. Col. George P.
Kiene's Air Service Group (the 44th) were
rounding up the material on the morning
of Roundup
observation.
Certain bashas
had Signal Corps wire and other electrical
equipment, and there supply soldiers T/Sgt. Joseph P. Stallings and Cpl. Jack
Virzi were on the job directing Indian
Army troops in loading the liaison truck
which would later show up at the monitoring tent on the airfield, the "Hq. of the
Burma Express," run in most departments
by blond, determined S/Sgt. Jack W. Hall.
It was Hall's work to keep in constant
touch with Capt. Henry W. Moody, ASC
man, and the S-4 of the outfit, Maj. R. W.
Hagenbuch who decided which materials
had priority; for instance, gasoline, oil,
bombs, ammunition,
Air Corps technical
supply items, signal or aviation engineering equipment
and supplies.
Hall kept
the trucks moving to the right airplanes,
bossed the laborers, and generally aided
the pilots of Combat Cargo Command to
do a job uncluttered by ground details.
FEBRUARY,
1957
ofNowhere
to ship immediately
27 wagons (freight
cars) to Tinsukia, Assam. We worked likf~
beavers straight through Christmas Dav
and the day after, and finally had ou'r
Christmas dinner on December 27th.
Few CBI-ers had ever heard of th('
Army depot at Sukkur, since not many
had the occasion to visit the installation
If General Pick had not been assigned to
build the Ledo Road, Sukkur might haw'
grown to enormous proportions and the
name might have had the same significance today as Ledo, Shingbwiyang
and
Myitkyina.
-THE
END.
In other locations at the ASC Group,
men were getting complete engines ready
for shipment, assembling drums of asphalt,
and some of these workers were Sgt. Clifford A. Shinolt, Cpl. Beverly O. Scott, Sgt.
Arthur J. Floyd, S/Sgt. Leo T. Bell, S/Sgt.
W. H. McCusker, Cpl. Willard R. Sorenson, among many others on duty at the
time.
Near Hall's tent on the loading apron,
Cpl. Joseph J. Thompson directed crews
of Indian laborers in lining up dumps of
supplies and in loading such C-47's as the
Myrt 'N Mike, piloted by Lt. W. M. Sims,
Jr., and co-piloted by FlO John F. Donahue, Jr., and the Boots, piloted by Lt.
Henry Sander and co-piloted by Lt. C. C.
Joss.
Some of the ASC met1 on the airlift job
who mingle with the flying personnel of
Com-Car and get a great time out of it,
are Pvt. William Guess, Pvt. Ralph Kavanagh, Pfc. Philip Rifkin, Sgt. Calvin Pruitt, Cpl. Donald Aukes and S/Sgt. John
Morrow.
Once the cargo is aboard and lashed
securely, the C-47's start the milk run
without ceremony, and by now the pilots
have memorized most of the ridges of the
Patkai
"fence" separating
Assam from
Burma. the flats and ridges of the Hukawng Valley and the jungle-covered plain
of Myitkyina Valley leading on down the
Road to Mandalay and the advanced airstrips.
According to the radio operators, sometimes the ships go most of the way by
instruments
and end up by "nosing
around" for their airfield. The radio men,
incidentally,
have more experience than
some of the pilots, for they stick to their
earphones steady, while fliers are rotated
home on the basis of so many operational
hours and according to the physical condition of the man.
In this way, radio operators and air crew
flight engineers are frequently
sweating
out the ideosyncracies of new pilots, some
fresh from the States and new to the monsoon-ridden cloud lands over the teak and
palm jungles of Kipling's kingdom.
17
out of school who fight in Able Company
of the Rockinghamshire
Regiment.
Edited
by BOYD
SINCLAIR
LAUGHTER
IS A WONDERFUL
THING.
By Joe E. Brown as told to Ralph Hancock. 320
pages. A. S. Barnes and Company, New York,
1956. $4.95.
.
The life story of the famed comedian,
who will be long remembered
by many
CBI-wallahs for his entertainment
in their
war. His war entertainment is covered, but
remember the book covers his whole life
and, therefore, many other subjects.
I WAS CHAPLAIN ON THE FRANKLIN.
By Father Joseph O'Callahan. 153 pages. The
Macmillan Company, New York, 1956. $2.75.
Remember the aircraft carrier almost
demolished by Jap bombs in 1945? The
author, who was chaplain,. tells of the experience. Medal of Honor winner, the author was termed "the bravest man I ever
knew" by Admiral Leslie E. Gehres.
CLASSIC
COOKING
FROM INDIA. By
Dharam Jit Singh. 278 pages. Houghton Mifflin
Company, Boston, 1956. $4.
Together with the recipes of traditional
Indian dishes, the author explains the
origins of the foods and weaves in discussions of his country in general. First
book on Indian cooking to come to our
notice in several years.
BATTLE
HYMN. By Dean Hess. 246 pages.
McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1956.
$3.95.
The writer, now an Air Force colonel,
tells how he gave up the ministry to become a fighter pilot in World War II and
the Korean conflict. He was instrumental
in saving Korean war orphans. By the
time you read this, it will be a movie.
CANTON BARRIER. By Andrew Geer. 28Z
pages. Harper and Brothers, New York, 1956.
$3.50.
An adventure novel, the story of a reckless Yankee flier in war-torn China who
has sold his skill to the highest bidder.
The time is 1949, and other characters are
a missionary doctor and an Eurasian girl.
ABLE COMPANY.
By D. J. Hollands. 490
pages. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston,
1956. $4.50.
A long novel about the Korean war,
written by a young English veteran of 24.
The characters are young Englishmen just
18
THE SAINTS
OF SIND. By Peter Mayne.
254 pages. Doubleday and Company, Garden
City, New York, 1956. $375.
The author's search for those hired, selfappointed Moslem saints who flourish in
lower Pakistan. The author, who was a
British flier in India during World War
II, deals with both past and present.
THE CALL OF THE MINARET.
By Kenneth Cragg. 391 pages. Oxford University Press,
New York, 1956. $6.Z5.
The author, a professor of Arabic and
Islamics, deals with the place of Islam in
the modern world. His study deals with
the extent and dimensions of the Moslem
world in addition to the political.
KOREANS
ARE WHITE.
By Wladimir
Mitkewich. 44 pages. Meador Publishing Company, Boston, 1956. $Z.
An attempt to prove Koreans are members of the "white" race by trying to show
that they originated from the Greeks. The
author spent a year as an engineer in
Korea.
.
GAUT AM A. By Shakuntala Srivastava. 118
pages. The Macmillan Company, New York,
1956. $/.50.
A treatment
of the life of Gautama
Siddhartha, the Indian prince who founded
Buddhism 500 years before Christ. He forsook his position for that of a mendicant
in the search of enlightenment.
JAKATA
TALES. By Ethel B?swick. 114
pages. Transatlantic Arts. Hollywood-by-theSea, Florida, 1956. $Z.Z5.
A retelling of birth stories told by the
Buddha of the births he has experienced
into previous lives. The 35 stories included deal primarily with his life in the
animal world.
MOSCOW AND THE COMMUNIST
PARTY OF INDIA. By John Kautsky. ZZO pages.
John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1956. $6.
A study of the postwar evolution of international Communist strategy. The study
ranges from 1946 to 1951 and shows corresponding changes executed by the Communist party of India. Helps you understand world Communism.
INTERVAL
IN INDOCHINA.
By Andrew
Graham. 178 pages. Saint Martin's Press, New
York, 1956. $2.95.
Memoirs of two years in Southeast Asia
during the Indochina war. The author is
an officer of the Welsh Guards who served
as an assistant military attache at the
British legation in Vietnam, Cambodia,
and Laos.
EX-CEl
ROUNDUP
India's Fabulous
From
The Calcutta
Statesrr.an
By Caro Basil
6, 1628, Prince KhurONram,FEBRUARY
son of Emperor Jahangir,
ascended the Moghul throne assuming the
title, Shah Jahan - "The King of the
World."
Two problems immediately
confronted
the new monarch; elimination of his rival
brothers and capture of the treasury. The
first he overcame with his usual ruthlessness; the second proved hardly any problem at all, for the terrified
ministers
simply handed over to him the great keys
of the Imperial treasury in Agra.
Immediately after his enthronement the
new Emperor visited the treasury,
and
we can well imagine with what rapture
he must have contemplated
the vast
wealth
which transcended
his wildest
imagination.
The treasure,
in gold and
silver together with an incredible quantity
of precious stones, was stored in two great
underground
vaults. We may perhaps
assume that while taking stock of this
newly acquired fortune the "King of the
World" conceived the idea of constructing
the most fabulous throne in the worldThe Peacock Throne.
No doubt the talented and skilled artisans, Austin of Bordeaux and Geronimo
Veroneo, were consulted on the project,
and the supervision of the work was entrusted to the care of Bebdal Khan and
the court jewelers. The throne was completed in six years-nearly
one-third the
time it took to build the Taj Mahal.
This piece of sheer barbaric ostentation
was in the form of a bedstead six feet
long, four feet wide and about two feet
high. It rested upon four legs of solid
gold and was ascended by a short flight
of silver steps. Its enamelled canopy, supported by 12 slender pillars, was encrusted
with emeralds and pearls. But the most
magnificent feature of the throne was the
back which was adorned with two open
peacock's tails composed of diamonds, rubies and sapphires. Flanking the jeweled
tails were two small trees with flowers
of gold inlaid with precious stones.
Jean de Thevenot,
the 17th century
French traveller, mentions the throne in
his "Indian Travels."
"I should describe that stately throne
of massive gold with its peacocks so
FEBRUARY,
1957
much talked of in the Indies. It is said
to be worth above 20 millions of gold,
but who can know the value thereof
since it depends on the stones that make
the riches as well as the beauty thereof,
whose weight and excellence must be
particularly examined if one would judge
of their worth and by consequence of
the value of the throne."
Giovanni Careri, another traveller
in
India, described the throne as "all over
set with diamonds, emeralds, rubies and
sapphires; especially the pearls on the 12
pillars which close the three sides are
beyond all that can be imagined. Then
the roof of it and all other parts is so
orderly enriched with jewels of inestimable value all found within the Empire,
that some make the value of it to rise
to 50 millions, but in reality it is not to be
valued."
When completed it was placed in a
recess in the back wall of the Diwan-i-Am
or Hall of Public Audience. "The King,"
writes Tavernier, "seats himself on the
richest of the thrones and then all the
nobility of the kingdom come to salute
him and make him presents."
"The richest of the thrones," however,
presented one problem for Shah Jahan.
The Koran expressly forbade the representation of any bird, animal or human
forms lest undue adoration be paid to
them, notwithstanding
which the Emperor
took possession of th~ throne in March
1635 during the celebration of the vernal
equinox.
For over a century the Peacock Throne
remained
the pride and glory of the
Moghuls. But the first quarter of the 18th
century saw the wealth of the Moghul
Empire dangling like ripe fruit before the
eyes of rapacious neighboring kingdoms.
Then in 1738 the Moghul orchards were
raided. Nadir Shah, the greatest warrior
Persia has ever produced, found pretexts
to invade India. The Moghul Emperor,
Mohammed Shah, who was said to be
"never without a mistress in his arms
and a glass in his hand," offered no
serious resistance and the invader entered
Delhi in triumph. During his two months'
stay in the Imperial capital Nadir Shah
systematically
plundered
and looted its
wealth-the
accumulation
of three centuries and a half. The splendid Peacock
Throne was the very first object of value
he laid predatory hands on. Nor was he
content with that alone. He purloined the
Koh-i-Noor
diamond and proceeded to
strip the Hall of Audience of its silver
ceiling, converting it into coins worth 17
lakhs of rupees. When he finally left
India he took with him the Peacock
Throne and treasure estimated at over
$200 million.
-THE
END.
19
9.5 lakhs in the State's second plan for
development of the State's University into a teaching and residential university.
NEW DELHI-India
will have a new
New Year's Day this year-on
March 22when .the uniform national calendar recommended by the Calendar Reform Committee is adopted.
KARACHI-The
Chinese Prime Minister, Chou En-Iai has accepted the Pakistani Premier's invitation to visit his country and will do so in the near future.
CALCUTTA - Shouting "Nehru-Nasser
Zindabad"
and "Anglo-French
imperialism quit Asia and Africa," about 300 men
in a procession demonstrated
before the
office of the French Consul-General
in
Park Street and the U. K. High Commission in Harrington Street on Nov. 10.
KARACHI - About 8,000
students
demonstrated
in
"Anglo-French
aggression in
lice dispersed the crowd with
anti-British
protest
of
Egypt." Potear gas.
NEW DELHI - Tibet's sheltered Dalai
Lama, spiritual leader of 3,000,000 persons, arrived here Nov. 25th to take part
in India's celebrations to mark the 2,500th
birthday of Buddha. It is the Dalai Lama's
first visit to India, made in a Russian-built
jeep for the first 500 miles, then crossing
the 14.000-foot Nathula Pass on the Tibetan-Sikkim border on horseback.
NEW DELHI - Passenger air service
between India and the Soviet Union is
now available as result of an agreement
between the Indian Airlines Corporation
and Aeroflot, a USSR airline. Passengers
change planes at Kabul, Afghanistan.
SHILLONG - The North East Frontier Agency has drawn plans for construction of a chain of airfields in the course
of the next five years to maintain link
with hill areas in Upper Assam.
NEW DELHI-Closer
contact with large
sections of India's 20 million tribal population will be possible with the establishment of two more stations of the Union
Government's
Department
of Anthropology in Northern and Southern India.
CALCUTTA - Thousands
of devout
Hindus, mostly women, bathed in the
Ganga in Calcutta Dec. 1st on occasion
of Churamaniyoga,
synchronizing with a
partial eclipse of the sun. Many people
also abstained
from eating during the
eclipse.
SRINAGAR-The
Jammu and Kashmir
Government has made a provision of Rs.
20
KARIMGANJ-The
Assam Government
is examining the possibilities of setting up
a number of small-scale paper mills in
the State.
LAHORE - Pakistan's
Prime Minister
declared here that in the event of war
the U.S.A. was "bound to come to the aid
of Pakistan."
NEW DELHI - A service for the exchange of registered postal articles by the
surface route has been introduced
between India and the People's Republic of
China.
LAHORE-Oil
has been struck in the
Mazar-i-Sharif
region of Northern
Afghanistan,
according to a Kabul radio
broadcast monitored in Peshawar.
KARACHI-Mr.
Din Mohammed, Pakistan's advisor on Kashmir affairs, claimed
here that the "Americans overwhelmingly supported" Pakistan's stand on Kashmir. Mohammed based his statement on
a recent meeting with former President
Truman who expressed to Mohammed his
support for a "free plebiscite" in Kashmir.
SHILLONG -Fire-fighting
arrangements are virtually non-existent in towns
of Assam because of meager finances. The
State Government
plans action due to
numerous fires reported' in the past year.
CHERRAPUNJI-The
traditional "wettest spot on earth," which gets an annual
rainfall average of about 600 inches, has
gone dry following the monsoon season.
From Oct. 1 to Dec. 13 the total rainfall
was just 12.6 inches.
NEW DELHI-An
American tourist, Dr.
Reese Patterson, who obtained permission
to study cataract surgery at a hospital in
Northern India, praised the wonderful hospitality of the Indian people. At the same
time the doctor said, "Utter confusion,
bewilderment and dismay characterize the
tourist's reaction to the complicated and
endless array of police registrations with
probation-like
reporting
of one's movements." The difficult and time-consuming
process for obtaining a Kashmir permit,
the doctor said, robs many visitors of the
pleasure of seeing this beautiful region.
CALCUTTA-Thirty
out of over 2;000
East Pakistan refugees who had recently
been declared vagrants by the West Bengal Government
and are being accommodated
in an unused film studio in
Tollygunge,
have died during the past
month. Over 80 persons, including 49 suspected of suffering from cholera, have
been admitted to the hospital.
EX-CBI ROUNDUP
~.
-------------------------To
The Editor
129th Chemical Co.
• A buddy in the 129th
Chemical Processing
Company, stationed
at Balijan
Siding, Chabua, Upper Assam, for some 19 months,
sent me three issues of the
magazine and I've thoroughly enjoyed
reading
them.
Did not know of the publication before and you can
depend on me as a regular
subscriber from here on out.
RALEIGH VanBRUNT,
Coral Gables, Fla.
General Pick
• You've read, of course,
about General Pick's death.
He was a pretty good guy
as I knew him at Ledo, and
later had lunch with him
when he was headquartered
at Omaha, Nebr. Too bad.
WENDELL DORN,
North Platte, Nebr.
MO_LEM MOSQUE, location
lost to the
anyone help? Photo by Richard Ingles.
man
who took
the
picture
Can
•
Philadelphia Basha
• We've just had our first
organizational
meeting
for
the local CBI Basha with
good results. Would like all
CBI vets in the Philadelphia area to get in touch
with me if interested
in
joining our Basha.
CARROLL S. BECHTEL,
849 N. 16 St.,
Phila. 30, Pa.
Lost C-47 Pilot
• Perhaps
your
readers
may be able to help me to
locate a Stanley Fraser who
was a 1st Lt. in 1945, assigned to a combat cargo
outfit in Assam. I believe
he was a C-47 pilot. I met
Born In Calcutta
Fraser at a night club in
• I've enjoyed reading borDarjeeling
in August
of
rowed copies of Roundup
1945. We had many pleasant
for some time. The articles
hours in Darjeeling and we
reprinted from recent issues
promised to look each other
of The Statesman are most
up aftell the war. I have
interesting
to me as I was CBI-er European Tour
born and raised in Calcutta.
• Say, that European tour long since misplaced or lost
During the war I was secre- idea sounds good! I'd be his address, though I betary to Major Allen Boone glad to join a CBI-er's tour lieve he came from Ohio.
at the Hindmthan
Building. of Europe, something
I've If anyone can help me I
appreciate
I married an American tour- always wanted to see. Must would sincerely
ist after the war and now admit I have no desire what- it.
GEORGE McGLOSTER,
happily settled in California.
soever to go back to India.
Rangely, Colo.
Mrs. ESTHER DOWNING,
HORACE M. SERGI,
San Francisco, Calif.
Bismarck, N. D.
Chinese Feel Worse
• . .. A neighbor who occasionally
looks over my
back issues of R 0 u n d u p
thinks it strange
that we
would want to read a magazine with pictures and stories about China when this
country does not rEcognize
the Red Chinese. I tell him,
as with Russians, we have
nothing against the Chinese
people, only against those
who would take away their
basic freedoms. I had many
good Chinese friends, and I
am sure they are still my
friends. They feel worse, I
am sure, about their present
regime than we ....
Really
enjoy each issue.
MORRIS STEIN,
INDIANS BUILDING retaining
wall to keep the Ledo Rood from washing out during the monsoon season.
Photo by J. W. Reppel.
Bronx, N. Y.
FEBRUARY,
1957
21
From Phoenix.
NOt).
3, 1945
By Lewis Haig
DOR HUNDREDS of years the Kumb-.
J:' hakars or Idol Makers of India have
modelled the Hindu gods and goddesses.
There is no religion which attaches such
tremendous importance to image worship.
In every town, in every village, in private
houses, in jungles and deserts one finds
them, fantastic and lurid. Almost every
day is a holiday for the Hindu, a day on
which a special god has to be worshipped.
But only about "10 of the most important
ones are celebrated as public holidays with
fasting, communal prayers and religious
processions.
And just before these holidays the image makers get really busy,
modelling, dressing and decorating
the
gods.
When I visited Kumartuli, the small settlement of the Kumbhakars
in Calcutta,
the busy season was on. It was just before the Durga Puja, the most important
festival in Bengal. Five gods are worshipped at the same time and for the
Kumbhakar that means a lot of work. His
whole year's prosperity
depends on the
amount of orders he can execute.
This festival is in honor of the goddess
Durga, daughter of the Himalayan mountains. She is the personification of creative
energy, and the center of the universe;
ten - armed, she stands on a lion wit h
swords in her hands and subdues her foes.
With her are Kartik, the god of war riding on a peacock; Ganesha,
elephantheaded deity riding on a rat; Sarasvati, the
patroness of learning and all arts holding
a lute in her hand; Lakshmi, the goddess
of love and good fortune, the eternal
mother of the universe. All these are represented in many groups and disguises to
illustrate
Hinduism's age-old fables and
deeds.
Here in the land of gods and demons,
only just 200 square yards in area, live
on" thousand
image makers in ragged
little huts and workshops.
I wandered
through the narrow crooked lanes, through
a mne of tiny shops with their roofs almost touching, squeezing past the fantastic
shape.> and fIgures of the images. In the
shaded light, the image makers co u 1d
hardly be distinguished.
The little halfnaked men, forming and modelling the
clay, seemed utterly insignificant and the
slaves of their creations.
Only when I
came closer did I realize the wonderful
power and control these men have over the
cool, soft clay. One can hardly follow the
light,
rhythmical
movements
of their
hands and fingers, they work with such
speed and confidence.
A'l around them are hundreds of images
in all stages of completion. Wooden skeletons, figures in straw, clay gods without
heads or- arms, some painted in pure white
and others shining in brilliant colors. Cool-
22
MAK RS
ies, carrying masses of wet clay on their
heads, come up from the banks of the
Hooghly where the clay barges have anchored. The bluish, very fine and sticky
clay is found on the river bed not far from
Calcutta.
I came to the large, well-built studio of
G. Paul & Sons where special images and
those over life size are made.
The Pauls are the oldest and most prominent of aU the Kumbhakar
families in
Bengal. This family originated from Krishnagar, the home of image making, spread
over all Bengal and now more than half
of all image makers carry this name.
Before the Kumbhakar
starts on his
image he makes a small model of clay,
accurate in all proportions. Then he builds
a simple wooden structure.
And now he
gives shape to body and limbs by means
of straw, tightly tied together. Hundreds
of yards of string are used. This is one of
the most skilled operations. The first layer
of clay is now applied evenly over the
whole figure. The second coating is a very
thick layer of clay and the features and
muscles are formed. The modelling is then
EX-CBI ROUNDUP
------------------------Makers
finished with the final thin layer when
folds and lines of the skin are brought out.
Everything
is coated with liquid chalk.
After this has dried. bright water colors
are used and the figures are dressed with
multicolored
glittering paper hats, saris
and dhotis. Fearful weapons are thrust
into their hands. Their hair is horse hair,
and they are adorned with much shining
jewelry.
On the day of the festival the images
are taken to a place of worship, bedecked
with flowers, and given offerings of food.
Live animals are sacrificed to them. A
procession of worshippers carries them to
the banks of the holy Ganges where they
are submerged in the waters. By the time
the sun rises again there is little left of
their former glory.
One of the Pauls told me of the hard
life of the thousands of small image makers all over India. They make just a bare
living. The children start helping when
they are five and the women make ornaments. Only for a few weeks before the
big festivals do they earn real money by
making large images. A.ll the images are
made to order.
In villages and towns,
groups of Hindus get together to collect
the money.
There is not much profit in a mediumsized image which sells at 50 rupees. The
wood, clay, straw, paint, garment and ornaments will cost 35 rupees. This leaves
15 rupees for 40 hours work. Without overheads, therefore, and if the Kumbhakar
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Order From
Ex-CBI ROUNDUP
P. O. Box 1769
FEBRUARY,
1957
Denver 1. Colo.
of The Gods
does not employ a helper, he will make
six annas an hour. His average income for
the whole year is between 25 and 50 rupees
per month. Of course, a really large image
might cost up to 2,500 rupees.
During the last 100 years the images
have entirely changed in appearance. The
large slanted eyes, the straight stylized
nose, the thick lower lip, the tiny waist
and wide hips have gone. The wonderful
posture and movement is no more. Western influence has mingled with Indian art
and has produced a completely set style
for the image maker. He adheres to it as
rigidly as he used to follow the postures
and forms of the ancient Indian artists.
Later I met the young and enthusiastic
secretary of the All-Bengal Kumbhakar
Association, Mr. A. Paul, B.A. This highly
organized union claims 300,000 members.
The wives and children are counted, but
only the earning members pay a subscription of 4 annas a quarter. Over 60 percent
of all Kumbhakars in Bengal are members.
The Association was founded in 1922 by
another Paul, Mahendranath,
as a sort of
marriage a&;ency to find good wives and
husbands for the image makers. Soon the
parents also began to discuss communal
problems and improvements.
Within a
few years this few grew into a nation-wide
organization
to protect and improve the
lot of the Kumbhakar
and to influence
every sphere of his life.
The Association has 'many functions and
services. It gives legal aid and advice and
has founded many schools; financial grants
are given and even higher education made
possible. Doctors are under contract to
look after the health of the members. During the famine committE:es were formed
and much suffering was avoided. In case
of fires and accidents the Association organizes relief.
Many feuds and family
quarrels, usually over division of property
or dowry, are settled. For many years now
the Association has been trying to check
the dowry system and they also fight child
marriage.
Many image makers have gone far in
public life and have become important
business men. Through the Association
they retain a link with the old job and
often help substantially to improve conditions. Radha Binod Paul, president of the
Association, is also vice-president
of Calcutta University, and represented India at
the Hague Conference.
When I first visited the gloomy, sordid
quarters of the Kumbhakars I felt that the
intense beliefs on which their trade is
based would make them rather indifferent
to progress. But now I'm not so sure. A
lot of constructive work is being done by
people who know what they are getting at.
And that should augur well for the future
of the Makers of the Gods.
-THE END
23
Cil
Tiger Hunters
From /-B Roundup,
July /945
By JACK DEVLIN
IFyouYOUseeWERE
what
to ask the next 10 GI's
they'd like to do most
right now, they'd tell you they'd like to
be reclining as a civiran somewhere with
somebody
softly
curling
their
fingers
through their hair.
Maybe the 11th man, if you kept asking, would come up with some such
quaint idea as digging for buried treasure.
But the 12th man, our soft-in-the-head
hero, would get a bright Section Eight
gleam in his eye and tell you, "By gad,
sir, there's nothing I'd rather do right
now than go out into the jungle and hunt
a n:ce big tiger." Some people are like
that.
Now there's nothing wrong with hunting tigers, if you have nothing better to
do, but this is to disenchant those people
who have been captivated by the idea.
Those who make it their bus'ness to avoid
tiger hunts can listen in too.
The whole thing in a nutshell is that
a tiger hunt, even a necessary one, is not
all that it might be cracked up to beunless, of course, you happen to be a
rajah, and can go in for such pleasant
trappings as elephants, trackers, beaters,
and a drink-wallah
lugging
along
a
bucket of ice, a bucket of bourbon, and a
bucket or so of soda.
Okay, load and lock and keep your
fingers crossed.
The stage for our so-called little dream
is set in Warazup, the sun-baked, monsoon-drenched little jewel of a crossroads
type of town but lacking crossroads
down in deep Burma jungles at a point
where the rough tough old Hukawng
Valley ends and the Mogaung Valley
begins.
Warazup is in the midst of "How Safe
Is My Valley Week." The reason: Old
Rajah, the man-eating
tiger is on the
loose. He has reportedly killed one native,
clawed up a couple of GI's, and snatched
a basket full of pork and soyalinks. or
something from a native returning from
a local clambake.
The opening scene is pretty good. Great
billow'ng flames roll out of big pots of oil
and gasoline that have been placed in a
snug little circle around each area, and
24
you see the GI's packing their M-l's, carbines, or pistols as they travel in groups
over the 100 to 500-yard distance from
their tents to the open air theater.
There's not much k'dding
about this
sort of thing for Old Rajah has been seen
in this very area and anybody who has
ever tried to get any kind of a sight picture with a weapon knows it's pretty
tough and it wouldn't be any easier if
Blood and Claws happened to be roaring
around in the bushes. In fact, when somebody says he'll keep you covered while
you walk 75 yards in the dark, it doesn't
sound like a bad idea at all, chum.
Well, to sort of try to set the minds of
people at ease and help break up the
monotony of a long monsoon season evening, a hunt was organized by Lt. Steven
Muzik, a Road Headquarters
man from
Pittsburgh.
The expedition's
elephant was a jeep
with top off and windshield
down; in
place of beaters for scouring the bush
there were two spotligqts hooked onto a
storage battery. The weapons were four
M-1's, on.~ carbir.e aHa a pistol.
Then the party was off. With a flick of
the wrist, the jeep was spun off The Road
and straight for the bush. There were no
roads, 50 we made our own. 'vV'hen the vehicle started through elephant grass so
tall you couldn't see, everybody but the
driver stood up. It was a bit crowded but
clubby.
"Stop!"
Fingers curled on triggers. Hearts went
pittypat clump.
"We ran into a damn hole. Looks like
a grave."
We investigate.
It's a foxhole, so we
back up, bouncing over some abandoned
mortar ammo and just missing another
foxhole. Like a fat 1eetle, we twist and
turn through the dee~ grass around the
trees, one man sitting on the rad~ator
looking for foxholes and the rest thinking of landmines
and booby traps that
somebody might have left around.
We get up on a little knoll and swing
the lights around a little more looking
for two big eyes shining in the dark, and
hoping we won't see any. We are lucky.
We don't. Nothing but swarms of flying
bugs attracted
by the lights. Then the
trees get too thick and we turn around
until, pushing through the grass like a
EX-CEl
ROUNDUP
---------------------------IGI
Tiger Hunters
trout up a brook, we bounce onto an old
combat trail. Now we can see a good 100
feet ahead. At the end of the 100 feet
we come to an unnamed
ocean wide
enough to float the Queen Mary, but we
make it.
sink another foot until the mud starts
going down the tops of your shoes. At
the same time all four wheels start spinning as if the jeep were a B-29 trying to
take off, and muddy water smacks you in
the face. At this point the t'ger is especThere's a glare ahead and we round a
ially unpopular.
Finally the jeep's back
turn to f'nd three Garos armed to the
on solid ground and everyone climb3 in.
teeth sitting between two huge fires burn"Let's try it again. I'm sure we can get
ing in big pots.
through this puddle," the driver ins'sts.
"Salaam, sahib; see tiger?"
But the other four men insist that they
be the driver this time and the project
Two of the Garos are invited aboard
is dropped. We go out on the Stilwell
and the hunt goes on. Even the fireflies
Road, at last, and cruise for miles. Looks
have d'sappeared,
which is OK because
as 'f Old Rajah's home playing poker' tothey sometimes confuse you when you're
night or out having a couple of tall cold
lookin~ for eyes shining in the jungle.
ones somewhere.
The Garos tire of the hunt and are
dropped off at their camp.
In fact, the more we think of it the
more convinced we become that that's
We come
to another
und'scovered
where we should be, too. Three owls, a
ocean, smaller this time but deeper, and
hawk, a monkey and a small civet cat
friend jeep comes a cropper. This is the
were the best we could put up. It is
proper time to be the driver of the jeep.
2 a.m. or 0200 houn, as we say in the
He stays in the vehicle. Everybody else
good o'd Army, so we decided, "The hell
gets out and steps down shin deep into
with
it."
the water.
So,
if you ever go t'ger hunting, GI
.The job is to l'ft the jeep. Okay, so you
style, pal, you've been warned!
take hold and start to grunt. Down you
-THE
END.
CaLcutta's
GoLd en MiLe
Fro:n Th? Ca'clltta
W
Statesman
HEN VISITORS from abroad descend
on the Commonwealth's
Second City
and demand to be shown around, I always
offer them a glimpse of Calcutta's "Richest Square Mile," the Clive Street area.
This is not because I want to hide the
less p'easant
aspects of life in the city
from them, but because I genuinely feel
that the area is as fascinating as any in
Calcutt'! and a great deal livelier than
most. Besides, I believe that since Calcutta owes its greatness to its commercial
importance it is only fair that the visitor
should be given an understanding
of it.
There is also enough color and contrast
in the area to leave the rawest tourist
with the feeling th3.t he has seen a tru'y
representative
cross-section
of life not
only of Calcutta but also of India.
As a commercial center it has a uniqueness of its own. I am sure th3.t nowhere in
Wall Street, the Place de la Bourse, or the
City of London will you find anything
so charming and charitable as the hand
that emerges from an embrasure in a wall
opposite the Stock Exchange and pours
water- for the thirsty wayfarer. It is, of
course, also the only Stock Exchange in
the world outside of which bulls, both
biped and quadrupled, may be seen amiably sharing the same pavement. I hope
the vista never changes. It will be a sad
FEBRUARY,
1957
day when nationalization
is complete and
all the jute, tea, industrial
and banking
interests that now m¥e
the Mile hum,
disappear. They will be replaced one day,
I suppose, by a skyscraper
taller than
anything we can imagine, in wh'ch all
the trades and industries
will be compartmented
and fitted as neatly as files
in a filing cabinet. The only link w~th
the good old days will be the eleemosynary hand that emerges to dispense w3ter.
It will be needed for sure by the parched
queues waiting to get into the skyscraper
to submit forms in triplicate.
I had thought
that the bund-gh3.rry
was a re'ic of the past, lumped together
with such things as oil lamps, punkah
wallahs and hookahs, delightfully romantic and all that but not to be seen any
more. I was surprised, therefore, to discover only the other day quite a number
of these box-like vehicles standing
at
Howrah Station, exactly as they did in
the days of my grandmother.
Their appearance was also the same. There were
the same stunted, under-frod horses, mostly
in pairs, the same bund'es of hay at the
back, the same old grey-bearded ch:iracter
with a world of wisdom and humor in
his rhemy eyes, on the driver's seat. There
they were, the bund-gharries
of o'd Calcutta. They were there for hire, too, and
not out on another of our innumerable
exhibitions.
This was evident from the
number of persons, most of them clearly
villagers, who solicited their services.
25
A Dirty Thread -
The 'Red' Road
By Alberi T. Willis Jr
eleven years ago; JanuITaryHAPPENED
eleven years ago to be exact, and
it was hot in January m Burma.
The 475th Infantry (Mars Task Force)
had entered the Nawhkam area January
18th after following a jungle and mountain trail from Myitkyina some 300 miles
to the north. The First Battalion occupied
Nawhkam. The Second Battalion took Loikang Ridge ani Third Battalion was atop
a hill 1700 yar is north of the Second. In
the triangle made by the battalions lay
the drop zone. One-thousand
yards east
of the hills lay The burma hoad. This
thin, battered strip of asphalt and gravel
lay like a dirty thread between the Burma
hills.
Of secondary construction, it became of
primary concern in weaving a pattern for
survival as a lifeline to China. Constructed
by the British, occupied by the Japanese,
fought for by the Chinese and Americans,
it became for one day a place of victory
and defeat.
We killei one Jap that day. We lost one
American the same day. All because of
The Roa:l.
It was January 30, 1945. We sent patrols
to The Road every day to plant mines
and set booby traps in the hope of harrassing the retreatmg Japs who were using it to es~ape the Chinese-American
effort to reopen it not far to the north. We
set the traps during the day. The Japs disarmei them at night. Just like a game.
A deadly game-with
control of The Road
going to the winner.
I was a Company Commander with the
Se:on:i Battalion, and went along that
day with a patrol from Easy Company as
an observer. One of the squads from my
Pioneer and Demolition Platoon were going along to set the mines and booby
traps. The Platoon Leader from Easy Company briefed the men from the shank of
Loi-kang ridge at 0930 hours. This was
to be no picnic. The patrol the day before
had used the same route going and coming and had been ambushed on the return trip and shot up pretty bad.
26
Coming down the ridge on the west side
of Loi-kang we skirted the drop zone already polka-dotted with varicolore:1 parachutes as the day's rations and ammo were
dropped from the low flying C-47's to the
S-4 boys operating the drop zone.
Feed for the mules, ammunition, food
for the men-in
that order. It was 1000
hours and the sun was hot and bright. We
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proceeded through the high cane grass and
unused rice fields with extreme caution.
A thousand yards ahead lay The Road. An
unexpected
sound caused the patrol to
drop to the ground. The Platoon leader
and I crawled
forward
to the point
for a look-see just as a score of buzzards
sailed into the air from the carcass of a
dead J ap rotting in the hot Burma sun. No
fight here. The Road already had settled
its score with this invader from Nippon.
The patrol continued, leaving a wide
margin between us and that grizzly bit of
business, proof enough that we were playing this game for real.
The point of the patrol halted a little
further on and signaled the Platoon Leader forward. He was told that a Jap field
gun had been spotted to their left front.
A Lieutenant from Easy Company on a
former patrol had reported to the Battalion Commander that a dummy field
gun made of logs had been observed in
the area. He was right-there
it was looking for real like the biggest field gun we
had ever seen in Burma. What a crazy
war! Dummies guarding The Road!
Upon reaching a small knoll overlooking The Road near the 76 mile marker,
we deployed the patrol in a tight perimeter while the Platoon Leader, Platoon
Sergeant,
Radio Operator
and myself
eased to the top of the knoll to have a look
around. The Road stretched north and
south 30 yards away. To the north lay
Namhpaka, a Jap stronghold a mile and a
half away. I gazed at The Road in awe
and with curiosity, pride and disgust.
Here was a ribbon of real estate in Central Burma we had taken an option on
back in December of 1941. We had come
a long way to close the deal for it. The
!aps wouldn't sell. Instead we were playmg games.
While contemplating
our position and
checking with Battalion by radio back on
Loi-kang Ridge we suddenly saw in the
direction of Namhpaka a lone Jap soldier
heading south on The Road an:l trudging
along it like any ordinary hitchhiker back
in the States. 'the Platoon Sergeant's M-l
dropped him in his tracks practically on
top of the 76 mile marker. The game was
on and we were leading 1'-0,and The Road
lay like a thread between the Burma hills.
A dirty thread splotched with red.
We held the patrol perimeter tight for
a few minutes to see what effect the shot
would have as the sound was absorbed in
the soft brown Burma hills all around us.
Nothing happened.
We eased the patrol onto The Road and
set about our business. Not being directly
concerned with the work of the patrol I
cautiously approached the dead Jap. The
M-l had torn a good-sized hole just under
FEBRUARY,
1957
'Red
Road'
his right ear. While one member of the
patrol stood by with a tommy gun in hand
I began a methodical search of the J ap
whic.h yielded, as near as I can remember,
the following: a cru::!ely constructe::! .32
cal. pistol; Japanese home money and a
few pieces of invasion money; several
photos of Japanese girls; an obscene drawing in India ink on white cotton cloth an::!,
believe it or not, a King James version
of the Holy Bible written in the Kachin
language!
As the patrol finished its work under
the guidance of the Pioneer and Demolition squad, we checked by radio with
Battalion back on Loi-kang Ridge and reportej the Jap casualty. The game was
drawing to a finish and we were leading
1-0.
Selecting a different route to return to
Loi-kang we had gone only a hundred
yards when we all hit the ground. Low
flying planes! We hit for cover as a shower of used .50 cal. casings peppered the
area all around us. Upon recognizing the
aircraft we all stood up and waved like
crazy as a trio of P-47's made a surprise
strike at the Jap stronghold at Namhpaka.
What a game! This was big league stuff
and we had a front row center seat smack
in the middle of Burma.
As the patrol continued Battalion called
us by radio to investigate some hostile
movement in a woo9, atop a good-sized
hill to our left flank before returning to
Loi-kang. The patrol leader dispatched one
squad under cover of 60mm mortar fire
from Easy Company on Loi-kang to the
suspicious area. 'l'he rest of the patrol took
cover and observed, with the patrol leader
directing the mortar fire by his radio. It
startej out just routine, with the mortar
shells dropping ahead of the squad now
advancing as skirmishers
up the gentle
slope.
Suddenly and without warning a round
fell short and burst in the midst of the
squad, and a bit of shrapnel buried itself
in the belly of one of the infantrymen,
killing him instantly. The fire was lifted
as the squad reached its objective to find
nothing there. The game was tied up now,
1-1, by a foul ball stamped with the words
'"Made in USA."
The body of the infantryman was gently
carrie::! back to the patrol and on to Loikang Ridge. I carrie::! his tommy gun back
with me, with its picture of a girl taped
to the stock and the word "Phyllis" carved
under it.
Back on Loi-kang Ridge I looked back
toward the 76-mile marker, not anymore
with awe, curiosity or pride, but this time
with only disgust. It was hot. The time
was 1300 hours. And The Road lay like a
thread between the Burma hills. A dirty
thread splotched with red.
-THE END.
27
The StiLwell Road
ENGINEERS'
From
I-B
Roundup,
July,
HEADACHE
/945
By Jack Devlin
ALONG THE STILWELL ROAD -
All
you had to do was take one look at what
was left of the bridge and you felt a little
:;iek.
All 400 feet of it was smashed and
nppei
out. It looked as if a giant had
come along and stamped on the spans
an:l then kicked the debris out of his way.
Here was the monsoon at its worst. In
three days, the normally placid South
Mogaung river that flows past Warazup
at mile 191 in Burma on the Stilwell Roai,
swellei up under the impact of torrential
rains in the mountains
until the crest
raised 18 feet.
By the end of the first day it had already burst its banks. On the second day it
was sweeping across higher areas, tearing out bamboo stalks and then reaching
U7Jand overoowering the big husky trees
as their roots loosened in the soggy jungle
soil. The muddy yellow flood picked them
up where thev fell and as the sluggish
current grew stronger, they were carried
rapidly downstream as the river took on
more and more the appearance of a galloping mountain stream that had swelled
to river size.
Some of the trees eventually snagge:i
in jungle growths. Others riiin~ straight
in the flood, s:.lueezed under bridges. Others turned sideways, jammed against the
abutments ani stuck, making a dam effective enough to win the admiration of
a ceaver.
That's what happened at Mile Point 191.
The debris pile:l up against the abutments,
b1Jeking the racing waters until it washe:l
up over The Road at each bank and finally over the platform of the bridge itself.
The approaches went out first. but they
didn't o7Jen big enough gaps to release the
pressure of the water piling up behind the
debris. Then one s"")anwent out. The second followed and within a few h:JUrs. the
third was gone too. With the obstacles
gone, the water started to recede, slowly
at first and then faster and faster.
The level was down where you could
see the twiste:i spans and the white scars
on the mu:idv wet tree trunks jammed
against the remaining pilings. Big gravel
ani semi bars had washe:i up behind the
mess and you could see the pipeline all
twiste:i and bent winding through the
wreckage.
28
The river was still up about seven feet
and was sliding past at a good seven or
eight miles an hour and that's why when
you looked at it and the damage it had
wrought that you felt let down an:i wondere:l how and why they would ever get
through
the much needed convoys to
China.
Thereby hangs the tale of how the
Army's licking the monsoon and making
the Stilwell Road the all-weather
road
that many people said was impossible.
In a number of hours after the old
bridge was destroyed, a new one was back
over the swiftly moving waters and the
convoys, taking advantage of the layover
to check thoroughly and tune up equipment, were again on their way to China
and the war.
It's not as simple as that. Actually it's
a tough fight in which the Army Engineers take their share of belts on the chin
an:i get bounced back on the ropes. But
it's the monsoon that's taking the final
count.
In the case of the South Mogaung river
bridge, it was a matter of rushing in pontoon equipment from My,itkyina and Leio
became of the magnitude
of the task.
Without even wasting a second glance at
the washed out bridge, the Engineers went
to work putting in a brand new pontoon
model.
Just how bad is the monsoon season
this year? The answer is that it started
late in North Burma and quickly made up
for lost time. In some places, they have
had 40 to 50 inches of rain in less than
two weeks,
approximately
the
same
FOUR GI'S of the 330th
Engineers
pose with Kochin
natives by fireplace
in their hut in the viHage of
Lasha Ga, Burma. Thousands of Kachins were e,,played by Engineers
for rood maintenance.
U.S. Army
photo.
EX-CEI
ROUNDUP
amount of rain that New York City, for
example, gets in an entire year.
As a result of the downpours, the Engineers have had their hands full for a
few days. The approaches to the North
Mogaung river bridge went out, too-but
it took only four hours to erect Bailey
bridging so traffic could resume. They got
the bridging by salvaging part of the
South Mogaung river brIdge.
At Mile 85, The Road became so saturated with water that a 75-foot section
just slid down the mountainside
like a
gob of melting ice cream. Bailey brid~ing
came to the rescue again. It took just three
hours to throw a 100-foot span over the
break - the first timp., incidentally,
that
bridging has been used for such an emergency.
At other points along The Road there
were landslides, but as fast as they were
discovered by patrols workin~ in shifts
around the clock, dozers were hastened to
the scene and paths were opened quickly.
Near mile 109 a river rose 14 feet after
a deluge of 12 inches of rain in only 48
hours and both approaches of the bridge
there went out. Within a. few hours after
emergency bridging reached the scene The
Road was open.
"The monsoon is a real problem-don't
ever forget that-but
we've got it licked,"
summarized Maj. E. E. Browning, district
Engineer at Warazup Road Headquarters,
and a pre-war
associate of Maj. Gen.
Lewis A. Pick, builder of the Ledo Road,
and flood control expert.
"I've spent 18 years working on all the
tough rivers back in the States, but I
have never witnesse:l anything like I have
seen here.
"Last year, we didn't have the complete
file of information we have now. But this
year we know pretty closely how much
rain to expect and the volume of water
we will have to intercept in this particular
valley. All critical points have been overcome. And I venture to say that the Hukawng Valley is possibly the most treacherous you will find anywhere."
Even the pipeline
operations
aren't
worried by the monsoon. They've had a
minimum of trouble. Their most pleasant
surprise came at the South Mogaung river
where their bent and twisted pipe failed to
break with the bridge and continued to
deliver the goods.
The Signal Corps, keeping communications open, gets most of its trouble from
falling trees that knocked out their telephone wires. But these are repaired quickly and during the interruptions,
radio
breaches the gap.
The main thing is that the convoys, like
the mail, may occasionally be delayed but
they come through, hell or high water.
-THE
END.
FEBRUARY,
1957
Cairns Promoted
To Brug. General
In Reserve Outfit
THEcentlyDEPARTMENT
announced
of the Army rethe promotion
of
Col. James C. Cairns to Brigadier General,
USAR. General
Cairns is a long-time
Roundup subscriber and supporter.
General
Cairns received
his original
commission as a 2nd Lieutenant
at Yale
University in 1931. He served in various
Brigadier
General
James
C. Cairns
Reserve units between
1931 and 1936.
From 1936 to December 1940 he served
with the 40th Division National Guard.
Arriving in CBI in April 1943, his assignments included: Liaison officer, 22nd
Division, Chinese Army in India; Assistant
G-3 and G-3 Northern Combat Area Command; Liaison officer, Fort Hertz Area;
Commanding Officer, Forward Command
Posts at Hopin, Si-U and Bhamo: Assistant G-3, Chinese Combat Command, Kunmingo
General Cairns departed CBI in October
1945 and was a Lieutenant Colonel in relief from active duty.
He is now Deputy Commander, 3Hth
Logistical Command, USAR. His civilian
occupation
is President
of Gal!enKamp
Stores Co. at Los Angeles, Calif.
-THE END.
29
Commander's
Message
by
Phil Packard
National Commander
China-Burma-I ndia
Veterans Assn,
Salaams, Sahibs and Memsahibs:
In spite of a week's vacation in the hospital another busy time was had between
colu~ms. Two trips to the City of Brotherly
Love-Philadelphia-to
help the boys get
their Basha started. A most wonderful National Board meet in Detroit, plus meeting with the Motor City Basha. A board
meeting with the Greater New York Basha
-probably
their most important
since
New York's inception-which
we all hope
will get the outfit really .rolling strong.
On behalf of the entire membership, I
wish to extend our sincerest best wishes
to one of our staunch members, the newlyelected United States Senator from Pennsylvania, Joe Clark, Jr.
I was truly thrilled to be interviewed on
radio in Philadelphia, getting the new Basha moving. I also invited the entire state
of Pennsylvania
to attend our 1957 Reunion in Detroit.
My heartfelt
thanks to Sahibs John
Dawson
Wayne Keller, Harold Kretchmar Ge'ne Brauer, Manly Keith, Leo Meranda, Father Ed Glavin, Chuck Mitchell,
Red Adams and Mel Vollmer. These gentlemen gave of their time and own expenses to make the National Board meeting in Detroit the biggest and best ever
held. I am most happy and proud to serve
with these wonderful wallahs who came
loaded with ideas and suggestions to make
CBIV A a bigger, better and more terrific
organization.
At long last CBIVA will have a permanent home, a place to hang our hats and
This space is contributed
to the CBIV A by
Ex-CBI
Roundup
as a service to the many
readers who are members of the Assn., of which
Roundup
is the official publication.
It is important
to remember
that CBIV A and Roundup are entirely
separate organizations.,
Your
subscription
to Roundup
does not entItle you
to membership
in CBIVA,
nor does your me~bership in CBIV A entitle you to a subscrrptlOn
to Roundup.
You need not be a member
of
CBIV A in order to subscribe to Roundup
and
vice versa.-Ed.
30
keep all our official record.s and paraphernalia. At the board meetmg we voted
to rent space at the newly erected Vete.rans Memorial Building in Milwaukee, WIS.
I am sure this will make Gene Brauer's
Mom real happy; she won't be tripping
over our CBI records any more.
Also at this meeting, much talk about a
CBIV A goal. These suggestions will. be
taken up at our next gene,ral I?eetmg,
where the entire membershIp
WIll have
its say:
1 Shall we dedicate our organization to
the' servicing of Veterans' Hospitals?
2. To set up a reciprocal
scholar~hip
fund in order to better cement relatIOnship with the part of the world we served
in and came to know so well? We would,
perhaps, send a young lady .or g~ntleman
to a recognized col~ege or unIversIty s?mewhere in Free Chma, Burma or IndIa to
study and we in turn, would bring some
one ~ver to l'earn our ways, all this to
make for better understanding
between
America and our old stomping grounds.
3. To try and help some missionary organization in the part of the world we
came to know, thanks to Uncle Sam.
Give this some thought, and let's have
some comments.
The Motor City Basha has arranged a
trip to Canada (across the river from Detroit) where the gals can spend your rupees shopping, and send postcards from
a foreign
country.
For the economyminded membership, a chance to pay for
your trip and maybe come out way ahead.
The Detroit gang has arranged tremendous
savings on automobiles ?f all mak~s and
models in the Motor CIty, so don t buy
your new cars yet. Get your 195? mod~ls
in Detroit. They tell me your savmgs WIll
more than cover your family's trip to the
Sheraton-Cadillac
Hotel in Detroit, August
8-9-10.
For the gang on the EastE;rn Se~board,
if you would be interested m gettmg together on Feb. 22-24 in Baltim?re for a
CBI Wing-ding, get in. touch WIth .M. N.
Schnider,
220 E. Lexmgt0I?-, BaltImore,
Md., who is in charge of thIS East Coast
party.
Again, guys and gals, make your plans,
save your rupees and yen. DetrOIt has
many more big things planned to make
the 10th Annual National Reunion the
biggest and best yet.
In the meantime, help spread the word
of CBIVA. Get a new member or two! We
need more members!
Fraternally
yours,
PHIL PACKARD,
National Commander,
180 E. 17th St.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
EX-CEl
ROUNDUP
--------------------------To
726th Railway Battalion
• Pursuant to a resolution
passed at the Reunion in
<::incinnati, the incorporatIOn of the 726th Railway
Operating Battalion Veteran's Assn. has been completed under the laws of the
state of Missouri. Henceforth, those using the name
for publicity purposes without consent of the association will be subject to prosecution. The purpose of incorporating is to prevent a
repetition of two erroneous
publicity notic~s that were
circulated in service publications
during
1956, one
stating that the 726th Reunion would be held in conjunction with the CBI Reunion, and the other stating
the 726th would meet jointly with the MRS Reunion
neither of which was tru~
and both notices were unauthorized.
FRANK ARMANI,
Wash., D. C.
The
Editor
THIS WAS THE theater
at Chanyi, China,
a drab area. Photo by Richard Ingles.
Pip aline Movie
• On page 12 of the January issue is a rewrite of
an article by Ray Howard
on the World's Lon g est
Pipeline.
The writer
was
a~so one of the pipeline engmeers on this job and enjoyed Ray's article since we
were in the same outfit together. Recently
d uri n g
Petroleum Week, I was asked to talk to several civic
War In Far East?
groups on the subject of
• The Indian's
point of petroleum.
I went to the
view on the situation
in Ft. Sam Houston Film LiBurma as concerns the Chi- brary and obtained the renese Communist
violation lease of a moving picture
prepared
by the S i g n a I
of their border ("Burmese
Recovery," Jan.) is enlight- Corps at our request on the
of this pipeening. Experienced
observ- construction
ers agree the trend is to- line. The fErn was restricted
ward an explosion of open but has now been released
war in the Far East soon.
for civilian showing, and all
HOWARD G. CARVER, of the pipeline engineers I
know would enjoy seeing
Vicksburg, Miss.
air base
a drab
building
in
'
this film which covers pictorially a great many of the
items Ray Howard wrote
about. The 23-minute film
is No. HR-E-7 and may be
borrowed
from v a rio u s
~rmy fil.m libraries for pubhc showmg at no cost.
IRVING A. SHEFTS
Lt. Col. CE, Res.,
,
San Antonio Texas
'
Ohio Basha Meet
• The Ohio CBI Basha will
hold a meeting Sunday, Jan.
20, at 2:30' p.m. at the Sheraton-Gibson
Hotel in Cincinnati. The meeting will be
held in Parlor H on the
main floor. Anyone interested may contact the undersigned.
WINFIELD BURKE,
Route 5,
Chillicothe, Ohio
10th Air Force
• My outfit was the American Air Command No. 1
at Kanjikoah,
which later
became the 5320th Air Defense Wing, which later became
Forward
Echelon,
lOth Air Force. At Bhamo it
was incorporated
into the
10th Air Force Headquarters. Can anyone tell me
where I can get three CBI
shoulder patches?
Maj. LOUIS MONTOYA,
APO 119, New York.
B.USY PL~T.FORM '!t How~ah
did a thriVing business wIth
FEBRUARY,
1957
~ailw,!y Station, Calcutta.
The rickshaws
Incoming G"s.
Photo by Richard Ingles.
SEND A GIFT subscription
to less
fortunate
buddies in Veterans
Hospitals.
Special rate to V.A. Hospitals only $2.00 per year. Hospitals
are notified
the gift is from you.
31
Clearance
NOW THAT THE Christmas rush is
over, we find ourselves with many odds
and e:1ds of merchandise
that sold
good, and with s:Jme that didn't sell as
well as we hoped it would. We'd rather
be rid of. these articles at further reduced prices than have them around
until next Christmas. All merchandise
offered subject to prior sale. Your satisfaction guaranteed, as always, or your
money cheerfully refunded.
Sale! !
IVORY COCKTAIL PICK SET. These
are ornately-carved
stands with 12 long
picks.
One elephant
stand and one
monkey stand, each with a tiny carved
animal on the holding end. Original
low price $12.50. Now only $5.00 each.
IVORY COCKTAIL PICK STANDS.
We have two half-moon-shape
stands
without picks. Only $2.50 each.
COCOANUTWOOD E L E PHAN TS.
Only a few large sets left, size 4", 5"
and 6", with ivory tusks and eyes. Original price $8.50 per set of 3. While they
last, only $5.50.
SHEESHAMWOOD TRAYS. These are
the leaf-shape or Round tray, as advertised in previous issues for $2.25 each.
We imported hundreds, sold very few.
We'll ship two of them for only $3.50!
IVORY HOOKI\.H. SMOKER.
These
are the best little ivory carvings we've
seen out of India. All are on wooden
base, sizes 2%", 3" and 3%". Close-out
at $3.00. $4.00. and $5.00.
HOOKAHS.
We really got stung on
these! We thought every CBI-er woul:i
like to own one but, alas, the price apparently is too high, even though they
ilTA worth. everv
rent of the $19.75 we
asked. We have 33 left out of 50 originallv ordered.
Grab them now for
only' $15 each.
BAN ARAS SILK SARI. One left, size
5 yar.:ls by 42", real gold threa:l trim
and design. Makes a beautiful evening
gown. Original bargain price $30.00.
Take this last one qfj our hands for
only $25.00.
SANDAL WOOD JEWEL BOXES. Only
three left size 4x6. and two of the 4x8.
Some folks love the smell of sandalwood. Others gasp! If you like the
smell. you'll like these beautiful boxes.
Buy them now for only $6.50 and $8.25.
SHE ESHAM WALL BRACKETS. Doesn't anyone use these ornately - carved
pieces anymore?
Out of 10J in stock
we have 83 left. A real buy at $3.75,
but we're willing to part with them
now for just $3.00 each!
ELEPHANT BOOK ENDS. These handcarved book ends are a curiosity piece.
It's curious why we ever bought so
many of them! Anyhow. they're expandable and as you might guess, the
finest ornate carving is on the bottom
to be covered bv books. Take them
now for only $3.00!
KASHMIR GABAHS. Only seven left.
Size 82x46 inches. These, we fear, are
all "secon:is," not the finest in workmanship (we may as well be honest!).
Originally advertised
at $9.50. While
they last, only $5.00 each.
COBRA CANDLESTICKS.
This is the
only article in India Brassware that did
not sell rapidly during the Christmas
rush.
If your wife isn't squeamish
abJut snakes (and we guarantee these
cobras won't move!), buy her a pair of
8" candlesticks for only $8.00. the 7"
pair for just $6.50. or the 6" pair for a
mere $4.50. If she doesn't like snakes,
at these prices maybe she'll get used to
them!
ROUNDUP'S
GUARANTEE:
You must be entirely
satisfied
with your purchase
or your money will
be refunded
cheerfully
and immediately!
All Orders Postpaid
Minimum Order $5.00
Owned and Operated by 1:x-CH! Roundup
P. O. Box 1769
Denver
L Colo