The Big Switch

By LtGen Louis Metzger, USMC(Ret)

Originally published in the December 2000 Marine Corps Gazette

Since 1775 the Marine Corps has, as stated in "The Marines' Hymn," "fought in every clime and place where we can take a gun," but it has performed a great many other functions as well. Marines were with Roy Chapman Andrews in the Gobi Desert when he found dinosaur eggs, with ADM Richard Byrd at the South Pole, and when the U.S. mail trains were being robbed in 1926, Marine guards were assigned to protect the U.S. mail. In summary their orders read:

In the event of an attempted robbery, three conditions will exist-a dead or wounded robber; a dead Marine, or one so wounded he cannot hold his weapon; or a general courtsmartial.

Needless to say the U.S. mail traveled securely.

Perhaps the strangest assignment for Marines, and one of the least known, occurred in 1945. They were an important factor in a major population redistribution. To tell the story one must go back to the end of World War II. After the surrender of Japan in August 1945, the III Marine Amphibious Corps was ordered to North China. The Ist Marine Division and the 1st Marine Air Wing went to Peking. The 6th Marine Division, less the reinforced 4th Marines who had been in Japan for the surrender, went to Tsingtao on the Shantung Peninsula.

That division, commanded by MajGen Lemuel C. Shepherd (later to be Commandant), which had suffered over 8,000 killed and wounded during the battle for Okinawa, had been "lifted" to Guam for rehabilitation and training for the invasion of Japan. With the surrender came new missions. In early September orders arrived for deployment to China and a wide variety of missions, among which were: "to land and occupy Tsingtao and the adjacent Tsangkou airfield, and accept surrender of Japanese forces." Nothing was said at that time about evacuation of the Japanese forces from China, or of the thousands of Japanese civilians who were then living on Shantung Peninsula.

As an advanced party had been sent forward, and plans developed for the arrival of the division, the transports and cargo ships were rapidly unloaded. The troops moved to their newly assigned billet areas. Schools, former Japanese occupied buildings, and even old German barracks were used for billeting. For the troops it was a vast improvement over tropical Guam, but then winter had not yet arrived, bringing with it the dust storms from the Gobi Desert.

Tsingtao was an important city on the Yellow Sea. The German Government had forced a lease of the area from China in 1897 and had converted the area into a modern city by 1914. The result was a significant German population. At the start of World War I, it was captured by the Japanese. Returned to China in 1922, it was again, in 1937, taken by the Japanese. This time to be "folded" into Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The result of this often-changing control was a large German population that had remained in the city. A much greater number of Japanese, about 75,000 civilians, had settled on the Shantung Peninsula which, combined with the military, meant over 100,000 Japanese. The Europeans from non-Axis nations had been interned by the Japanese at Wei H'sien in the interior of the peninsula.

On 25 October the 10,000 Japanese troops in the immediate area of the city were surrendered by their commanding general on the Tsingtao racetrack, with some 12,000 U.S. Marines assembled in formation to watch the ceremony. These Japanese troops were from the 5th Independent Mixed Brigade (a major element of the 32d Army that was deployed throughout the Shantung Peninsula). After the surrender, and under the operational control of the division, that brigade continued to provide security for the city from the Communist forces in the area. (This is perhaps the first and only time that a Japanese unit provided security for U.S. Marines.)

The Germans were relatively easy to deal with as there were no troops and, would you believe, "no Nazis," not one. (However their presence may explain the excellent Tsingtao beer which is enjoyed to this day.) MajGen Shepherd, who had fought the Germans in World War I, was not exactly pro-German. In fact, one could say the opposite. He arranged for a showing of motion pictures of the liberated Nazi death concentration camps to every German citizen. They were shocked. Even "nonNazis" then realized what the Third Reich had been about.

The European civilians, located in a concentration camp in the interior of Shantung Peninsula, were another problem. They were a "mixed bag": missionaries, business people, and the usual assortment of people found in China. Although bored in the extreme, they were in good health, due no doubt to the many medical missionaries. The problem was to get them to Tsingtao. There was a small airfield in the area, guarded by a Japanese battalion, and a single railroad line ran some 200 miles from Tinan to Tsingtao. This rail line was needed to evacuate the Japanese troops and civilians from the interior. Another problem arose with the airfield. Some Marine transport planes had landed there and the senior Marine, being a good Marine, had lined up the Japanese troops and taken the sword of their commander in an unauthorized and impromptu surrender ceremony. The battalion commander, having lost "face," felt he could no longer exercise command of his battalion, and thus the security of the airfield, which was surrounded by Chinese Communist troops, was in jeopardy. Fortunately, the assistant operations officer of the division had been dispatched by MajGen Shepherd to check on the internees and reported the incident. After a telephone call between the division and wing commanders, the sword was returned, the Japanese battalion commander regained face, the airfield was secure, and the European internees safely arrived in Tsingtao.

That was the easy part compared to the thousands of Japanese who were to be moved out through Tsingtao harbor. Commencing on 18 November, in a combined ChineseAmerican operation, the Japanese, both military and civilian, were moved by road and rail to Tsingtao. There they were processed by the Chinese. (The term processed is a polite one. In fact, just about every possession was taken from them.)

Then they were embarked on U.S. tank landing ships (LSTs) and carried to Japan. There the unloaded LSTs were reloaded with Koreans, most of whom had been in Japan as "slave laborers," and carried to Korea. The ships then "deadheaded" (sailed empty) back to Tsingtao to pick up another cargo of Japanese for transport to their homeland. This was one of the largest relocation movements of population in modern history.

So in addition to helping find dinosaur eggs, maintaining vehicles at the South Pole, and guarding the U.S. mail, Marines were an important part of population relocation at the end of World War II. One must ask the question, "Is there nothing those Marines can't do?"