Signing of the Korean War Armistice

Today is the 60th Anniversary of the Armistice that ended the fighting in Korea. Since there was no peace agreement, the war is technically not over. Watch the signing of the Armistice courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center:

How Not to Impress Your Wife as a Soldier in Vietnam

I'm spending the morning organizing notes for the third chapter of my dissertation, which focuses on how soldiers reacted to atrocities that they witnessed or were part of that were reported by civilians (usually Vietnamese), and ran across a weird case in the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group files.  I only have the summary, not the whole file because this is one of the files still not screened for public viewing, so I don't have all the witness statements.  At first this looks like a generic war crimes case, but gets weird quickly.

A gentleman named Anthony Ciccarella, of Newport, Kentucky, took seven letters that SP4 Steve Snyder, formerly of Alpha Company, S&T Battalion, 25th Infantry Division had sent to his wife (Snyder's) to the military intelligence group at Ft. Knox.  The letters details several apparent war crimes during Snyder's service in Vietnam. 

1. His letter from 12 January 1970 claims that Snyder and his squad went into a village and were giving the local kids candy and cigarettes when they discovered that the children were booby-trapped.  One soldier died, and the rest lined up the kids and shot them execution-style.
2. On 16 January Snyder wrote that the squad looted $50 from the bodies of three Viet Cong.
3. Four of the letters (22 Jan, 5 Feb, 19 March, 11 Sept) included claims that rather than take wounded Viet Cong prisoners, Snyder just shot them.
4. When CID interviewed Snyder's wife, she told them she had destroyed a letter where he described "a black night when his unit killed everyone in an entire village."

I think it's weird that a soldier put these things in letters home, unless he was feeling really guilty about them, but there's more.  CID agents interviewed SGT Robert Leath and SP4 Max Akpik, who said that some of the incidents (no idea which ones) were based on reality, but grossly exaggerated, while others Snyder invented out of whole cloth.  Snyder finally gave his own statement to CID at his new post in Germany, where he told the agents that the atrocities he described in his letters were fake, and that he wrote them "only to impress his wife that he war a war hero".  He also confessed to taking about $5 in Vietnamese money from the body of a dead Viet Cong officer.

Here's what I don't get: why would this guy think that his wife would be anything other than horrified by these incidents?  The best outcome I can see would be her thinking that the war was horrible, and that he'd been changed by his service in it.  The worst?  Well, he came close when his letters got turned over to the authorities, but she also could have left him in abject horror at the type of person she'd married.

Book Review: Crime, Punishment and the Prison in Modern China

Dikotter, Frank.  Crime, Punishment and the Prison in Modern China. Hurst & Company, 2002.

Until the late Qing, the state of Chinese courts, jails, and punishments gave European powers an excuse to insist on the privilege of extra-territoriality in order to protect their citizens.  The arbitrary nature of Qing jurisprudence made it seem that this was in the best interest of various merchant communities.  Dikotter argues that extending this privilege to foreigners was not the major issue for the Qing that later reformers believed it was – it was part of normal concessions given to foreign trading partners I an effort to mollify them in their demands, and was not given exclusively to European imperial powers.

Defeat by Japan in the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese war led reformers to argue that China needed to reform its judicial and prison systems as part of the greater efforts at Self-Strengthening promoted by Kang Yuwei and others.  European powers roundly argued that Qing jails and punishments were barbaric due to the high incidence of corporal punishments and lack of effort at reforming prisoners.  Flogging, exile, and death by torment were used rather than confinement as the primary punishments.  Reformers agreed with Europeans that a change in penal regime was necessary.  They wanted a systematic and bureaucratized system aimed at reforming prisoners.  Activists had two primary motivations in pursuing this course – ending extraterritoriality, and strengthening China so that it could compete with other powers.

While there was an emphasis on scientific methods of reform, rules, regulations, and record keeping, European scientific rationality was not the basis for Chinese efforts.  Instead, Dikotter argues that reformers were using modern methodology to achieve a traditional Confucian goal.  Prison reformers wanted to use education and spiritual guidance to improve the mass of Chinese people, strengthening individuals for the collective good of the nation that needed to strive against others.  Reformers met with sporadic success and failure due to overcrowding and lack of funding, much like in prison systems elsewhere in the world.  Despite this, late Qing and Republican prison reform achieved much more than later Communist propagandists would admit.  Many prisons became orderly, safe, and clean, and sentences more humane in the effort to reform the nation.  These new prisons met with the same problems as those in the West – recidivism and systemic violence.  As such, they were firmly in line with modern developments in prison and prisoner management, despite being constituted to achieve traditional goals.

Book Review: Women, War, Domesticity: Shanghai Literature and Popular Culture of the 1940s

Huang, Nicole.  Women, War, Domesticity: Shanghai Literature and Popular Culture of the 1940s. Brill Academic Publishers, 2005.

Building on Chang-tai Hung’s War and Popular Culture, Nicole Huang examines the literary culture of Shanghai during World War II.  Her time frame is carefully chosen to examine only works published during what she considers the true duration of the war in the Pacific – from December 1941 through 1945.  The reason for this is that before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Shanghai existed as a virtual island surrounded by blockading Japanese forces, which allowed the literary culture to develop unchallenged themes of Chinese nationalism in support of the war against Japanese aggression.  Once Japan took the city after bombing Pearl Harbor, Shanghai’s writers had to contend with censorship and a competing Japanese use of popular culture.

Huang develops two primary themes.  First, she argues, the literary efforts of women in Shanghai were not focused primarily on promoting patriotism and national struggle against Japan in the same way that authors operating outside areas of Japanese control were.  Official censorship in Shanghai precluded such an effort.  Instead, Huang’s sample of female authors presents the reality of surviving in the city, methods of coping with scarcity and occupation in a subversive manner even in organs that belonged to Japan’s propaganda apparatus.  War is the backdrop of the themes of resistance to both the occupiers and their traditional roles n Chinese society.

Second, Huang asserts that the traditional theoretical models used to examine reaction to occupation are ineffective instruments for examining how real people react.  The prototypical construction found in French scholarship on World War II relies on a three-category framework, in which all civilians are collaborators, partisans, or passive onlookers prevents historians from examining the subtle details of how individuals act.  Similarly, Huang argues that events in Shanghai and elsewhere, like Vichy France, must be placed into historical context in order to understand them.  The efforts of women writing in occupied Shanghai are only understandable in the context of early Chinese reform movements, which focused on the role of women as a means of challenging the traditional social order.  In Vichy France, she argues that official efforts to restrict women should be seen in the context of conservative backlash against the liberal policies of 1930s France.  In effect, Huang is arguing for a more nuanced and contextual approach to history.

Lt. William Crandell on the Reality of Vietnam

Lieutenant William Crandell, who had served in the Americal Division in Vietnam, delivered the opening statement of the Winter Soldier Investigation on 31 January 1971.  The goals he said, were not to condemn individual soldiers, but to illustrate the effects of the policies and tactics used in Vietnam, and to show who was responsible for those policies.  There would only be direct testimony of what soldiers witnessed during their service, without any show trials, verdicts, or fake indictments of public figures.^*  He included this heartfelt summation of how he believed that his service in Vietnam had been a lie...  

We went to preserve the peace and our testimony will show that we have set all of Indochina aflame. We went to defend the Vietnamese people and our testimony will show that we are committing genocide against them. We went to fight for freedom and our testimony will show that we have turned Vietnam into a series of concentration camps.

We went to guarantee the right of self-determination to the people of South Vietnam and our testimony will show that we are forcing a corrupt and dictatorial government upon them. We went to work toward the brotherhood of man and our testimony will show that our strategy and tactics are permeated with racism. We went to protect America and our testimony will show why our country is being torn apart by what we are doing in Vietnam.

^* Later investigations by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division did find that some of the witnesses  related hearsay while testifying, but that few actually made anything up.  Many of the allegations made simply could not be substantiated because the participants refused to identify individuals or provide other details that would allow the Army to seek out and prosecute offenders.

Book Review: The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military Under the Qing Dynasty

Waley-Cohen, Joanna.  The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military Under the Qing Dynasty. I.B. Taurus, 2006.

The common view of China under the Qing is that the culture of the Empire was soft due to the lack of focus on martial arts and virtues, which the Manchu adopted after their conquest.  In this respect, the Manchu were little different from other invaders who were assimilated into a superior Chinese culture.  In The Culture of War in China Joanna Waley-Cohen offers an important corrective to this view.  She argues that the Qing imperial project consisted of two main efforts: military conquest and a modification of Chinese culture to the Qing’s advantage.

The Qing built on their image of military prowess and imperial expansion to add a martial element to Chinese culture designed to unite China’s disparate ethnic and religious groups based on the concepts of universality and pride in imperial expansion.  In order to achieve this goal, Qing officials elevated military prowess and accomplishments to the same level of social and political importance as traditional accomplishments within the confines of the existing Mandarin system.  A key part of this effort was the prominence given to military topics and efforts by those close to the emperor.  Still, the Qing were wise enough not to attempt to dismantle the existing culture of China in favor of their own creation.  The idea was to unify, not separate, the people of China.

    Waley-Cohen argues that the Qing deliberately injected martial elements into culture and the arts, including religion, landscape, ritual, and painting.  Scholars went to newly conquered provinces to document exotic areas in order to bring the imperial success home to the masses, inculcating both the idea of Qing arms and pride at their achievements.  In addition to these “soft” efforts, the Qing introduced the banner system of organization to maintain and display Manchu military vigor after the conquest of China.  The banner system also provided an alternate route to elite status for members – passing examinations based on Confucian texts were no longer the only route to prominence.  According to Waley-Cohen, after 1749, these changes to Chinese culture became a systematic effort designed to stabilize and extend both China and Qing control over China.  This resulted in a broad change in Chinese culture between 1636 and 1800.  As a result, it is necessary to look at changes and events in China through the Cultural Revolution through the lens of Qing militarization of Chinese culture.

Bart Osborn on His Decision to Testify at the National Veterans' Inquiry

Kenneth Barton Osborn gave this as his reason for testifying about the incidents of torture and murder he witnessed while serving as a military intelligence case officer near Danang.  His job was to run networks of Vietnamese agents to gather intelligence about Viet Cong activities. Although he served in the Army, much of his work included providing the Marines of the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force intelligence information during 1967-68, after which he worked with Project Phoenix.  At the National Veterans' Inquiry in Dec. 1970, he testified that he witnessed a Marine kill a Vietnamese detainee by pushing a small wooden dowel through the man's ear into his brain during questioning.

"I feel as if this standard operating procedure, which is authorized by the American military community, and by the CIA, is against the American value system. I don’t feel that I can come back with a clear conscience from Vietnam and consider myself a good Christian, or a don’t feel I can have a clear conscience, knowing that my government is working despicable methods of operation in other parts of the world and denying it; working against the Geneva Conference and blaming other nations for doing the same thing that we’re doing, it’s just that we classify it as they do – we catch them, they catch us, and it constitutes on heck of a hypocrisy. The reason I’ve said these things today is simply to document or add evidence to the fact that we are doing these things, and my suggestion would be that we don’t have to. We should not criticize others for doing the same things that we’re doing, or we ought to cut it out. One of the two. I simply want to add to what the others have said, and that’s why I’m here today.”

James Simon Kunen, Standard Operating Procedure: Notes of a Draft-Age American, Kindle edition, location 3395.

Book Review: War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937-1945

Hung,Chang-tai, War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937-1945.University of California Press, 1994. 

While the Chinese struggle against Japan during World War II and the subsequent victory of the Communists over Jiang Jieshi’s Nationalists receives large amounts of scholarly attention, little attention is paid to propaganda and changes in popular culture during this period.Many studies assert that Communist forces successfully portrayed themselves as the primary forces opposing Japan, but few discuss how these claims disseminated through China’s large and dispersed population. Chang-tai Hung argues that both Nationalists and Communists relied on urban popular culture, which spread into rural areas to promote resistance to the invading Japanese, but that Communist propagandists were more adept at using popular media to promote their own agenda.

The new importance of popular culture is as important a change as the use made of it. Chinese elites looked down on popular culture as unsophisticated, and in their urban form as crass commercialism. However, popular culture became an important tool for spreading political messages simply because it was popular and entertaining. The urban popular culture that spread into rural areas after Japan’s invasion was less commercial, focusing on patriotic and reform messages. Although propagandists relied on media formats including song, cartoons, newspapers, and poetry, the first important export to the countryside was spoken drama, delivered by acting troupes that communicated rather than fought. The core of Hung’s argument is that the war with Japan was more than a military crisis – it created an environment when traditional values were questions, roles of intellectuals changed, and social order altered. These combined with the expansion of popular culture into rural areas to work to the Communists’ advantage in winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the people.

The result of these epochal changes was the development of a new political culture in China focused on rural areas rather than cities, providing Communists with an advantage in the Civil War against the Guomingdang. The war created a crisis for intellectuals, many of whom believed China at a dead end, and that the GMD’s leadership corrupt and ineffective. The result was a belief that a new era was dawning for China. The Communists successfully adapted these feelings to create a new “people’s culture” that minimized the rich and powerful and served their own ends.

Book Review: I Was a Prisoner of War in China

-->Bakshi, K.N. I was a Prisoner of War in China. Lancer International, 1989.
Serving as the commanding officer of a combat engineering unit during the short 1962 Sino-Indian War, Lieutenant Colonel K.N. Bakshi recalls his experiences as a prisoner of war and as a serving officer after his repatriation to India. His account begins with the poorly planned and executed retreat from prepared defensive positions that led to his wounding and capture, continues with his detainment by Chinese soldiers, and finally his humiliation at his treatment by the Indian military once he was repatriated.

Like other POW narratives, Bakshi portrays his sense of isolation, the harsh conditions, the privation of various camps, and conflicts with other soldiers. His case is particularly telling due to the serious injuries to his hip, both hands, and his wrist, which prevented him from caring for himself. The pain of enduring a finger amputation without anesthesia led to an outburst that alienated him from the soldiers who had to feed him. The resulting separation increased when Chinese soldiers carried him on a little to new quarters while the others walked up hill unassisted in a torrential downpour.

The final portion of Bakshi’s tale somewhat echoes Ha Jin’s depiction of Chinese treatment of prisoners returning after detention in Korea – defeated troops that failed in their duty are an embarrassment to the state when they initially return.Later returnees receive better treatment than those repatriated early in the process. Bakshi’s anger at his treatment is evident in his reaction to the events as they unfold, but also in his strong response to American coverage of hostages returning to the United States from Iran in 1981. His account argues for a commonality of prisoner experiences across cultures that deserves additional investigation.

Book Review: War Trash

Ha, Jin. War Trash. Pantheon Books, 2004.

Reading an account, even a fictionalized one, of Asian prisoners held by the United States provides a clear look at commonalities in the prison experience facing military and civilian prisoners.  Ha Jin describes Chinese prisoners of war experiencing the same feelings of loneliness, isolation, and fear that American prisoners during the Vietnam War report in their memoirs.  Issues of living conditions, food supplies, collaboration, and physical abuse are also a constant concern of both the Chinese soldiers Ha Jin portrays and other prisoner memoirs.  The difference with this text is that it addresses the specific problems faced by soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army during and after the Korean War.

Issues specific to this setting included, but were not limited to, conflict between soldiers with Nationalist and Communist sympathies, disparity in treatment between the two groups by their American and South Korean captors, and worries over treatment by either Communist or Nationalist governments after the end of the war.  The novel’s protagonist, Yu Yuan, fell into a grey area between the Nationalists and Communists.  While not a member of the Communist Party, Yu also did not completely support Chiang Kai-Shek.  His credentials as a graduate of the Nationalist-affiliated Huangpu Military Academy caused Communists to view him with suspicions, while Nationalists assumed he would side with them.  Both sides desired his skills as an interpreter and pressured him to join him – the Nationalists going so far to torture and murder those who opposed him.

Though he disliked the Communists’ desire to control the thoughts and minds of his fellows, Yu feels that he must fulfill his filial duty to his Mother and fiancé, and works to return to China at all costs.  As a result, he was one of the few Chinese prisoners to return.  Rather than receiving a hero’s welcome, the repatriated soldiers are condemned by the Communist Party, becoming pariahs in the homeland they fought to defend because they did not choose a glorious death.  By the time he returns, his mother is dead, and his fiancé shuns him due to the stain on his reputation.  In contrast, Yu sees the prosperity of those who chose to relocate to Tiawan, and the welcome they receive when they return to China thirty years after the war.

As much as War Trash shows the commonality of the prisoner of war experience of soldiers of different nations, it shines a bright light on the specific challenges Chinese soldiers faced during the Korean War, particularly the demands of ideological purity and sacrifice placed on them by the Chinese Communist Party.  While fiction, Ha Jin draws not only on a variety of primary and secondary sources.  Since the work is dedicated to his father, a member of the PLA serving in Korea, it is sure that some of the events described come from his recollections of the period.  This means that while War Trash cannot be relied on for research purposes, it plays an important role in setting the mood of the conflict.

Long Exposure Vietnam War Photos Released

Along with the other strange occurrences of the long war in Vietnam, we now have night photography of a base camp responding to a lone sniper with overwhelming firepower to no result other than a blood trail (and fled enemy).  This is what two M-60 machine guns, an M-2 .50 cal. machine gun, and the 40 mm anti-aircraft guns on an M-42 Duster will get you (at night).  The photos are stunning for what they show (and imply) about the conduct of the war.

Long Exposure Vietnam War Photos Released