2 p.m. February 15,
1961: Squadron-Leader Tin Maung Aye, accompanied by the commander of
the 5th Kachin Rifles, Major Aye Win, were flying reconnaissance in a
Burma Air Force Cessna southeast of Kengtung. Over the Mong Hpayak
area, they spotted a field with strips of cloth laid out to spell “D
Z” and realized that the Kuomintang forces were preparing a supply
drop zone. They returned to Kengtung airstrip and sent up three BAF
fighter planes with orders to force any KMT aircraft they encountered
to land at Kengtung. The squadron patrolled the area for about a
half-hour with no success. Then, just when they were about to return
to base, they spotted a green four-engine plane enter Burmese
airspace from the south and make two air drops. Squadron-leader
Maung Thein radioed the intruder to identify itself but got no reply.
The three Burmese Sea Fury fighters closed in and were fired upon
but not hit. When they fired back, the intruder made a U-turn,
heading for Thailand. In a second pass, both the intruder and one
fighter were damaged and crashed just inside Thai airspace. The
Burmese pilot, Noel Peters, died in the crash. One of the other
fighters managed to reach Kengtung with part of its tail shot away,
the third fighter was undamaged..
The Burmese army
and the KMT often fought on the ground but this was their only air
battle, at least during the years I lived in Kengtung. The KMTs, of
course, were the remnants of General Chiang Kai Shek’s
anti-Communist Chinese forces supported by Taiwan. They had had
little effect on the Chinese Communist army since the 1949 Communist
takeover, but often harassed the Shans and mountain people of
Kengtung State.
Radio Voice of
America that night announced that the Burma Air Force had shot down
an unarmed plane bearing relief supplies to refugees in Northeast
Burma. I could see the damaged fighter parked beside the local
airstrip, and the Burmese newspapers were full of reports of the
battle and the death of Pilot-Officer Peters. I knew VOA had it
wrong, possibly misinformed by Taiwan, its ally in the so-called
“Cold War” of communism vs. democracy in the mid-twentieth
century.
By the time Burmese
officials could inspect the wreckage across the border in Thailand,
KMTs had stripped the four-engine plane of identifying markings and
equipment. It appeared to be a modified World War B-24.
A Taiwanese group
calling itself the Free China Relief Association acknowledged
chartering the plane to supply “Chinese refugees.” Taipei news
editorials compared the overflight of Burma to America’s use of U-2
spy planes over Russia, said the flights would continue and “if we
are caught, we are caught.”
A
week later the Burma Air Force flew military attaches
of the United States, India, Indonesia and Thailand to Kengtung to
inspect the damaged BAF fighter, and then on to Mong Paliao near the
Laotian border, where they had recently captured a KMT base. There,
reporters saw 75 mm guns, machine guns, mines, ammunition, radios and
fuel drums, all bearing United States markings. The Nation, an
English-language Rangoon newspaper, printed a photo of one label:
“Commanding Officer, Erie Ordnance Depot, Port Clinton Ohio, TO:
Officer in Charge, Air Freight Terminal, Travis AFB, California”. A
Burmese reporter noted the American officials paid closest attention
to equipment several years old, and said it could be bought by anyone
at any surplus store. The reporter said they made no comment on
items manufactured within the past year.
Burma had enough
trouble fighting its own insurgent armies in those years without
involving itself in conflicts between world powers. It wanted no
part either of the United States and its allies, or of China and the
Soviet Union. It declined foreign aid from either side whenever
possible, and distanced itself from both. References to the
“American Way of Life” made little impression in Burma. Burmese
could read reports of American racial problems as well as anyone
else, and were familiar with Russian maneuvers as well. No one could
prove the United States knew what Taiwan was up to. But some thought
that if it didn’t know, then of what use was the CIA?
In any case, there
were protest demonstrations in front of the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon.
A crowd of 3,000 demonstrators got out of hand. Before police
controlled the riot, two demonstrators died and fifty three were
hospitalized. Things quieted down until two months later, when U.S.
Senator Fulbright publicly declared that he didn’t think it a good
idea to send American boys to the jungles of Laos. The terrain was
not suited to them, he said; better for them to fight in Vietnam,
Thailand, or Burma.
Russia showed the
world that it could make equally bad foreign relations blunders. In
April 1959 TASS, the official Soviet news agency, implied that a
prominent Burmese newspaper editor was in the pay of the U.S.
Embassy. The TASS correspondent must have been dismayed when many
Burma newspapers published front-page blasts against him personally
and started two lawsuits for libel, pointing out that the source he
quoted didn’t even exist.
About the same
time, the Russian military attaché entered Rangoon General Hospital
and, according to news reports, tried to pass along information
(nature unknown) to Burmese Intelligence. He then jumped from a
hospital window in an apparent escape attempt. His Russian comrades
caught him and hustled him back to the Soviet Embassy, and from there
to the airport at Mingaladon. Several reporters tried to question
him there while he was being put aboard a plane, and his Russian
escorts beat them up. Even pro-Communist Burmese newspapers then
united with other Burmese to denounce the Soviet Union, and about
forty reporters gathered at the Soviet Embassy to hurl tomatoes. The
Russians emerged armed with broken chairs and joined battle. Police
soon stopped the fight, but the Burma press gleefully pointed out
that in Russia, May 5th is celebrated as “Freedom of the Press
Day.”
It is not
surprising that for many years Burma’s attitude toward the world
powers was, in effect, “A pox on both your houses!”
