Red Army in Retreat

Lieutenant Colonel Robert B. Rigg, U. S. Army, observed the Chinese Civil War from both sides as Assistant Military Attach4 to China during the period 1945 to 1948. Direct witness to the two 1946 battles of Changchun and Ssupingkai he subsequently observed other fighting in Manchuria and North China. Captured by the Communists on the Sungari front in 1947 he and then Captain John W. Collins III were tried for espionage. Failing to extract a confession, the Communists released them after two months’ imprisonment. Colonel Rigg’s secret diaries, hidden in his boots, were almost ruined by the marching he did with General Lin Piao’s forces. The author of the books, Red China’s Fighting Hordes and Realistic Combat Training, he is presently assigned to the Army Staff in Washington.