Look forward to the diary entries! :)
Another of our Engineering jobs was to keep the Chinese Engineering companies supplied with their many needs. One episode involved a Japanese unit dug in on a mountain top. After many attempts at getting them off, the Chinese Engineers tunneled in under the mountain top and planted 14 tons of TNT, supplied by us, and proceeded to blow the top off the mountain and the Japanese just happened to go with it.
The Chinese were a very curious people and many of them lost their lives because of that curiosity. One day we heard an explosion at headquarters and found that a Chinese soldier wondered what would happen when you banged a Bazooka projectile against the rim of a fifty gallon drum. Nothing, so he pulled the safety pin and tried again. This time it worked, killing him and 13 others. On one of my road inspection trips, we were staying at a field hospital. At about 5 AM there was a loud explosion from the Chinese ward. One of the patients put a Japanese grenade in the stove to see what happened. It removed seven from the roll call that morning.
On another occasion we received a call for a medivac from an airfield that had been mined by the Japanese using 300# aerial bombs attached to personnel mines. We believe that our Engineers had pulled one of the mines and had put a safety clip under the firing pin. It was also assumed that one of the curious Chinese pulled the clip and another hit the firing pin, A plane flew in, picked up three who were still alive and tried for a hospital, but was all in vain. We received a photo showing about 20+ bodies lying in a circle like the opening of a flower. What a waste!!! Two American Engineers in the bunch.