Coup Undone

One of the neatest Communist maneuvers of the Chinese civil war was pulled off in November 1949 at Hong Kong's airfield, where 82 Nationalist transport planes had been flown in to presumed safety. Subverted by agents, most of their Chinese crews defected to the Reds. They grabbed eleven of the planes and took off for Mao's mainland. Hong Kong authorities announced that British recognition of the Communist government--then expected momentarily--would automatically give the Reds possession of the remaining 71 planes by right of inheritance. It was strange logic, explainable only by Hong Kong's greedy haste to make friends with Mao.

Shooing Away. The Nationalists reacted quickly. Before Britain formally recognized the Reds in January 1950, they had sold the planes to Civil Air Transport, Inc. (C.A.T.), a corporation chartered in the U.S. by Major General Claire Chennault of wartime Flying Tiger fame, longtime air adviser to Chiang Kaishek. Then came two years of expensive court cases; each time, the Hong Kong courts upheld the Communist claim to the planes. Red guards were admitted to the British airfield where the planes were parked: they shooed away all visitors. Finally Chennault took his appeal to Britain's court of last resort, the Lords of Appeal of the high & mighty Privy Council in London. Bewigged Sir Hartley Shawcross, Q.C., Laborite attorney general and now a top-priced barrister, pleaded Chennault's case.

Last week the Communist coup of 1949 was dramatically undone. The Privy Council reversed the Hong Kong judgments. A few hours later, at 2 a.m., 500 heavily armed British police and troops descended upon the Hong Kong airfield. They seized the disputed planes, rounded up 150 sleepy Communist guards who sullenly chanted Red songs as they were hauled away in trucks. Two days later, 40 of the planes bearing the insignia CATC (for the former Central Air Transport Corp.) were turned over to C.A.T. The remaining 31, involved in similar litigation, will unquestionably be awarded to C.A.T., too.

The seizure was a conspicuous loss of face for the Communists; it was also an important economic blow. The disputed planes (mostly C-46s and DC-38, plus six DC-48 and five Convairs), along with thousands of spare parts, are worth an estimated $30 million, the biggest piece of airline property in East Asia. The Communists expecting to hang on to the planes, had kept most of them carefully mothballed and in good condition. Hong Kong nervously got set for reprisals against British business.

Keeping Away. Vacationing at his home in Monroe, La., Chennault announced that his Formosa-based C.A.T.--which operates a fleet of 30 airliners over 3,100 miles of airways from Tokyo to Bangkok --will first overhaul, then charter or sell the planes. Said Chennault: "My interest is to keep them away from the Reds. This is the first Communist defeat in the Far East. That's the thing I take the most pride in."

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