Editor's
Note: The U.S. Navy's V-5 and V-12 programs brought more than 900 men
to Swarthmore College between July 1943 and July 1946. Most were here
for a short time in programs that trained engineers, line officers,
aviation candidates, and premedical and pretheological students. In
the spring of 2000, Charles Taylor '49, working with the staff of the
Alumni Records Office, attempted to contact as many of the Navy men
as College and other records would allow. This project, which
preceded a War Years reception at Alumni Weekend, brought many
letters and reminiscences. From these, Taylor compiled biographical
sketches of more than 80 people whose lives had been touched by
Swarthmore during the war.
One unusual letter came from Han-Chung Meng in Spokane, Wash. Meng was 1 of 49 Chinese naval officers who arrived on campus in the fall of 1943 for nine months of training, primarily to learn English. His account of coming to Swarthmore during the war is a rewarding glimpse into a momentous time and a remarkable life.
During the Sino-Japanese War, China was forced to fight against Japan for her independence and freedom on mainland China. The Japanese Army invaded Manchuria in 1931, then continued the fighting in Northern China, and, in 1937, extended the war to Shanghai--hence, to China as a whole. We tried our best to defend our territory, made a great deal of sacrifices, in all respects, and, with a strong will, we slowed down their advances. That was the time when we fought alone, although we did get a lot of sympathy from different righteous countries in the world.
In the early part of December 1941, I was a junior naval officer stationed in a river fortress on the upper gorge of the Yang-Tze River. One day, I saw the big headline--the Japanese had sneaked an attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor. I shouted to my unit, "Look! The Japanese attacked America, and we are not going to fight alone!"
In the succeeding year, Japanese were able to grab the Philippines, Hong Kong, a part of Borneo, Singapore, and Vietnam. The Pacific War had changed its trend after the U.S. Navy stopped Japanese advances to the East by winning the Battle of Midway in June 1942. However, the general situation of the war was still in favor of the enemy. It was at this moment that the U.S. government asked the Chinese government to let Chinese military personnel go to the States for training, so that they could be used jointly with the U.S. armed forces to fight against the Japanese and win the war together.
It was under this arrangement that we, a group of 49 naval officers, were selected and sent to the States for training in three main fields: general line officers on ships, engineering officers in the shipyards, and naval architecture officers for building ships. I was one of the officers in the first group.
This whole company of officers started their trip from Chongqing, in the interior province of Sezhuan. We rode on two GM trucks to Kunming along the curved, treacherous, and dangerous highways. Then the U.S. Army Air Force took us over the Himalayas, and we arrived in Assam, India. A narrow-gauged railroad carried us to Calcutta, where we took another train to Bombay. From there, the USS Hermitage took us to America via Melbourne, the Society Islands, and Christmas Islands.
Although we had been alarmed to general quarters by several unidentified objects (Japanese submarines) on our voyage, we arrived safely in San Diego, Calif., with a group of Chinese Air Force officers and quite a few orphans from Poland. The U.S. Navy sent a young naval officer, Lt. Cmdr. Henry T. Jarrell, to command our group. He met us there together with our assistant naval attaché, Cmdr. Y.C. Yang, from Washington, D.C. They put us on a train, and we started our across-the-country trip to Swarthmore, Pa. The entire journey from Chongqing had taken more than two months.
There
we entered the famous Quaker college--Swarthmore College. We spent
two semesters in that college's Naval V-l2 Unit, picking up language
and other subjects.
One of the alumni of the College, Mr. McCabe of the Scott Paper Company, thought so honorably of our presence in that school that he donated a dry fountain in front of the dormitory where we stayed [Wharton Hall]. This fountain has a Chinese stone lion guarding a copper plaque on the ground, where all 49 Chinese officers' names are engraved in Chinese calligraphy. I visit my school and this memorable place whenever I am in Philadelphia. Our training there and this memento are 56 years old now. What a great thing to remember!
While we were at Swarthmore, the local inhabitants were kind of pleased to have us around. They invited us to dinner, to the Thanksgiving, and to the New Year celebration. Through these social gatherings, we were able to pick up American culture as well as to present ours. I was in charge of liaison work for a while and had a hard time to send our friends to attend those gatherings because everybody wanted to go. Finally, I had to arrange the attendants to answer the call by the alphabetical order of our names.
To supplement my English study, I often invited my English teacher, Mrs. Lincoln, to go to the movies on Saturday afternoon. We watched a movie, and then she would explain some parts of it to me during our dinner time. We students were not paid very lavishly during the war, but the prices of things or standards of living were not so high either. Five cents for a Coke, a cup of coffee, or a doughnut. Ten cents for bus fare, or you bought three tokens for a quarter.
As to the meals at Swarthmore, we ate, like the midshipmen in our V-12 Unit and other students at the College, the same food with individual plates to follow in line and got our shares in succession. The lady who handled this sometimes gave us special treats: more rice to every Chinese student and horse meat as a delicacy. Then they gave us free milk to drink before we turned in every night to help us sleep so that we would not be homesick and become sleepless.
One thing that bothered our commanding officers, Captain Jarrell and our Unit Commander, Lt. Bartle, was how to fulfill our request to share our quarters with the American boys. We wanted to be put one in each room with an American student in the dormitory to be mingled with the American boys with the purpose of knowing more about the United States and being able to pick up English sooner and better. The authorities were afraid of several factors and didn't decide on it promptly. However, they finally accepted our suggestion after weighing all the factors, and we all thought that was a wise decision. One of the friends that I made through this keeps close friendship with me no matter where I am, on mainland China or in Taiwan. This gentleman, Mr. Donald Youngblood, lives happily with his wife, Marji, and their family in San Diego now.
Although we stayed at Swarthmore only two semesters, our College president, Mr. John Nason, still honored us with certificates. We all attended the Commencement exercises in 1944, with the honorable Mr. James Forrestal, the secretary of the Navy, who delivered a promising speech. We were so happy that we could share the honor of being students at Swarthmore. n
--Han-Chung Meng
May 2000
Han-Chung Meng spent 1944-45 at the Naval Academy's postgraduate program and was still in training in the United States when the war ended in August 1945. He returned to China in mid-1946 as an officer aboard a ship given to the Republic of China by the U.S. Navy. Meng served as a naval officer, first on the mainland and later in Taiwan, for more than 20 more years, rising to the rank of captain. He moved to the United States in 1990.
Andrea Juncos '01, publications intern, completed historical research for this article.
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