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Mystery of Chinese major buried in US war hero cemetery

Steven Knipp

As Americans everywhere celebrated the recent Memorial Day weekend with parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues, members of the US Army's Third Infantry Regiment in Washington, DC, were busy placing tens of thousands of small American flags at the graves at Arlington National Cemetery, as a way to remember those who served the US.

As America's great imperial graveyard, Arlington National Cemetery sees more visitors on that weekend than at any other time of year. But one military grave which probably did not receive a flag, nor see any visitor, is that of Major Liu Nia-chien.

Liu's grave, marked by a standard issue white stone, is located not far from the graves of general Jimmy Doolittle and Audie Murphy, both famous American heroes and Congressional Medal of Honour winners. Doolittle, a renowned pilot, led the famous 1942 air raid on Tokyo which was a highlight of the recent Hollywood film Pearl Harbour. Murphy was a young Texas farm boy who single-handedly killed more than 260 German soldiers and became the most decorated American soldier of any war.

But there's a difference between Liu and his fellow honoured soldiers who rest nearby, beneath identical white marble gravestones.

Unlike Doolittle and Murphy, Liu was neither an American nor famous. In fact, no one at Arlington seems to know anything at all about Liu, except what his grave stone reads: 'Nia-chien Liu, Major, Chinese Army. October 19, 1946.'

Liu's grave is one of only 55 belonging to foreigners buried at Arlington. More than half of these are British or Canadian. The mysterious major is the sole Chinese among more than 260,000 graves.

A formal request was made to Arlington's superintendent, John Metzler, for Liu's record of internment. But when the papers were pulled from the cemetery's musty files, even Arlington's press office noted that 'there are a lot of blanks' on his record.

There was no US residential address, no date of birth, or place of birth beyond 'China'. And perhaps most strange of all, there was no cause of death entered. The only notation was that he was buried four days after his death, and 'Headstone required - Protestant Service'.

Liu's 1946 date of death excludes a second world war-related fatality. Yet, since he was buried in peacetime, why did the Department of Defence not return his remains to his family in China?

By late 1946, US relations with China were fast fading as more and more of the country began to fall to the communist forces of Mao Zedong. So the odds were great that Liu was an officer with the Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek, which were being supported at the time by the US.

The Taiwan Trade Office in Washington - Taiwan's de facto embassy - was contacted. They in turn contacted Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence, which searched through its existing military records there, but could turn up nothing about Liu.

The Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Washington was then contacted. And they, too, had their people in Beijing check their military's records. But they could find nothing in their archives.

They asked this reporter to contact them if anything was discovered about their late countryman.

Obituary records for October 1946 were checked with several Washington area newspapers; but there was no report published about the death of the Chinese foreign national.

Wendell Minnick, Taipei correspondent for the renowned international military journal Jane's Defence Weekly, was contacted. But Minnick, who is also the author of A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Persons Conducting Espionage and Covert Action, 1946-1991, has never heard of Liu.

He suggested contacting Yu Maochun, who is the author of OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War, which profiles the Office of Strategic Services, the group that went on to become the CIA. Professor Yu, who now teaches at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, was intrigued by the major, but had never heard his name before.

Minnick also suggested that historian William Leary be contacted, as he has done an immense amount of research on the CIA's covert operations in China in the early 1950s, taking over from the OSS. Mr Leary, previously a professor of history at the University of Georgia, was also intrigued about the mystery of Major Liu. He was 'pretty sure' that the 'Chinese Army notation' on Liu's grave referred to the Nationalists.

Could it be that Liu simply had the misfortune of being hit by a bus while working for the Department of Defence? 'Hardly likely!' said retired US Army general John Fugh. General Fugh, himself a Chinese-American born in Beijing, who graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, said that it was a high honour to be buried in America's most hallowed national cemetery.

He said he could not believe that Liu would be interred at Arlington unless he did something exceptional for the US.

He suggested that the Military Personnel Records Office of the National Personnel Records Centre in St Louis, Missouri, be contacted. But, months later, there is still no response from that office.

So the mystery of Major Liu Nia-chien remains just that, and a modest parcel of soft green Virginia hillside will remain, forever and inexplicably, a part of China.

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