"Soochow and the Fourth Marines"
by William R. "Bill" Evans
Bill passed away on December 3, 2001
The book is soft cover, 144 pages, 52 photos,
sketches and maps, index, glossary and bibliography.
Sale price is $15.00 plus $2.00 postage and handling.
ADBC Members pay $12.00.
It is available at Atwood Publishing Co.
PO Box 111, Rogue River, OR 97537.
As of August 2001, this book is in its Third Edition!
Soochow was a small mongrel dog adopted as a mascot
by the Fourth Marines in Shanghai, China in 1937.
He became a legend in his own time riding around
in rickshaws, wearing his own tailor made uniforms.
When the 4th was ordered to the Philippines just
before Pearl Harbor, Private 1st Class Soochow
was smuggled aboard ship and went with them.
When the Marines were charged with the defense of the
island fortress of Corregidor, Soochow was there hitting
the foxholes with his buddies and alerting them to incoming
Japanese aircraft. (Soochow had his own radar).
When Corregidor fell to the Japanese in May 1942,
Soochow was also taken prisoner, and spent
three years in Japanese POW camps
with his fellow Marines sharing their
meager rations because he was not
entitled to one of his own.
Soochow survived all this!
Upon being liberated by the US Army in 1945,
he was flown, with one of his Marine buddies, to
the States where he became the heroic, pampered,
ever aloof mascot at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot
in San Diego, Calif., and lived his days in comfortable,
well deserved, military retirement.
E-mail Address of Author:
bevansi@cdsnet.net
"I have just re-read "Soochow" for about the 6th time
since getting it at a reunion in 1988. I must say, that
of all the survivor's writings to which I have been
introduced in succeeding years, the incongruous
Bill Evans's (an Army man) narrative about
the 4th Marines and "Soochow", is the most
panoramic and inclusive, not to mention faithful,
recitation of the facts, available. Those people
who are starting to realize that the ol' China marines
and survivors of Corregidor and the Japs are
starting to disappear, will certainly want
this book on their bed's headboard."
Warren "Jorgy" Jorgenson
Former Fourth Marine