Journey to Peking:
A Secret Agent in Wartime China
By Dan C. Pinck
Naval Institute Press, Spring 2003
Readers with a penchant for real-life cloak-and-dagger
stories won't be disappointed with this memoir. Dan Pinck's
adventures behind the lines in war-torn China resulted in
some vital information being passed along to the Allies,
and his up close and personal look at the world of covert
military operations in that country will fascinate many.
But the author's engaging writing style and self-deprecating
wit do not focus on the heroics typically encountered in spy
stories.
Pinck ignores the glamour to give a totally candid view of
events. Just nineteen-years-old when he volunteered for the
Office of Strategic Services in World War II, he was quickly
assigned to a remote area near Hong Kong where he worked with
some sixty local agents. The sole American agent in the area,
Pinck coordinated the gathering of information about troop
movements and coastal shipping along the Japanese-held coast,
efforts that resulted in the sinking of several enemy ships.
Prior to Japan's surrender he was mapping Japanese coastal
emplacements in the area where an American invasion was
scheduled. Pinck credits his survival more to the knowledge
of his Chinese colleagues than to his own skills in
intelligence operations, and his book keenly illustrates that
point when he explains that in serving behind enemy lines,
close relationships with the natives often make the difference
between success and failure, even life and death. In Peking
after the war, he continued to benefit from the friendships
he developed with the Chinese, and the last pages of his memoir
are filled with insights about U.S-China relations. Such a vivid,
honest, and often humorous account of his exploits as a spy will
appeal to a broad audience both as entertainment and as a
historical document.
"Having written three books dealing with the OSS, I can say that
nothing I've read better captures the dash, the mystery, and the
improbability of that citizen/spy service than Dan Pinck's vivid
account of his adventures in wartime China. Pinck tells his tale
with a survivalist saving sense of humor, recognizing that war is
hell but not without its amusing absurdities. Here is truth told
with the punch of a well-crafted novel."
Joseph Persico (author of Roosevelt's Secret War)
"What most war memoires do is capture big events. What Dan Pinck --
who has done it all -- does is relate the day-in day-out experiences
of being in a covert war, without overstatement. This is both quite
a feat and an valuable addition to history."
W.E.B. Griffin
"There is not a sentence in Dan Pinck's charm-laden memoir that does
not proclaim him a writer in the most honorific sense of the word:
someone who sees the world in a fresh, amused, ironic, stylish,
sometimes oblique, finally always joyous way. Like all really good
books, Journey to Peking widens its readers' horizons and makes life
seem even richer and more fascinating than one had imagined."
Joseph Epstein (former editor of The American Scholar &
author of Snobbery: The American Version)
"This spirited and irreverent memoir of life as an OSS agent in China
is both excellent reading and a useful footnote to history."
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
"Dan Pinck has written one of the best autobiographies on the life of
the secret agent in the field that I have ever read: lively, amusing,
true, and well-written. What more can one ask for?"
Robin Winks (Townsend Professor of History, Yale University)
"This is a wonderful book."
Thomas Powers (author of The Man Who Kept the Secrets,
Heisenberg's War, and The Confirmation)
(Publisher's note: This book is available from Amazon.com)
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Charles E. Geck III
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