25. Operating Behind Enemy Lines as “Agent 50”
The British Army Aid Group (BAAG) was a paramilitary organization that operated in southern China. Its chief aims were to gather intelligence, and help escaped POWs make their way to safety behind Allied lines. Throughout the war, BAAG sent agents into Japanese occupied southern China and Hong, to gather intelligence and help POWs escape from Japanese clutches. The escapees were then guided to Chungking, China’s wartime capital, where they were debriefed, before rejoining the war effort.
Bill Chong was given the codename Agent 50, and sent to operate behind Japanese lines. As our hero recalled in later years: “[w]e didn’t have any communications; we had to use the Chinese telegraph office … Every time I’d send a message back, they wanted me to include the word 50. I’d write I was going back for my mother’s 50th birthday, I’m waiting for transportation, things like that. Then they understood it was from me. If I had some escapees, I said I had three cattle, three escapees“.