Sarj Bloom At Work

Sarj has provided several great photos here and this is one of the man himself. That's him in whites hiding behind that camera. This was his first photo assignment at TDC, probably early in 1962, and he believes it was taken aboard the USS Oklahoma City and that the officer was probably Vice Admiral William A. Schoech, Commander of the US 7th Fleet.

Grass Mountain Park Scenes

More Stev Pitchford photos. These were taken at the park next to the Grass Mountain hostel #1 during September and October, 1959.

On The Way To USTDC

Stev sent these three photographs that were taken on the road from his quarters on Grass Mountain to the USTDC photo lab during September, 1959. Great shots!

Another MIG

Here's another photo from Stev Pitchford. This one is of another MIG whose pilot defected to Taiwan.

Stev writes:

Here is a crowd viewing a MIG-15 on display in downtown Taipei. It was flown to Taiwan by a Chinese Communist defector in late 1959 or early 1960. While the details are written on the poster by the plane, my Chinese never got past recognizing a few symbols on buses so I'd know which one to catch, so I can't translate it for you.

One of the photo lab's functions was processing aerial reconnaissance film. In the spring of 1960, Lt. Colonel Tinsley walked into the lab proudly pointing to a spot in the middle of a print he was carrying. The spot was flying at well above 40,000 feet and whatever took the picture was way above that. Because it was a long time ago, I may be mixing my MIGs, but I think he said it was a MIG-21. In any case, it was the first evidence they had that a MIG of that generation was flying in Communist China.

Aerial Photos of the Compounds

Stev Pitchford sent these great shots, taken during the spring of 1960.

When I was at USTDC, these areas on either side of Chungshan North Road were just the Headquarters Support Activity (HSA) compound. When I've written about them here, I usually refer to them as the east and west compound, but that's just to identify which side of the street I'm talking about.

I'm posting Stev's comments here, followed by mine (in brackets):

If you walked south behind the TDC compound, you came to this area. The long building at the bottom of the picture was the Bachelor Officers' Quarters. The building above the right corner of the BOQ was the base exchange. The building at the back of the parking lot was the base theater and the building at the left of the parking lot was the commissary. [The BOQ became the first of two buildings that the hostel occupied. The second building was directly behind this one. Next to the theater at the far end of the parking lot was the library. I think that there were other new buildings later on and some of those shown here may have been gone by the time I got there.]

Across Chungshan North Road from the BOQ was the MAAG compound. [This area was no longer called the MAAG compound when I was there. I'd have to go back and look at some of the other photos and maps that I've posted here, but I think that there were more structures here also.]

Navy Hospital Photo?

**** UPDATE ****

Kent just reminded me where I saw that navy hospital photo. It's an official ROC historical photo at a website that reader Misty pointed out recently. You can find it here.

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Someone has asked for a photo of the navy hospital in Taipei. I could have sworn that someone sent one to me some time ago, but I can't locate it anywhere. If anyone out there has one, please email it to me and I'll post it here.

Thanks!

Don

Grass Mountain Hostel

On April 7th, I wrote about an article I'd read regarding the historic preservation of Yangmingshan (Yangming Mountain). This article described numerous buildings that were former homes or dormitories for American military personnel.

I wasn't sure where that area was, and readers explained that it was the Grass Mountain area.

Stev Pitchford sent me these two photos of Hostel #1 on Grass Mountain that were taken during October, 1959. Here's his summary:

In the area around the hostel were a small police station, a Chinese elementary school, and the International Hotel. I believe the hotel is still there. Next to the hostel was a park with a spring fed swimming pool and the water in it was really cold. There was also a basketball court where the Chinese kids regularly ran us ragged.

On the other side of the park was Chiang Kai Shek's summer residence. In the winter (it never really got that cold) months, he stayed at a residence on what was then the outskirts of Taipei.

A short walk below the hostel was the American housing and recreation compound. I made pretty good use of the bowling alley, movie theater, and tennis court there.

A short walk above the hostel was the Chinese War College. From there to the communications site at the top of the mountain was further than you'd want to walk, so any time I was up there I rode. I don't remember what it was called, but I've seen it referred to as STRATCOM, AFNT, and ICRT in your blog. What I do remember were the two huge microwave antennae pointed at Okinawa. If birds flew in front of the antennae when they were active, the birds died.

Does anyone know if the hostel building is still standing? If so, what is it used for?

In the article that I linked to at the top of this piece, there is a reference to preserving "...dormitories of the US Taiwan Defense Command," but it's not clear that they're talking about Grass Mountain. Opinions?

Coincidentally, Kent Mathieu, who operates the Taipei Air Station website and blog, just sent me another fascinating article, this one from the Asia Times, dated 6 Mar 2003. It describes in some detail how part of Grass Mountain is (or recently was) being used for some very hush-hush kinds of things.

USTDC Compound Photo #2

I just received several photographs from Stev Pitchford, who also worked at the TDC photo lab.

The one that I'm posting today is quite similar to the aerial view of USTDC that I posted earlier. However, the angle is just slightly different in this one.

You can see both of the flagpoles in the front parking lot here. The one to the far right of the picture was where the US flag was raised and the one to the left was where the ROC troops raised their flag. Flags were raised and lowered at the same times each day -- 8:00 AM (0800 hours, eight bells) and 4:00 PM (1600 hours, eight bells). Those efforts sometimes resulted in unintended consequences as I wrote in another piece during July 2007. I think the photo also shows more clearly the curved route that vehicles took when they entered or exited the TDC parking lot.

If you could see just a little further to the right at the bottom of the photo, you would see the entrance gate shown here. Because I always walked to work through the HSA east compound, I rarely went in or out of this gate.

Thanks to Sarj and Stev, I have more new photographs to share in the days ahead. I'm delighted with all of the images and memories that so many people have been willing to pass along here and I hope to add many more.

Right now I'm especially interested in interior photos (or even an interior diagram) of the USTDC building, all pictures of the east or west HSA compounds, the Linkou Club (original location or its later location), and the Club 63 (later the China Seas).

MIG-15

This MIG-15 fighter jet was flown to Taiwan from Zhejiang's Lu-Qiao Airport on Mainland China on March 3, 1962. The defecting pilot was Liu Chen-se.

Liu was rewarded by the Taiwan government with approximately 50 kg (110 pounds) of gold and was given the position of Deputy Director of a Republic of China Air Force radio station. He retired in the grade of colonel.

The US admiral checking out the MIG-15 in this photo is Vice Admiral Melson, Commander USTDC.

Today the aircraft is located at the Taiwan Air Force Museum and you can view it here.

Photo courtesy of Sarj Bloom.

USTDC Compound Photo!

This is the photo that I mentioned yesterday that shows the entire US Taiwan Defense Command compound. It was probably taken sometime during the late 1950s.

If you look toward the center of the photo, you'll see the corrugated steel canopy the was over the main entrance, or quarterdeck, of the building. The quonset hut to the left of the building was the photo lab where Sarj Bloom, who provided this photo, worked as a PH2.

I only see one flagpole at this end of the front parking lot. When I was there during 1973-1974, there was a second flagpole several yards to the right (from this angle) where the US flag was raised each day, as the ROC flag was being raised on this one.

To the right of that front parking lot was a structure -- either a barracks or maybe a day room -- for the ROC soldiers. You could hear them playing ping-pong over there during the day.

There are two quonset huts shown here, one on each side of the main building. Neither quonset hut was there by the time I arrived, and I don't remember any of the buildings behind TDC. Of course it has been thirty-four years, so the fact that I don't remember them doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't there.

Anyway, Sarj Bloom has shared a real gem of a photo here that will undoubtedly bring back a lot of memories. I'm sure you all appreciate it as much as I do.