Betty Boop in Shanghai

"We called it ‘Betty Boop’, the English gentleman said.


He was the prototype of the cultured Englishman of 19th Century literature. He nursed a substantial cup of green tea as I listened to him in the officers’ "mess" area of the British cruiser. He looked surprisingly well for one who had spent many months a prisoner of the Japanese north of Shanghai.


A couple of weeks after the bombing of Nagasaki, my shore leave from the Philippines had ended, and I had been assigned to an LST ship somewhere in the China Seas. A ship journey and two airplane hitches had carried me to Shanghai, where I was waiting for a connection to Hong Kong. I bunked on the U.S. cruiser anchored in the Whangpoo (Huangpu) River alongside a British cruiser.  My only duty was to check the location board each morning to see if my vessel was reported somewhere, and then to figure out if there was a way to get to it. Hong Kong seemed likely. With the war ended, I wasn’t sure anybody cared if I never found my assignment.


In going ashore that morning, the Englishman and I had met, and he had invited me to tea on the British ship. Now he was regaling me with stories of his imprisonment.


Probably his stories were mostly true; but, true or not, all I cared about was his beautiful accent and an escape from the boredom of my ship. I’d already been in downtown Shanghai three times, which was about enough in those days. There was nothing much for an American save a few night clubs, which I didn’t need.  And the side streets had signs in English warning that, if one was foolish enough to wander into them, the shore patrol would not bother to search. So, the Englishman was a gift.


"Betty Boop?" I asked.


"Your American cartoon," he said, and I understood. The Allies called the twin engine Japanese bombers "Betties." This particular airplane had a routine that did not vary. When American B-29 planes began seriously attacking Japanese positions around the Shanghai area, the sirens would moan their deep whoo, and everything and everybody went for cover. 

The prisoners loved it, he said. They would try to peek out the badly shuttered windows, hoping to see the B-29s. Then, when things were quiet again, a single Japanese Betty bomber would make a lonely, noisy circuit of the area. The prisoners would relax and announce that "Betty has Booped.... All clear."