4

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
APRIL 5, 1942

 
The arrival of the radiogram turned out to be a disappointment for the doorman of the tall apartment building on Lakeshore Drive. It was his usual practice to relieve Western Union messengers of their yellow envelopes, hand them a dime, then turn the envelope over to the elevator operator. The elevator operator would then deliver it. With rare exceptions, every tenant in the building was worth a quarter, and some of them, like the Bitters, were worth more. The Bitters kept a supply of dollar bills in a vase just inside the door of their penthouse apartment, to be dispensed whenever a service was done for them.

But this delivery boy was difficult. For one thing, he wasn’t a boy, but a young man. For another, he adamantly refused to turn his RCA envelope over to the doorman unless the doorman got the addressee on the house phone and the addressee told him to turn the message over to the doorman.

Somewhat reluctantly, the doorman passed him to the elevator, and the RCA messenger rode up to the penthouse atop the twenty-seven-story building. At the door, he then made the butler sign for the envelope. Only then did he hand it over. The butler, annoyed, reached into his pocket and handed him a quarter rather than one of the dollar bills in the vase.

Then the butler delivered the cablegram to Mr. Chandler H. Bitter, the fifty-five-year-old, silver-haired president of the Chandler H. Bitter Company, Commodities Brokers. Chandler Bitter was drinking a second cup of coffee with his wife on the small patio outside the second-story master bedroom.

She presumed it was business. Seeing him frown, however, she asked him what it was.

“I think it would be better if you read it yourself,” he said gently, and passed it to her.

mackay radio 1330greenwich 2apr42
chunking china via rca honolulu
mr mrs chandler bitter
2745 lakeshore drive
chicago ill usa

 
deeply regret inform you your son flight leader edwin h bitter wounded in action against Japanese aircraft vicinity chiengmai thailand march thirty stop complete recovery inJury right knee expected stop air evacuated us army hospital calcutta india stop letter from chinese ambassador to us follows stop claire chennault brig general commanding american volunteer group end

 
“Oh, my!” she said in frightened wonderment, and turned her face up at him.

She had said the same words, he remembered with sudden brilliant clarity, and looked at him in exactly the same way, in just about the same place, when her waters broke, just before he took her to Women’s Hospital to deliver Eddie.

“Helen,” Chandler H. Bitter, Jr., said very tenderly, “I want you to listen to me carefully.”

Her eyes locked on his, she waited for him to go on.

“He’s alive,” Chandler Bitter said. “And he has been taken to an American Army hospital, where he will receive the best of care. The important thing is that he is alive.”

There was a barely perceptible nod of her head.

“And this may very well be a good thing,” he said.

Her face now registered pain and surprise and shock—and an unspoken question: How can you say such a thing?

“I don’t mean to be brutal, Helen,” Chandler H. Bitter, Jr., went on, “but he has been injured in the knee. That’s bad, because knee injuries are difficult to repair and take a long time to heal.”

“Chan—” she said.

“Which means, Helen, that he won’t be able to fly for a while, perhaps never again. Which means that they’ll probably send him home for recuperation. He may well be out of it, Helen.”

“Oh,” she said thoughtfully.

“The military have a thing, Helen,” he said. “They call it the million-dollar wound. It means a wound like his. It’s not life-threatening, and it takes you out of the war.”

She stood up and went to him, and he put his arms around her.

He saw the butler watching them.

“Eddie has been hit, Morton,” he said. “In the knee. I think it means he will be coming home. Read the cable, if you like.”

Morton went to the glass-topped table and picked up the radiogram and read it.

“Thank God he’s alive!” he said emotionally.

“Would you please see if you can get Mr. Chambers on the telephone for me, Morton?” Chandler H. Bitter said.

“Yes, Sir,” Morton said.

“Brandon,” Chandler H. Bitter said into his wife’s hair, “has people over there, correspondents. I think he may be able to find out something more for us.”

 
The next day, there was a letter and a small package, sent registered special delivery, from the Chinese embassy, but it had nothing to do with Edwin’s being wounded, and Mr. Bitter had to explain to his nearly hysterical wife that the Chinese were not insane, but that the embassy had already mailed this letter before they heard about what had happened in China.

THE EMBASSY OF CHINA

Washington, District of Columbia

 
March 22, 1942

 
Mr. and Mrs. Chandler H. Bitter
2745 Lakeshore Drive
Chicago, Illinois

 
My dear Mr. and Mrs. Bitter:

 
It is with pleasure, pride, and gratitude that I am able to inform you that your son, Wingman Edwin Howell Bitter, of the American Volunteer Group, was on March 1, 1942, invested with the Order of the Cloud Banner of the Republic of China, at the direction of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and simultaneously promoted to the rank of flight leader.

Flight Leader Bitter was cited for his valor in the air, specifically the downing of five Japanese aircraft in aerial combat during the period from December 23, 1941, through March 1, 1942. I have learned that he has since then sent two more enemy aircraft down in flames.

You must certainly take pride that your son is one of that group of brave and farsighted young men who sensed the danger not only to China, but to America and to freedom throughout the world, in the ruthless and predatory course of Japanese militarism. Not waiting to be called, this group went forward to meet the enemy, prepared to sacrifice themselves, if need be, in order that the democracies might gain precious time, that freedom might live, and that countless other lives might be saved.

The record already made by the American Volunteer Group in aerial combat against the Japanese is one of which every American may be proud.

You may have heard that the American Volunteer Group has adopted as its emblem a Flying Tiger. The figure chosen was designed by Walt Disney Studios and shows a winged tiger leaping out of a Victory V. It is worn as a lapel insignia by your son and his comrades, and also appears in color on the fuselages of their planes. I have the honor to send, herewith, a gold replica of this insignia, as well as a gold miniature of the Order of the Cloud Banner.

As Foreign Minister of the Republic of China, I want to express to you on behalf of my countrymen and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek personally the sense of honor that is ours that your son has allied himself with the Chinese people in the cause of freedom. Like Lafayette in America, these gallant young men will ever be gratefully enshrined in the memory of the Chinese people.

 
Very truly yours,

 
TV Soong

T. V. Soong

 
Minister for Foreign Affairs