CHINA> Focus
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CHINA> Focus
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Finding missing US military personnel in 1950-58
By Hu Yinan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-27 09:43 How one man's mission helped bring two nations closer In May 1979, Liu Yiquan, a promising, newlywed custodian officer in the Second Artillery Force of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), was about to make a major career change.
As one of the 50 people chosen to categorize the PLA's archives between 1927 and 1949, the youngster was sent to a discreet cave in Luoyang, an ancient city in Henan province, where more than 1 million documents and photographs were kept in almost 1,000 cloth bags.
At the end of the project, he left his previous post and became a professional archivist, dedicated to leaving no gaps in modern China's military history. By the time he retired in April 2006, he had processed more than 830,000 artifacts and was recognized as the army's best in the field. The early months of retirement were tough for Liu, however. "He simply wasn't ready for it. He'd just wander around all day at home, not knowing what to do," his wife Fang Su recalled. The period of anxiety proved brief for Liu. That September, as result of a historic agreement signed between the Chinese and US militaries two months earlier, he was called back to work for the PLA to help trace the whereabouts of missing United States military personnel in China from 1950 to 1958.
This time, Liu was responsible for research involving 60,000 archival documents of the Chinese People's Army of Volunteers, which fought in the Korean War. More than 100,000 of the 1.5 million documents from the Korean War are believed to contain possible connections with missing US military personnel. Liu, now 59, was one of the four retired veterans of the little-known PLA Archives Department reassigned to work on the project with its best staff. The gesture of goodwill has paid dividends with the blossoming of military exchanges between the two countries, experts said. "The investigation has continued even during the worst periods of Sino-US relations, because ours is a purely humanitarian effort and we wanted to showcase our sincerity to the fullest," Li Gang, the department's deputy chief, told China Daily. Archival work "really takes a professional, especially here in China", according to Tu Xiqing, another retired archivist rehired for the task.
"At the time of the Korean War, many Chinese soldiers - including those who later became war heroes - were illiterate. Quite a few letters, reports and orders were filled with random signs as the people who wrote them did not know the characters," Tu said. "Also, intense combat meant that army divisions were constantly reorganized or dismissed. We have to be very knowledgeable. It's simply not a young man's job." Determined to accomplish his new mission, Liu has fought on despite his deteriorating health. He has thoroughly researched some 50,000 documents, 5,000 of which have been studied since he was diagnosed as being in the late stages of rectal cancer in September last year.
"We've all had our share of experience in losing stuff. I figure that if we could be that upset over a lost item, then how about a missing person?" said Liu. President Hu Jintao called on file clerks nationwide to learn from the example of Liu, who was honored during a high-profile ceremony in Beijing two weeks ago. Liu was in hospital and unable to attend. "Liu has made important contributions to our military diplomacy, especially to the exchange and cooperation between the Chinese and US militaries," said Major General Qian Lihua, director of the foreign affairs office of the Ministry of National Defense. But, determined as always, Liu still worries about the 9,000-plus pieces he has yet to work on. "People who don't know may say we in China don't care about archives. Well, we do care," said archive chief Li, who added the department has secured the best medical care for Liu, and his colleagues take turns looking after him in hospital. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Ray called Liu a hero and presented him with a medal that read "Until they are home" during a visit to the PLA Archives Department in April. In a letter to the department that month, Donna Crisp, commander of the Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command of the US Navy, who accompanied Ray, also said she appreciated the importance the Chinese placed on the mission. To date, the PLA Archives Department has found more than 100 pieces related to tracing missing US military personnel. Liu hopes his colleagues will carry on the work he has left unfinished, the findings of which made up a present given to Donald Rumsfeld, former US Secretary of Defense, by General Guo Boxiong during a 2006 visit to the US. The gift was copies of archival information of the experiences of US pilot Donald W. Kerr, who on Feb 11, 1944, was saved by farmers in Guangdong province after his plane crashed. As the Japanese military looked for him, the farmers hid him in a cave for 10 days and then moved him to their homes until March 6 of that year. It was Liu and his colleagues who in 1986 found comic drawings Kerr drafted on the back of cigarette cases to explain to the farmers he was an ally, not an enemy. Guo's gift also included a letter Kerr wrote two days after he left the farmers, which read: "Since I cannot personally see each one of you, I must take this means of thanking you for saving my life and enabling me to carry on my work. "I wish each one of you, man, woman and young person, to consider this as a heart-to-heart message from me to you."
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