August 25, 1945: The Death of John Birch

August 25, 1945, 80 years ago: John Birch dies. This was not widely known at the time, nor was he famous during his lifetime. Most Americans never knew he was alive until they knew he was dead, and they didn't know that right after his death, either.

John Morrison Birch was born on May 28, 1918 in Landour, India, where his parents were Presbyterian missionaries. The family returned to America in 1920, due to his father suffering from malaria. They lived in Vineland, New Jersey and Macon, Georgia.

He graduated from high school, and enrolled at Mercer University, a Baptist-affiliated school in Macon. His fellow students noted his zealotry at Mercer, as he opposed the theory of evolution, and he made some enemies there. He graduated in 1939. He then entered the Fundamental Baptist Bible Institute in Fort Worth, Texas, needing only 1 year to graduate. In high school, at Mercer, and at FBBI, each time, he graduated at the top of his class.

FBBI's founder, J. Frank Norris, had been a missionary in China. Having heard from Norris about his missionary work in China, and finding the Chinese receptive to the Gospel, especially having suffered under Japanese oppression since 1931, Birch wanted to go. When Norris and some 150 members of the church gathered to send Birch and a friend off to China, Norris said they went "fully informed as to the dangers that await them, but they go like the Apostle Paul when he knew that it meant death at Jerusalem." Birch left his family with the words "Goodbye, folks. If we don't meet again on Earth, we'll meet in Heaven."

He arrived, and quickly learned the Mandarin dialect of Chinese. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing America into World War II, he wrote to the American Military Mission in China, offering to enlist in the U.S. Army and serve as a chaplain, but willing to "tote a rifle or whatever they tell me to do."

He enlisted, and rose to the rank of Captain. He was part of a rescue crew that saved Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and members of his squadron after they bailed out over China. Upon Doolittle's recommendation, Birch was transferred into the Army Air Forces, which would be separated from the Army as the U.S. Air Force in 1947.

Birch was a genuine war hero, setting up intelligence networks of sympathetic Chinese, and rescuing downed American pilots. Contrary to what conservative Americans would later suggest, that the Nationalist Chinese government of President Chiang Kai-shek was blameless and worth supporting at all costs, Birch wrote to a friend that it was "relatively small and unrepresentative," and cited its "abuses, intolerance and impotence."

He did, however, praise Chiang for his steadfastness of purpose. However, Birch considered the Communists of Mao Zedong, despite their having temporarily united with Chiang to fight the Japanese, an "equally small, non-representative group," "whose leaders I consider hypocritical thugs."

The Japanese surrendered on August 14, which was named V-J Day, Victory over Japan. Captain Birch was among the American officers assigned to go into Japanese-held territory to inform Japanese units of their government's surrender. But on August 25, having encountered a Communist group, Birch and his Nationalist Chinese aide were shot and killed. Birch was only 27 years old.

In spite of his work, Birch would probably be forgotten today, if not for Robert W. Welch Jr., a retired candy manufacturer and conservative political activist from the Boston suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts. In 1954, Welch wrote The Life of John Birch: In the Story of One American Boy, the Ordeal of His Age. On December 9, 1958, in Indianapolis, Welch founded the John Birch Society, naming his anti-Communist and (allegedly) pro-Christian group after Welch, calling him "the first American casualty of the Cold War."

Welch received permission from Birch's parents to name his Society after their son, and both parents participated in Society-related events. But in a memoir released after his 1993 death, Birch's friend, General Jimmy Doolittle, said of Birch, "He had no way of knowing that the John Birch Society, a highly vocal postwar anticommunist organization, would be named after him because its founders believed him to be the 'first casualty of World War III.' I feel sure he would not have approved."

Welch considered anybody not anti-Communist to his satisfaction to be a Communist sympathizer, and even called President Dwight D. Eisenhower "an active agent of the Communist conspiracy." After a few decisions of the Supreme Court that seemed to Welch to be pro-Communist and anti-religion, the Society sponsored billboards attacking the Chief Justice, reading: "IMPEACH EARL WARREN!"

In 1963, folk group The Chad Mitchell Trio recorded a song titled "The John Birch Society," which made the Society's members look not only excessively paranoid, but stupid:

We only hail the hero

from whom we get our name.

We're not sure what he did

but he's our hero just the same!

And there was this rhyme:

There's no one left but thee and we

and we're not sure of thee!

The song also included this verse:

Do you want Justice Warren

to be your Kommissar?

Do you want Mrs. Khruschchev in there

with the DAR?

You cannot trust your neighbors

or even next of kin!
If Mommy is a Commie

then you've got to turn her in!

There was no chance of the wife of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev joining the Daughters of the American Revolution: He wasn't married at the time.