Books About SACO

From the book jacket: This highly controversial book is the authoritative story of the most bizarre naval operation in World War II—that of the United States Naval Group, China, commonly known as the “Rice Paddy Navy.” It is unique in its revelation of this previously undocumented aspect of the war and is scathing in its indictment of United States postwar policies in China.

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, then-Commander Miles was sent to China under verbal and secret orders from the Chief of Naval Operations. His mission was to establish weather stations and a system of coastwatchers to support the Pacific Fleet and, ultimately, a possible invasion of the Chinese coast.

Starting with only himself and the goodwill his cooperative spirit evoked from the Chinese government, Miles commanded more than 2,500 American volunteers from all branches of the armed services by the end of the war. He also commanded between 50,000 and 100,000 Chinese fishermen, pirates, police officers, and regular guerrilla forces.

His men forecast the weather for all of Asia and reported on Japanese fleet movements along the enemy-held coast. This ragged but highly efficient organization also accounted for approximately 71,000 enemy deaths and caused extensive damage to Japanese supply lines.

Miles’ remarkable success, as well as many of his problems, resulted from his close collaboration with powerful General Tai Lee, the secretive and anti-Western head of China’s vast military intelligence organization. No American knew Tai Lee as well as Miles, and none provided such a revealing portrait of this much-maligned man.

Because the two officers worked well together and shared each other’s complete confidence, they were able—with the full approval of President Roosevelt and Chiang Kai-shek—to establish the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO). Its purpose was to train, equip, and operate guerrilla troops against the Japanese occupation forces. Wildly and often hilariously improvised, the exploits of SACO belong among the annals of American heroism.

The high-level SACO agreement did not prevent some American military commanders from opposing Miles’ operations in China and working to undermine his efforts. Miles describes how professional jealousy and distrust of Tai Lee led leaders in the U.S. Army, State Department, and Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to duplicate his efforts and obstruct him by cutting off much-needed supplies.

Even more controversial is his contention that high-level American misunderstanding of the Communist Chinese threat not only hindered Allied efforts against the Japanese but also caused irreparable harm to China’s future.

A Different Kind of War is the firsthand story of a previously unknown episode in the history of World War II. It is also a convincing demonstration that Americans can fight a guerrilla war in Asia—and win it.

SACO: The Rice Paddy Navy is the story of the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO), otherwise known as the U.S. Naval Group, China, and its operations against the Japanese forces occupying China during World War II.

In this book, Roy Stratton records firsthand accounts from soldiers, sailors, and Marines who served in China, often behind enemy lines, to train, equip, advise, and assist the Nationalist Chinese forces of Chiang Kai-shek.

Many people are familiar with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and its operations in the European and Pacific theaters, but SACO’s achievements are less well known and no less impressive. This Navy unit, which never numbered more than 3,000 men, effectively tied down tens of thousands of Japanese troops in China and inflicted casualties many times its own number.

This book is not an overly scholarly treatment of SACO’s history. Instead, it is a collection of accounts provided by SACO members themselves. The voices heard throughout the book belong to the men who conducted these operations.

Readers can hear in their accounts the tenor of another era, when the entire world was at war and so many Americans put their lives on hold to preserve American liberty.

Roy Stratton adds a new dimension to the difficulties of Sino-American understanding and cooperation. He recaptures the life of the common Chinese citizen during the Asiatic-Pacific War.

The book begins with the perplexing question of why the U.S. Navy was establishing bases in the Gobi Desert, northern India, along the Yangtze River, and on the coast of China.

This book is a valuable contribution to the literature of World War II and demonstrates the wrong way to handle interservice and international problems.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy knew it would need vital intelligence from the Pacific. Nationalist China was particularly well suited to provide information about the Japanese military and Pacific weather patterns.

Captain Milton “Mary” Miles traveled to China to establish weather stations, monitor the Chinese coastline, and spy on the Japanese. Following a meeting and handshake agreement with Chiang Kai-shek’s spymaster, General Dai Li, the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO) was born.

SACO consisted of nearly 3,000 American service members from the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army; 97,000 organized Chinese guerrillas; and 20,000 “individualists,” including rival pirate groups and lone-wolf saboteurs.

This top-secret network worked closely with the Nationalist Chinese to fight the Japanese occupation of China. SACO established crucial weather stations, intercepted and decoded Japanese communications, destroyed enemy supply depots and bridges, laid mines, sank scores of vessels, and trained Chinese civilians in guerrilla warfare.

Its work supplied critical intelligence to the U.S. military, rescued more than 75 downed aviators, and contributed to the deaths of more than 26,000 Japanese troops while losing only five of its own men. SACO—the “Rice Paddy Navy”—was one of the best-kept secrets of the war.

Miles and his SACO personnel endured military attacks, harsh conditions, dangerous weather, and political infighting to provide intelligence and training that furthered the Allied cause in the Pacific.

Working at times both alongside and at odds with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), SACO helped build connections between Americans and Chinese in the fight for the security of Asia. In The Rice Paddy Navy, Linda Kush reveals the story of this covert operation, including its military accomplishments, diplomatic relationships, and political conflicts during one of the most successful—and least-known—efforts of World War II.

During his four years of Navy service in World War II, Ensign John Horton’s military career ranged from working in communications in Manila to commanding a guerrilla training camp for Chinese soldiers.

He also joined Chinese forces in acts of sabotage, including destroying railroads and bridges in Japanese-occupied areas. Through these experiences, Horton witnessed a fascinating but little-known aspect of the war.

Featuring eyewitness accounts from both Chinese and American service members, the book provides a rare and riveting glimpse of a China filled with bravery and foreboding—a country fighting a vicious enemy while teetering on the brink of civil war.

In this funny and tender memoir, John Freely reflects on his remarkable life. Dividing his early childhood between the United States and Ireland inspired a lifelong desire to see the world and meet its inhabitants.

At age six, Freely settled in Brooklyn, where he experienced a sometimes tumultuous childhood surrounded by a large extended family. They frequently moved from house to house with the family’s belongings packed into an uncle’s hearse.

Growing up poor, Freely took whatever jobs he could find during his teenage years. He continually overcame setbacks and moved forward, always hungry for new experiences and adventures.

At 17, he joined the U.S. Navy to “see the world”—and did exactly that. As a member of an elite commando unit, he was sent to one of the most remote regions of Asia, where he served alongside Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese forces during the final weeks of World War II.

The House of Memory vividly recalls a world that now exists only in memory. It is a lasting tribute to a life well lived and to the immigrant families whose struggles and perseverance have enriched the United States.

As a Navy enlisted man during World War II, Clayton Mischler served in China with the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO). This weather-reporting operation supported the U.S. submarine campaign against Japanese shipping, B-29 raids on Japanese cities, and the rescue of downed Allied airmen.

Mischler’s account of his military experiences in Fujian Province with the “Rice Paddy Navy” takes second place to his vivid recollections of daily life in rural China. During his duties, he regularly traveled along the Nine Dragons River.

In his early 30s and gifted with curiosity and keen powers of observation, Mischler found his tour fascinating. “How these Chinese continued to amaze me!” he wrote.

A skilled negotiator, Mischler recounts with delight his bargaining experiences with small merchants and rural residents who sold him jewelry, bronze figurines, pottery, and other goods.

After an executive career with the Veterans Administration, Mischler retired in 1971. He died in 1992 at the age of 83.

In this memoir, Charles Robinson reviews the background of his military service and recounts the unexpected adventures he experienced while serving with a select group known as Unit Robby during his time with SACO in China.

Winborn was a U.S. Navy lieutenant attached to the Fourteenth Air Force, where he served as a technical air intelligence inspector. When an enemy aircraft was reported down, a team of one or two Americans and a Chinese interpreter traveled to its location to gather intelligence about the capabilities of Japanese aircraft.

Compiling this information made it possible to monitor Japanese manufacturing plants and identify the most suitable bombing targets. Winborn tells his story in an informal, understated, and conversational style that ranges from humorous to poignantly tragic.

Each American was given a Chinese name—a transliteration in Chinese characters that sounded similar to his English name. Winborn’s name was “Wen Bon,” typically pronounced “Wunbun.” Its closest interpretation is “the pen is mightier than the sword.”

A small stone chop, or stamp, carved with the characters for “Wen Bon” and “his chop,” served as Winborn’s legal signature throughout China.

At the end of World War II, Winborn was ordered to Shanghai. There, he and other junior officers familiar with the unconventional conditions of southeastern China contributed their resourcefulness and “can-do” abilities to the Naval Air Priorities Office.

In his own words, Dr. Henry Heimlich tells the story of one of the twentieth century’s most creative medical innovators. The thoracic surgeon is best known for developing the Heimlich maneuver, one of the world’s easiest-to-learn and most widely recognized methods for saving someone from choking on food or another foreign object.

Many people, however, are unfamiliar with Dr. Heimlich’s other lifesaving inventions. He developed the Heimlich Chest Drain Valve, which saved thousands of lives during the Vietnam War, and the Heimlich MicroTrach, which provides an efficient method of administering oxygen.

Dr. Heimlich also turned his attention to devastating illnesses for which medicine had not found a cure, including cancer and HIV. He discusses his research, its potential, and the controversy and resistance his ideas generated within the medical establishment.

Interweaving the author’s personal life with compelling stories of his numerous medical breakthroughs, this memoir provides insight into the workings of a creative mind and the complexities of the American medical system.

Maochun Yu recounts the intelligence activities of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in China during World War II. Drawing on declassified materials from the U.S. National Archives and previously unavailable Chinese documents, Yu reveals the immense and complex challenges the agency and its director, General William Donovan, confronted in China.

This book presents a research-based history and analysis of American wartime intelligence and special-operations activities in the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II.

It tells a complex and compelling story of conflicting objectives and personalities, interservice rivalries, and the achievements of American military, intelligence, and political efforts—whose significance extended far beyond World War II and China.

General Joseph W. Stilwell was a man who loved China deeply and understood its people as few Americans ever have. Barbara W. Tuchman’s groundbreaking narrative follows Stilwell from his arrival in China during the Revolution of 1911 through his tours of duty in Peking and Tientsin during the 1920s and 1930s.

The story continues with Stilwell’s return to China as a theater commander during World War II, when the Nationalist government faced attacks from both Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents.

Filled with warlords, ambassadors, and missionaries, this classic biography of the cantankerous but level-headed “Vinegar Joe” showcases Tuchman’s gift for bringing to life the people who shaped history.

Thunder Out of China is a bestselling 1946 book by American journalists Theodore H. White and Annalee Jacoby. Both authors served as wartime correspondents for Time magazine during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). The book was selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1946.

Orville Schell described the book’s story as a “great epic of misunderstanding” and recommended it as one of the five best books about China and the West. He noted its portrayal of Chiang Kai-shek, the failure of his experiment, and China’s corruption and unraveling under the pressures of Japanese occupation and war.

Other critics and historians have argued that White and Jacoby were influenced by American General Joseph Stilwell and that the book’s popularity damaged Chiang Kai-shek’s postwar reputation.

In Volume 10 of The Things Our Fathers Saw series, readers meet veterans of one of World War II’s most overlooked theaters. These men flew over and marched through some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet, from the Himalayas to the jungles and mountains of Burma, while battling elite Japanese forces, illness, and tropical disease.

Ride alongside cargo pilots as they encounter winds exceeding 200 miles per hour over some of the world’s highest mountains. Join fighter pilots as they take to the skies to attack Japanese bombers and other aircraft attempting to disrupt the flow of supplies from India to China.

Accompany American long-range penetration forces as they travel deep into enemy-held territory to stem the Japanese advance. These firsthand accounts provide a deeper understanding of why these often-forgotten service members deserve to be remembered and honored today.

The history of the Scouts and Raiders of World War II is the story of the predecessors of today’s elite Navy SEAL teams. As the Navy’s first special-warfare commandos, these highly trained officer-and-enlisted boat crews conducted pre-assault and hydrographic reconnaissance of landing beaches, marked assault areas, and guided assault waves from 36-foot scout boats, rubber boats, and kayaks.

They participated in operations in North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, southern France, and Normandy, earning numerous decorations for heroism, including eight Navy Crosses. In the Mediterranean, the Scouts and Raiders trained elite units such as the Rangers and the First Special Service Force. They were also assigned to Special Operations Task Group 80.4 and the Adriatic Special Operations Group, working with Allied units supporting Tito’s partisans.

In the Pacific, Scouts and Raiders served as scout intelligence officers, amphibious scouts, beachmasters, and members of Underwater Demolition Teams. They operated with the Fifth and Seventh Amphibious Forces from Kwajalein to Okinawa and during the Philippines campaign.

They also served with Admiral Milton Miles’ U.S. Naval Group, China, where they trained Nationalist Chinese guerrillas, participated in raids and ambushes, and conducted overland reconnaissance behind enemy lines. During some missions, they disguised themselves as Chinese laborers to avoid detection by Japanese forces.

Scouts and Raiders tells the story of a unique World War II unit and will appeal to readers interested in military and naval history, amphibious operations, and special warfare.

How did the U.S. Navy—the branch of the military responsible for patrolling the oceans—produce a unit of raiders trained to operate on land? How did that unit become one of the world’s most elite commando forces, routinely conducting missions thousands of miles from the water in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and even Central Africa?

Behind the SEALs’ improbable rise is one of the most remarkable underdog stories in American military history. Former Navy SEAL Benjamin H. Milligan tells that story through the experiences of notable leaders and a succession of daring raids.

By Water Beneath the Walls explores the SEALs’ heroic naval predecessors and the evolution of the SEALs themselves. It also recounts the development of American special operations as a whole and explains how the SEALs emerged as America’s first permanent commando force.

Milligan chronicles the remarkable achievements of the SEALs’ frogman predecessors during World War II, the Korean War, and other conflicts. He also examines the interservice rivalries and personal ambitions that shaped the organization’s development.

The book describes important early missions conducted by units such as the Marine Raiders, Army Rangers, and Green Berets. These pivotal and often costly operations helped create the modern American commando while opening new opportunities for the Navy.

Finally, Milligan follows the SEALs as they assume the role of commando raiders and develop the capture-or-kill and counterterrorism missions that would define them for decades.

In this revisionist study, British historian John Costello reexamines the events leading to the beginning of World War II in the Pacific.

In coordinated surprise attacks on December 7–8, 1941, Japanese forces severely damaged the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and attacked the American air base at Clark Field in the Philippines. An official naval inquiry blamed Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, the senior military commanders in Hawaii, for the losses at Pearl Harbor.

Costello argues that the official inquiry was an exercise in scapegoating intended to protect those he considers the true culprits: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and General Douglas MacArthur. Drawing on declassified material, he asserts that flawed policy, poor strategic thinking, diplomatic mistakes, and intelligence failures contributed to the disasters at Pearl Harbor and Clark Field.

Challenging conventional interpretations, Costello argues that the loss of American air power in the Philippines was more significant than the destruction of American battleships in Hawaii because it helped make Japan’s rapid conquest of territories throughout Asia possible.

Costello also examines intelligence failures that left critical Japanese naval communications unread, even though U.S. intelligence had broken Japanese diplomatic codes.

More controversially, Costello contends that Roosevelt and Churchill entered into a secret agreement committing the United States to defend the British Empire in the Far East. He also argues that American air power was dangerously overextended and that MacArthur failed to follow orders to attack Japanese bases.

Finally, Costello alleges that the Roosevelt administration conducted an extensive cover-up to avoid dividing the country during wartime. His strongly argued conclusions continue to provoke debate among historians and World War II readers.

Adapted from a Kirkus review.

Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor? How did its forces inflict one of the greatest military defeats in American history? What went wrong? “And I Was There” was the first book by a high-ranking U.S. Navy officer to address these questions.

Admiral Layton kept this information secret until approximately half a million documents from U.S. military archives were declassified. Only then did he believe he was free to tell his story.

Layton identifies those who possessed intelligence about Japanese intentions, explains how they obtained that information, and describes how it was mishandled.

He writes with unique authority. Layton served as the Pacific Fleet’s intelligence officer before the attack on Pearl Harbor and continued in that role under Admiral Chester W. Nimitz throughout the war. As Layton emphasized, he was there.

Drawing on 20 years of research and numerous previously classified documents, Robert B. Stinnett challenges the view that Pearl Harbor resulted solely from an American intelligence failure or a brilliant Japanese military operation.

Stinnett argues that President Franklin D. Roosevelt received substantial warning of the impending attack. He further contends that senior members of the U.S. government initiated a plan intended to provoke Japan into war.

Through these controversial arguments, the book offers an alternative interpretation of one of the most significant events in American history.

This edition was published in 2001.