Wen Bon: A Naval Air Intelligence Officer Behind Japanese Lines in China (War and the Southwest, No 2)

Winborn was a Naval lieutenant attached to the 14th Army Air Force to serve as a Technical Air Intelligence inspector. Learning that an enemy plane was down, a team of one or two Americans plus a Chinese interpreter would sally forth to wherever the plane might be, bringing back intelligence of the capabilities of enemy airplanes. Compilations of this data made it possible to keep tabs on Japanese manufacturing plants, indicating which were the most suitable bombing targets. Winborn tells his story in an informal, understated, conversational style that ranges from the humorous to the poignantly tragic. Each American was given a Chinese name, i.e. a transliteration in Chinese characters which when spoken sounded something like his name in English. Winborn’s was “Wen bon,” typically pronounced “Wunbun.” The best interpretation of its meaning is “the pen is mightier than the sword.” A small neat stone “chop,” or stamp, with “Wen bon” and characters for “his chop” carved in it, served as Winborn’s legal signature anywhere in China.At the end of World War II, Winborn was ordered to Shanghai, where he and other junior officers steeped in the unconventional ways of southeastern China contributed their “can-do” talents to the Naval Air Priorities Office. Winborn was a Naval lieutenant attached to the 14th Army Air Force to serve as a Technical Air Intelligence inspector. Learning that an enemy plane was down, a team of one or two Americans plus a Chinese interpreter would sally forth to wherever the plane might be, bringing back intelligence of the capabilities of enemy airplanes. Compilations of this data made it possible to keep tabs on Japanese manufacturing plants, indicating which were the most suitable bombing targets. Winborn tells his story in an informal, understated, conversational style that ranges from the humorous to the poignantly tragic. Each American was given a Chinese name, i.e. a transliteration in Chinese characters which when spoken sounded something like his name in English. Winborns was Wen bon, typically pronounced Wunbun. The best interpretation of its meaning is the pen is mightier than the sword. A small neat stone chop, or stamp, with Wen bon and characters for his chop carved in it, served as Winborns legal signature anywhere in China. At the end of World War II, Winborn was ordered to Shanghai, where he and other junior officers steeped in the unconventional ways of southeastern China contributed their can-do talents to the Naval Air Priorities Office. During the Second World War Byron Winborn was part of a covert military operation in an area of southeastern China overrun and nominally controlled by Japanese forces. As a Naval lieutenant attached to the Fourteenth Army Air Force, he and his colleagues in a Technical Air Intelligence unit scavenged behind the lines for wreckage from downed enemy aircraft, seeking valuable technical information which they reported back to their superiors in Washington. Winborn's memoir of these experiences is rendered in an informal and understated conversational style including near encounters with Japanese troops, confrontations with Chinese bandits and semi-comic negotiations with the local populace, along with thoughtful observations about the contrasting attitudes and life styles between the culture in which he found himself and that from which he had come. At the end of hostilities, "Wen Bon" as his Chinese associates addressed him, was ordered to Shanghai, where he and other veterans of southeastern China contributed their unconventional "can-do" talents to expediting traffic in a Naval Air Priorities Office, for a hectic finale to his singular tour of exotic duty