Word: birching
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Birch went to China as a missionary in 1940, and was caught there by Pearl Harbor. In 1942, as he was trying to find a way to enlist, the war literally dropped in on him. He was taken one night by a native to a man who had fallen out of the sky. The fallen: Lieut. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle. Birch led Doolittle and a group of the survivors of the Tokyo raid to safety, then joined the unit that later became General Claire Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force and began a remarkable career in air combat intelligence. Wrote Chennault...
Traveling up to 100 miles behind enemy lines, Birch radioed back word on prime Japanese targets. He directed the building of three airstrips within enemy territory. For his work, Birch was awarded the Legion of Merit, got a posthumous Oak Leaf Cluster for "exceptionally meritorious service...
...Birch was eventually transferred to the Office of Strategic Services and was assigned late in the war to a tiny, scorpion-infested base at Sian in North China. Baptist Birch is remembered as a loner with a somewhat overbearing manner. In his diary, Major Gustav Krause, commanding officer of the base, gravely noted: "Birch is a good officer, but I'm afraid is too brash and may run into trouble...
When the Japanese surrendered, Birch led a routine mission to discover how far south the Chinese Communists had penetrated. His group bumped into a Chinese Communist force. As the scene has been reconstructed, Birch argued violently with the Communist officer who wanted to disarm him. Birch was seized and shot after his hands had been tied. The Communists then bayoneted him at least 15 times and tossed his body on a heap of junk and garbage...
...confusing situation," said Krause last week, "my instructions were to act with diplomacy. Birch made the Communist lieutenant lose face before his own men. Militarily, John Birch brought about his own death...