Nick Cherniavsky Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Nick Cherniavsky 126
Ke obviously ws a northerner because southerners are mrch shorter statured,
and he turned, and he looked me in the eye, and I ws dressed, by the my,
as so m y ksterners =re being dressed by that tine, in all sorts of
discards of brim military uniforms; and I had on m--I believe it ms
in wintertime--and I had, I think, a flight jacket, a Marine Air WLng
flight jacket an =--which of course ws vesy easily distinguishable, you
know, and he looked m in the eye and said in somahat broken English, but
still ernrnciatd clearly emu& that the wrds ere codmg out quite
distinctly, Vou U. S. bastard! " and it ms so b y , and actually I, it
w.s funny because I w not U.S. I don't knaw whether I was bastard or
not, but one thing, I was definitely in the wrong, and second thin&, the
comical side of the situation kind of stn& me, and so I just apologized
in Qlinese. I hew enough Chinese to be able to say a cauple wrds of
camrrn type of apology, and he looked scarewhat surprised, and I imgine
placated to the degree I think, that he sort of grinned.
It w s years ago, but I feel . . . . There was no contimation to
this encounter. He wlked on and I got back on my bicyle and drove on.
But anyway, the relationship betwen the native populaticm and all ksterners
was deter;Larating very fast.
In any case, after e left Shanghai for the Fbilippines, all of these
bats made a stopover in Manila Bay, dthout anybody getting off the
ships, they ere anchored, and so, that was the way in aich w became
familiar with Manila. In those days, I am really not aware If there =re
any salvage aperations but the harbor was filled, filled up with my,
mimy lknerican Navy ships and transport ships that =re sunk during the
war, and m cauld see them very clearly. bk came rather close to Corregidor
Island, lut &ich of case everyone had heard of by that tine, and w
to& aboard in W la a great deal of food supplies for the camp.
Again, the work of loading was being done by people on board the ship.
The F'ilipino lmgshoremen d d bring them in small boats alongside, then
w d d take over. I remember that for same reason, I did not participate
in that particular operation. I was walking on bard the deck, and then
e sailed on to our destination, the Philippine Islands, which ms Samar
Island, which is the major island, or to be more accurate actually, Tribaba
which is a rather small island, separated by a narrow channel, for which
there is a bridge, and that's &ere w dropped anchor.
I d d
like to retract a bit. The sail- d m the inland sea of the
Philippines .was . . . a mst beautiful experience. The seas were absolutely
placid, there w no wather whatsoever; and it w s just like sail- down
the lake. bk =re almst conthwusly within close sight of land. The
islands ere constantly coming, the shore of the islands d d constantly
be caning into sight, and the greenery, the absolutely unbelievable eraldgreen
hues, greenery of the jungle and of the meticulously cultivated
plantations, copra plantations and whatever other planations they had
there, w e extremely novel and very pleasant, a very beautiful swt.
Q: Before you left Tsingtao, =re there Nationalist troops in the tom?
You -timed that the tom was ringed by the Red Qlinese Amy. ht ms
keeping them out?
Nick Cherniavsky Memoir, vol. 2 - Archives/Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS