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ecame increasingly chaotic, with
crew members frantically donning
parachutes, it was Davies who finally
broke “the impasse of general fear” by
being the first to jump, followed
immediately by Duncan Lee and five
others. The disabled plane then barely
cleared the ridgeline constituting
the Burma-India border, and the
remaining passengers, including
Sevareid, jumped just in time to avoid
being trapped as it spun out of control
(the co-pilot was the sole fatality).
The survivors now found themselves
in one of the most remote and
dangerous regions in Asia. Only six
years had transpired since the first
Western expedition had reached
Pangsha, the Naga tribal village near
which the survivors ultimately gathered.
(Ponyo, the village on the
Burma side where Davies had landed,
had never been visited by Europeans.)
Christoph von Fuerer-Haimendorf,
an Austrian anthropologist who
took part in that first expedition,
explained the reasons why the area
was so little known. “The long seclusion
of the Naga Hills has been due to
… the inhospitality of the country …
and the warlike character of the Naga
tribes. … Headhunting and frequent
wars made … traveling alone or even
in small groups … a venture little short
of suicide.” Indeed, the purpose of
the British expedition on which he had
been an observer had been punitive
— Pangsha warriors had been among
the most feared in the area (“thick
bundles of human heads” were
found), and the village was burned as
a warning.
As it turned out, during the two
weeks that the survivors remained in
Pangsha the villagers, despite their
reputation, were generally helpful,
even dutifully delivering the weapons
that were airdropped to the party as a
precaution. One factor that helped
cement relations was the arrival on the
afternoon of the day of the crash of Lt.
Col. Donald Flickinger, a flight sur-
48 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2008
“If ever again I were in
deep trouble, one man
I would want to be with
would be [Davies].”
— Eric Sevareid
geon who, on learning there was an
injured member of the party, parachuted
in with two other volunteers.
After seeing to the needs of the
injured survivors, Flickinger set up a
clinic for the villagers, earning their
gratitude. He also asked Davies to
continue as the principal intermediary
with the villagers. As Sevareid later
wrote, “He was the one we chose, for
common sense and discretion, to deal
with the touchy and dangerous Naga
headhunters, our undecided hosts.”
In the absence of landing strips or
roads, walking out of the area was the
only option, and that was especially
hazardous in August. Speaking before
the Royal Geographical Society in
1938, von Fuerer-Haimendorf noted
that “Traveling in the Naga Hills during
the rains, which last from April to
the end of September, is most
unpleasant and can become extremely
difficult when one leaves administered
territory.” Leaving Pangsha on Aug.
18, escorted by a party of armed natives
led by the British deputy commissioner
of the Naga Hills, Philip
Adams, the survivors struggled
through a brutal six-day trek that taxed
everyone to the limit.
While Flickinger did yeoman service
on the medical front, Sevareid
credits Davies’ unflagging steadiness
and humor with keeping up morale.
“On the toughest parts of hills … he
will do loud, very funny variations on
natives’ chants, which amuses them
greatly.” Summing up his view of
Davies’ contribution throughout the
ordeal, Sevareid later wrote, “If ever
again I were in deep trouble, one man
I would want to be with would be this
particular man.” For Sevareid, Davies
had defined grace under pressure.
“A Vicious Line Squall”
Dean Acheson used this phrase to
describe the impact of Patrick J.
Hurley, an Oklahoman who had
served as Secretary of War under
Herbert Hoover. Sent by Pres.
Roosevelt in August 1944 to try to
mediate the growing hostility between
Gen. Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek, he
eventually sided with Chiang and was
named ambassador to China three
months later, shortly after Washington’s
decision to withdraw Stilwell.
Acheson found it hard to conceal his
dislike of Hurley: “Trouble moved
with him like a cloud of flies around a
steer.”
Although his tenure as ambassador
lasted only one year, Hurley managed
to inflict enormous damage on China
policy, on the Truman administration,
on the Foreign Service and on the
careers and lives of Davies and the
other “China hands,” whose reporting
and policy assessments provoked his
wrath. On Jan. 9, 1945, Hurley accused
Davies to his face of being a
communist and “roared at the top of
his lungs that he was going to have him
thrown out of the State Department”
— a bitter foretaste of the McCarthy
era to come.
The long, sad, tangled story of the
inquisition Davies and the others
endured over the next decade has
often been told. Readers are encouraged
to visit the very helpful Web site
of the Association for Diplomatic
Studies and Training (www.usdiplo
macy.org/history/service/chinahands.
php) for an excellent summary with
links to other sources. The classic
book by New Yorker writer E.J. Kahn,
The China Hands: America’s Foreign