Recalling the Early Days

I received a nice note from retired Navy CPO Joe Faszcza who was one of the early pioneers at USTDC, arriving in 1956. He was kind enough to provide a summary of his experiences from those times and here's what he had to say:

It was early December 1956 when I completed getting my shots at the Naval Station, Treasure Island (San Francisco) and was ready to begin the long journey to Formosa.

There were only "prop" planes in those days, so our first first stop was at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, for a couple of days and then it was on to Guam. The NCO club only opened for an hour each day from 1200 until 1300 where one could get a beer. Another couple of days and it was then on to Clark AFB in the Philippines. The only flights out of Clark to Taipei were on Tuesday and Thursday, so if you arrived on a Friday you were SOL until Tuesday. The seats on the flight were bucket seats and the lunches were always a sandwich and an apple.

What a shock to arrive at what the Taipei airport in those days. It looked like a lean-to shed to me. There was a Chinese military driver there to meet me. There were no paved roads; only dirt roads with big pot holes. Most of the traffic seemed to be ox carts where the driver scooped up the ox's s**t and shoveled it into the back of his cart.

A bus took me from the United States Taiwan Defense Command building up to Grass Mountain (Yangmingshan) where I was berthed. There were two hostels, a recreation building and a chow hall (closed mess). When you lost all your money playing the slots at Club 63, the closed mess would let you run a tab. The tea was free but peanut butter and banana sandwiches were $ .05. The phone number was sue-sue-limba 4412 I think! The hostels had double bunk beds and a community restroom and showers. Kerosense lamps provided the heat. Whenever the shuttle bus engine conked out, the driver would beat the engine with a hammer - but it worked!

TDC was located at the far end of Taipei off a road adjacent to a river (Tamsui?). There was a zoo nearby which housed chickens, roosters, and other "wild" animals. Also nearby was the Grand Hotel and the Club 63 was down the road.

I was a 20 year old E-3 assigned to J-1 (Personnel) with a Navy Commander as the Division Officer and a Navy Warrant as the Administrative Officer. Our big job was to publish the Plan of the Day.  We only had one stencil machine in the building and it was located in J-2 (Intelligence). The Legal Office was also located on the first floor. The Admiral, his Chief of Staff, and Comms were all located topside.

We worked and stood personal inspections wearing dungarees and a tee shirt. The motor pool, and sick bay (where you got those yellow pills for your burning sensations) were located behind the building. The Photo Lab was a Quonset hut. We used a barrel-like object made of what appeared to be chain link fencing for burning our classified documents.  We took turns turning the handle of the barrel to ensure nothing remained. The mail came in via ship at Keelung twice a week.

Many bars intersected the main drag (Chung Shin Pay Lou). I hung out at The Black Cat bar where mixed drinks, e.g. VO or CC, were about a quarter and a glass of ice was a nickel. The girls in the clubs earned their living by getting the customers to buy them drinks. If a girl left with you, it would cost you about $7.00. There was also a bar called "Dick's" and they had the best Mongolian barbeque one would taste.

There was a town nearby, called Paytoe, that had many hotels. They also had sulphur springs where one could take a hot sulphur bath and feel like Superman. Our valuables were very rarely looted.

We rode in the Admiral's plane for R&R flights to Hong Kong.  We could wear civies in Hong Kong but the fleet guys still  had to wear their uniforms. We were also able to ferry over to Kowloon. I bought a cashmere white dinner jacket for $25.00 and tailor made monogrammed silk shirts for $2.00 apiece. Dick, one of our shipmates, got caught by customs bringing in a suitcase full of glass frames. He got a special courts martial and restriction to the hostel for three months. His girlfriend used to come up to the hostel to visit him while he was on restriction.

Ed, another shipmate, got drunk and killed a local while driving back up the mountain. The locals rioted and we called it "Black Friday." They bussed us down to the compound and issued us weapons but nothing further happened.  Ed was transferred to a psychiatric hospital in Japan.

At 20 years of age, I spent most of my time drinking and partying until I ended up with a collapsed lung and was hospitalized at the MAAG clinic.  While there I met an Army guy from Chicago.  Both he and I spoke Polish and we used to break up our nurses by speaking to each other in Polish. On my last day at the clinic, one of the nurses admitted that she also spoke Polish and knew everything we were saying. One good thing did happen to me during that week in the clinic. I studied for advancement and shortly thereafter got promoted to E-4.

I left TDC in July 1959 and still communicate with two shipmates.  It's been over 56 years!

Last Days of Club 63

Over at the Taipei Air Station blog, Kent just posted a copy of the last issue of MAAG-Net, the monthly newsletter of the Club 63.  During 1973, the management of the Club 63 was changed from the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to the Navy's Headquarters Support Activity (HSA).  At that time the name was changed to the China Seas Club.

I was there when the change occurred and it seems to me that things actually improved.  Slot machines were brought back into the club, which I think increased club attendance.  The Navy also prohibited playing craps, blackjack and other games of chance in the stag bar, which was quite a change.  That didn't seem to affect the quarter bets at the shuffleboard table, but that was nothing compared to some of the other games that occurred regularly at the stag bar.

If you would like to have a PDF file of the final issue of MAAG-Net, you can download a copy here:  http://www.mediafire.com/?1c6d41ja72a1j6a

Vice Admiral Beshany Plaques

Taipei Scott recently came into possession of a couple of mementos that belonged to Vice Admiral Philip A. Beshany.  VADM Beshany was Commander of the U.S. Taiwan Defense Command from September 1972 to August 1974.   The first is a plaque from GEN Ching Wei-yuan, Commander of Combined Service Forces, to VADM Beshany and the other is from the Philippines Navy Commodore Ruiz to VADM Beshany.

VADM Beshany passed away in December 2011, as I wrote in this article this past February.  He was the eighth Commander of USTDC and I served under him there for all but the last few days of my tour.

Rear Admiral Frank W. Fenno Jr.

I recently received a nice note from Bill Masters, along with a couple of photographs.  He wrote:

I've been looking through your website and came across a list of Chiefs of Staff for USTDC.  I was there as a photographer from 1955 to 1956 and remember that Rear Admiral Frank. W. Fenno Jr. was the Chief of Staff under Vice Admiral Stewart H. Ingersoll, the first Commander of USTDC.  Since Rear Admiral Fenno is not listed, his picture is attached along with a photo of him shipping over (re-enlisting) four of the photo lab staff in August 1956.  Admiral Fenno also played on the TDC softball team.

Until now, I'd shown Air Force Brigadier General Harold Winfield Grant as the first USTDC Chief of Staff, but Bill tells me that he never saw him or heard of him at TDC.  I know that RADM Fenno was named as Commander of the Formosa Liaison Center, which became the Formosa Defense Command until the establishment of the U.S. Taiwan Defense Command.  Vice Admiral Ingersoll was the first Commander of USTDC and apparently RADM Fenno remained as Chief of Staff.  Every TDC Chief of Staff after that was an Air Force officer, most of them Brigadier Generals.  I have changed my listing of USTDC Chiefs of Staff to include RADM Fenno.

Many thanks to Bill Masters for helping me sort all this out. 

1961 MAAG Telephone Directory

Beni recently sent me a copy of the October 1961 edition of the US Forces Republic of China telephone directory.  It contains listings for U.S. military and civilian organizations in Taiwan, including the Military Assistance Advisory Group, US Taiwan Defense Command, Naval Support Activity, embassies and units at locations outside the Taipei area.

If you would like to download the complete directory as a PDF file, click on the image to your left.

No Ifs, Ands or Butts

Some time ago I wrote about the ashtray that was one of the going away mementos that Vic Gerlach received in 1975.  Ashtrays were common departure gifts years ago when a much higher percentage of military people (and civilians) still smoked, though I don't think that I personally ever received one.

Scott in Taipei recently came into possession of another version of the TDC ashtray.  It looks like it was very well used but there's nothing to indicate when it was presented.

Rules of the Road

Driving in Taiwan was different in many ways from what we were accustomed to in the States.  There were differences with the local laws, of course, but there were also some differences in traditional customs and courtesies on the streets and roads.

To make the transition to a new driving environment a bit easier, the U.S. Taiwan Defense Command and the Military Assistance Advisory Group co-published a guide to driving in Taiwan.  Scott in Taipei recently came into possession of the 1958 version of the guide and has been kind enough to share it with us.  I was especially fascinated by the rates for pedicabs (which were no longer in use when I arrived in Taipei) and the taxi rates.  I believe that the $NT to $US conversion rate was probably the same 40-to-1 ratio in 1958 as when I was there during 1973-74.  I didn't own a car while in Taipei so I often took taxis to wherever I needed to go.

As always, you can click on any of these images to view a larger version.  I'll be converting this document to a single PDF file for downloading in case anyone is interested in having a copy.  When it's ready, it will be posted in the column to your right, in the same area as other PDF files that I've previously made available.

Taipei Transports of the 1960s

Here's another group of photographs from Bill Amborn.  He wrote:

"Here is a small photo collection of ways in which goods and people were moved around in 1963-1965. I was intrigued by how things moved and stationed myself in a spot to photographed whatever came by. The photos were all taken in the same area, probably along Zhongshan Bei Lu. This is more part of the general history of Taiwan than anything to do with the military, a different slice than one might usually encounter.

 

I don’t know how much had changed in the ten years between my tour and yours, but now when I cruise around the roads on Google today, it is just incredible."

I believe I saw most of these methods of transport still being used during 1973-74, though probably far fewer of them than were around ten years earlier.  The exception would be the pedicabs.  I think they had been banned from the streets of Taipei by then.

 

Updated Photo of USTDC Gate

During 2010 I published two photos of the USTDC entrance gate (some called it the back gate).  It was located approximately where the taxi rest area next to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum is located today.  One photo showed the entry gate as it looked when I was there during 1973-74 and the other showed it as it appeared in 1957.  The earlier photo was taken by Charlie Hoppe who was an intelligence officer there during 1955-57.  That earlier post can be found HERE.

Charlie recently loaned a box of his original slides to my buddy Kent Mathieu (Taipei Air Station blog), who has been restoring the images.  He realized that one of them was the same one that I posted in 2010 of the TDC gate.  Kent has done a beautiful job on this.  Here, after more than 50 years in storage, is the restored image as it appeared in 1957.

More Typhoon Gloria Photos from 1963

A couple of years ago, Bill Amborn (formerly at USTDC/J24) sent me some photos that he took of Typhoon Gloria flooding in 1963.  Today he sent me a few more great Typhoon Gloria photos that he recently had developed from some old negatives.  He has annotated each of them for your information.