My Story 7: To Taiwan, and back to Taiwan.
My Story 7: To Taiwan, and back to Taiwan.
Arrival
Vessel Hai Shen (海辰輪)
was a 7000 ton cargo ship manufactured by the US during the Second World War.
She belonged to the Liberty Class, built in haste to replace the loss of
supplying vessels sunk by German submarines. Hai Shen was built in 1942 in
San Francisco and was originally named the Lyman Beecher. Sold to the China
Merchant Steam Ship Company in 1946, she was renamed Hai Shen, or Sea in the
Morning. About 5000 soldiers and civilians squeezed into her holds and decks.
It was hard to find a place to lie down.
The ship departed Swatow on September 30, 1949. My
company was assigned a space in a hold that was accessed through an opening in
the deck by descending vertically down a three-story high ladder. There was no
lavatory in the hold. On the side of the deck were set up numerous temporary
outhouses in the form of two planks that extended outward on the gunwale. Although
canvas walls offered some protection, the pitching and rolling of the ship plus
strong winds and waves would frighten any person who dared use it. Soon,
everywhere on the deck was dotted with human droppings and urine. Many got
seasick and threw up right on the spot.
It was
worse in the hold. Rain showered down as we reached open sea. Combined with ocean spray, water poured through the opening. In no
time, the hold accumulated a couple of inches of water, which sloshed from one
side to the other by the rolling of the ship, along with all the filth in it.
I am not sure if any vent system existed, but the foul smell was unbearable.
The next day I climbed up to the deck to use the outhouse and stayed up there.
The situation on the deck was better. People fashioned tents using anything they could get to protect themselves from the rain and ocean spray. Some volunteered to pick
up the feces and threw them out to sea. I found a place near a funnel, sat against the wall
and dozed on and off.
Two nights and one day later, just before dawn
on October 2, 1949 I saw a string of lights which turned out the street lights
along a highway beside a mountain. They looked beautiful, like a pearl necklace
on a woman. We had reached it, Taiwan, our dream land.
We
disembarked in the afternoon and waited until wee hours of the
next day to board a train to Taipei. The carriage stunk of animal, somebody said it was for transporting pigs to the slaughterhouse. After getting
off at Taipei station, we marched ten miles to a small town and stayed there
for one week. The next day was moon festival, thus a decent dinner was provided.
But the atmosphere was sober. The
festival, traditionally calling for the reunion of family members, was especially meaningful to Chinese people. To most of us this was the first moon festival away from home. I heard later
that in the other town, where the main body of the academy was, some people
started to cry under the full moon. Their crying soon infected others, and the
place turned into a wailing ground.
General
Ko, the newly appointed superintendent of the academy, was a Hakka. He chose a
place, XinPu (新埔)
for us to stay. Because most of its inhabitants were also Hakka and he could
work out a better relationship with the local authorities. ﹝I would like to
digress a little here to talk about General Ko. After retiring from the
military, he lost all of his pension, which he had invested in a
glass-manufacturing factory that failed. Soon afterward, the political winds in
Taiwan began to turn against him. He had been deputy commander of a garrison in
Taiwan when an anti-government riot broke out on February 28, 1947. Troops from
his garrison command had rounded up the rioters and executed many of them.
After the Taiwan government became democratized and the Taiwan Independent
Movement came to power, General Ko was wanted for trial. He then immigrated to
the US, where he became a truck driver for living. He never became a
naturalized citizen and, though in need, was proud enough to not apply for any
aid from the US government. We met several times in Los Angeles, and I continue
to admire how he maintained dignity in his later years.﹞
As we
marched in the night, we went through the biggest city, Taipei, the biggest
river, Fresh Water River (淡水河),
and the longest bridge in Taiwan at the time. We also passed suburbs and countryside.
The tranquility, order, and worry-free living style deeply moved me. In my
native county, houses were big, windows were small. Here the houses were small
and cozy, windows were big and flimsy. In my county there was no light at
night, but here the lights were everywhere. No roaming bandits, no high walls
with flared openings for shooting. All was so peaceful. It seemed to me unworldly. This place was paradise.
Boot
camp
The
local government set us up in a couple of elementary schools with some classrooms
as our barracks. Each company of 108 cadets shared a large triple decker bund bed that
was the length of the room. Each person occupied about 3 feet of sleeping
space. We built our own outhouse near the hillside. We had no water supply and
so had to go to a shallow brook near the rice fields to wash our faces and
brush our teeth every morning at dawn.
At the bottom of the brook we could see wrigglers wriggling that we
might scoop up if we were not careful. To bathe, we went to a river about one
mile away two or three times a week, summer or winter. However, the meals were
quite satisfactory. We settled down and started boot camp all over again.
Although
the academy was named “Military and Political School”, the training was mainly
in military skills. After a few months we learned to handle various weapons
such as machine guns, grenades, mortar, and portable missiles. By fixing
bayonets on our rifles, we practiced close quarters combat every day. We
learned how to form a defense line by digging trenches, forming machine gun
nests, and setting up wire meshes. There were also lessons on attacking a
dug-in enemy. The instructor taught us how to detect a land mine and detonate
it before reaching the spot. We practiced crawling under wire mesh, and cutting
them to make openings to be ready for a
rushing in. We even had several battle field exercises in which we crawled
under wire mesh with machine gun bullets flying overhead and dynamites
exploding around us. All the training made us feel strong and confident.
One day
in January, 1950, in preparation for a visit from a former Communist turned
anti-communist theorist ﹝任卓宣﹞,
each of us was given a form to apply for the membership in Kuomingtang, the
Nationalist Party. During [任’s]
lecture, we were all sworn in, and thus we collectively became members of the
ruling party. I was not too enthusiastic, so it is ironic that the party later
supported my college education and even sent me abroad to study.
Company
commander
The
commander of our company, 張子固,
was a native of Sichuan. He spoke Mandarin with the queer Sichuan accent, which
was pretty amusing. He was intelligent and, I thought, gentle – until one
incident changed my perspective. In Taiwan, unlike in mainland China, residence
registration was effectively enforced. So when one of our cadets deserted and
was soon discovered with no identification, he was escorted back by local
police to meet his punishment. The commander assembled us after dinner to
demonstrate to us to the appropriate punishment – by beating a person’s upper
thighs with a wooden paddle. Five persons held the cadet’s limbs and his head
down on the ground, with his head turned to the side to prevent suffocation .
The squad leader was then ordered to remove the soldier’s pants and begin
beating him. After a few strikes, the commander
deemed the strikes too light and took over. The sounds of the wooden paddle
hitting flesh and of the soldier’s howls shocked me. After 40 strikes, the
soldier lay motionless. Two people carried him to his bed, where he stayed for
over a month to recover.
Beating
violators and suspects in military and civilian life were routine. I had often
seen cadets being hit by officers and squad leaders. But this by far was the worst case I had ever
seen. I had never witnessed such cruelty before, and it nauseated me. I was
surprised that the commander whom I had viewed as being gentle could be so
cruel. It was this incident that turned me completely against any corporal
punishment. I discussed it with my friends and found that I was the only one
against any bodily punishment. I wrote many pages in my diary to convince
myself that my perspective was right, and that I should steadfastly hold to it.
Not long
after, my cousin Liu Li Chen, 劉立成,
a high school teacher in Changhua, tried to persuade me to desert. He assured
me that he would arrange everything, including resident registration and a job
as a teacher in an elementary school. But with the beating incident fresh in my
mind, I eventually refused.
One day
after a field training exercise, as we were walking along a highway, the
commander came alongside a dog that walked slowly, with lowered head and
drooping tail. In my native county we were told to avoid this kind of dog
because it was what we called a “mad dog,” actually a dog infected with rabies.
Our commander did not know this. He swung his carbine and hit the dog. The dog
bit his wrist, breaking his watch and leaving a tooth mark on his skin. It did
not bleed, so our commander was not concerned. After a couple of months later,
a jeep came to our company while we were having dinner to transport our
commander to a hospital in town. He was later transferred to the best hospital
in Taipei, where he died of a rabies infection.
This
commander was replaced by Yang (楊衍紳),
a native of my own county. Eventually, he and his son became very close friends
with us in the US, and we continue to be lifelong friends.
Life as
a new political officer
Our
training ended in September, 1950. Since all the troops under General Hu’s
command were stationed in Kinmen, a group of off-shore islands near mainland,
the academy moved there. Within a week of our graduation ceremony on September
20, 1950, all the cadets left for positions as officers in training, except for
30 of us who became political officers after a short review course on political
affairs. I was appointed as political
officer to the 9th company of the 11th artillery regiment of the
army and reported for duty at the beginning of November. But the regiment’s chief political officer
decided I was too young for the job and
instead made me stay in the office of political affairs in the regiment’s
headquarters. He arranged for me to share his bedroom and advised me to use the
time to pursue knowledge. He left me free to do what I wanted and gave me very
little guidance. For example, I was disorganized and thought that it was a
waste of time to attend to such trifles as one’s daily routine. So while he was
neat and orderly, I never made my bed, except on rare occasions when he told me
to make my bed because he was expecting guests.
I was bored and requested to be sent to the company to work. Finally, on
October 1, 1951, I was allowed to go, and I reported to the 9th
company of the regiment.
The
company was deployed in the northern-most shores of Kinmen, where with the
naked eye one could see people coming and going on the nearest island
controlled by the Communists. The commander welcomed me, and in the first few
weeks I visited the squadrons that had been dispersed to the bunkers along the
rocky coast. The soldiers were so respectful to me that I felt much pride.
Still, while my position in the company was an officer, equal to the deputy
commander, because the Ministry of Defense did not recognize the academy, my
rank remained a soldier. It presented some difficulties. For example, the
salary of the deputy commander was about NT$200, but mine was NT$20. While all the
officers could hire locals to washer their clothes, I had to wash them myself.
I heard of an incident in which one of our graduates became crazy after
suffering mistreatment from his unit, and a friend of mine killed himself by
plunging to the sea because he was treated as a common soldier.
Responsibilities
as a political officer
Among
the numerous duties of a political officer was teaching the soldiers to read
and write. All the soldiers in my company were from a unit of a coast garrison
in Shandong Province ﹝山東煙台要塞﹞, and all were illiterate. The
commander gave me one hour a day to teach them. They were unwilling and
resisted, complaining that reading was useless in fighting, and that the pen
was heavier than the rifle. Watching them sweat as they tried to write, I
understood their difficulties. One day I asked them whether they knew
Confucius. They all did. Then I asked to which province Confucius belonged. In
unison, they proudly replied that he was a native of their province. ”Confucius was the most learned man in our
history and you, his compatriots, are illiterate,” I said. “Isn’t that
shameful?” From that point on, the resistance subsided. Within a couple of
months they all were able to recite most of their issued text, and to write
some of it, which began:
At dawn,
we rise to keep the house keeping routine and clean our barracks.
﹝東方發白，大家起床，整理內務，打掃營房。…﹞
Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950. US President Harry Truman reversed his declaration on abandoning Taiwan just a couple months ago to sending 7th fleet to Taiwan Strait to prevent an attack from the Communist. American military aid also started flowing in. Our regiment was relieved
of coastal defense duty and re-positioned in a village, where we received new
105mm howitzers and began an intensive training program. With the
re-organization, new officers came to perform the work of calculations and
communications. They were better educated, and we quickly became good friends.
Because those who were able to read and do some math were given more important
positions, the soldiers who were diligent under my tutelage reaped rewards.
Intrigue
and punishment
Because
Kinmen was under military rule, another of my duties was to participate in the
local government affairs. I was asked several times to work with local police,
and I also taught in the local elementary school. In one incident two squadron
leaders attempted to rob a regimental administrative staff member of two
thousand NT dollars, equivalent to US$50, after beating him on the head with
stones, then dragging his body off the road and leaving him for dead. But the
man did not die. Instead, he struggled a couple of miles back to report the
robbery. A summary court-martial was set up with a deputy regimental commander
as the sole judge. All officers were assembled as spectators. The victim and
the attackers were brought in. In less than an hour, the judge handed down the
verdict – guilty – and the punishment – death. The two fell to the ground
begging for mercy, but to no avail. I did not know or care if they carried out
the verdict. I checked the military code and discovered that the penalty for
killing people in robbery really was death -- but what if the victim did not
die?
The
deputy commander in my company was a well liked man from the same original unit
as his soldiers. One day I was told by a squadron leader that he was plotting
to have some men in disguise beat me up. I did not know why, or what I should
do. The next day I reported it in a meeting with the commander and other
officers. The deputy commander denied it but fell silent after the squadron
leader testified. After a while, my company was transferred to another village,
the deputy commander was left behind on orders from the regiment headquarters,
and he was transferred to a different company. When he bid good bye to the
soldiers, many cried, and I felt very bad about it.
The
soldiers from Shan-Dong discriminated against and made life unbearable for two Southerners who were also better educated. One day they disappeared. The commander should have reported the desertion immediately, but he kept quiet. He
may have been following a very bad practice passed down from Chinese warlords to
collect the salaries of deserters as extra income. He already enjoyed five vacancies, and was happy to add another two. However,
at the time, the National Defense Ministry, advised by America’s
MAAG (Military Assistance Advisory Group), strictly prohibited such practice and developed a system to identify such
illicit acts. The troops sheltering the two soldiers who had deserted were
obliged to inform us of their presence. The commander was furious not for their desertion, just for losing his additional income. He then sent an armed group of 3 to bring them back. They only got one; the other, we were told, had committed suicide whose body had been
found in an abandoned pillbox. As soon as they were back, the
commander took the deserter to his living quarters and started torturing him by electric shock from a hand-cranked generator. I heard the screams and went to intercede. He stopped, but tied the soldier’s hands behind and
hung him to a beam just high enough so that only his toes touched the floor. He sent a
squadron leader to watch him. After a couple of hours, when the pain had become
unbearable, the squadron leader came to ask me if he could loosen the cable a
little. I directed him to relax the string so he could sit on the floor. Next morning the deserter was escorted to regiment headquarter to be tried by military court..
The
other deserter did not die; the body in the pillbox was somebody else. He hid
with one of his friends. This time the commander sent me to pick him up. After his return
the commander did not torture him as he did the other, just left him to be tied
to a desk. In the night somebody came to wake me up and informed me that the
commander had sent a group of soldiers to the hillside behind the village to
dig a grave. He was planning to execute him. I went to his room immediately to plead
for mercy. But the commander was determined and replied that the escapee should
have been dead in the pillbox; there would be no ill effects from executing
him. I told him that because I was the one who brought him back, I was
accountable for him. I also told him that a deserter should be brought up for a
court martial, with death as a possible punishment, but should not be executed
in secret. Eventually I said that whatever he did was his business and that I
was going to report the whole incident to the regimental quarter the next day.
After hearing my argument, the commander stopped. Next day the deserter was
escorted to the regimental headquarters. There was no court martial. The two soldiers were simply reassigned to
another unit.
My stand
against corporal punishment was well known and sometimes jeered at by my fellow
officers in the regimental headquarters and in my company. My viewpoint was
unpopular, and only a few officers agreed with me. Then one day the order from
National Defense Ministry came, forbidding beating and hitting soldiers. It
called the tradition “harmful, backward, and barbarous”. To hit and beat
soldiers was no longer allowed. It caused turbulence among the officers because
they did not know what to do with some unruly soldiers. The order was ignored
at first. We political officers were supposed to report any violation in the
units, but very few did because they did not want to alienate their colleagues.
The officers who still hit soldiers looked at us with suspicion because there
was always possibility of being reported. This strained the relationship
between common officers and political officers. Because of my known viewpoint
against beating, my position became difficult. One day the deputy commander of
our battalion came to me to have a private talk. He was intelligent, a graduate
from military academy, and much younger. (Most officers in my regiment rose
from the rank and file. They were much older.) He asked for my patience during
this transition period. He also asked me not to report such incidents during
this time. It was as if he believed that I was behind the whole new order
against beatings. I assured him that I had not and would not report any but
would wait for people change to the right direction. He then started to advocate
for the new policy to his subordinates, and the practice gradually disappeared.
To the
military academy
Our
academy was not recognized by the Ministry of National Defense, so we remained
ranked as soldiers even after our training. There were a general
disillusionment among us. My position was equal with the deputy commander of
the company, but my rank was a petty officer. Those who were not assigned as
political officers were even lower.
Therefore, nearly all of us tried desperately to find other ways to
qualify as officers. The army academy was looking for qualified soldiers and
held an examination, but the information came to me too late and I missed the
chance. Sometime later, the General Office of Political Warfare in the Defense
Ministry decided to start a new military academy to continue to supply
political officers in the armed forces. It was a college level education, and
they promised that the graduates would be officers with the starting rank as
lieutenant. I promptly handed in my application and joined the examination. On
September 28, 1951 I found my name on the paper among the 500 strong who were
admitted. On October 19, 1951, I, with the others who were also accepted,
boarded a boat to sail to Taiwan. The next day we were at the port of Kaohsiung
, a southern seaport of Taiwan.
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