My Memories of War in China

by John T. Ma

Flying Tigers (I)

The first group of "Flying Tigers" were known as the American Volunteers Group (AVG). I joined the AVG in I941.

AVG was created with a loan that the Chinese government received from the U.S. government. It was part of the Chinese air force, not the American air force. Since the U.S. was not at war with Japan at that time, she could not send her air force to China to fight against the Japanese. That is why those pilots, although they came from the U.S. Army and Navy Air Forces，were called volunteers.

In addition to 100 fighter pilots and Colonel Claire Lee Chennault, Chief of AVG, the staff of AVG included some mechanics, radiomen, intelligence officers, a physician, a nurse, a secretary, and a deputy chief. They were all Americans and needed interpreters. The Chinese Air Force did not have that many interpreters. There were many English-speaking people in China who could qualify as interpreters for AVG, but out of fear that some Japanese spies could penetrate into AVG, the Chinese Air Force dared not recruit interpreters by advertising publicly. So the Chinese government issued an order to ask students of the English Departments of five leading universities to volunteer to serve as interpreters for AVG for one year. After one year they could return school to the same class as before. So I volunteered for the second time during the war against Japanese.

Before we joined AVG as interpreters, we received a three - month training. We learned air force terminology. We learned about U.S. - China relations. We learned the difference between the English and American terminology. And we learned some American slang. But there was one word that we never learned and that the Americans, especially the radiomen, used in almost every sentence. That is the four-letter word, f--k. Later, when I worked in AVG headquarters and the radioman called to tell me that there was a message for Colonel Chennault, I had difficulty in understanding him because he used so many f--ks in his speech.

Having completed the training, I was assigned to work as the interpreter-code-man in Colonel Chennault’s office. There were eight code-men divided into four two-man teams. Each team worked six-hour shifts and the code room was manned 24-hours a day. We decoded and coded all incoming and outgoing messages. The code was rather simple. Each alphabetic letter was represented by two figures. For example, "45216876345698245532" meant "Japs coming”, because 45 represented J, 21 a, 68 p, 76 s, 34 c, and so on. Our code book was changed every three months. I do not think the Japanese ever intercepted our messages nor made sense of them.

The headquarters of AVG was a small building located in the airfield of Kunming. It had only four rooms. In Colonel Chennault’s room were Chennault himself, his English secretary, and his Chinese secretary Colonel Shu Boyan（舒伯炎）. Colonel Shu also served as Chief of Interpreters and was therefore was my immediate superior. Next to Chennault’s room was the code room where the code-men worked. Facing Chennault’s room was the room of the Deputy Chief of AVG, Captain Green. Next to his room was the sitting room where guests were received.

Chennault parked his car just outside the building. His Chinese driver sat in the car all day long. When a code-man had to go to a radio station to pick up a message, the transportation department would send a car or a jeep with a driver to the headquarters for the code-man to use.

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