Posted on 05/06/2008 11:01:24 AM PDT by brytlea
I hope this is ok to post here. I am trying to find some information for my husband on something we got when his father passed away a couple of years ago. It is clearly a blood chit from pictures I've seen online, but it doesn't really look just like the ones I can find online.
It has only an American flag on it, with characters (beats me if they are Chinese or Korean, he flew over both during his career as a marine pilot). I would love to be able to translate it, as we plan to frame it and give it to our son as a Christmas gift.
Is anyone familiar with these? BTW it has his name in English, and then in characters underneath. The photos I've found online don't have names on them. There are actually 2 of them, one is on silk, the other on leather.
Thank you for any help!
Do you have some images?
Blood chits were exactly that. They were issued to flyers in the hopes that, if they were downed behind enemy lines, the flyer could find someone sympathetic to him and give the person a blood chit. The chit was usually good for currency but only good if the airman was returned alive to U.S. or friendly forces.
I have an image my husband scanned, but it’s not a picture, it’s pdf (no idea why he saved it like that). I will see if I can get a picture of the other one (they are just the same, only different material).
susie
What hand reciept?
You can try this program. There is a free trial.
http://www.pdf-to-jpg.com/
That was satire. When the US Miltiary gives something to a soldier/airman that they want back (like a rifle, tank, tent, etc.) they make you sign a hand receipt for it to prove you received it. Stuff they don't back (food, ammo, clothing) they just give you.
When I outprocessed from the USAF, they took back all of my flight gear including the Nomex underwear I wore under my flight suit. I asked if they were going to reissue it to someone else. The reply was, “No, we destroy it with scissors. But we have to account for it.” Like I was going to sell my used fire-proof undies to the Chinese?
Oh.
No, but they didn't want you to have an unfair advantage on Free Republic.
www.armyairforces.com might be able to help you if the person was in the air corp.
Most of my stuff was worn enough that it couldn’t be reissued. But USAF regs required it be accounted for before disposal. I did get to keep my boots, though. They rotted finally.
- Open the pdf.
- Push the “print screen” key on your key board. (Usually in the upper right hand corner.)
- Open MSPaint
- Under Edit, select Paste. Screen image will appear.
- Push the “Esc” key (usually in the upper left hand corner)to exit edit mode and lock the image into the frame.
- Under File, select “save as.”
- When the Save As dialogue box opens, give the file a name and save it as either a .jpeg or .gif file.
- You now have an image you can post to Free Republic.
You didn’t mention Vietnam but the usmcpress.com mentions the American flag being part of the “new” Chits during the Vietnam era:
During the war in Vietnam the fighter, attack, and helicopter crews carried new blood chits. These chits displayed the American flag, plus an appeal in 14 languages: English, Burmese, Thai, Old Chinese, New Chinese, Laotian, Cambodian, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Visayan, Malayan, French, Indonesian, and Dutch. The wording in each language was the same:
I think he got out before VN.
That’s very possible.
susie
He did fly over China.
Yeah, I saw those pix too. Just nothing really looks like it, so maybe he had it made. It would be nice to get it translated.
susie
I'm no expert at all but I hope this leads you in a path that may help.
If you'd check the exchange office of a local university, I'd bet they have some Chinese or Taiwanese students or even faculty that would be willing to help. Explain that your looking to have some small translation work done on for a family heirloom and offer some small remuneration. I've done this for both academic and professional purposes in the past, and have found that the overwhelming majority of these folks are flattered that an American would need their assistance, and are very willing to help.
Thanks for getting the scan posted, yes now it’s obvious with only 48 stars.
This website has a ton of info. It has a translation of the blood chits used by the 14th Air force who flew out of China during WW2. You maybe able to check the chinese symbols translated on the web page to the ones on your Uncle’s blood chit and see if they match.
http://cbi-theater-4.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-4/bloodchit/bloodchit.html
Was it back in the 60's-70's or recently? in 1965 when I outprocessed from the USAF (ROTC), all I had to give back was Uniform and Shoes. Tho' gotta admit, took a while before I bought some dress shoes again...so went without for quite a while without shiny shoes!
To narrow your search, you'll want to seek out Chinese over the age of 40 (or so), or Taiwanese (or Fujianese), ie faculty! In my limited understanding, most of the younger Chinese have learned only the simplified characters (Mandarin), whereas Taiwanese are (or were) still using the more complex original characters....tho' translaters all have excellent dictionaries...with much knashing of teeth, my 1982-5 putonghua dictionaries could almost do the job (tho' simplified characters are all I've got, many are identical or similar)! The problem (even when you find a 'translator') is the polysyllabic language read from monosyllabic ideographs! The Taiwanese translator will sound much different from a Shanghaiese, who again sounds different than a Mandarin translator! G'luck!
Mandarin is commonly spoken and read in Vancouver’s Chinatown, as it was first settled in the mid-late 1800’s. The same may be true of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Dunno if that helps, but if you were planning a trip to either place anytime soon, your answer may be as close as the a local laundromat.
It was 1991, medical retirement.
The sets consisted of five chits from five different theaters as follows:
Vietnam
China
Eastern European
European
Latin America
Yours is not the same as the Chinese set. This set had the languages of most of the areas near and around China. It also had an English translation of the text. Yours appears to be the same Chinese as in the Chinese set. It basically identifies the person who has the chit as an American military man who has inadvertently found himself in the readers area. It states that the bearer means no harm and is asking for assistance. If the readers helps this American military person, the military person will give him the flag to be taken to an embassy of the US for payment of services.
Unfortunately I am currently living in China and all my chits are in Thailand and in Minnesota. I gave most of them away to friends and as rewards for my subordinates in the AF when I was an officer (retired in 1994).
When I first saw the image of yours, I immediately thought it might be an old Flying Tiger one from Kunming. Not so. I have seen some, however, in Kunming that were custom made from that time period. Most of the Kunming ones were sewn onto the inside of the flight jackets. Pretty cool stuff if on can find these these days.
A 1991 retiree would mean that Kunming and Flying Tigers are out. Probably the chit was custom made from someplace. I had an assignment in Chang Rai in Northern Thailand where I was visiting someone at a local pub run by a French Foreign Legionnaire retiree. The legionnaire swore up and down that the chit he had on his wall was genuine. Wanted to beat me up for disagreeing with him. It was garbage and a poor copy to boot. He now has a real one hanging up on his wall courtesy of me.
Anyway, that is my history of chits. I did a lot of research on them when I had a bunch but that was in a different life. They no longer are issued and are not accounted or as far as I know of. I was not issued one when I flew from 1975 onward.
Hope this helps. I could have the Chinese translated by one of my students if you would really like it.
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