Hump Express - September 27, 1945 - China-Burma-India Theater of World War II

Vol. 1, No. 37 Published by India China Division, Air Transport Command September 27, 1945

Off to America

1306 BU, Karachi - Loading with troops is the General MacCrae, first vessel to return to the United States from Karachi since V-J Day with men from the India-Burma and China theaters. The ship left Karachi exactly three years, six months and 13 days after the first American to land in India arrived at this same port. (Photo by S/Sgt. Norman V. Smith, of ICD)

Shanghai Opening To End Hump Flight, Says Kinkaid

Shanghai - Arrival of merchant ships at this port in large numbers sooner than most thought possible was forecast by Adm. Thomas Kinkaid, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, arriving this week for his first visit to Shanghai.
There is every reason to believe, said the admiral, that the end of Hump operations will hinge on the full opening of Shanghai port facilities.
Adm. Kincaid, aboard a Navy minesweeper, came up the Yangtze (still mine-infested, but now considered fairly safe) to confer with Allied officials on the establishment of Seventh Fleet headquarters in the harbor and also to talk with port officials on the facilities available to dock and service large ships.
During his press conference the admiral said the Navy is cooperating with the Army "in every way possible" to get men home. Orders had been given to commanding officers of all ships, he revealed, in the event they were to proceed to the States, to advise proper authorities at once on the number of passengers each could carry. In this way veterans will be taken home on Navy ships regardless of type - battleships, carriers, cruisers, destroyers.
Asked how the job of transporting Japs to Japan was to be accomplished, Kinkaid stated that an attempt is being made to use only Japanese ships for this purpose. It would certainly be wrong, he added, to waste Allied shipping space on Nips as long as an American is detained abroad for military reasons.
Japs who cannot be deported to their home islands immediately will be interned in camps in the areas where they surrendered. In Shanghai, they will probably be put in the same POW camps where they interned Allied prisoners for several years.

IB GIs To Be
Moved to U.S.
In 5½ Months

First To Leave Theater
Will Be Men Eligible
For Discharge
Hq., Calcutta - Because the War Department found ample transport to put at the disposal of the IB Theater, Brig. Gen. Francis Hill, theater planning and operations officer, recently released figures for redeployment which would remove every man from India by next February.
Of approximately 200,000 Americans in IB, 15,000 will leave in September and some 35,000 per month thereafter. During a peak four-week period beginning the latter part of September, the theater will move 55,000 men. This ,means that in five and a half months all GIs would have been moved to the U.S.

Leaving Calcutta
First to leave will be those men ready for discharge when the reach the U.S.
Departure for all troops in India will be from two ports, Calcutta and Karachi. Sailing from Calcutta will be the SOS personnel in this area and 40,000 troops from China. Other troops in India will depart from Karachi. Other than the 40,000 leaving from Calcutta, China Theater troops will leave via Shanghai.
A TC will haul 6,200 men this month, mostly prisoners of war and medical cases or men otherwise urgently needed in the U.S. After this month, the figure will drop to about 2,000 men monthly, with only special cases going by air.

21 to 26 Days
Gen. Hill said that the War Department promptly allotted all shipping space the theater can use under its present plan for redeployment.
Boats leaving Karachi will require 21 days to reach the east coast of the U.S. and the trip from Calcutta will take 26.
Replacements who recently arrived in this theater will form the small groups remaining until everyone else has been moved.

‘Open City’ Hails Fleet At Shanghai

Humpers See Burden's End
As Middied Men Open
Great Seaport
Shanghai - The harbor here is now really wide open. Shanghai town will also be wide open as soon as the white-middied men of Adm. Thomas Kincaid's fleet hit the streets.
What it will mean to the men of ICD who have been flying the Hump since the fall of 1942 is not yet definite, but it is apparent. If water transportation can now disgorge its great cargo at this city, the Hump routes will cease to be the only supply routes into China and the burden will be lifted from the war-weary, home-hungry men who drive, crew and support the 46s, 47s, 54s and 109s.

54s Give Welcome
The first ships of Kincaid's fleet to arrive (following the initial entry by minesweepers) have docked in the harbor area. They were accompanied by some components of a British fleet which lately had been on duty with the U.S. Naval forces in the Pacific. Adm. Kinkaid's command ship, the USS Rocky Mount (AGS), will be used as a headquarters (afloat) for the fleet.
As the fleet steamed into the harbor several silver C-54s swooped low to bid it greetings. At present the major portion of the fleet is still standing offshore. Minesweepers are scurrying about with their de-mining brooms, cleaning up the last remnants of explosive eggs laid by the 14th AAF B-24s. Liberty ships from Manila are expected to arrive soon with vital supplies needed by the AAF and ATC to complete airfield installations and base units.
As the ships plowed through the yellow waters, internees, now free but still living in prison camps for want of a better place to go, stood on rooftops or climbed water towers to wave American flags and cheer the boys of the Navy. Wives of Navy men crowded around the docks, waiting, hoping they would see those men for whom they had suffered so much and waited so long.

3100 Depart Karachi POE
At Midnight

Various Service Branches,
Including ATC, Are Represented

Karachi POE - Shortly after midnight on Sunday - three years, six months and 13 days after the first United States troops landed in India, at the port of Karachi - 3,100 men from the ATC, Signal Corps, infantry and other branches departed the same port for the first journey home via water since V-J Day.
The 18,000 ton cargo-type vessel General MacRae, converted for troop transport, left on a three-week trip to New York to begin the mass exodus from the India-Burma Theater.

Over 35
Returning home as individuals rather than as members of particular commands, the men were broken down and segregated according to the reception or separation centers to which they would report on arrival in the States.
Most were in the over-35 age bracket or high-point men. Loading went off smoothly in a matter of seven hours. Speed was emphasized to the point that the schedule worked out by the POE transportation officers actually was beaten and the first men were taken aboard an hour earlier than planned.

To Handle 'Casuals'
In the afternoon the military band stationed at Karachi airbase arrived to liven up proceedings but the assembly-line type of loading operations was grim and efficient, and exuberant outbursts on the part of the men were notably lacking. For most it was a resumption of ship life they had left behind from 20 to 28 months before and the routine came back easily.
After dropping their gear on bunks, men returned to the decks, peeled off their shirts in the blazing sun and took to card-playing, reading, talking and aimless wandering.
Transportation officers here expect the original target of 20,000 men leaving Karachi in October may be upped to as high as 35,000. At present, men departing Karachi will be mostly casuals.

Points To Go to 70 Oct. 1;
System To Be Ended Soon

Washington (ANS) - Gen. George C. Marshall, Army chief of staff, announced to Congress that the Army point system will be abolished by late winter and that in the meantime it plans reduction of point totals required for discharge to 70 on Oct. 1 and 60 on Nov. 1.
When the Army reaches a point where it can eliminate the present system, two years of service will qualify a man for discharge wherever he is.
"They will be able to walk up and get a discharge," Marshall said.
Marshall said Maj. Gen. Stephen G. Henry, of Army personnel, who also addressed a meeting of more than 400 members of Congress, disclosed that the discharge score of all officers except doctors will be lowered to 75 on Oct. 1. Discharge points for WACs, he said, will be cut from 41 to 36 on Oct. 1 and to 34 on Nov. 1. WAC officer scores will drop to 39 on Oct. 1.
Marshall said that an additional 2,000,000 would be returned to civilian life with the lowering of the point totals in October and November.
In addition to point changes, Marshall said the Army will soon begin releasing men in the U.S. for whom useful work cannot be found. A beginning of the release of men in the States will come in about four weeks according to Marshall. He added: "If we released them right now they would get in the way of high-point combat men."
Separation center facilities will become adequate in about four weeks to handle both overseas and U.S. discharges, Marshall said. Four hundred and fifty thousand men will be released this month and the figure will be between 700,000 and 800,000 monthly after October, the Army chief explained.

MacArthur Right
The War Department, he revealed, has received official notice from MacArthur confirming his estimate that 200,000 (later revised to 500,000) will be enough to occupy Japan within six months.
Marshall emphasized that the invasion of Kyushu had been set for Nov. 1. Marshall said that both MacArthur and Gen. Eisenhower protested against plans to cut discharge scores to 80. MacArthur said it would have meant postponing the invasion.

Chennault Believes Tigers Rate Benefits

Washington (ANS) - Maj. Gen. Claire Chennault said his Flying Tigers ought to get benefits such as pensions and disability allowances, pointing out they would have been eligible for such benefits had they stayed in the U.S. Army and not gone to China. Sen. A. B. Chandler (D. Ky.) said he would introduce legislation for suitable service benefits.

ATC Begins
World Flight

Round-the-Globe Schedule Becomes Effective Oct. 1

The first regularly-scheduled airline service to circle the world will be inaugurated Oct. 1 by the ATC.
Initial run of the weekly scheduled trip will depart Washington on Sept. 28. To be known as the "Globester," the run normally will originate at New York and will include stops at Casablanca, Cairo, Karachi, Calcutta, Kunming, Manila and San Francisco.

Old Route
Opening of this around-the-world flight has become necessary because of the deployment of U.S. forces and to keep American interests in close touch with developments throughout both hemispheres.
ICD's section of the route to be flown has been in operation for several months but has not been geared to any particular schedule to coincide with flights arriving from North Africa and departing the Philippines.

The 'Marco Polo'
Under the system a through-ticket may be obtained, taking the traveler around the world in 151 hours without a break in the 23,000-mile journey.
The Washington-to-Karachi portion of the original flight will be flown by TWA, operating a schedule to be known as the "Maharajah." The Maharajah arrive at Karachi on Oct. 1 and then ICD will complete the hookup by operating a flight called the "Marco Polo."

B-29 Fliers Escape
Japs After Chase

Crew is Evacuated from Jungle Near Singapore

Hq., Calcutta - When. Lt. Col. R. D. Forman, ICD flight operations officer, landed at Singapore recently, one of the first Americans he met was an old friend from the States - a former classmate in flying school.
The friend was Lt. Col. Don Humphrey, Postville, Iowa, XX Bomber Command pilot, who was shot down 100 miles north of Singapore last January and spent the next eight months with two members of his crew dodging the Japs in Malayan jungles. Carried to Calcutta by an ICD evacuation plane, the three joined four other survivors liberated from Jap prison camps. All are hospitalized but seem fit, and are expected to continue their trip to the States shortly.
They were all members of the original crew of the first B-29 over Japan.

'To Give Docks Hell'
The trio which eluded the Japs had completed plans for escape by submarine on Aug. 9, but were deterred by British intelligence operators who had helped them make arrangements. The latter advised them that the end of the war seemed imminent, and that it might be wiser to await aerial evacuation - which came a month later when an ICD plane carried the group from Singapore to Calcutta.
The Superfortress took off from India Jan. 11, to give the Singapore drydocks hell. They were intercepted by Jap naval fighters and hard-hit, and when number three engine exploded and left them with only one wing, the men had no choice but to hit the silk.

Supplied Carbines
Those who escaped with Humphrey and continued to elude Nip pursuit were Lt. William F. Duffy, Chicago, bombardier, and Lt. E. C. Saltzman, Washington, D.C., engineer.
In territory infested with Nips, and with their whereabouts all too well guessed by enemy observers, the three luckily fell in with Malayan guerillas, who spared no effort to protect and guide them. Their guerilla friends took away the Yanks 45s at first, but restored them when a peaceful understanding seemed to be reached. The 45s later were supplemented by carbines when contact was made with British intelligence workers.

Ate Dog, Crocodile
During their ordeal, narrow escapes from Japs were commonplace. Humphrey recalled one particularly anxious evening when they sat at dinner, with perfect confidence in the supposed "collaborationist" plantation owner who was harboring them, while four lorries full of Nips waited 200 yards away.
These men estimate they hiked, waded and swam more than 700 miles during their jungle stay. Some of their fare was elephant, monkey, snake, wild pig, lizard, dog, crocodile, jungle vegetation and venison. V-J Day was celebrated, thanks to some more plantation kindness, with prewar cognac.

CHINA
This Week
By Rus Walton

UPSIDE DOWN . . .
Civilians in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation were required to carry with them at all times an identification pass. This pass had to be presented to inquiring guards upon demand.
Many of the civilians, realizing that the Japs couldn't read English or Chinese, decided to do a little leg-pulling - a popular pasttime here. On some occasions, just to have a little fun, they would present a telephone bill, gas bill or some other official looking slip of paper that had a lot of English and Chinese characters scribbled on it. He would study the paper for a few minutes, growl something terrible, and allow them to pass.
One time in particular, a chic girl was passing a sentry box when the guard stopped her. Guards always did that - stop pretty girls. He demanded a pass. She gave him her identification papers and he proceeded to read them - upside down. He read one side then turned it over to read the other, still upside down.
When he came to her picture, he found that somewhere along the line he had lost (his) face.

GOIN' UP . . .
About the only things around this city that aren't going up rapidly are the elevators in the hotels. Overworked and overcrowded, they balk every few trips and refuse to move one way or the other. Luckily, most of the time, they get stuck at floor level and the passengers just walk out. However, once in a while they go berserk between floors and then the people in the car have to do a little scrambling to get back to safety.
This danger of the big city manifested itself the other day in the once-lush, now-harvested Park hotel when a group of officers were riding in an elevator that stopped between floors.
After a bit of jabber and wasted motion, the Chinese elevator boy managed to open the door and climb down to the floor below. By placing a stool in the door he made it possible for the rest to step out and down to the lobby and safety. However, one of the officers missed his calculations a little and sent the stool spinning into the elevator shaft as he stepped off onto the floor.
Downstairs, people who were waiting and wondering heard a terrific crash. Some of those who remembered the B-25 and the Empire State Building started for the nearest exit. Low-flying C-54s added to the tension of the situation. Which all goes to show that anything over three-stories just isn't safe nor practical.

SQUEEZE . . .
Shanghai, to many GIs, is turning out to be not as rosy as it once seemed. When the first Americans arrived here they found the world was theirs for the asking, and a few cents (American).
Silks and other souvenirs that were once available for a pittance now cost ten to 20 times as much. And although things are most likely worth the price demanded, the men resent the local people pulling the old squeeze play on them.
In the beginning it looked as if the men were, at last, in the most wonderful place in the world - next to home, of course. It appeared that they would not only get things they had gone so long without, but that they could get them at prices in keeping with their soldiers' pay.
Now they find that Shanghai is just a glamorous gyp-joint where most of the merchants seem to be out to get them and where even the officers seem to have trouble balancing their war-debts.
To put it bluntly, they do not like the idea of people trying to make back war-losses at their expense. Maybe they did bring a lot of the increases on themselves by spending so freely when they first arrived here; but at any rate, things just ain't the same for the Americans who are walking the streets that are being paved with gold - their gold.

Out on a Board

This sort of makes you homesick, doesn't it? The water and trees, we mean. The luscious-looking girl on the springboard seems to fit into the picture, too, of a lazy day in Uncle Sugar. She's Adele Mara, Republic Pictures starlet.

To Fly Parcel Post Directly to Kunming

Hq., Calcutta - In order to slow the work-load at Chabua and speed delivery of parcel post to China, ICD will take over the handling of packages as soon as they arrive at Calcutta and fly them directly to Kunming.
Previously parcel post had gone by rail from Calcutta to Chabua, where it was handed over to ICD and flown over the Hump. This rail trip sometimes took up to 15 days and dumped huge quantities of mail into the Chabua post office.
Flying packages from Calcutta to Kunming will cut up to 15 days from delivery time and ease the job of the post office at Chabua.

Three Naturalized At 1305 Ceremony

1305 BU, Dum Dum, India - Three GIs became American citizens during a naturalization ceremony at Dum Dum last week.
They were S/Sgt. Frank Hulme, Sgt. Jesus A. Gomez and Pfc. Henry K. Quon, all of 1305. Robert Hill, American Vice-Consul in Calcutta, performed the ceremony and Capt. Gordon E. Morse and Capt. H. H. Gorman were witnesses.
Sgt. Hulme was formerly a citizen of England, while Gomez was Mexican and Quon, Chinese. Quon's parents still live in Canton, China.

Rest, Jungle Camp Opens Near Kohima
For Men of 1332nd

1332 BU, Mohanbari, Assam - "Vultures' Rest," a combination rest and jungle camp located just outside Kohima, has been opened for personnel of this base under the direction of Capt. Cecil D. Gray, base training officer.
Each Monday and Thursday, 11 men are flown from the base to an airstrip near Dimapur, at the foot of the Naga Hills. A 46-mile truck ride over the Manipur Road then takes the men to the camp for a week's stay of hunting, fishing, sightseeing and loafing.
Excursions to nearby Naga villages are arranged for each group, but the main sightseeing attractions are the battlefields. Trenches, gun emplacements and abandoned equipment dot the hillsides, as testimony to the Jap invasion into India in April, 1944.

Special Service Distributes Hundred Tons of Equipment

Hq., Calcutta - More than 100 tons of special service equipment has been distributed to ICD bases since February, according to Capt. Fred G. Tubbs, division special service officer.
Approximately ten tons have been sent to China wing, over and above the regular allotment to that theater. Six tons went to the Shillong rest camp and the balance was divided up among the India, Assam and Bengal wings.

Wood Carving Kits
Including in the 100 tons of equipment, in addition to other athletic supplies, were 7,500 golf balls and 250 golf clubs. Over 250 musical instruments - accordions, pianos, saxophones, complete drum sets - have been distributed.
Many hobby shops have been established at the various bases, in connection with accentuated special service program, as hundreds of kits - wood carving, leather craft, clay modeling, sketch, block printing, and photo - were distributed.

Base Shows
Division special service is continuing to prepare Entertainment Unit shows to tour the bases. At present four shows are touring China.
Since December an average of two shows per month have been sent out. Some shows have played for 45 days in the China Theater - not only to ICD bases, but to other outfits stationed nearby.
In addition, over 100 shows have been staged by the special service departments of individual bases.

Oh, the Shame of It!
Editor: In the 13 Sept. issue of the Hump Express appears an account of the recent fire in Kurmitola village. The incorrect information contained in this article is a direct reflection on your newspaper and on my fire department.
. . . Kurmitola airstrip was never in danger from this fire. Not one "GI from nearby hangars ran to the scene." Hangars are more than 2,100 feet from the village and the village is out of bounds to all GIs. No bucket brigade was formed by natives or anyone else. Our base fire department rushed a 500-gallon-per-minute pumper to the scene and played two hose streams for more than two hours and extinguished the fire . . .
Any effort made to keep your reporting more accurate in the future will be appreciated by all. When one sees items in the paper he personally knows to be wrong, the natural reaction is to assume all the articles... may be wrong, and confidence in the American system of news-reporting is shattered.
Capt. W. A. Gallemore, Base Fire Marshall, Kurmitola, India
Ed. - To you, Captain, our apologies. Boss, scratch one PRO wallah at 1351 BU. He sent in the story.

'Girlish Reluctance'
Editor: So Gen. MacArthur has no political aspirations. That's interesting indeed! One can remember, almost, the coyness of Gov. Dewey, and the "long silence" of Roosevelt!
What is the source of the absurd tradition that a seeker of public office must be girlishly reluctant? To a common man, accustomed to grub for what he grabs, and make no bones about it, this pretense is rather farcical.
I would rather be right than be president (a little bit rather) but if any group with any power in the matter ever comes looking for me and suggests that I might make a good president, I hereby promise may constituency-to-be that I will make no genteel outbursts of disinterest.
F/O Felix Fowler, 1333 BU, Chabua

'Lot of Enjoyment'
Editor: I would like to tell you that your paper has brought a lot of enjoyment to all the men here at Luliang, China. I sincerely hope that it will continue to be published even though the war is over - until we all go home.
T/Sgt. Thomas E. Garner, Jr., 1343 BU, China

'Qualified Orienters'
Editor: For about a month we have been attending compulsory orientation lectures at Hastings airbase. I have no idea how many people I&E includes, how much background they have, nor what else they do - but if any other department in the Army had wasted its time as much as the promoters of compulsory orientation do, the war would never have been won.
I am not complaining about orientation - just the way it is handled. Someone from the group is called on to lead the discussion. This leader is not interested, is not prepared, hence his time and the time of the others are wasted. The subjects for discussion are uninteresting - many are foolish - and naturally no one cares to take part.
If we must have orientation, why don't members of I&E lead the discussion after thoroughly studying the question, or at least pick a good leader to do so? If there is no improvement in the orientation presentation, we might just as well hit the sack during that hour - it would do us more good.
* Soldier's name withheld 1300 BU, Calcutta
Ed. - Base I&E said qualified leaders now are being selected to handle discussions. The section found it impractical to use leaders from the group and discontinued it last week.
F/O Felix Fowler, 1333 BU, Chabua

'I Like Me'
Editor: I and my friends, we have noticed that the sporting page in this here Express is better than that of the Gould City (Nev.) Times-Free Press-Herald. More than that, I and my friends sometimes read same.
Sgt. Bill Graham, Sports Editor, Hump Express
Ed. - Always happy to know how the hired help feels.

Poker Jokers
Editor: Since gripes are no strangers to your column, here come one that I've been wanting to let off for a long time, and have often been tempted to let off right here in these quarters. Now that the war is over, and we are all going home soon (no ironic shrieks from the gallery, please, for just a moment!) what's the use of blowing up locally and making a lot of enemies?
These stooges are devoutly attached to blackjack and in various types of poker. Now, I have nothing against any of these pasttimes; it seems to me they're more for jackasses than for men, but what a man does in his own time is his own biz.
The trouble is, they do it on my time, too. Here I am digging in my sweatsack in the vain hope of gaining a little shuteye to fortify me against the day of postwar "activity" that awaits me in the morning, and here is this drove of monkeys guffawing and hooting through the night over their grubby deck of cards and their tangled rupee-notes, four feet from my - oh, my aching head.
Is there any hope that some of these undesirables will read this and take a broad hint - or must I arise some night and knock some of their heads together and cast them forth?
I'm No Gambler, 1346 BU, Tezgaon

Poor Li'l WACs
Editor: When are the WACs who didn't get sucked into the Shanghai deal going home?
We are volunteers, and voluntarily came overseas to help (we thought) win the war. The war is won. How much longer do we stay here in an atmosphere laden with rampaging and famishing would-be wolves, draftees almost to the last man, if I may use the word man?
* Enlisted woman's name withheld 1300 BU, Calcutta

TOUGH ALL OVER By Art La Vove

Hew to the Line

"America is going to keep the full strength she needs for her national commitments." - Pres. Truman.

"The important thing is the policy in regard to Japan - that the surrender of Japan will be carried out, and that the present economic and social system in Japan, which makes for the will to war, will be changed so that the aggressive will shall disappear. Whatever is needed to carry this out will be used." - Acting U.S. Sec. of State Dean Acheson.

The above statements - one by the President of the United States and one by the acting Secretary of State - followed Gen. Douglas MacArthur's announcement that 200,000 occupation troops would be sufficient to "control" Japan. The estimate (later revised to 500,000) is causing much controversy in diplomatic circles.
The President and State Department bluntly settle the question which every American, and particularly the soldiers who have given years of their lives to conquering Japan, ask of their country: is the Potsdam ultimatum, which demands the industrial disarmament of Japan, to be unconditionally applied, rightly enforced, strictly lived up to?
The president says we will keep the strength we need for our national commitments (a major commitment is enforcing peace terms in Japan); the State Department says our policy is to destroy forever Japan's ability to wage another war and, without pulling punches, adds that we will use whatever it takes to do it.
Beyond the grave importance to the United States of holding Japan, her war lords and industrial magnates unequivocally and unconditionally to the disarmament program - and behind the heated controversy which is resounding in high circles over Gen. MacArthur's occupation methods, with charges of "politics" flaring across the U.S. press - lies another factor of importance to GIs around the world.
That is what effect U.S. occupation of Germany, and of Japanese territories in the Southwest Pacific, will have upon demobilization of soldiers not now eligible for discharge nor likely to be eligible soon under the point system. Pres. Truman answered this concisely when he announced:
"I think we should all be very clear about one thing. The impression has spread that the speed of demobilization is governed by our future needs for occupation and other forces. This . . . is not true.
"We shall carry on our demobilization as rapidly as we can, which we are now doing. We shall not really face the problem of size or makeup of the occupation forces until next spring. By that time we ought to know how many men we will need for occupation and to what extent that need can be met through volunteers.
"America is going to keep the full strength she needs for her national commitments. But the rest of the men are coming back home, and are coming as fast as the services can get them out."
That is plain talk-over-the-table for all concerned - men who have fought overseas, men who have never seen overseas duty despite lengthy service, and men both at home and overseas with short service behind them.
The one great thing which must never be lost sight of in this controversy or any future controversy over occupation methods is that every aggressor nation be held rigidly to the disarmament ultimatums -economically, industrially, and militarily - by armed force if necessary.
That is America's debt to her war dead, he responsibility to the generations of Americans yet unborn, and the fulfillment of the promise she and the remainder of the Allied nations made, but did not keep, in 1918: "They shall not have died in vain."
For the dead of 1918 did die in vain. That must not happen again, or else all we have fought for - and won - is lost.

INTERNEES FREED FROM POOTUNG CAMP

Signifying the end of Japanese rule and oppression, this American B-29 soars past one of the last remaining Jap flags in Shanghai - atop a weather observation station. The plane dropped food and supplies by parapack to internees. (Photos by Maj. Don White.)

Americans and British Without Money, Homes

Civilians Survive 2½ Years of Skimpy Diet in Shanghai Internment Camp; Live in Rundown Godown

By T/Sgt. Gordon R. Lewis
Shanghai - They look as if they've had a hard life, but it's difficult to believe, as you can see them lined up for their still-meager chow, that they've been subjected to the rigors of a Japanese internment camp for more than two and a half years.
Their home for those long and trying months has been a huge and rickety "godown" which years before had been condemned even as a warehouse. They have lived, slept, eaten virtually on top of each other in their ramshackle quarters. They have eaten swill - and often less than swill. They have built their own quarters, tidied up the grounds and prettied the place - as much as an ugly place can be prettied - with flowers.
They have borne children. They have buried their fellows. They have built their own water purification boilers. They have done all manner of menial tasks which many perhaps thought they never could have done - before they knew camp life.

NOT BITTER
And yet these people, of all ages and all stations before the war, do not complain. "We didn't have it so bad," they'll tell you, with no bitterness in their hearts - even against the Japanese who put them there in Pootung camp, across the river from Shanghai proper.

This is a typical group of American internees now free to leave the internment camps where they lived for two and a half years. These "prisoners" lived in Chapel camp, Shanghai.

Technically the 900 British and 200 Americans in the camp have been free to go since the official surrender of the Japs. But most have had no place to go - and no money with which to buy clothes and other necessities of life. So they stayed on in the camp which had been their involuntary home so long.
Kenneth L. Goodwin, New York City, the American representative, and I. F. Drysdale, British representative, in charge of Pootung camp, agree that there were no Jap atrocities. Closest approach to it, they said, was the strapping and beating of Chinese who sneaked up to the enclosure to sell things to the internees and carried notes back to the city. The Japs poured boiling water down their necks and pushed cigarets up their noses. But an element of nervousness on the part of the 40 or 50 Jap guards assured fairly good treatment for the internees.
Goodwin, representative of the National Cash Register company, who arrived in Shanghai in October, 1940, asserted that paucity of food was the greatest hardship. For several months the internees' rations consisted of hot water for breakfast, one-half a beet for "tiffin" and only vegetable marrow soup for the principal meal. The meat ration consisted of only 90 pounds - about 30 percent of that waste - daily for 1,040 persons.
The internees did have bread, but for months it was coming across the river in sampans, with Chinese coolies standing at sitting all over it. The top layers of loaves had to be thrown away. Because of inadequate baking, the soft interior of the bread gave the camp folk dysentery. Leaders protested to the Jap consulate. Later coolies who ruined the bread were beaten and the bakers were ordered to do a more thorough job of baking. They complied. The Japs also supplied materials for ovens in which the internees made "zweiback," further improving their fare.

TROUBLE WITH TEETH
Despite the dietary deficiencies, Dr. K. I. Graham, of Melbourne, Australia, missionary doctor in the camp, believed the most serious permanent effect will be the decay of teeth occasioned by lack of calcium. Only six persons were sent to a hospital with tuberculosis, and some of those probably were afflicted with it before incarceration, Dr. Graham said. Only 19 persons died in two and a half years - lower than the death rate in Shanghai proper, he pointed out.
Lack of food told on the bodies of the internees, though. Drysdale had lost 70 pounds; Goodwin, 45.
There were no dental facilities until June, 1943, and the two American dentists were transferred to another camp in September. From that time, two men, trained "on the job" as dentists, have done the dental work. Before that, on one occasion, a carpenter's chisel and hammer were used to extract a painfully infected tooth.

ORIENTATION HERE, TOO
USAFI has nothing on the educational system set up by the internees. More than 100 courses were taught - from languages to mathematics to religion. "Pootung University" - with no apparatus, few texts - drew heavily upon the services of former professors and instructors from St. John's University here.
One of the best liked and most appreciated instructors was F. S. Drake, British professor of church history at Cheeloo University at Tsinanfu before internment. He delivered 256 lectures on Chinese culture, history, archeology, philosophy. As there were few children in Pootung, most of the education was adult training.
The internees got the news. Two residents went to "Bridge House" for punishment (few came back from the torture chambers there) when the Japs found their short-wave radio, but the guards never did find the second one, which kept the Pootungites up to the minute on war developments. The Jap commandant himself announced Pres. Roosevelt's death.

NEEDED A CLEANING
As far back as February one Japanese sergeant, who has been "decent," summoned the men in one large room, evicting the other Japanese guards, and stated:
"I hope to see you under more favorable circumstances soon. In my opinion the war may be over in May, at the latest August. Japan cannot continue much longer."
There "never was any doubt about the outcome of the war" in the minds of the internees, Goodwin said, adding:
"Only we expected it to end much quicker than it did."
The camp was not always livable. When the advance party of 400 arrived on Feb. 15, 1943, ground around the godown was covered with inch-deep human excreta from a cesspool in the area. The men got busy, cleaned up the place, installed toilets (only five for each 260 persons) and showers, built shelves, constructed boilers to furnish potable water. The men set up an office and kept elaborate statistical records on everything imaginable - concentrating on food and health figures.

'PEACE WILL KILL'
Inmates were allowed to receive one parcel monthly from outside - if they had friends who could afford to help or if they had left money with neutrals who could oblige. First food and supply drops by parapack came on Sept. 5, this year, and continued for four days.
The B-29s on several occasions did too good a job with bombardment. Free-falling packages plummeted through roofs of buildings, injuring slightly about 34 persons. Goodwin put in a rush call to the relief mission headquarters and pleaded:
"We've gotten through two and a half years of war and bombing. For God's sake stop dropping packages. The peace will kill us!
Many persons who have left Pootung to try the outside world have come back. They've found living too expensive for their limited resources. Many like Goodwin, see no sense in leaving until they learn the status of their firms' operations in Shanghai.

ONE BIG DISAPPOINTMENT
About the only thing which rankles some of the internees is what happened to their "comfort allowances." With the $8 gold (American money) they received, they were able to buy enough cigarets and peanut butter for a month, Goodwin said. They understood from the Swiss, who handled the affairs, that a gold unit was equivalent to 25 dollars CRB (China Reserve Bank). They learned, however, when they were freed that a gold dollar is worth not 25,

This is the scene which the internees viewed when they looked across the Whang Poo river from the Pootung camp to Shanghai. For two and a half years they could only look, waiting for the day they could set foot again in the city.

One of the eight Dutch internees leafs through the countless barracks rules at Pootung camp. The Japanese were stern with violators of their edicts.

but about 100,000 CRB. Where the rest of the money went, no one knows. What they do know is that a cake of ordinary laundry soap cost the internees about 220 gold dollars. "That's a lot of money for soap," Goodwin remarked, sarcastically.
Despite it all, the internees are still able to smile. And they'll tell you "Pootung was the best camp of all." Theirs is a pride which comes of building one's home with one's own hands, of sweating out two and a half years behind a barbed-wire enclosure, of tasting more bitter than sweet, of surmounting insurmountable obstacles, of grinning and bearing it.

BROAD VIEWS By Pfc. Kin Platt

"Can you suggest something nice I can give my boyfriend
when he comes home?"

Flight Traffic Clerk School
Opens at Teke Hai College

1305 BU, Dum Dum, India - ICD's Flight Traffic Clerk school, formerly located at Agra, reopened on Sept. 22 with more suitable quarters in Teke Hai college here.
In an opening address to the initial class, Capt. John F. Kelly, division route supervisor, P & T, in charge of the school, called attention to the increasing importance of the flight traffic clerk.
As reconversion modifies the mission of ICD by gradually reducing the ratio of freight to passengers, and as ATC prepares to turn over the first globe-girdling passenger airline to commercial interests, he said, attention to the needs of the passengers grows more vital.
Nearly half as many clerks will be needed for assignment to just one metropolitan base, declared Capt. Kelly, as are now employed throughout the division.
The first session was addressed also by Maj. Frank J. Miller III, deputy assistant chief of staff, P & T, and Capt. James K. Anderson, division movements control officer.
During the remaining sessions of the five-day course, classes will be conducted by Sgt. Randolph A. Haase and S/Sgt. Thirl M. Eckstein. Lectures by P & T officers on special topics will be a feature of one of the six classroom periods each day.

HUMP EXPRESS is the official newspaper of the India-China Division, Air Transport Command, APO 192, c/o Postmaster, New York, N.Y., and is published by its Public Relations office. Camp Newspaper Service and Army Newspaper Service features are used, reproduction of which is prohibited without permission of CNS and ANS, 205 East 42nd St., New York, 17, N.Y. Other material is submitted by staff members, ICD-ATC base Public Relations sections and other soldier correspondents. Printed weekly by the Hindusthan Standard, 3 Burman St., Calcutta, India, and distributed each Thursday. Passed by U.S. Press Censor for mailing.

Military transport schedules over India for cargo, personnel and mail ... maximum tonnage of essential war materials over the Hump ... movement of troops and supplies in support of tactical operations in China ... evacuation of the sick and wounded - these are the missions of ICD-ATC.

SEPTEMBER 27, 1945

Original issue of HUMP EXPRESS shared by Barbara Skinner Lipiew

Copyright © 2018 Carl Warren Weidenburner

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