World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseJohn Morrison Birch was born in Landour in northern India in the Himalaya Mountains to missionary parents. In 1920, the family returned to the United States. He graduated from Southern Baptist affiliated Mercer University in Macon, Georgia in 1939. In 1940, he sailed to China to study Chinese in Shanghai, then became a missionary in Hangzhou. As the Pacific War began, he moved to Zhejiang Province. In Apr 1942, he assisted Doolittle Raid air crew members who crashed on the Chinese coast. When James Doolittle arrived in Chongqing, China's war time capital, Doolittle informed Claire Chennault of Birch, and Birch was recruited as an United States Army intelligence officer on 4 Jul 1942 with the rank of first lieutenant. In 1943, he became a member of the 14th Air Force, then was later transferred to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). As a spy, he supplied Chennault of Japanese troop movements and shipping through intelligence acquired personally or through informants. He was promoted to the rank of captain and received the Legion of Merit in 1944. On 25 Aug 1945, while leading American, Nationalist Chinese, and Korean troops to reach a Japanese prisoner of war camp, he was ambushed by communist troops near Xi'an. Refusing to surrender his revolver, he was shot and killed. Birch was posthumously awarded a Distinguished Service Medal.

John Birch Timeline