Blackboards and Bomb Shelters: The Perilous Journey of Americans in China during World War II

by James P. Bevill

Overview

An action-packed human interest story about four young men and their life-changing experiences in China during WWII.

When three Yale graduates traveled to China in the summer of 1941 to teach English to middle-school students, they routinely taught classes outside a bomb shelter. When air raid sirens wailed, classes continued until the Japanese planes could be heard, then all quickly scrambled inside to safety.

• The US entry into the war turned their educational mission upside down.
• One was recruited for a stint driving supplies along the Burma Road.
• A second Yale teacher took a senior staff position with "Flying Tigers" commander Gen. Claire Lee Chennault.
• The third man, a conscientious objector, remained at the school to keep it running during the war.
• Their mission was inextricably linked with the broader Yale-in-China medical mission, headed by a young surgeon in Changsha.

This is an engaging story of Americans in China, educating civilians, healing the wounded, and supporting Chinese military resistance against Japanese imperialism. It is the untold story of life on the ground in Free China during the Japanese occupation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780764362644
Publisher:	Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.
Publication date:	01/18/2022
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	1,042,713
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

James P. Bevill is an independent historian, an award-winning author, and the son-in-law of Paul Springer, who taught at Yale-in-China from 1941 to 1942. His previous book was The Paper Republic: The Struggle for Money, Credit, and Independence in the Republic of Texas.

Table of Contents

Foreword 8

Acknowledgments 10

Prologue: The Great Changsha Fire 13

Chapter 1 Beginnings at Yale 16

Chapter 2 Conflict in China 24

Chapter 3 Across the Pacific 36

Chapter 4 The Journey to Yuanling 51

Chapter 5 The War Draws Closer 73

Chapter 6 Blackboards and Bomb Shelters 85

Chapter 7 "Hey Jim, We're at War Today" 106

Chapter 8 Vacation on the Burma Road 118

Chapter 9 Change of Occupation 143

Chapter 10 Changes at Yali 167

Chapter 11 Embassy Business 190

Chapter 12 Consuls and Communists 213

Chapter 13 Shifted to Cairo 238

Chapter 14 The Americans Strike Back 255

Chapter 15 On to Changsha! 269

Epilogue 282

Appendixes 290

Endnotes 294

Bibliography 311

Index 316

Editorial Reviews

"China was one of the most deadly theatres of World War II, as its people fought for eight long years against the Japanese invaders. James Bevill tells the fascinating story of a small group of intrepid young Americans who worked in wartime China and became part of that country’s heroic struggle. Trained at Yale, and sent to China, these men became part of the bigger story of resistance: dodging air-raids in the wartime capital of Chongqing, giving medical aid, and teaching in the face of disaster in the city of Changsha. Bevill’s meticulous work with original documents makes this a compelling, original tale that adds to our knowledge of the Second World War, and illuminates the sacrifices needed to win it."

Rana Mitter

"James Bevill’s Blackboards and Bomb Shelters offers an engrossing tale of three young Americans who worked for the Yale-China Association in China during the World War Two Japanese invasion. The three, including Bevill’s own father-in-law, Paul Springer, graduated from Yale in 1941 and arrived in China just in time for Pearl Harbor. Bevill uses Springer’s letters home and archival research to show readers how they set up their blackboards outside bomb-shelters, read student essays as bombs fell, and ventured into parts of China where Americans were unknown. Some of their students were killed in the bombings, colleagues came within yards of being killed, malaria and small-pox were rampant, but the Yale-China schools and hospitals adapted and survived. Bevill works in the style of David McCullough or Ron Chernow, using vivid biography to remind us of a larger, now obscured story: Americans working side-by-side with Chinese colleagues to face daunting challenges."

Charles W. Hayford