3 inches
mort Cohen collection
3 inches
Collectors of naval insignia are few
compared to collectors of the insignia of
army units.
This 1s not surprising given
the Navv's view of unit mns19n1a: there are
far tewer Navv insignia to collect.
There are some Navv insignia,
however, that surely would attract the attention of devo-
tees of army insignia if the insignia were
better known.
The following describes some of these insignia and the
two organizations they represent.
Unusual us the co lector of insignia whc
has not heard of the Office of Strategic Ser.
Vices
• (OSS).
Indeed, so sought after are
OSS_related artifacts and so potent the
OSS cachet, that one can log onto eBay on
almost any day and find items that are as-
sociated - often inaccuratelv - with OSS
Thus it is odd that the Naval Group, China,
a Navy organization whose operations par*
alleled those of OSs. is todav as obscure
as OSS is well known
In 1942 Cmdr. Milton. E. Miles, an of-
ficer with extensive Chia service. was or-
dered by Adm. Ernest J. King, Chief of Na-
val Operations, to report to the American
ambassador in Chungking, and there as-
sume the position of naval observer.
9 In written orders. King also imparted to
Miles a set or verbal, secret ordere
Miles was to establish a weather
reporting network: to learn evervthing he
could about the situation in China: to pre-
nare the China
coast for projected amphibi-
ous landings 3-4 ears hence: and. in gen-
eral, to do everything possible to harass
the Japanese in China.
To accomplish his mission,, Milesports. During this time, he picked up basic
Cantonese, Fujianese, and Mandarin lan-
guage skills and learned to appreciate Chi
nese culture. He admired the Chinese. De-
parting the Asiatic for other duty in 1927,
he returned in 1936 aboard the Blackhawk
and then in command of the John D.
Edwards, returning to the states in1939.
Leisurely travel orders allowed Miles,
his
wife and three sons to depart by land over
the still under-construction Burma Road.
"I
had no notion at the time but 2-1/2 years
later the fact that I had served so long in
China and made the trip over the Burma
Road was to lead me back to that ancient
land under very different conditions.
9 In
1939, Miles wrote a paper advocating a US
Navy presence in China as means to obtain
intelligence on the Japanese, especially their
technologies.An underlying American priority as the
US entered WWII in the Pacific was the driv-
ing, gripping, insatiable need for intelligence
on the Japanese and an arguably more im-
portant need for current weather informa-
tion for the fleet at war in the Pacific. Most
weather affecting the fleet came from China,
but as the war started the farthest west the
US had a weather station was Hawaii.
In early 1942, Rear Admiral Willis "Doc"
Lee became King's chief of staff. He had
read Commander Milton Miles' paper ad-vocating a US Navy presence in China. Once
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Lee told Cdr.
Miles to plan the operation he had recom-
mended, because of his faith in Miles'
knowledge of China,
"but more importantly
his ability to innovate, to initiate, to select
the right men, and then to inspire them to
do the impossible."
The plan set forth three goals: 1. Moni-
tor weather in China as a predictor of Pa-
cific Ocean weather; 2. Recruit coast watch-
ers to monitor Japanese shipping traffic in
and out of coastal China; and 3. Prepare for
a possible US invasion of China to defeat
the Japanese who were occupying it which
in turn would enable the US to attack Japan
from China. King also secretly ordered Miles
to learn everything he could about the situ-
ation in China, and in the meantime do what-
ever he could to help the Navy and heckle
the Japanese.
This direct tasking from King, and the
fact that Miles was to report directly to him
under the cover of working as a military
attaché or US Naval Observer to China, at-
tached to the US embassy, gave Miles sig-
nificant clout.
Miles's mission was to direct the major
US Navy covert effort in Asia and work with
General Dai Li (1897-1946), head of the Chi-
nese Army's intelligence service, the Na-
tonal Bureau of Investigations and Statis-
tics (NBIS). Commonly known as Juntong,
it is said to have comprised between 75,000
to 300,000 agents. Dai, who in 1928 helped
develop China's intelligence organization asdevelop China's intelligence organization as
Chief of the Kuomintang (KMT) Army se-
cret service, had been tasked by Generalis-
simo Chiang Kai-shek to work with the
Americans on what initially was called the
"Friendship Project", a cover for Miles' ac-
tivities.
The genuine respect and cooperation
between the two men made theirs one of
the most effective joint Sino-American mili
tary organizations during the war. Arleigh
Burke explained: "the success of this
strange alignment was primarily due to the
patient building up of mutual understand.
ing and trust which extended down to the
subordinates of each nation. Mutual confi-
dence was created and maintained against
great odds when lack of facilities and
matériel made promises hard to keep."
After Miles's arrival in the Chinese Na-
tionalist capital of Chungking in May 1942,Dai and Miles inspected the Chinese coast
opposite Formosa. While taking cover to-
gether from a Japanese air raid outside the
village of Pucheng, Dai asked Miles to train
and arm 50,000 of his guerrillas in exchange
for allowing US naval activities in China with
his support. Understanding that the guer-
rillas would protect the weather stations and
other US Navy operations, Miles agreed.
The agreement established the need for a
US Navy component as it became the mili-
tary means of organizing and managing the
men assigned to conduct training and any
other activities required of them. This
evolved into a written agreement between
the US and China signed in April 1943 form-
ing the Sino-American Special Technical
Cooperative Organization (SACO), pro-
nounced "socko". As constituted, SACO
was jointly led by Dai and Miles.sending regular weather reports to the US
fleet from multiple occupied areas in the Far
East. The Americans were flown into China
from Calcutta, India. In 1943 SACO had set
up weather, communications and intelli-
gence stations all the way from the border
of Vietnam to the northern Gobi Desert.
Much of the activity was behind enemy lines
along the Chinese coast and China assigned
many undercover forces to protect the
Americans, who often disguised themselves
as coolies. With the help of the undercover
Chinese forces they were generally able to
transit enemy lines undisturbed. SACO per-
sonnel also participated in the surveys of
the China coast in preparation for a pos-
sible landing of the Pacific Fleet. Navy per-
sonnel who had been beach masters in
North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy
came to China to scout the beaches for pos-
sible landing sites.
In his book Miles states that the Chi-
nese guerillas, with SACO equipment and
training, and oftentimes led by US Navy and
Marine Corps personnel, killed 23,540 Japa-
nese, wounded 9,166, and captured 291.
Another account states 71,000 Japanese
were killed as the result of actions by, and
information from, SACO. They destroyed
209 bridges, 84 locomotives, 141 ships, and
97 depots and warehouses, and success-
fully rescued 76 downed aviators. By 1945,
SACO's strength was 2,964 Navy, Army and
Marines with 97,000 organized Chinese guer-
rillas and perhaps 20,000 "loners"
such as
pirates and saboteurs.At the war's beginning the intelligence
Claire E. Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force
received was inadequate. "Stilwell exhibited
a striking lack of interest in the intelligence
problems of the China sector of his com-
mand", Chennault wrote in his memoir. By
Chennault's account, Stilwell was entirely
satisfied with the intelligence the Chinese
provided, although it was outdated, inac-
curate, and useless to the bombers
Chennault commanded. But, worse than his
lack of interest,
"Stilwell specifically pro-
hibited the Fourteenth from any attempts
to gather intelligence. Since the Fourteenth
Air Force was the
only American combat
organization in China and needed fresh and
accurate intelligence... I was again faced
with the choice of obeying Stilwell's orders
literally……or finding some other method of
getting the information so essential to our
operations."The intelligence Chennault had to de-
pend on came from the Chinese War Minis-
try via Stilwell' headquarters in Chungking.
By the time it reached the Fourteenth, the
information was "third hand.…. generally
three to six weeks old,"
and useless for tar-
geting the bombers. Another Chinese intel-
ligence source that Chennault had rejected
was the Chinese Secret Service, because its
notorious KMT secret police was engaged
in a ruthless manhunt for Communists which
would prohibit Chennault's intelligence and
rescue relations with Communist armies in
the field.
Cooperation between Miles
and
Chennault's air force began October 1942
with the establishment of a liaison groupthat eventually became known as the 14th
Naval Unit. This liaison group of SACO pro-
vided weather reports and intelligence on
Japanese targets through radio interception,
photograph interpretation, and field reports.
The Shipping Center of the 14th Naval Unit
gathered information on the routes, car-
goes, and sailing dates of Japanese ships
for the Fourteenth Air Force to bomb. The
unit's homemade radio direction-finders also
uncovered Japanese-recruited agents who
were reporting the flight paths of Fourteenth
Air Force planes from Kunming, and it co-
ordinated efforts with Chinese guerrillas to
rescue downed aircrew.Early in 1943 two SACO naval officers
were detailed to the Fourteenth Air Force
staff working under Chennault's command
to perform photo-interpretation work. The
officers maintained contact with the Pacific
Fleet and provided shipping intelligence
and photo interpretation.
"This effective li
aison paid enormous dividends in attacks
on enemy shipping." In return, the Four-
teeth seeded harbors and waters along the
coast of Japanese-occupied China and
northern Indochina with Navy mines flown
in over the Hump from India. Chennault's
planning staff in Kunming derived their in-
formation about merchant shipping from the
use of aerial reconnaissance, from SACO
coast watchers, and from the intercept and
direction-finding teams of Fleet Radio Unit,
China, at Kunming. Proximity to Chennault's
headquarters (and the close relationship that
grew between the Fourteenth's A-2 and the
Navy) created an ideal situation.
Chennault shrewdly demanded that in-
telligence support from external organiza-
tions be more than purely transactional. Per-sonnel sent by the Navy, and later OSS, to
support Chennault necessarily became a
part of Fourteenth Air Force and worked
under the direction of Lt. Col. Jesse C. Wil-
liams, an oilman with the Texas Oil Com-
pany before the war, who became
Chennault's Assistant Chief of Staff and A-
2 (intelligence chief) in the beginning of
1943. In his memoirs, Chennault evaluated
Williams as one of the few staff officers he
respected.
Chennault's position for the
majority of the war as the primary American
fighting unit in China enabled him to build
Fourteenth Air Force into the intelligence
network he envisioned.
What was soon called the "14th Naval
Unit" grew steadily
- twenty men the first
year and ninety-eight the second
doing
jobs that included photo-intelligence (in
conjunction with the Army's 18th Photo-
Interpretation Unit); planning the delivery
of and charting minefields; providing radio
intelligence, air combat intelligence, and air
technical intelligence;
and rescuing
downed or imprisoned flyers. The last-men-
tioned operation was done with the Chinese
under the auspices of the Navy SACO
teams.
Some of the information that Miles's
people developed from this working ar-
rangement, they passed to Navy agencies
to support submarine attacks on Japanese
shipping and the battles incident to the Al.
lied campaign in the Philippines. In Octo-
ber 1943, a Navy-AAF mining raid (Miles's
mine experts were aboard the bombers)
closed Haiphong harbor by sinking a flee-
ing ship in the entrance channel. The har-
bor remained at least partially closed for the
remainder of the war.So much data was coming in about
Japanese ships that alert young officers pre-
pared regular summaries that might prove
useful for war planners. In describing this
activity, Miles provided the symbolism of
the 14TH Naval Unit's unique insigne:
"Called Shipping News ... we sent out
mimeographed copies under a snappy cover
that bore the Naval Unit's new insignia
which combined Chennault' Flying Tiger
with a twelve-pointed Chinese star and the
Navy's fouled anchor. The design was the
same as the one used by SACO Headquar-
ters except this one used the Flying Tiger
instead of SACO's 'What-the-Hell?' pen-
nant. We were never actually given permis-
sion to wear a shoulder patch, but the
SeaBees had one and Captain Jeff Metzel
finally wrote that official permission seemed
hard to get, so why didn't we just go ahead
and wear this one of ours?"
How Miles and Chennault each viewed
the dynamics of the personnel exchange
was likely the key to the program's success.
In his memoirs, Miles described the 14TH
Naval Unit as a part of SACO and Naval
Group China, working within Fourteenth Air
Force to send the intelligence collected by
Fourteenth Air Force to support US Navy
operations. Chennault wrote of the same
personnel in his memoir briefly as "a sizable
group of Miles' Navy officers who oper-
ated in Fourteenth Air Force headquarters
under my command."On 24 April 1944 Admiral King issued
an order creating Naval Group China redes-
ignating all members of the Navy in SACO
as members of NGC and its chief would be
promoted Commodore M. E. Miles. Thus,
the US portion of SACO, which Miles com-
manded, came to be known as Naval Group
China (NGC). NGC would be synonymous
with SACO among those involved.
It was
the umbrella organization for units that per-
formed weather forecasting, advised and
trained Chinese guerillas, and intercepted
and analyzed Japanese radio traffic. Most
of the sailors belonging to SACO were
Seabees but many came from the Navy's
Scouts and Raiders (predecessors of the
Navy SEALs and Underwater Demolition
Teams) because of their experience in co-
vert operations.
Miles, with some of his men, was iso-
lated by the enemy when news of the Japa-
nese surrender reached them five days af-
ter the war was over. A companion article in
a future issue of The Trading Post will fo-
cus more in depth on Naval Group China
and SACO.In 1934, while executive officer of the
Wickes (DD-75), Lt. Milton Miles created a
pennant he referred to as the
"What-the-
Hell Pennant'.
1222111**
Collection of Vice Admiral Milton E. Miles,
US. Navy Historical Center
"We often found ourselves
"snapping
the whip' when, in maneuvering, ships
the whip'
ahead of us did not precisely follow the or-
ders. It was primarily with this in mind that I
asked my wife, one evening, how would you
say
"What the Hell?' on a pennant.
"Well,'
she replied,
*When editors are up against
the problem of suggesting something they"We often found ourselves
"snapping
the whip
when, in maneuvering, ships
ahead of us did not precisely follow the or-
ders. It was primarily with this in mind that I
asked my wife, one evening, how would you
say
"What the Hell?' on a pennant. 'Well,'
she replied,
*When editors are up against
the problem of suggesting something they
are too moral to print, they fill in with ques-
tion marks, exclamation points, and aster-
isks.' So the very next day I had a special
pennant made up
white, with red mark-
ings, arranged as follows: ???!!!***,
For several years I used that pennant
occasionally for monkeyshines [light-
hearted situations]. In fact, I had our sig-
nalman use it enough to acquaint our whole
division with it. But then, in 1939, when I
was on duty in the Far East again, it served
a purpose that had serious attributes de-
spite its nonsense.
In 1939 Miles was skipper of the de-
stroyer John D. Edwards (DD-216) when
he was ordered to Hainan Island, off the
coast of China, where the Japanese Navy
was threatening a coastal village, including
American missionaries. When Miles arrived
at Hainan, he saw several large Japanese
naval ships bombarding the village. The
Japanese flagship hoisted a flag warning
the American destroyer to leave, which put
Miles in a quandary, since his orders were
to protect the American missionaries in the
village.
After considering the situation,caution and backed the Japanese fleet away
from the village. Miles went ashore that
afternoon, gathered up the missionaries, and
departed the following morning. The Japa-
nese Navy, meanwhile, sat offshore, still
wondering about the meaning of the curi.
ous pennant.
"Fortunately, we had given them
enough time before we anchored to make
out our signal and to search for in their sig-
nal books, but not enough time to make sure
that the strange new pennant we were fly-
ing wasn't there. As a result, along came a
young Japanese lieutenant, hurrying toward
us in a pulling boat.
*You cannot anchor
here,' he shouted. .. As skipper of the vis-
iting American destroyer it was up to me to
pay an official call on the Japanese flag-
ship, and I did so as smartly as my men and
I knew how. Still, I wasted little time as pos-
sible in talking with the officer of the deck
and was almost ready to say goodbye when
the admiral himself appeared.
*By the way, Captain', he said in very
good English when he greeted me,
"what
was the meaning of the pennant you flew
as you enter the harbor yesterday?'
"What
pennant was that, Admiral', I asked as in-
nocently as I could, though I edged toward
the accommodation ladder at the same time.
*Why, this pennant,' he replied, breaking
out a very glossy print showing the John
D. Edwards coming out of the haze and
plainly flying both the red and white stripedinternational code pennant and the What
the Hell pennant with its question marks,
exclamation points, and asterisks.
"Oh°
then, I nodded.
*Well, Admiral, it could be
that the Japanese Navy is so busy these
days that the boys haven't had time to keep
their signal books up-to-date. Good day, sir.
And, having saluted him and also the Japa-
nese colors on the cruiser's turn, over the
side I went."
In August 1939, after Miles had been
transferred to Washington, a Japanese in-
quiry had been passed down together with
the print of the picture the admiral had
shown him, with an accompanying memo
that asked: "What is the meaning of this
pennant you flew on the John D. Edwards?"
But now that the war had come and mem-
bers of the Navy Group China were looking
about for an acceptable bit of insignia, the
what's the hell pennant seemed made to
order for our purpose.
99
Throughout World War II, Milton
Miles' "What-the-Hell?"
pennant was the
unofficial emblem of SACO and was often
found flying at SACO camps throughout
China. It was also incorporated into a num-
ber of the SACO and Naval Group China
insignia as will be seen in the next install-
