——For the Memorial Service of an
American Air Force
Navigator who served China
By
Bei, Ming
(Exiled Chinese Writer)
Translated
by Perry Link
(Professor of University of California, Riverside )
This
year, on Independence Day, a few of my Chinese friends and I spent a cordial afternoon
at the lovely home of Wendall Phillips and his wife Fran. When we left, Wendall presented each of us with
a gift of a miniature American flag. The
sunshine was brilliant that day; not a cloud was in sight. I was the last one out the door, and I remember
turning around to wave that little Stars
and Stripes, bathed in sunlight, as a way to say one last good-bye to
Wendall. The other guests had already passed
beyond earshot, so I may have been the only one who heard him say: “That’s me,
you
know! That…is…me!!”
The Stars and Stripes on the
photo is the gift from Wendall.
Photo by Bei, Ming Sep. 26, 2012
It is no exaggeration to say that
my generation of Chinese—as well as the generation of my parents and that of my
daughter—are all the beneficiaries of Wendall and his American comrades in arms. Had it not been for the intrepid battles of
the U.S. Air Force, or for the remarkable feat of supply transport “over the Hump,”
and had it not been for those stars and stripes flying in the Chinese sky and
the military men of two nations resisting invasion side-by-side, under their
two flags, there would have been no victory in the war with Japan and no
independence or sovereignty for China in all the years that followed.
Some
U.S. historians have referred to the China-Burma-India theater in World War II
as “the forgotten” theater. And indeed,
the entire monument to it at the Arlington National Cemetery is only about
twice the size of this flag that I am holding in my hand. In the summer of 2008, when I went with some
friends from Chungking, China’s war-time capital, to pay our respects at this
monument, we likely would not even have found it if Wendall had not told us in
advance that “the China-Burma-India monument is next to a white oak tree.” From one point of view, perhaps, the size
makes sense. Compared to the number of
American lives that were lost in Europe and in the Pacific, the losses in the
China-Burma-India theater were few, and this may explain why U.S. historians
have paid it relatively little notice. But
from the point of view of China—nearly a quarter of the world’s population—victory
in the China-Burma-India theater was a huge event. As China becomes more democratic (as it
inevitably will), history will show that a quarter of the world’s population
remembers and appreciates the American sacrifices in the China-Burma-India
theater of seventy years ago. My Chinese
friends and I who are present today are here to promise you that we will
persist in bearing witness to this crucial chapter in world history.
“The size makes sense”.
Bei, Ming at CBI Monument, Arlington National Cemetery
Photo by Yue Jianyee, July 27, 2008
During the War, as a serviceman,
Wendall chose to spend the brief years of his youth to leave behind a record of
American internationalist ideals: that humanity is one family, that we share
our sufferings, that we support underdogs and talk back to slavery, that we
enjoy freedom and equality in unison.
After the War, as a U.S. citizen living in peace, he spent the remainder
of his life exemplifying a set of personal virtues: upright and sincere; modest
and tolerant; wise and elegant; cooperative and self-disciplined. I can’t take time here to recount all of the
deep impressions and unforgettable stories that he left with me. To the Chinese nation, Wendall is a hero and
benefactor; to me personally, and to many of my friends, he is a model.
Last July 4, when my friends and I
accepted those little flags from Wendall, we hardly imagined that we would be
carrying them to his funeral. We salute
you, Wendall, for your calm embrace of your fate and your unbending trust in
God, but still we must lodge a small complaint: you were always so healthy, so
vital, that we imagined you would live a hundred years, or even longer, and
would always be there for us, sharing our worries and joining our elations. You left without proper notice, and now it is
we who must absorb a brutal fact. You
leave us but with the dawn, as it arrives each day, carrying with it your gratitude
to the Almighty, and in those dawns the qualities of your character replay
themselves before us: volunteerism and responsibility, freedom and independence,
and, to your family and friends, unrelenting good wishes and boundless love.
Wendall A. Phillips at his home.
Photo by Bei, Ming, Aug. 2,
2008
You are right, Dear Wendall, that Stars and Stripes
is you! The flag of a great country is all the greater
for the spirit of Wendall Phillips that will forever fly with it. And we Chinese, including the millions who
cannot be here today, will never forget what you did.
Oct. 2, 2012
Trexler Funeral Home
Allentown, Pennsylvania
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