OOPS. Good story, bad byline.

CC Tom Russell should have gotten the byline for the story, "The Tsingtao Queen."

Very early in my Marine Corps career one of my WWII mentors gave me some great advice:  “Paxton, you can call a man an SOB but you better make sure you spell his name right.”

Fortunately for me I remembered it well… Well, at least until a year ago when we ran a great yarn in the newsletter, “Now hear this” about a China Marine CC who worked with the Tsingtao Queen back in 1946.  It was a good story and we even ran the CC’s photo with it 

But, unfortunately we made a slight mistake:  We credited the story to CC Tom Rutherford.  The real writer, to our embarrassment, was Tom Russell.

Tom lives in Dallas, TX so, if you are ever in his neighborhood, get him to tell you about the Tsingtao Queen.  Makes us wonder, though, why Tom Rutherfod didn’t let us know about the goof.   — Jack Paxton, executive director

To read the original story with the CORRECT byline, click on the “Read more” link below.

The Tsingtao Queen

By Tom Russell

 I really wasn’t a correspondent – it was in name only.  I got off one of the first boats to arrive in Tsingtao, China in Februrary,1946 – met by Lt. Forrest Elkins who assigned me to  motor transport. When I got there, I just had to tell Sgt. Major Burgess that I didn’t drive well and didn’t even have a license. He asked me what I could do – I told him I could type a little and I ended up in PIO under Lt. William Zudtke.

 All real war correspondents had headed home when the Japanese surrendered. The place was near empty except for a great photographer named George Theis whom I happened to attend high school with in Dallas, Texas. Lt. Zudtke was waiting to get out of there so he pinned a used correspondent badge on my private’s uniform, gave me a press pass, a requisition for a jeep and told me to go get ‘em. Tsingtao was an old German Seaport – beautiful and charming – especially mind boggling to a 17 year old who had never been out of Texas before he laid eyes on Paris Island. That was the way it was until I met the Queen of the Tsingtao Daily Herald, a reporter for the English language newspaper. Educated at the University of California, she spoke and wrote perfect English. Course, she had worked with some of them real correspondents but they were a little older – and family men – and she – well, she – eh – she was kind of enamored by my fresh uniform and a younger guy so she took me under her wing.

 She was a fireball – especially about that time when the Commies and Chang-Kai–Shek’s forces were hooking up. She knew everybody that was anybody. I just tagged along and that little correspondent badge spoke volumes. One time she called me and told me she had arranged for me to speak to one of the Army Officer’s Training Schools.

 WELL, they had a Chinese band break out while all the officers in training stood at attention. They looked liked the welcome band in that war movie. The Commander invited me to inspect the troops and I paraded around like I knew what I was doing.

 Next, I was led into this giant hall– placed on the stage with the all the big shots. The Commandant welcomed me and polite applause given my introduction when he motioned for me to come to the podium and speak. Uh oh!. What to say – I was no speaker. Well, The Queen knew it and jumped to my side “Just say a few words – I’ll do the rest”. So I gave a few platitudes about how nice it was to be here and how proud we were of those that served for the freedom of China. Then she made her interpretation.

 All of a sudden, the place erupted. She translated about twice as long as I had spoken. When she finished, the audience started cheering – clapping – yelling. Boy was I a hit! I said a few more words and she said more – I heard her say Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor and the Chinese Officer Candidates cheered some more – some even stomping their feet. One guy even got up on a chair. Gee! they were happy. I must be good. Pretty soon we headed back and I just had to ask her about that fireball speech I gave and what I said.

“Oh, I told them that you had spoken personally with President Roosevelt and he had assured you that the United States would assist the Chinese Nationalists in every way!”