KMT Cold War Tattoos
1993 Visit Offered Last Glimpse of the Old Breed
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28 March 2023 (Tuesday)
KMT Cold War Tattoos
1993 Visit Offered Last Glimpse of the Old Breed
By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德
TAIPEI - There was a time when I was pretending to be a scholar writing books on Cold War espionage and covert action. This is more true than not, but I had not yet realized the future of these types of mainstream books in this field were less than lucrative till much later.
In 1993 I came to Taiwan for research on the history of espionage and covert action. A two week visit to archives, libraries, interviews, in the unforgiving August weather.
One morning, unable to sleep due to jet lag I visited a local park for a walk. There were your typical elderly folks up early doing their warmup exercises and Tai Chi.
The old men caught my attention immediately. They all had tattoos on their bodies. I stopped and spoke to many of them, all friendly, about their artwork. Much of the art was impolite script about Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.
The idea was, according to to them, that if captured the Chinese Communist forces would simply kill them. The tattoos gave them every advantage to fight to the bitter end.
In 1997, upon returning to Taiwan to work as a journalist for Jane’s Defence Weekly, many of these men had disappeared from the parks. I suspect they had already reached their final days and were now in wheelchairs or bedridden.
Back before the Internet, journalists kept clip files of interesting articles. While going through my paperwork the other day, I found an article from the English-language China Post (23 April 1999), page 19, “Taxpayers foot tattoo removal bill.”
I found the below article fascinating as well as humorous. I hope you find it of similar interest:
While conducting my research for the book, I only stumbled on one person who mentioned it in him memoirs.
Walter Allyn Rickett had the misfortune of studying Chinese under a Fulbright Grant from 1948-1950 at National Tsinghua University in Beijing. Then from 1950 to 1951 was awarded a traveling fellowship from Tsinghua University in Beijing.
However, in July 1951 Rickett was arrested by Chinese Communist authorities for sending intelligence reports back to the U.S. military. These reports were intercepted and resulted in his incarceration until 1955.
In his memoir, Prisoners of Liberation, the author describes another prisoner that shared his cell with a KMT tattoo on his forehead. A bit extreme, but in some cases KMT soldiers who had run from battle were often branded with these type of tattoos to shame them.
There were other indicators that flagged Rickett as a potential spy. When the Korean War broke out, the U.S. Marine Corps began sending him letters to his address in China ordering him to return to duty.
