September 2010 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.
In China
Our company was on 24-hour duty. We had the duty now and then – always, for one day.
Shortly after midnight they called us out. We had our rifles and carbines, but needed ammunition. They supplied us with that.
My birthday was on April 3, and I was eighteen, so I enlisted for two years, 1946 – 1948. Later, the politicians and the Marine Corps itself cancelled this period, for we had no time to serve. The minimum was extended to four years.
My enlistment was predicated on certain truths: I wanted to see the world, and I thought the Marines would give me this; in high school I had dated girls and wanted to be more mature; the original G.I. Bill was still operative. This Bill, allowing one year more than the time of enlistment, entitled me to 36 months of schooling, with good pay then.
In China, I was a member of a 60 mm mortar battalion with my company, Able Company. We lived in a Quonset hut, in the middle of a very cold winter. One man, a man from Texas, got up each morning and started a fire in our potbellied stove. The latrine was at some distance from the Quonset hut. Now and then, we had the duty, but this time they called us out, shortly after midnight, and loaded us into trucks.
On the way to the ammo dump, at about 20 miles, we were instructed to put real cartridges in our rifles. I carried a carbine. This brought the fact to me: This might injure or kill someone – and this was a problem of conscience: To kill someone presented itself to me as an act that would have serious consequences for me.
Why were we in China? The U.S. foreign policy was in a shambles. Originally, we went to China to receive the Japanese surrender. But this was dragged out. The very best duty was to ride from Tientsin to Peking on a train. The Communists seldom attacked this train because of our superior firepower. They were struggling under Mao Tse-tung to get control of China, then under Chiang Kai-shek. For example, once we had to guard the airplane that brought General Wedemeyer to China to arrange a coalition government between Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek. But Mao saw through this and refused to cooperate; he knew that Chiang was finished.
We arrived at the Ammo Dump shortly after 1 A.M., and already planes were flying overhead, Mustang P-51s. They wanted to call in bombers to wipe out the villages nearby. But some superior officer called off the strike on the villages, among which the Communists were scattered.
I also saw my first dead Chinese soldiers, members of the Communists.
Lee Hoinacki
July 10, 2010
Lee is a member of CPF and St. Malachy’s parish.
1