Nick Cherniavsky Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Nick U~miavsky 114
every nationality t~as represented just like the character of SZlanghai
tkr-t those years too.
Tvm thbgs that I d d
like to trention about the cruise to aefoo ms
me, that as w wre approaching Chefoo, a sister ship of ours, sam kind
of IST was canhg back £ran Chefoo, and w had this meting out ia the
open sea, and they =re close amugh &re they could c-icate by the
use of a lullhorn. They told us that as they =re caning to aefoo in
their turn, a couple of days before us or so a Nationalist Chinese air
force bomber Imbed them, and didn't hit than, ht straddled them with tm
bmbs, and this of course ms a warning frcm the Nationalist Chinese
govermmt for other ships not to deliver any supplies to the areas of
&ha Mch =re under Cammist control, and hfoo was under CamaJnist
Red Army occupation or control at times. So there ws same discussion
aboard aur ship whether WE should continue to hfoo or turn back, and I
blFwe they cammdcated by radio with 3mghai headquarters and -re
told to proceed on, and R did arrive in Chefao without any problem. We
unloaded our cargo, which consisted of did supplies, some grain, and
55-gallon d m of oil and gasoline.
All of us Ere able to car^ ashore in mefoo. k =re processed for the
call on shore by Red m s e Amy officials, and there =re a mber of
fonzlal dinners. 'he rnajor one aich was thrown in our honor by the Red
m s e Cammist officials of the city wts a Wse-style dinner. There
=re a lot of toasts for mtual friendship, et cetera, and all that junk
that is usually said on occasions of that nature. And then w =re able
to discaver a wry tiny foreign colony in Chefoo, which consisted of some
Russians, s- French, I believe, scm &mums, those people. I remember
that I becam some&& -re mil-acquainted in the c m e of our three or
four day stay in &Em, with a young couple whose name w.s Bamgartner,
and I believe the husband was G e m
and the wife ms Russian, and I
visited them a few t hs, had a few meals with them. Chfoo impressed UE
as a mch smaller city than any ohr place &ere I had been, or mch more
typically Qlinese than either Tientsin, Tsingao or naturally, Shanghai,
and mst of the buildings ere typically of W.nese architecture. The
streets Ere rmch mre mse in appearance too-mre crooked and winding
and narmier, etcetera.
In any cae, following the termination of our biness in Chefoo, w
returned to Shanghai. And as I trentioned, I never obtained the positim
with UNRRA's fleet Ixtt shortly thereafter I got a job as chief guard at
UlWU motor pool in T&ang-pl, district of Shanghai, and ms there for-I
don' t x ed1 how many mmths , lxlt for, I muld say, nearly a year, until
the UNRRA mission in Q-dm ws closed. And my wife cam to Shanghai too,
and joined me, and for a aile w stayed with my parents in their aparant,
particularly during the tinle when me of than, or both my dad and my
mother, mld b on a cruise. Sounds like a vacation cruise, and I 'm sure
that's what it was for my mther kt for my dad of course that vim his
wrk.
Incidentally, my dad in the eighteen mnhs that tae had this job, managed
to raise himself to the ladder of the hierarchy an boaxd a ship to a
position of chief engineer kan the oiler, and I believe that during the
last six~ll~lths or so of his mrk with this outfit he ws chief engineer
aboard the same ship that he started, arnd in m y ways it was, for my
Nick Cherniavsky Memoir, vol. 2 - Archives/Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS