讀書筆記
讀書心得
I read the article “ Letter Home” , the second article of “The good deed”. This article Introduced a US soldier who supported China's War of Against Japanese Aggression and reflected the people's lives, thoughts and the cruelty of the war.
1) Banty was a ground crew of the United States Air Force working in China during the Anti-Japanese War. He had not married yet. Banty missed his family and girlfriend Jen, he wrote a beginning of a home letter that night and went to bed .At three o'clock the next morning, he and his Chinese workers must go to the field immediately to prepare the planes. Roger and other pilots arrived at four o'clock. Every time a pilot goes out to perform a mission, his life is at risk. Maintain the plane well is very important for the pilot. After the plane took off, they went back to the barrack for breakfast. There is a child in the barrack. A week ago, Banty raised a Chinese three-year-old orphan, one of the survivors of a bombing, he named the boy Skeesicks. He has to hold the baby, wash him, feed him, and coax him to sleep... But he is too busy to take care of. In the evening, Banty continued to write a few words to his family and went to sleep.
2) The next morning, when Banty was about to continue to write home letter, he heard a quarrel in the street. He saw a man chasing and beating a woman. The people around were just watching and not stopping the man. He ran to the street and knocked down the man. The man was found to be one of his Chinese workers. At this time, women hit men. This woman is the man's wife. He felt that he was too much in charge. When he returned to the field to work, he saw the man had also arrived at the field and seemed very aggrieved.
When Banty returned to the barracks after work. he saw the foot of the boy he adopted were swollen, a metal fragments were stabbed in the soles of his feet. He took the boy to the hospital. The nurse is very busy. She is rescuing a wounded man. Blood transfusion is required. Banty’s blood type just matched. He donated blood and saved the lives of the wounded.
The nurse was very busy. Banty left the boy in the hospital and ran back to the field. It's almost noon. The planes that were out to perform the mission should came back now. But Banty didn't see Roger! The Chinese worker who beat his wife was still on the field, He and an interpreter found him. The interpreter told him that the worker beat his wife because she could not have children. and his father eager to have a grandson.
At that time, Roger's plane came back. Roger was injured. Benty rushed to send Roger to the hospital for rescue. At the same time, Benty saw that the boy had got well. He didn't have time to take care of the boy,so he sent Skeesicks to the childless worker. Then he went back to the hospital. The doctor told him that Roger was seriously injured, but he had regained consciousness now.
3)When he backed to his room, he remembered the letter. He wrote “ well folks, here is night, ……，nothing out of usual....”, He thought: How can I tell my family about life here? People die here every day．At last, he went to the canteen to send a cable, “ Love and Kisses to all, Benty”. He went back to sleep. Thinking about will to see Skeesicks and going to the hospital to see Roger tomorrow .
4) I think:
A) Although Banty is just an ordinary soldier, he is short and thickset, but he had done many good things. He is a noble man. He worked hard and conscientiously, he supported orphans, he stopped a man beating women, he donated blood to save the wounded, he gave the boy he supported to the Chinese couple who have no children, he cared about the injured pilots, and he missed the relatives and friends of the United States!
B) The United States Air Force made a lot of contributions to China's war of resistance. The famous Flying Tigers are. At that time, Mao Zedong said the contribution of the United States was very high, and he appreciated the United States and its democratic system, But after the founding of the People's Republic of China, China became anti-American. This is wrong.
“Letter Home”: Discussion Prompts
Thinking over some of the stories we have read over the past several years, how would you rate “Letter Home”? From one to five, how many stars would you give it? Why? What are its flaws? What are its achievements?
Here are a few possible points that you might choose to comment on in addressing those questions:
1. Does “Letter Home” possess the characteristics that that we’ve seen in other examples of the short story genre? Does it have a plot, for example, with a beginning, middle and end? Does the plot lead to a character’s or characters’ moral revelation? Some kind of change?
2. Are the characters believable? Since Banty is the most fully developed character, we might begin by examining him. What is Banty like? Do you like him?
3. What seems to be the role of the other characters—his fellow servicemen,Skeesicks, the Chinese laborers, Roger, the wife beater and his wife, the young Chinese with the Oxford accent?
4. Does the title of the story seem appropriate? What do you think it achieves regarding how we read and understand the story? You might consider the following:
5. What seems to be the author’s purpose or motive in writing this story? In a sense,it is a war story, but it’s unlike many of those we have read or seen in films-- not much violence, many deaths or casualties. We don’t hear the shelling, see the marching, feel a grave sense of danger. It’s a quiet war story. What is the author trying to do here?
6. There are many places in this story where the style—word choice, use of details, action-packed verbs, and so on --greatly enhances its effectiveness. Where did this prove true for you?
7. As in most of the stories by Buck that we have discussed, situations and causes close to the author’ s heart come up here. What were some that you noticed?
8. Is the ending of the story satisfying and appropriate? How so?
9. How did the information on the “Flying Tigers” affect your reading of “Letter Home”?
10. Compose a question or an insight of your own to share with our group.
Fighting For China in WWII” by James Doubek of NPR
?Pearl Buck’s story “Letter Home” was written in 1943 and gives an account of one day in the life of Banty Brown, an American serviceman in charge of a maintenance crew for fighter planes on an airfield in China. It is very likely that the author had the famous Flying Tigers in mind as she created this work of fiction. As James Doubek reports, the men who became known as the Flying Tigers were initially mercenaries hired by the Chinese to fight against the Japanese, whose bombing expeditions were inflicting heavy losses on the Chinese. The following bullet points, adapted from Doubek’s essay, provide a brief history of this group.
? The Chinese had been fighting the Japanese since 1937 and had little power to fend off the Japanese bombings.
? Along came retired American Army aviator Claire Lee Chennault,43, who was looking for a new job. He was hired by the Chinese Air Force and was asked to assess their fleet, which they believed consisted of 500 planes. When Chennault made his study, he told the Chinese that they did, indeed, have 500 planes, but only 90 of them were flight worthy. When war between China and Japan broke out officially in July 1937, he was appointed commander of the Chinese Air Force.
? By 1940, China had lost its backing from the Soviets and desperately needed more planes. President Roosevelt was getting worried at the prospect of Japan’s defeating China and turning its sights to the United States. Although the United States had not yet declared war on the Japanese, a deal was negotiated between China and the U.S. for China to buy 100 American fighter planes. Unfortunately, Chinese pilots were not sufficiently trained to operate these planes.
? At this point, Chennault was able to convince President Roosevelt to allow him to recruit pilots from the U.S. military. Volunteers would resign their commissions and go to China as mercenaries. This would allow the U.S. to avoid violating international rules regarding involvement of American military personnel in the conflict in China. As an incentive to volunteer, pilots and mechanics were offered double the usual pay.
? In 1941, not long before the attack on Pearl Harbor, 99 pilots and 200 crew went to Asia. (About 12 of them were Chinese Americans.) The Chinese called them the American Volunteer Group (AVG). Arriving at their base in Kunming in southwestern China, they discovered that there were no runways. Thousands of Chinese from all walks of life volunteered to build them—by hand.
? The AVG experienced its first combat on Dec. 20, 1941, thirteen days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, giving the U.S. its first victory in WWII.
? A bit later, the focus of this unit’s work shifted to Burma, which was of vital importance to China since it depended on supplies coming from Rangoon over the mountainous Burma Rd. to Kunming.
? Although the American planes were not as good as those of Japan, using maneuvers outlined by Chennault, the pilots were able to exploit the weaknesses of the Japanese craft and shot down 299 planes confirmed and many unconfirmed. The Japanese outnumbered and overpowered the AVG and eventually Rangoon fell, but the AVG were able to keep supply lines open, enabling the fight to continue.
? In December 1942, the U.S. declared war on Japan, and in July of that year the men of the AVG were integrated into the 23rd Fighter Group of the American Air Force. Not many of the original pilots stayed; most returned to their previous branches of the service. Chennault was promoted and stayed in China until the end of the war.
? No one seems to know who came up with the name Flying Tigers, but it first appeared in an article in Time Magazine after their first battle in 1941.
? Although the Flying Tigers were in combat less than seven months, they became famous for their ability to inflict great damage on the Japanese who had a better equipped and larger aircraft fleet. Their victories came when Japan seemed unstoppable, and this won them much recognition at the time that continues up to the present day. The last of the Flying Tigers died in 2020.
?Skeesicks: The name Skeesicks that Banty gives to the orphaned child he cares for is likely derived from the name of a character who appeared in a long-running comic strip called Gasoline Alley, in which the lead character, Walt Wallet, found a newborn infant on his doorstep. He named the baby Skeezix (a cowboy slang term for an orphaned calf). The cartoon first appeared in 1918 and is still running. Several radio adaptations of the series were made, one in 1931, another in 1941, and a third in 1948-49. The cartoon was also adapted into two feature films , Gasoline Alley (1951) and Corky of Gasoline Alley (1951). So Skeezix was a well-known name at the time the story was written and would have been quite familiar to readers when it was finally published in 1969.
?Skye Terrier: Banty is likened to this breed of dog developed on the Island of Skye in Scotland. The dog is described as a long, low, hardy, good tempered, friendly, and intelligent animal of about 35 to 40 pounds. It is considered to be brave and fiercely loyal, a great companion, developed to protect farms from pests like foxes, badgers, and otters. Its thick coat makes it appear larger and more threatening. Scotland’s most devoted dog in history was a Skye Terrier named Bobby, companion to a night watchman. When his master died, Bobby would not leave his grave. The cemetery keeper finally built a shelter for him, where he stayed until his death 14 years later.
?Long before the United States declared war on Japan in 1941, the Japanese had engaged in a prolonged conflict with China, hoping to expand their territory. In 1931 they attacked and annexed Manchuria, and in 1932 bombed the city of Shanghai. By 1937, they had invaded China proper, beginning WWII in Asia. Pearl Buck and her husband decided to leave China for the United States in 1932 because of the turmoil being caused by the Japanese aggression, and through the 1930s Pearl commented on the war in lectures and essays, always speaking as a partisan of China. She also wrote a series of novels and short stories that use the Asian War as a subject. These novels and stories, including The Patriot, were history based and adhered closely to fact. Consequently, they were often viewed by critics as documentaries rather than fiction. (Conn, Peter. Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography. pp. 219-21)
?Today’s story was written in 1943, but Buck’s partisan voice on behalf of China is quietly heard in her brief mentions of the Chinese volunteers who had helped build the airfields and to maintain the planes used by the American mercenaries and later members of the American 23rd Fighter Group who aided the Chinese in their fight against the Japanese.