All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
I’ll be on a panel this Tuesday (1/12/15) talking about China, World War One and the Chinese Labour Corps…all welcome – click on the below for more details….
Talk Cost: RMB 70.00 (RAS members) and RMB 100.00 (non-members). Includes glass of wine or soft drink. Those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption.
Membership applications and membership renewals will be available at this event.
 To RSVP: Please “Reply” to this email or write to
 RAS Bookings at: bookings@royalasiaticsociety.
. After fourteen years service the final detachment of US 4th Marines were pulled out of Shanghai on November 28th, 1941….looks like it was a rainy day…..those Leathernecks got a good soaking waiting to embark.
The old railway station in Zhangjiakou (formerly Kalgan) closed last July. It’s future at that point became a little unclear. However, Zhangjiakou’s city government has apparently applied to become a world heritage site. This may seem a bit excessive for a fairly small railway station building but a) getting the UNESCO involved might be a better way to preserve the site than a locally-ordained heritage listing (anyone in Beijing or Shanghai will know how worthless these have proved and b) Zhangjiakou’s cadres, like cadres all over China, are keen to have UNESCO sites in their bailiwicks and to be honest, there ain’t much else from the period to preserve in the town.
The station was built in 1909 as the end point of the Peking-Kalgan railway, a Chinese built, funded and operated railway line (while many were financed by overseas bonds and operated by various foreign entities) that was constructed between 1905-1909. Kalgan (and the word Kalgan is still on the old station) is the route up to Russia and the Tea Road. It once attracted all manner of people on the run, gun running and smuggling as well as expeditions (I’ve blogged previously about Kalgan’s Mongol Gate and Pioneer Inn).
The old station (as above) had become known as the north station with a new (at least new in 1957 and quite sort of Mongol-Modernist!) is now used called the south station.
I’m not sure what is included in the listing application to UNESCO – obviously the ticket office building but also, hopefully, the passenger platforms with wrought iron coverings along the platform (if they are indeed still there – they were in 2010 as below, but now?). Below you can see the platform adjacent to a new and typically white lavatory tile Chinese structure. The second picture below shows the rear of the station building proper and its relation to the platforms.
In the years immediately after the liberation of Shanghai in 1945 the issue of refugee and displaced person (DPs) relocation was a pressing one. Initially America did take in a large number of Jewish refugees stranded in Shanghai – though not all by any means. Others went out to Australia, Canada, Brazil and others places (India, Hong Kong etc etc). But the quota system used by America after World War Two created a problem for the large number of Polish-Jewish refugees, who numbered about 2,000. Most it seems wanted to go to the USA, obviously already with a sizeable Polish-American population but many Poles in Poland also wanted to emigrate to the US.
“It is expected to take many years before the Shanghai Jewish refugees will be admitted” says the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle in December 1947. Actually the communist victory in 1949 would speed up this process but it was still a time of great uncertainty, poverty and unemployment for many refugees stuck in Shanghai having escaped fascism in Europe and presumably not much fancying heading back to a Soviet controlled country now in the Eastern Bloc.
See previous three posts
Part One – “It was a foreigner who shot me”
Part Two – “Drag him out the car”
Part Three – “that’s the 15th notch on my gun butt”
And so, a final postscript to one of the most sensational murders in Shanghai on the eve of the Communist Revolution…
Whitey Malloy was returned to America to serve out his life sentence. Despite his 1949 appeal he remained in jail.
Meanwhile Charlie Archer had been sentenced to life by the Chinese District Court in Shanghai….After she’d testified his wife had feinted in the witness box and had to be carried from the court….and then the world promptly forgot Charles P. Archer…until 1956….
Charles Archer had been thrown in a Shanghai jail for life. In 1949 he became a prisoner of Communist China. What they thought of him is not recorded, but in July 1956 they decided to release him to the British authorities in Hong Kong. He was the last British subject to be held as a prisoner in the People’s Republic. On July 27th 1956 Archer was brought by Red Army guards to the border with Hong Kong. He was handed over to British officials and taken for a medical check-up in a Hong Kong hospital. The news came to light following negotiations for the release of eleven American missionaries still held in Shanghai jails. The Straits Times in Singapore ran the headline – KILLER FREED.
What happened to Archer after that I do not know….
Shanghai Jail
See previous two posts
Part One – “It was a foreigner who shot me”
Part Two – “Drag him out the car”
The US Military Court Martial reconvened the next day and heard the final evidence from Archer. Archer reiterated that it was Corporal Malloy who had shot Yu and claimed that afterwards Malloy told him, “that’s the 15th notch on my gun butt”.
But the tribunal heard from others besides Malloy and Archer…
First it was shown that both men had previous criminal records. Archer, the Hong Kong-born Briton, had a number of convictions for fraud and larceny, while Malloy had a previous conviction for armed robbery in Chicago when he was 18. He had been sentenced to 12 years but had been released early to join the army during the war.
Secondly a witness was produced who claimed that Archer had told them the day before the murder that they were going to defraud Yu of his gold and if he resisted then violence would be used.
Both men had claimed that only one shot was fired. However, a doctor who examined Yu’s corpse on August 4th found several bullet holes – on his hand and on both the front and the back of his body. This doctor claimed that Yu had been repeatedly shot and then bled to death by the roadside. Next a doctor at the US Army Shanghai Detachment Hospital (where Malloy worked) also examined Yu’s body – later on August 15th after obtaining permission from Yu’s widow to open his coffin. He claimed that Yu had been shot repeatedly, but had died from a shot to the chest.
Another witness came forward to state that Malloy did indeed own a gun and had recently purchased a holster for it. Malloy denied it was his gun and asserted that it was Archer’s and that Archer had tried to foist the gun on him as payment for the outstanding debt he owed Malloy. A further witness also testified that the day after the murder they had heard Malloy inquiring the current value of ten-ounce gold bars.
Sentence was pronounced by the 11-man military tribunal – Malloy was found guilty of Murder in violation of Article of War 92 (dereliction of duty). The Court decided it would never get to the bottom of who actually pulled the trigger and decided that, even if it was Archer, Malloy had never made an attempt to run from the car and raise the alarm, nor had he made a serious attempt to stop the shooting or bring Archer to justice after the event. The court also noted that Malloy had illegally worn civilian clothing on the streets of Shanghai and had used a hat to cover his distinctive blond hair indicating an attempt to disguise himself. Additionally, after the events, he had made no effort to report Archer for the murder, if indeed that was what had happened. It was also ascertained that it had been Malloy, rather than Archer, who had searched the car later for the spent cartridge, found it, and disposed of it.
Malloy reportedly heard the sentence read to him “without emotion”. He was sentenced to dishonorable discharge, total forfeitures and confinement at hard labour for life. A reviewing authority approved the sentence.
Archer was convicted of the murder of Yu by the Chinese District Court for Shanghai – he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a Chinese jail.
There are a couple of postscripts to the case – in December 1949 Malloy petitioned the Federal District Court for the First Division of Kansas arguing that he should not have been tried by a court martial, but by a Chinese court as it was an offense against a Chinese citizen on Chinese territory and that the proof against him which led to his conviction was insufficient. Major General E.M. Brannon Judge Advocat General denied the petition.
The other postscript, concerning the fate of Archer, is worth a final post….
(see Part One -Â “It was a foreigner who shot me”)
On Tuesday September 2nd a United States Army general court martial convened in Shanghai to try Corporal Thomas Malloy for the murder of Yu Shen-pao on August 1st 1947. Malloy was a member of the Shanghai Detachment Hospital of the US Army Advisory Group in Shanghai at the time of the alleged murder. This, it seems, was the confused and contradictory sequence of events that led to the killing of Yu:
On August 1st (a Friday) Malloy went to a cafe in Shanghai to meet Charles (Charlie) Anderson, a Hong Kong-born Briton, to discuss the plan that he would meet Yu to talk about the opportunity of purchasing the five ten-ounce gold bars in the Chinese man’s possession. Charlie Archer asserted that Malloy was broke and had no money at all and so Charlie went to see if he could set up a prospective sale. Charlie said that Malloy would buy the bars from Yu for US$585 each and they arranged to all meet at 5pm that evening to do the “deal”. Yu then went to get the bars, Malloy to change into civilian clothing and Charlie to rent a car.After that the only people left alive who knew what really happened were Malloy and Archer….
Malloy then told the following story….
At 5pm he and Anderson arrived at Yu’s house in a rented car; Archer introduced Yu to him and Yu and himself sat in the rear seat of the car while Charlie Archer drove.
Charlie drove out along the Great Western Road (now Yan’an Road) towards the Columbia Country Club on Columbia Road (now Panyu Road). Malloy then claimed that just after the Country Club Charlie stopped the car, turned in his seat, pointed a gun at Yu and demanded the gold bars. Yu refused and so Charlie Archer shot him and then clubbed him on the head with the gun butt before driving on, further out of the city. He stopped in a remote and quiet area, told Malloy to get Yu out of the car. Malloy, claiming to be shocked and scared of Archer, complied and dragged Yu out of the back seat of the car by his feet and dumped him by the side of the road leaving him to die. The two men then drove back to Shanghai to Archer’s residence, washed their clothes of blood and separated.
Malloy then told the court martial that Archer attempted to sell the gold bars in Shanghai. The next day Malloy saw Archer who gave him US$150 – not as part of the proceeds of the sale of the gold but as recompense for a former debt. Malloy claimed that only Archer had had a gun and that he was afraid of the Englishman. He had asked Archer for the gun and Archer had given it to him, now without any bullets, to be disposed off. Malloy had hidden it behind some books on a bookcase in the army hospital where he worked.
But Archer had a different version of events….
Charlie said he decided to go for a drive on the outskirts of Shanghai that evening of August 1st and was cruising along when he heard a shot and stopped the car to see what was happening. He said that Malloy appeared, waving a gun at him so he stopped. Then he heard the sound of “blows” and Malloy putting Yu into Archer’s car. Malloy ordered him to drive on, then to stop and drag Yu’s body from the car. That Malloy then ordered him at gunpoint to drive back to Malloy’s car and then both went, in their separate cars, to Archer’s house so he could clean up.
Which version was correct? Both had flaws…what were the chances of Archer coming across the man he knew as Malloy at just that place at just that time; what was the chance that Archer would hand the gun to Malloy so readily? Why would Archer set up a meeting for Malloy to buy the gold bars when he knew Malloy was stone cold broke? Did Malloy have a car that night as well as Archer?
Either way Yu was found by some Chinese farmers who claimed that he told them he had been attacked by a “foreigner” and an American and that the “foreigner” was called Charlie.
The court adjourned…needing more evidence….
The Columbia Country Club on Columbia Road in 1939