[Excerpt] ...

[...]

I was standing in the breakfast line at K-2 when I first heard the gentle purr. I wasn’t the only one.

There was a hush in the chow-line as the hum of the plane got louder. It struck me that the sound was different; not the funny, tinny drone of the Japanese Zeros and Judys, or the rattling-roar of their bombers, but a strong, steady, comforting sound that seemed to push up against the heavens and reverberate back down to earth.

I knew instinctively this was one of ours!

The foliage over the camp was dense and we couldn’t see the plane’s approach, but the drone got louder.., and louder.., and then there it was!

Directly overhead—its wings painted with a huge POW and a Red Cross on the fuselage!

A cry went up, “Oh, God, it’s over! It’s over! They’ve FOUND US!”

I lost it completely!

I started jumping up and down and shouting deliriously. The yells, screams, and pandemonium that broke out all around me drowned out the roar of the plane’s engines as it skimmed over the camp. We were hugging each other, laughing and crying at the same time.

The plane made another pass, and I rushed out of the kitchen compound and started down Main Street to the prison gates, forgetting my soggy breakfast in the excitement of the moment.

Suddenly, the joyous shouting turned into a long moan. The plane had left and was roaring off to the west, towards China’s mountainous heartland...

The crew hadn’t seen us after all!

The guards were coming out of their quarters, heavily armed, jogging down to the main gates and the guard shack, their faces grim. Gold Tooth looked sallow and sick. I stood still for a moment, looking up and down the street trying to decide where I could find some high ground to watch the plane’s flight.

Then, remembering the forbidden bell-tower, I raced towards the women’s dorm. Not surprisingly, everyone else had the same thought, and scores of us pounded up the stairs looking for a vantage spot. I could see the plane again in the far distance, like a little fly speck against billowing thunderheads.

I watched till it looked as though it would disappear into white nothingness, then it turned south and flew along the face of the clouds.

“It’s heading home—maybe to Kunming.”

I couldn’t believe the voice I was hearing. It was Pete Fox! But before I could say anything, he let out an, “Oh, hell...” and started back down the stairs on the heels of a disappointed, disbelieving crowd.

“Hey, wait a minute, how did you get out?” I yelled, running after him.
“When the guards left, I wriggled out through the vent,” he said over his shoulder.
“Great!” I sang out, clumping down the stairs.

As I passed the second floor dorm, I saw Miss Blodgett standing by her bed, mumbling to herself and throwing things out of an old suitcase like a demented customs official. Suddenly, she gave a little cry of triumph, grabbed a piece of rolled up cloth, kissed it, and tucking it under her arm, raced down the stairs behind the motley mob. I followed her, churning with excitement.

“Whatchagot?” I asked, coming up behind her.
“Old Glory. I’ve hidden it all these years. It used to fly over our mission compound, and I just couldn’t leave it for the Japs to get.”

Her eyes began to water, and she brushed away a tear, as she stopped and cocked her head to one side, birdlike, listening.
“They’ll come back,” she said, confidently, “I know it … and this time we’ll be ready for them!”

The few times I’d seen her, I had thought she was quiet and rather meek, but when she started to sprint after the crowd again, her long, black skirt flapping against her thin legs, I realized I had never really known her.

She was dynamite!

When she got in front of the crowd, she stopped and waved her arms till she had everyone’s attention, then she started unfurling Old Glory. We all just stared.

As I finally grabbed one side of the flag and helped her hold it aloft, I felt goose-bumps crawling all over me again ...

“Those planes flew over us, because they didn’t know we were here,” she shouted. “If they saw us at all, we were just a bunch of running people … any people.

If we go out the gates and lay Old Glory in a wide, open field, they’ll know we’re here!”

“What makes you think they’ll come back?” someone yelled.
“They’re looking for us!” Pete said.
“Miss Blodgett’s right, they’ll be back. Let’s help them find us!”
From somewhere in the milling crowd, there was a bellow of, “Let’s G-O-O-O!” , and like lemmings streaming off a cliff, we started running toward the main gates.

We saw Gold Tooth, standing with his binoculars looking up into the sky, cussing a blue streak, and stopped dead.

It was obvious he had spotted the plane returning.

With that realization, we started yelling all over again. My throat was raw, and as I ran with the crowd, I tripped over a slab of granite that had broken loose from the wall around the assembly hall compound.

I picked myself up and kept on going. Then I saw King Kong. He was yelling at his men, as they formed a solid line across the heavy wooden gates, their machine guns aimed at us, point blank. I looked at the guards, especially the young ones who were the same age as us, wondering if they would fire.

We had known them for almost three years; we had seen them become forgotten by their country, suffering from homesickness, their uniforms in tatters, their teeth chattering in the cold, their bodies sweating in the heat—but they’d always been good soldiers, following commands without flinching ...

God, help us! I prayed silently.

Just then, someone yelled, “Buggayara!” , and as if on cue, we all let out a roaring, “B-A-N-Z-A-I!” , and charged the gates.

The yell caught the men off-guard, and they lowered their guns, as Pete shot the gate-bolt and Miss Blodgett rushed through, Old Glory streaming out behind her, followed by the most ragtag bunch of scarecrows I’d ever seen.

The feeling of freedom was intoxicating. I’d almost forgotten how beautiful the Chinese countryside could be. Wind-scarred willows clung to the banks of a running stream, and little bare-bodied children ran splashing through the water, waving bamboo sticks with bright paper windmills pinned to them.

They were giggling and shouting, “Mei kuo fen! Mei kuo jen!” (Americans! Americans!), pointing to the skies.

I looked up too and saw the plane circling.

There was a lump in my throat as I kept up with the crowd racing out to the kaoliang fields. The plants, like corn, were tall and ready for harvest.

I knew that throwing Old Glory over the tassels and pulling her out straight and square would be tricky to do, but there was nowhere else to lay her down, as the fields were planted to kaoliang as far as the eye could see.

While we wrestled with the flag, the plane dropped lower and lower, and then, as I looked up, it made a roaring pass, the cargo doors opened, and seven paratroopers rolled out like marbles from a bag, followed a few moments later by huge metal drums of supplies.

Hysteria swept over us once again as we raced out to where they were landing, fighting our way down the long rows of kaoliang and jumping up to spot their location. Some of the brightly colored supply parachutes didn’t open, and we could hear their cargo landing with a ominous thud.

When we finally came upon the men releasing their ‘chutes, we were surprised to see them in full combat gear, and laughed when they told us to stay back, as they might have to fight their way into the camp.

We also found one tragic victim: a little Chinese boy, who had sustained a glancing blow from a drum that had landed with an unopened parachute. Pete gently lifted the little fellow in his arms, and then, before the paratroopers knew what had happened, the stronger of our men had raised them shoulder-high, and we swarmed back down the road and through the prison gates. The older people and young children were standing in a semi-circle just inside, their faces flushed with excitement, while the jubilant Salvation Army band was playing God Bless America!

There weren’t any Japanese to be seen.

I turned and looked at the guardhouse to the left of the entrance; a white flag was flying from a hastily erected pole. I smiled at Miss Blodgett, who was happily draped in Old Glory. Her neat bun had broken loose, and her dark hair cascaded down her back. Her face was flushed with joy and excitement, and she looked like a young girl.

Pete, who had handed the injured boy over to a hospital orderly, gave her a big hug, and spinning her off her feet, shouted, “You’re one helluva lady!”

[excerpt]

It must have been two days after “liberation”, when I was down at the main gates inhaling the intoxication of freedom, that four Chinese horsemen came riding slowly up to the camp. As they alit, Rob Connors, a very recently appointed member of our new Camp Police Force, and a Jap guard challenged them.

The challenge abruptly turned into a cheer when two of the Chinese turned into Laurie Tipton and Arthur Hummel, the escapees of the previous year!

With recognition came an ear-splitting warwhoop that rang all through the camp, and before you could spit, noisy crowds of well wishers gathered from all over. It was an unforgettable reunion, and as the day progressed, the plotting and planning of the breakout, and the miraculous appearance of the medication and drugs, all came to light.

[excerpt]

I couldn’t help asking myself:
1.
If she was a “Yank”, and in such deplorable condition as the OSS lieutenant says, why didn’t he call in one of the camp’s many excellent doctors to examine her?

Let’s face it, the war was over: the Japanese had no control over us. We, especially the OSS, were completely in charge.

2.
If she was a “Yank”–an American–why did he allow her to be taken out of the camp on a litter and flown off in a Japanese bomber... to who knows where?

3.
How could he think that the Speedletter to G. P. Putnam was confirmation of Amelia Earhart’s being in the camp? As a wealthy publisher, with world-wide connections, he could have had other relatives and business associates in China who would wire him on their liberation from a prison camp. And there was no elation in his subsequent note of September 9, 1945, to the State Department, in which he stated flatly, “I have just received the message sent recently from your office and would like to file with you my new address, in the event any other messages are sent me from overseas.”

Then he listed his new address in Lone Pine, California.

Not one word regarding the socalled liberation of his long lost ex-wife Amelia Earhart!

Further investigation in January of this year brought me in contact with yet another source: the author of an intriguing book on Amelia Earhart.

To my surprise he too appears convinced that the lieutenant’s story is plausible and that Amelia Earhart was in our camp. He gave me several graphic examples of crowded prison camp conditions, such as ours, where people and equipment were concealed and not brought to light until hostilities were over. I didn’t point out that neither the people cited, nor the radio equipment involved, needed around-the-clock medical attention, but instead, I shot him the three points I have already listed: he either ignored them or told me I must be referring to the lieutenant’s first, fictionalized account of the incident—to which I said, as far as I was concerned, all the accounts were fiction. He then asked me why it was that Weihsien was the only prison camp liberated by the OSS.

“That’s easy,” I said, `,it’s because the map showed us 1,000 miles due west of our actual location, and it took the persistence of the OSS to find us.”

He insisted that wasn’t the reason; it was because Weihsien was a VIP camp that’s why Earhart had been interned there.

I told him I was sure we would all have liked to have been considered VIP’s, but we weren’t, we came from every walk of life in the Orient.

He wasn’t impressed, persisting that the real reason the OSS liberated Weihsien was because they were on a special mission to spirit Amelia Earhart out.

I knew there was only one solution to this—I would have to find the OSS major in command of the sortie.

Luck was with me.

I located him the following week, and, after thanking him for his part in our liberation, I asked him point blank if he had been sent to Weihsien Prison Camp to free Amelia Earhart.

He chuckled.

He said, although he was the CO in charge, he never received any such orders: the first time he heard of Amelia Earhart supposedly being in Weihsien was in December of ‘97.

So, to all you researchers and writers involved in the Amelia Earhart saga, “Hang in there, the final chapter has yet to be written!”

To everyone else—so you can understand where I am coming from you would have to have lived within the confines of a cramped city block with between 1,500 and 1,800 people to realize “there was no place to hide.”

Believe me, I tried many times.

And to all those souls who want to find closure regarding Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, I empathize with you, but all I can say is, “Forget Weihsien—look somewhere else.”

[further reading] ...
http://weihsien-paintings.org/books/MushroomYears/Masters(pages).pdf

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