The VP/VPB BlackCats of the United States Navy

"Yeh, yeh, how much?"
"For you, I make special number one price, $28 (U.S.)."
By this time all the hands have gathered around; not content to just watch, but many trying to get into the act. Chinese are very curious by nature and have to see what's going on. The price of $28 gives you your clue as to what your return offer should be, keeping in mind that he will come down as much as you come up, or possibly a little more. So I offered him $5 for the figure. This gives him a clue as to what you will pay; probably half the difference if you want it real bad. Of course, he became very indignant and nearly hit the ceiling trying to impress me how ridiculous this offer was.
"OK, you my first customer today. I give it to you for $25."
"Too much; I'll give you $5.50."
"No, no. (Hits the ceiling again) I come down $3, you come up $3."
And so it goes for 15 or 20 minutes with many inspections of the quality and workmanship. Everyone knows approximately what the final price will be, but it may vary a dollar or two. To make a long story short, I paid him $12. I was glad to get it for that and he probably made a hundred percent profit; though he insisted he was losing money.

Sunday, the 15th, we decided to visit China City, the old part of Shanghai. Charlie Tze had offered to take us as a favor for buying from him. As we came out of the YMCA to go and see him, there he was waiting for us...uncanny. We spent about 4 hours in China City and we were lucky to have a guide. The streets were narrow and winding with no system whatsoever. You could wander for days and never know where you were. We went through a small door and found ourselves in what had been a very beautiful spot, Mandarin Gardens. The place was in the process of being rebuilt by the Central Bank of China. It looked something like the Japanese gardens in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco only more crowded and confined. Then we found ourselves in the temple section. Each room had a different kind of wooden god to worship; one for the city, one for good luck, one for many sons, etc. All the figures were hideous and fantastic. Regretted that it was too dark inside to take pictures. In front of each god was a place to kneel, a sandbox for sticks of incense, and a row of spikes for sticking up candles. People going hungry so they could come in and buy offerings for the gods. In the heart of China City, out over a pool of stagnant water was this picturesque old tea house, complete with curved-up corners on the roof. Leading out to it, the walkway was zigzag; three steps to the left; three to the right. Charlie said people come from all over China once a year to walk down this walk. It is considered good luck. The tea house itself is supposed to be about 300 years old. We stopped in for tea. The big surprise was the individual steaming hot towels for everyone to wash hands and face before being served. That finished our tour and naturally Charlie wanted us to come back down to his shop, but we shook him. We wanted to look up a Chinaman by the name of Owen because some of the other fellows before us said he was reliable and had some good stuff. We knew the street and general vicinity of town so we told the rickshaw boy all we knew and told him to get going. The poor guy wasn't very bright and had an awful time, but we finally found the place, such as it was. We had to go through a couple ill-smelling kitchens with dirt floors, open fires, smoke, pots and pans, and up a rickety stairway to a nice little shop. He explained that he owned the whole building but had been unable to get the tenants out. He had also tried to find another building, but space is as scarce as it is in the U.S. I might explain here that there are only two classes of Chinese...either wealthy or destitute...no middle class to speak of. Owen was of the wealthy class, one of seven brothers all in good businesses. He spoke good English; also German, having spent two years in a German pre-medical school in Shanghai before the war. The family had been Christians for three generations.

No visit to Shanghai would be complete without meeting George Efron, a Russian-Jew in charge of the jewelry shop in the Palace Hotel. He seems to be well known throughout the Orient by all the U.S service personnel who ever came this way. He is also what we call one of the "big wheels" in Shanghai. While talking to him, his old friend, Mr. Morris dropped in and we were introduced. Mr. Morris is president of the Bank of Shanghai and considered the richest man in town...an Australian, I believe.

That about finished our first stop in Shanghai except to mention that Joe Foreman stayed out a little too late one night and got "rolled" for $250. We had been warned that the Chinese are unscrupulous as the devil, especially after dark and when you are outnumbered.

Monday morning we were checking into the N.A.T.S. office downtown for the flight to Tsingtao. Here we met Ben Rakousa , civilian, working for the U.S. War Department in the capacity of liaison and intelligence. We rode out to the airport with him in his new Chevrolet. He told us a lot of things about the Chinese people. He had been an army officer in O.S.S. during the war and hid out in occupied China for a long while.

We got a plush job to Tsingtao. It was the same plane that failed us the night we were to leave Guam. Tsingtao is about 400 miles north of Shanghai, and considered the resort town of North China; something like Atlantic City is to the east coast. It was a 10 mile ride into town. The country and outlying villages reminded me of the pictures of Bible lands; rolling, dusty hills, many donkeys, two-wheeled carts, adobe huts. Since the country is rolling, they can't grow rice. Their main product is wheat. The people and their customs are a lot more rural than around Shanghai. The dirt in some of the hills seems to be very good for bricks. We saw several huge brick factories. And, of course, it was only natural that there were many brick buildings. The main part of town was all constructed of red brick and red tile roofs...fairly modern design, too, which surprised me. The Navy has several buildings in town. The most popular was the Edgewater Beach Resort Hotel...modern in every respect...being used for a B.O.Q. We tried our best to get a room there, but couldn't. In fact, there was no place in town for us at all so we had to go back to the Air Base and stay in the Marine B.O.Q. We got our first look at the active Chinese Nationalist Air Force here. They had a full squadron of fighters...American P-51, Mustangs.

Having to live so far out of town and with no transportation, we decided to go on to Tientsin the following morning. This was our first flight with the Marines, transport squadron VMR-153, flying R5C Commandos. Tientsin is one of the main North China ports along with Darien, for supplying the Mongolian districts and Siberia. Population 1,800,000 and a very, very international city. Before the war, the city was completely divided into "concessions" for French, British, Italian, Latvian, Yugoslavian. Each district administered city government to its own district. The Chinese didn't have much to say about it; they just did the work. There are 82 nationalities represented; that's why I call it an international city.

Again we found the airport a long distance from town in very desolate surroundings. There was quite a bit of hustle and bustle around the field because the entire First Marine Division, with the exception of the 7th Regiment was pulling out and expected to be gone by the end of the week. The road into town was terrible. It was concrete, but full of holes and only about a car and a half wide. As we were driving along we began to see many, many mounds of dirt of different sizes covering the countryside. At first I thought of erosion, then ant hills. When asked, the driver told us they were graves. It seems that many generations ago, at the beginning of an ancestral clan, the old patriarch picked out a spot of honor for himself in a certain field. His grave would be the largest and most cared for. The graves next in importance and size would be his sons, etc., etc., until practically all the tillable land is covered with odd size mounds of dirt; from one foot to fifteen feet....graves!

As we arrived at the outskirts of Tientsin we passed through a guarded gate. The entire city is surrounded by a dirt wall and moat. The gates are locked every night. Tientsin is an older city and in some sections dirtier than the other places we had been. Because of the Marines leaving almost all the B.O.Q.s had been closed so we had no choice except the hotels. The best one in town, the Astor House was filled so we got second choice, the Talati House, which wasn't bad for $88,000 a day. The Talati house restaurant was marked "off limits" to service personnel, presumably because of unclean food. Heins or Kesselring (German restaurants) was recommended. That's where we ate most of the time. Two evenings we went out to the Country Club, a combination civilian and officers' club. It was very elaborate and the style was very extravagant. The building itself was huge, providing a swimming pool, billiard room, game and card room, library, two bars, dining room, patio, movies nightly in the auditorium. There was also indoor and outdoor dancing, tennis courts and beautiful flower gardens. On the way out to the club we passed the old Dietrick Palace which is supposed to have played an important part in the Boxer's Rebellion. It seems all the Germans were murdered in their beds there sometime around 1900.

Wednesday, the 18th, 20,000 Nationalist troops came into the city from the south. What a motley looking outfit! Each soldier buys his own uniform using his own idea as to what a uniform should look like. One thing they do agree on is the sickly, yellowish-green material. The uniforms are never ironed or pressed. Most of the soldiers are very young according to our standards. The average age is about 15 years old. Some of the little fellows appeared to be about 12. The rifles they carried were longer than they.

In our dealings with the Marines, we met Major MacLean of G-2 (Intelligence). He was a very likable gentleman and made every effort to see that we enjoyed our stay in Tientsin. The walls of his office were covered with maps of the area showing the latest developments in the civil war. I was surprised to find that the communists were on good enough terms with G-2 and the American press to get their side of the story through, too. They do this to see that the stories of their victories make the American newspapers without being censored or suppressed by the Nationalists. Major MacLean says the civil war has nearly reached a point of stalemate. The Nationalists hold the cities (except in the far north) and the lines of communications; the communists hold the country between. Tientsin was completely surrounded; with outlets only by sea and air. However, the lines of resistance were fairly permanently established some 50 or 75 miles away. The trains to Peiping, 90 miles northwest got through occasionally. The trains had been held up for some 2 weeks when we arrived...a bridge had been blown, but the first day we had talked with the Major; they were running again and he insisted we make the trip to Peiping. According to him it is, by far, the most interesting city in China. We were a little afraid to go because our leave was about up. If we had gotten up there and they had blown another bridge we would have ended up over-leave. In other words, the railroads were not dependable. You see, almost every night the Commies blow out a section of track and every day Chiang's boys put it back together. If it is finished before dark they run a train through. If not, they have still kept up with the game and will start over again in the morning.

The Major told us that newspaper articles about big battles were highly exaggerated. Neither side has the supplies or equipment to launch a large offensive. Instead, they follow the ancient Chinese way of fighting in which the two armies line up for battle at a prearranged time. If they are approximately evenly matched, they fight for a while, then call it off before too many people get hurt. If one side seems clearly superior in strength, the other acknowledges defeat without fighting and retires. A huge battle is reported and a great victory for the superior army. Another favorite trick is the exchange of cities. The commanders get together and one says, "OK, you can occupy City A and also withdraw so we can occupy City B." You may think I'm kidding, but I'm not! This article appeared in the Guam paper, datelined July 4, Nanking-(UP)..."Pro-government reports today claimed another "victory" for Nationalist troops in Manchuria declaring more than 10,000 communists were killed and wounded in battles yesterday around strategic Kaiyuam." You can bet your bottom dollar there were no more than 100 injured counting BOTH sides. The Chinese love to play the game of war and the United States and Russia insist on furnishing them with toys. After leaving Marine Headquarters we still couldn't get Peiping out of our minds, so we called the Army...a liaison squadron flying Stinson "grasshoppers". We asked if they had anything going that way. It so happened they had 2 planes coming up from the south on the way to Peiping the following afternoon. The back seats would be open and we could go along. Our morale was very high. The next morning we packed and checked out of the hotel...only to find the back seats filled with priority passengers when we arrived at the airport. It was very disappointing.

The French Bazaar was one of the more interesting places we visited. The name comes from the fact that it is located in the French concession (district). It is a typical Chinese gyp-joint similar to the Thieves' Market in Shanghai, only on a larger scale. The building is 5 stories...open in the middle all the way to the roof. The little shops and stands on each floor are hung around the outside like balconies. We arrived fairly early in the morning. The proprietors seem to live there for they were in the midst of washing and eating, and the urinals hadn't been emptied yet. We spent all morning there and came out with some of our best buys. You see, there were hardly any American servicemen left in town with the First Division gone, so the American dollar was becoming hard to get and more valuable.

Tientsin has a good many American businesses; American Tobacco Co. (Lucky Strike), Coca-Cola, and dealers for practically all the U.S. makes of cars. We met a couple interesting fellows at the Astor House. Both worked for Lucky Strike. One was a Swiss and had been there 27 years. The other was a fellow from North Carolina...24 years. The latter had spent 4 years in a Japanese prison camp, or concentration camp and was back in China to take up where he left off. He was very popular. Anyone who had been to "camp" couldn't have been a collaborator and was well thought of...among his own group. The Europeans in Tientsin (approx. 8000) were divided into two definite groups; the collaborators and those who tried to keep their noses clean. There is much bitterness and hatred between the groups and I can see why. The collaborators are all driving around in new cars while the others have lost everything.

Also living at the Astor House was Andy "________off", twin brother to the "Mad Russian", Hollywood comedian. Andy's hair was shorter than the Mad Russian's, but what there was, was fuzzy and stood straight out from his head like his brother's.

We left Tientsin Tuesday morning, the 24th, catching a Marine vehicle convoy out to the airport. This time we rode the back end of a truck over that pre-Genghis Khan road instead of a sedan. The field, which had been buzzing with activity the week before was now deserted except for a few Chinese guards. The Chinese flag was flying over the field. The Marines were truly gone.

We arrived in Tsingtao about 20 minutes too late to catch the flight to Shanghai via Nanking. They only stop at Nanking twice a week and I really wanted to go through there...headquarters of Generalissimo Chiang. As is was, we stayed overnight in Tsingtao again and arrived in Shanghai Wednesday P.M., the 25th.

Our first stop in Shanghai was back to Owens to pick up some things we had ordered before. He insisted on taking us out for a Chinese dinner, and I'm glad he did. It was an evening well spent. The main course consisted of 5 big dishes; namely, shrimp with bamboo sprouts, duck saute with bean sprouts, fried chicken, minced pigeon and boiled rice. These 5 bowls were placed in the middle of the table and all hands dive in with chopsticks. At first I thought I would starve to death using chopsticks, but about an hour later I could reach across and snap up a tender morsel of duck as pretty as you please. Also with the meal we had rice wine and tea.

The next morning Owen took us out of the city to the Old Temple. The main temple was a pagoda tower structure seven stories tall. At each floor, around the outside, were typical, oriental, curved-up, cupola skirts which made the building look like a Christmas tree from a distance. The temple is supposed to be 2,000 years old, and it looks it. Surrounding the main temple were many one-story temples each housing a different, hideous god...the same setup I have described in the temples in China City. There were also many well-kept gardens.

On the way back to town we passed the Kwangtung airport, but N.A.T.S. had grounded all their transports for a tail-section check. We made arrangements to get on A.T.C. (Army Transport Command) the next day.

We left Shanghai at 2:30 P.M., Friday, the 27th. Before landing at Okinawa we got a good look at Ie Shima to the west, the spot where Ernie Pyle was killed. It is only a small island. On Okinawa the Army uses Naha airfield so we saw some different surroundings (the Navy lands at Yonabaru). Naha has a squadron of P-80, Shooting Stars...the first I had seen up close. We stopped for dinner and I got change in Army script. That's paper money in 5 cent, 10 cent, etc. denominations to take the place of coins.

We landed at Harmon Field, Guam, at 2:30 Saturday morning. By the time we could get transportation and get down to Orote it was daylight. There was no use trying to sleep without checking our souvenirs to see if anything was broken, so we unpacked.

The following is a list of souvenirs I brought back:

Carved, marble bookends; deep-carved lacquer boxes (pair); small, hand carved Buddha; hand carved, rosewood laughing Buddha and his 6 obedient sons; cloisonne (vases)...4 pair; ivory elephants (4 on a bridge); round, painted, black lacquer boxes (5); rectangular, painted black lacquer boxes (4); pin; fans; chopsticks (5 pair); carved ivory balls (6...one inside the other); tea set; eggshell (for 6); glass knickknacks (18 pieces); brown leather bag; one pair brass candlesticks (14 candle holders); two pewter mugs (initialed); cocktail shaker and 6 jiggers (pewter); white nightgown (silk); embroidered silk blouse; pillow covers; head scarves; lady's pajamas; baby pajamas; small wooden Buddha; ivory letter opener; lucky coin; silk embroidered picture (Oriental scene); smoking jacket; hand carved, ivory name stamp.

The trip was a definite success and I enjoyed every minute of it, but it was nice to get back where everything is clean and the air smells fresh and pure. To all you homebodies let me say that no life is complete without a trip to China. No words can describe the noises, the smells, the filth, the strange customs. You have to see it to believe it.

Merrill Keith Martin