My Memories of War in China

by John T. Ma

To the First Army (I)

One day in 1938, a young man by the name of Huang Songhe (黃誦和) came to see my family. He claimed to have come from inland China and brought with him news about my elder brother David (馬大恢). David was a student at Nankai University in Tianjin when the war broke out. Together with students of Peking University and Tsinghua University, Nankai students were supposed to move to Kunming, in Yunnan Province, to form the Southwestern Union University. On their way to Kunming, many of them stopped by the city of Changsha and formed the Changsha Temporary University (長沙臨時大學).To help the war efforts, some young people had volunteered to join the army or organized a war area service corps. Some students of the Changsha Temporary University had also organized a war area service corps and were ready to go to the front. David was one of them.

At that time, the First Army, under the command of General Hu Zongnan (胡宗南),had withdrawn from Shanghai to Wuhan. When he heard that students of Changsha Temporary had a war area service corps, he wanted that corps to become part of the First Army. So he sent a young Hunanese officer to Changsha to meet the leader of that corps and to persuade the corps members to go to Wuhan to see General Hu. He successfully accomplished his mission and the corps went to Wuhan to meet General Hu.

In Wuhan, General Hu told them that the First Army would move to Shaanxi Province with headquarters in Xi’an. The corps would be named the War Area Service Corps of the First Army (第一軍隨軍服務團). The main responsibilities of the corps were (1) help mobilize the people to join the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and (2) help to educate the local teachers and officials. The corps was divided into small groups. Each group took care of one village. The headquarters of the corps was located in the city of Fengxiang. The corps leader reported directly to General Hu. Local officials and military officers were all very cooperative. My brother David was healthy and doing fine, Huang told us. All members of my family were very happy to hear that.

Huang was scheduled to return to the First Army in a few days. This was the best opportunity for me to join the army. So I told my father that I intended to go with Huang to see David and join the First Army. My father readily accepted my request and I got ready for the long journey.

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