Coup

For years, China's commercial airlines -- built and operated with the help of American personnel-- had flown passengers and cargo through every kind of weather, across a land whose ground communications, always bad, were increasingly disrupted by civil war. Recently, the airlines' main job has been retreat: month after month, they flew harried Nationalist ministers from city to city in flight from advancing Reds. Last week, in one of the slickest coups of the civil war, the Communists grabbed the better part of the Nationalist-owned airlines.

The coup had been carefully planned. Two months ago, the Communists had sent two ex-Nationalist transport officials, who now served the Reds, to Hong Kong, where the airlines had their head offices. The emissaries managed to persuade most of the airlines' Chinese personnel, who were tired of continued retreat and fearful of losing their jobs, to come over to the winning side. The Reds' envoys had more trouble with American pilots, presumably won over a few with assurances of continued high pay (up to U.S. $1,000 a month for 74 hours' flying,, plus $10 an hour for overtime), soothed everyone by saying that no politics need be involved.

When Nationalist authorities whiffed the brewing plot, they promptly ordered CNAC (China National Aviation Corp.) and CATC (Central Air Transport Corp.) to shift all operations from Hong Kong to Formosa, where Chiang Kai-shek's forces could exert closer control. But at dawn one day last week, eleven planeloads of pilots and crewmen chose instead to slip off from Hong Kong's Kai Tak airfield and head for Red China. Seventy more Nationalist-owned planes remained grounded at Hong Kong. Pro-Communist personnel guarded them against seizure by Nationalist agents, who were forced to seek help in unsympathetic British colonial courts. Hong Kong's Governor Sir Alexander Grantham flatly announced that British recognition of Red China, expected soon (see INTERNATIONAL), would automatically give the Communists possession of the airlines, anyway.

American pilots working for the airlines stumbled into the mazes of the coup. CNAC's American Vice President E. M. Allison announced that eight American pilots had gone to work for the Communists, that 37 others would remain "loyal" to the airline, regardless of ownership. Pan American Airways Corp., which owns 20% of CNAC's stock (the Nationalist government owns the other 80%), declared itself neutral, asserted that it had no voice in CNAC's policy or politics.

But almost all of CATC's American personnel stood by the Nationalists. Major General Claire Chennault, who runs Civil Air Transport, third civilian airline in Nationalist China, put his planes on 24-hour service, offered jobs to CNAC and CATC men of "proven loyalty." "I don't want anything to do with that [Communist] outfit," said one flyer. Another showed U.S. newsmen a cable signed "Mother" and begging: "Don't fly for other party. Please come home."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.