His life started on May 28, 1918 in Allahabad – the second-oldest city in India, a place submerged in paganism and as blazing hot as it was spiritually evil. His parents, George and Ethel Birch, were missionaries who taught at Ewing Christian College and used this medium to spread the light of Christ to their Indian students. They named him John Morrison Birch. Two years later, the family moved back to the United States and commenced a more normal life, determined, as Mr. Birch said, by “plain living and high thinking”. At a small Baptist Church in New Jersey, John professed his faith in Christ at the age of seven. This new relationship with the Creator and Savior would define the rest of his life.
When he was eleven, his interest in foreign missions culminated. A missionary, Leonard Legters, visited their church and described the horrific death wail of pagan Indians in Brazil. A few days later, John Birch wrote: “The Lord is calling me to the mission field. I have the answer to the death wail of the lost.”
He spent his school days at the top of his classes: first at the grammar school in New Jersey, then at Lanier High School and then at Mercer University in Georgia. There, Birch organized students to pinpoint heresy in the professors and do everything they could to uphold right doctrines regarding creationism and true conversion. Of his senior year, he later wrote, “I knew what I wanted to do before I returned [home] someday…God was calling me to the mission field, just like He had called Mama and Daddy years before. So I let myself be led.”
Birch attended seminary in Fort Worth, Texas; his goal was China. In June of 1940, at age twenty-two, he graduated from the two year seminary, having completed his coursework in a year. A month later, he sailed for Shanghai, China. Within six months, he had mastered enough of the Chinese language to begin ministering. At that time, China was in the midst of the war with Japan but “war or no war”, there was no stopping of John Birch. “Within a year he was slipping through Japanese occupation lines and preaching in villages where missionaries had not dared to go since the war began,” Ellen Caugley writes.
In December of 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and inaugurated war with the United States and all Americans. They issued an order for the arrest of “the American missionary in China”, John Birch. But they missed him, because the young missionary had fled to Shangrao. He spent the next few months ministering in villages around Shangrao and preaching to Chinese soldiers. “Free China is rightly named,” he wrote to his family. “What a glorious liberty to preach the Gospel is mine! I can get on my bicycle and ride to Chungking, to Kunming, Rangoon, Burma, Siberia, Tibet, India and Turkestan. But I don’t need to go so far – within one hundred miles of Shangrao there are hundreds of towns and villages without the Gospel and hundreds of thousands of souls who have not even heard the message of salvation…What a privilege is mine! May I use it rightly!” As the war progressed, so did the pressing need to evacuate missionaries, shuffle dwindling funds and stay out of the Japanese grip. John Birch was the man for the job. He successfully guided missionaries and Chinese pastors away from the advancing Japanese, and even arranged for the successful evacuation of sixty missionaries and their children by air. Finally, John felt that it was be in the best interest of China to do everything he could to oust the Japanese and minister to the soldiers who were doing the ousting. On April 13, 1942, he offered himself to the American military mission in Chungking, saying: “I believe in God, His Son, in America, and in freedom; I hold them all more precious than peace and more precious than my earthly life…I should like to be a chaplain…but if there is no demand for chaplains I should cheerfully tote a rifle, run a shortwave set, or drive a truck, or be an interpreter, or whatever they tell me to do.” Almost as soon as the note was mailed, Birch found an incredible opportunity to serve his country just tossed in his lap.
While having dinner at the restaurant – disguised as a Chinese – he was discreetly approached by a small man who said, “If you are an American, please follow me.” Birch followed and was led to a covered boat on the river. Inside, he came to face the man who became the most famous pilot of World War II: Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle. A few days before, Doolittle had led a group of pilots to bomb Tokyo. After completing their mission, and lacking gas to turn back, the pilots had soared as far towards free China as possible and bailed over countryside. Sympathetic Chinese had brought Doolittle and the survivors to this point. Without hesitation, Birch gave himself to guiding them to the next. Due to a gracious God, and Birch’s incredible ability to speak Chinese and mix effortlessly with the Eastern culture, the mission was accomplished. Doolittle and the remaining pilots returned to the United States.
When Birch returned to Shangrao, he had received a letter that ordered him to the airbase. He served briefly as an unofficial chaplain, and then was made a second lieutenant in the American Volunteer Group (or, the 14th Airforce, known by the Chinese as “the Flying Tigers”) by General Chennault who had connected the dots between Birch and the Doolittle rescue mission and saw that the young missionary would be most useful as a spy and informant. Birch saw himself as a soldier of his country, for the freedom of China. As one of the few missionaries left in the vast country, he also took every opportunity to proclaim the Gospel and “answer the death wail of the lost.” He wrote to his father, “[In the army] I am just making tents. When this war is over, I’ll be ready to welcome the others back.”
With radios and a major network of Chinese spies and informants, Birch supplied invaluable information to the American forces regarding the enemy’s positions and movements. Once when a flier was unable to locate a particular ammunition storehouse Birch had discovered, the young missionary slipped through the lines and in the nose of the bomber, personally guided the pilot to the target. At other times, he oversaw the construction of emergency airfields. He also created a system for rescuing downed pilots and as a result, over ninety percent of the crashed “Tigers” were rescued. General Chennault said this was “the highest percentage of any war theater…I always felt that [Birch] would do any job I gave him to do well and he could be depended upon to see things through. His loyalty to me personally and his devotion to duty was beyond anything that was expected of him. I cannot praise his work sufficiently.” Captain Bill Drummond, a friend, said of Birch: “[He was] absolutely fearless, completely unselfish, never thinking of his personal discomfort or danger.” And Captain Hart said that “where brave men were common, John was the bravest man I knew.” He was the only American who had the complete trust of the Chinese army, and his own trust in the sovereignty of God coupled with tremendous dedication to the cause made him a fearless legend.
In 1944, he was awarded the Legion of Merit. He wrote to his mother that "they ought not to cheapen the decoration by giving it when a man merely does his duty." Birch was aware that “his duty” might cost his life, but he did it anyway and wrote, “If my hour to depart should strike, I am ready to go, thanks to the merit of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
On May 8, 1945, the war ended in Europe, and on August 18th following the nuclear drop over Japan, “the land of the Rising Sun” also surrendered. Birch, now a captain, was sent to Hsuchow to assist the process of surrender in that area. En route the train was stopped due to a broken track and Birch’s deputation proceeded on foot. Instead of meeting Japanese, they were surrounded by a band of Chinese Communists – a group that was using the devastation of war to advance their own devastating agenda. When warned that trouble might be brewing, Birch replied, “It doesn’t make much difference what happens to me, but it is of utmost importance that my country learn now whether these people are friend or foe.” Birch was pretty convinced they were “foe” and had written earlier, “I know the big enemy is Communism…The Lord has called me. My life is in His hands, and I am not turning back.”
The Communists demanded that Birch and his lieutenant disarm themselves. He said, “Presently, the whole world has been liberated from the enemy and you people want to stop and disarm us!” He asked to see the leader who had required such a ridiculous thing. After a long wait, Birch was exasperated and grabbed one of the Communists by the collar and said, “You are worse than bandits.” After a few confusing seconds, Birch’s lieutenant was shot in the leg. There was second shot and John Birch fell. His body was found a few days later – terribly mutilated by bayonets.
He was buried in Hsuchow, and his tombstone read: “He died for righteousness.”
The John Birch Society later published in a short documentary that “in [John Birch’s] death the battlelines were drawn in a struggle from which either human civilization or godless communism [would] emerge – one completely triumphant and the other completely destroyed.” Some call him the first casualty of the Cold War. Others say that he was killed because Communist Chinese didn’t want him around as a missionary after the war. Either way, his tombstone in Hsuchow read, “He died for righteousness.” Steve Bonta wrote: “He defined all of his hopes and ambitions in terms of serving God, his family, and his fellow men.” “He was driven by a love of God that knew no bounds,” Ellen Caughey wrote. “He gave his life following God’s call.”
When he was eleven, his interest in foreign missions culminated. A missionary, Leonard Legters, visited their church and described the horrific death wail of pagan Indians in Brazil. A few days later, John Birch wrote: “The Lord is calling me to the mission field. I have the answer to the death wail of the lost.”
He spent his school days at the top of his classes: first at the grammar school in New Jersey, then at Lanier High School and then at Mercer University in Georgia. There, Birch organized students to pinpoint heresy in the professors and do everything they could to uphold right doctrines regarding creationism and true conversion. Of his senior year, he later wrote, “I knew what I wanted to do before I returned [home] someday…God was calling me to the mission field, just like He had called Mama and Daddy years before. So I let myself be led.”
Birch attended seminary in Fort Worth, Texas; his goal was China. In June of 1940, at age twenty-two, he graduated from the two year seminary, having completed his coursework in a year. A month later, he sailed for Shanghai, China. Within six months, he had mastered enough of the Chinese language to begin ministering. At that time, China was in the midst of the war with Japan but “war or no war”, there was no stopping of John Birch. “Within a year he was slipping through Japanese occupation lines and preaching in villages where missionaries had not dared to go since the war began,” Ellen Caugley writes.
In December of 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and inaugurated war with the United States and all Americans. They issued an order for the arrest of “the American missionary in China”, John Birch. But they missed him, because the young missionary had fled to Shangrao. He spent the next few months ministering in villages around Shangrao and preaching to Chinese soldiers. “Free China is rightly named,” he wrote to his family. “What a glorious liberty to preach the Gospel is mine! I can get on my bicycle and ride to Chungking, to Kunming, Rangoon, Burma, Siberia, Tibet, India and Turkestan. But I don’t need to go so far – within one hundred miles of Shangrao there are hundreds of towns and villages without the Gospel and hundreds of thousands of souls who have not even heard the message of salvation…What a privilege is mine! May I use it rightly!” As the war progressed, so did the pressing need to evacuate missionaries, shuffle dwindling funds and stay out of the Japanese grip. John Birch was the man for the job. He successfully guided missionaries and Chinese pastors away from the advancing Japanese, and even arranged for the successful evacuation of sixty missionaries and their children by air. Finally, John felt that it was be in the best interest of China to do everything he could to oust the Japanese and minister to the soldiers who were doing the ousting. On April 13, 1942, he offered himself to the American military mission in Chungking, saying: “I believe in God, His Son, in America, and in freedom; I hold them all more precious than peace and more precious than my earthly life…I should like to be a chaplain…but if there is no demand for chaplains I should cheerfully tote a rifle, run a shortwave set, or drive a truck, or be an interpreter, or whatever they tell me to do.” Almost as soon as the note was mailed, Birch found an incredible opportunity to serve his country just tossed in his lap.
While having dinner at the restaurant – disguised as a Chinese – he was discreetly approached by a small man who said, “If you are an American, please follow me.” Birch followed and was led to a covered boat on the river. Inside, he came to face the man who became the most famous pilot of World War II: Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle. A few days before, Doolittle had led a group of pilots to bomb Tokyo. After completing their mission, and lacking gas to turn back, the pilots had soared as far towards free China as possible and bailed over countryside. Sympathetic Chinese had brought Doolittle and the survivors to this point. Without hesitation, Birch gave himself to guiding them to the next. Due to a gracious God, and Birch’s incredible ability to speak Chinese and mix effortlessly with the Eastern culture, the mission was accomplished. Doolittle and the remaining pilots returned to the United States.
When Birch returned to Shangrao, he had received a letter that ordered him to the airbase. He served briefly as an unofficial chaplain, and then was made a second lieutenant in the American Volunteer Group (or, the 14th Airforce, known by the Chinese as “the Flying Tigers”) by General Chennault who had connected the dots between Birch and the Doolittle rescue mission and saw that the young missionary would be most useful as a spy and informant. Birch saw himself as a soldier of his country, for the freedom of China. As one of the few missionaries left in the vast country, he also took every opportunity to proclaim the Gospel and “answer the death wail of the lost.” He wrote to his father, “[In the army] I am just making tents. When this war is over, I’ll be ready to welcome the others back.”
With radios and a major network of Chinese spies and informants, Birch supplied invaluable information to the American forces regarding the enemy’s positions and movements. Once when a flier was unable to locate a particular ammunition storehouse Birch had discovered, the young missionary slipped through the lines and in the nose of the bomber, personally guided the pilot to the target. At other times, he oversaw the construction of emergency airfields. He also created a system for rescuing downed pilots and as a result, over ninety percent of the crashed “Tigers” were rescued. General Chennault said this was “the highest percentage of any war theater…I always felt that [Birch] would do any job I gave him to do well and he could be depended upon to see things through. His loyalty to me personally and his devotion to duty was beyond anything that was expected of him. I cannot praise his work sufficiently.” Captain Bill Drummond, a friend, said of Birch: “[He was] absolutely fearless, completely unselfish, never thinking of his personal discomfort or danger.” And Captain Hart said that “where brave men were common, John was the bravest man I knew.” He was the only American who had the complete trust of the Chinese army, and his own trust in the sovereignty of God coupled with tremendous dedication to the cause made him a fearless legend.
In 1944, he was awarded the Legion of Merit. He wrote to his mother that "they ought not to cheapen the decoration by giving it when a man merely does his duty." Birch was aware that “his duty” might cost his life, but he did it anyway and wrote, “If my hour to depart should strike, I am ready to go, thanks to the merit of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
On May 8, 1945, the war ended in Europe, and on August 18th following the nuclear drop over Japan, “the land of the Rising Sun” also surrendered. Birch, now a captain, was sent to Hsuchow to assist the process of surrender in that area. En route the train was stopped due to a broken track and Birch’s deputation proceeded on foot. Instead of meeting Japanese, they were surrounded by a band of Chinese Communists – a group that was using the devastation of war to advance their own devastating agenda. When warned that trouble might be brewing, Birch replied, “It doesn’t make much difference what happens to me, but it is of utmost importance that my country learn now whether these people are friend or foe.” Birch was pretty convinced they were “foe” and had written earlier, “I know the big enemy is Communism…The Lord has called me. My life is in His hands, and I am not turning back.”
The Communists demanded that Birch and his lieutenant disarm themselves. He said, “Presently, the whole world has been liberated from the enemy and you people want to stop and disarm us!” He asked to see the leader who had required such a ridiculous thing. After a long wait, Birch was exasperated and grabbed one of the Communists by the collar and said, “You are worse than bandits.” After a few confusing seconds, Birch’s lieutenant was shot in the leg. There was second shot and John Birch fell. His body was found a few days later – terribly mutilated by bayonets.
He was buried in Hsuchow, and his tombstone read: “He died for righteousness.”
The John Birch Society later published in a short documentary that “in [John Birch’s] death the battlelines were drawn in a struggle from which either human civilization or godless communism [would] emerge – one completely triumphant and the other completely destroyed.” Some call him the first casualty of the Cold War. Others say that he was killed because Communist Chinese didn’t want him around as a missionary after the war. Either way, his tombstone in Hsuchow read, “He died for righteousness.” Steve Bonta wrote: “He defined all of his hopes and ambitions in terms of serving God, his family, and his fellow men.” “He was driven by a love of God that knew no bounds,” Ellen Caughey wrote. “He gave his life following God’s call.”
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