Chiang Kai-shek Archives

Dressed in traditional garb, a lone Chinese man seeks the protection of a sandbag barricade in the International Settlement of Shanghai on August 12, 1937. Adjacent to the civilian are a British soldier and two American Marines who have donned their helmets. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)

Chiang Kai-shek

A Memorable Marine Mascot

By Eric Niderost

Soochow was a mongrel dog with a remarkable gift for self-preservation. A homeless stray, he attached himself to some U.S. Read more

A Chinese soldier sheds some light on the German transmitter Farrell accidentally discovered in Canton. The discovery led him on a two-year investigation and the arrest of 21 German spies.

Chiang Kai-shek

OSS Captain Frank Farrell Prosecuted Nazi Spy Ring In Postwar China

By Colonel Richard D. Camp, Jr. USMC (Ret) and Ms. Suzanne Pool

Marine Captain Frank Farrell stood in the open door of the Army Air Corps C-47 waiting for the “green light,” the signal to leap into space, on a mission that could mean life or death for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people. Read more

Westmoreland decorates the standard of a fighting unit in Vietnam. He left the country in 1968.

Chiang Kai-shek

Soldier Profiles: General William C. Westmoreland

By Blaine Taylor

In 1989, this writer had occasion to interview four-star General William Childs Westmoreland, now 86, formerly U.S. military commander in South Vietnam and at the time of the interview a retired Chief of Staff of the Army. Read more

Chiang Kai-shek

The Venerable General Matthew B. Ridgway

by R. Manning Ancell

Siren wailing, the jeep propelling Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker headed north from Walker’s tactical command post in Seoul. Read more

Chiang Kai-shek

Soviet Military Intelligence: Richard Sorge

By Pat McTaggart

The Siberians are coming!” It was a cry that spread terror through the ranks of the German Wehrmacht in the winter of 1941. Read more

Pu Yi, wearing glasses and a plumed hat, salutes the crowd at the ceremony proclaiming him emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.

Chiang Kai-shek

Kenji Doihara: Japanese General and Convicted War Criminal

By Wil Deac

At 11:30 pm on December 22, 1948, four handcuffed men were led by guards into the chapel of Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison. Read more

Chiang Kai-shek

The Air Transport Command: From Lend Lease To The Hump

By Sam McGowan

World War II was responsible for numerous technological advances, not the least of which was the establishment of the largest airline in history. Read more

Lt. Gen. Hugh Drum is seen meeting with other senior military personnel at Grenier Field, New Hampshire.

Chiang Kai-shek

Wartime Politics: Generals Hugh A. Drum and Joseph W. Stillwell

By Bruce Graham

It was the worst of times for the Allies. It was the time of opportunity for senior U.S. Read more

Chiang Kai-shek

Eleventh-Hour Peril: The U.S. Naval Escape from China

by Eric Niderost

On November 11, 1941, the U.S. Navy gunboats USS Luzon and Oahu were ordered to “make quietly all preparations within the ship for a cruise at sea.” Read more

Chiang Kai-shek

Operation Matterhorn

by John Kennedy Ohl

Most writings about World War II tend to attribute the success or failure of military operations to the skill with which generals and admirals handled their forces in battle and to the fighting abilities of soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Read more

Chiang Kai-shek

Over the Hump: Supplying Allied Forces over the Himalayas

By Sam McGowan

In truth, it really was not a combat operation. For every airplane lost to enemy action, a hundred were destroyed in accidents. Read more

During an inspection tour of OSS headquarters in New Delhi, General William, "Wild Bill" Donovan stands fifth from the left. To Donovan's right is Colonel John Coughtlin, commander of the New Delhi unit. Elizabeth McIntosh stands third on Donovan's right.

Chiang Kai-shek

Inside the OSS: An Interview With Elizabeth P. McIntosh

By Bob Bergin

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was America’s first strategic intelligence organization. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized its establishment on June 13, 1942, six months after World War II began, to collect and analyze strategic intelligence and to conduct special services, including subversion, sabotage, and psychological warfare. Read more

En route to the Chinese 74th Army headquarters at Wukong, five Japanese prisoners are marched out of the guerrilla headquarters at Tien Toh. All five appear to be well fed and clothed. (National Archives)

Chiang Kai-shek

Saving Face After the Surrender of Japan

By Ulrich A. Straus

It will not come as a surprise to American readers that when the Japanese emperor delivered his surrender message on August 15, 1945, Allied forces led by the United States had thoroughly defeated Japan’s naval and air power in the Pacific. Read more

Artist John G. Hanlen depicted the rather austere conditions that prevailed at the headquarters of an Allied army in China. John Birch, whose name has become synonymous with an anti-Communist organization in the United States, would have been familiar with such surroundings. (U.S. Army Art Collection)

Chiang Kai-shek

For God and Country: The Story of John Birch

By Sam McGowan

In the 1960s the John Birch Society was well known to most Americans as a right-wing political organization noted for its anti-communism and conspiracy theories. Read more

Japanese marines prepare to open fire with machine guns on the outnumbered Chinese position at Sihang Warehouse in October 1937. National Archives

Chiang Kai-shek

Chinese Alamo: Last Stand at Sihang Warehouse

By Eric Niderost

On October 27, 1937, the Zhabei district of Shanghai began to burn, an enormous conflagration that stretched for five miles and filled the northern horizon from end to end, almost as far as the eye could see. Read more

Chiang Kai-shek

Why the U.S. Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Japan in WWII

By Robert A. Rosenthal

How did we get to dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima? Who was responsible? Where and when did it begin? Read more

In 1937, the Battle of Shanghai foreshadowed the grim urban combat in the Great War that was to come.

Chiang Kai-shek

The Battle of Shanghai: A Prelude of Things to Come

by Christopher Miskimon

The 1930s was a decade full of World War II’s antecedents. Fighting broke out at various points around the globe during this decade, and manu consider the period to be a training ground for 1939-1945. Read more

Chiang Kai-shek

Bridge House Hotel: Crimes of the Kempeitai in Shanghai

By Eric Niderost

By the 1930s, Shanghai was already a legend in its own time––the most modern, populous, and decadent city in China. Read more

Chiang Kai-shek

The Claws and Teeth of the Generalissimo

By Bob Bergin

It was at the grand banquet given in his honor that General William “Wild Bill” Donovan told his host, General Dai Li, that the OSS intended to work on its own in China and that he wanted no interference from the Chinese. Read more

May 1944: Chinese troops advance through the streets of the ancient city of Tengchung, held by the Japanese for two years. The Japanese garrison at Tengchung was wiped out.

Chiang Kai-shek

The Salween Offensive: Blundering to Success in Burma

By Marc D. Bernstein

After launching an invasion of Burma (today Myanmar) not long after Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese Army went on to overrun much of China by May 1942 and closed the Burma Road—the vital, 717-mile-long mountain highway built in 1937-1938 that ran from Kunming in southern China to the Burmese border. Read more

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