The Life of John Birch

Had a quiet nudge in a river town gone unanswered, the Doolittle Raid might have ended in captivity. In this 2024 edition of The Life of John Birch, Robert Welch reconstructs the moment a young missionary in plain clothes heard a whisper, found a hidden boat, and guided James H. Doolittle toward safety. That small act opens the door to a larger record: how one graduate of Mercer, steeped in Scripture and duty, became the kind of man who could move through China’s backcountry, pick up dialects, read a map by moonlight, and keep promises that risked his life.

Welch tells the story without varnish. John Birch was born to missionary parents in India and raised on a Georgia farm; he learned hard work early, then set his face toward ministry. China in 1940 was his field. Language school in Shanghai led to preaching in Hangchow; war soon turned sermons into supply runs, then rescues. After the Doolittle rendezvous, Birch sought formal service and found it — interpreting; scouting; running couriers; coordinating with General Chennault’s Fourteenth Air Force and allied units, including the new OSS presence in China. By Welch’s account he later became the first American to live and work in the field with a Chinese army, a post that demanded patience, fluency, and steady courage.

The chapters follow the trail with specifics: a winter feast in a village church; an expedition on the Yangtze; commendations that embarrassed him; the last mission in August 1945; and the strange quiet that followed his death. Welch then steps back to read the atmosphere of the time — why a life so useful could be ignored, why decisions in Washington and power blocs in China rewarded silence. He names pressures and points to the stakes without theatrics.

Readers drawn to the China theater of World War II, OSS casework, the Fourteenth Air Force, or missionary biography will find the substance they came for. More than that, they will meet a man whose conscience did not bend. The Life of John Birch is offered to a public that still cares whether character matters — and to younger readers looking for a plain, tested example. (2024, 182pp, pb)