Night Gang::Index

In 1974 he transferred to Grand Valley State University to study the fine arts, specializing in 20th century art history
and studio painting. "I have a passion for painting", says Bursian. He adds that his biggest influences were the
Post-Impressionists Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso during his Cubist period, Wassily Kandinsky,
and the 'action painters' of the Soho's New York School and the Abstract Expressionist movement. In Bursian's third
year at Grand Valley he decided to follow the family tradition of teaching, enrolling in the Secondary Education
program. In 1978, Bursian received his student teaching assignment at Arizona State University as a guest student,
teaching in the gifted students program at Phoenix Union High School.

"I believe that saying about a 'picture saying a thousand words'. With Night Gang, my goal is to provide an illustrated
account of the China-Burma-India theater", Bursian says. "CBI is fascinating, and far different than the other
battle-fronts of the second world war", he adds, "I never understood or could appreciate the 'Forgotten Theater' until I
started doing research on my father's air force unit."

Selected graphics and illustrations are available in Night Gang Studio's Squadron Shop and Gallery. Bursian also
offers free-lance design services. For more information, contact mbursian@nightgang.com.

A Popular News Correspondent Captures the
Essence of CBI in 1946 Book, 'Thunder Out of China'

TIME magazine correspondent Theodore H. White wrote of the CBI in
his book, Thunder Out of China: (Theodore H. White and Analee Jacoby, William Sloane
and Associates, New York, 1946, pp 145-6):

"The American government set up the China-Burma-India theater of operations in
the spring of 1942. The CBI command was the stuff of legends; Americans used to
say that you needed a crystal ball and a copy of Alice in Wonderland to understand

This leopard was killed and strung in a tree after it
was caught stalking the barracks at the Dinjan airfield
in northern Assam, India. Bob Bursian photo collection.
Copyright © 2007 Night Gang Studio. All rights reserved.

Elephants were used to unload and load cargo, mainly fuel
drums and disassembled machinery and artillery from the C-47's.
Although helpful, the free-roaming elephants were a big hazard to
the pilots and flight crews, particularly during the dense early
morning fog that was always present in the Bhramaputra River
Valley. The elephants would gather and graze on the airfields in
the early morning and would occasionally be in the flight path of
the C-47's. Bob Bursian photo collection. Copyright © 2007 Night Gang
Studio. All rights reserved.

Looking for something or someone warm to cuddle with, this
snake was captured inside one of the barracks at the Dinjan
airfield. Unsure of this snake's variety, the fellas are certain this is
bigger than anything found in their backyards. Bob Bursian photo
collection. Copyright © 2007 Night Gang Studio. All rights reserved.

Nepalese gurkhas wielding their kikris on the streets of Dinjan
in northern Assam, India. Bob Bursian photo collection. Copyright © 2007
Night Gang Studio. All rights reserved.

Well-known for their fierce fight skills, the Nepalese gurkhas, along
with the Kachins and Naga headhunters from northern Burma, were
employed by the OSS as conscripts in an American-led guerilla
force known as Detachment-101. These conscripts, paid in silver
Rupees and opium, operated behind enemy lines to disrupt
Japanese communications and supply lines, and provide
intelligence for Stilwell's Chinese X Force and the
bombardment/fighter groups of the 10th Air Force. Approximately
85% of the intelligence gathered in CBI came from this unit.

The kikri knife has one purpose, although it is quite utilitarian. The
kikri has a curved blade between 14 to 20 inches in length with a
wooden handle. The knife is extremely well balanced and intended
for close-quarters combat. A young boy will be given his first kikri
at age five as a rite of passage. He will learn fighting techniques
from childhood through adolescence.

Near the base of the blade on the cutting edge, where the handle
is attached, there are a pair of notches approximately 1" deep and
1/2" apart. The purpose of these is distinct . . . the base of the
blade is placed against the victim's throat and drawn to the side,
the notches rips the flesh and pulls the trachea and vertebrae to
the side, allowing the blade to decapitate the victim.

The Night Gang Squadron
Shop and Gallery is offering
apparel, photography reprints,
posters, and limited edition
hand-rendered battle maps.
The selection of fine art and
apparel will continue to expand.

Night Gang Studio's Squadron Shop and Gallery Opens
with a Line of Hand-crafted and Made-to-Order Items

it. No Hollywood producer would dare film the mad, unhappy grotesquerie of the CBI. It had everything— maharajas,
dancing girls, war lords, head-hunters, jungles, deserts, racketeers, secret agents. American pilots strafed enemy
elephants from P-40's. The Chinese Gestapo ferreted out beautiful enemy spies in our own headquarters and
Japanese agents knifed an American intelligence officer in the streets of Calcutta. Chinese warlords introduced
American army officers to the delights of the opium pipe; American engineers doctored sick work elephants with
opium and paid native laborers with opium too. Leopards and tigers killed American soldiers, an GI's hunted them
down with Garands. Birds built their nests in the exhaust vents of B-17's in India while China howled for air power.
Parties stomped over the silver floors of maharajas' palaces to the sound of boogie-woogie. American agents
climbed through Himalayan passes to Lhasha to negotiate with the Dalai Lama for the friendship of Tibet. The U.S.
Navy undertook to train a calvary corps on the fringe of the Mongolian desert; it also trained the dread State Police
of China in the techniques of the F.B.I.

American experts taught Chinese everything from potato-growing to the newest methods of artificial insemination.
CBI politics were a fabulous compound of logistics, personalities, Communism, despotism, corruption, imperialism,
nonesense, and tragic impotence. Nowhere in the world did American policy work with such oddly assorted
characters. They included Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru; Lord Louis Mountbatten, of the British royal
family; and Sir Archibald Wavell, poetaster warrior of the Western Desert; Chiang K'ai-shek, Generalissimo of the
Chinese armies, and his brittle wife, Madame Chiang; and for minor characters the much-contriving governor of
Yunnan, Lung Yun, and the handsome dark-eyed insurrectionary of the north, the Communist General Chou En-Lai,
along with a host of others. The Americans dealing with these people were just as colorful; they inevitably became
infected with the same qualities of intrigue and dissension, and it was a divided, unhappy command.

The sole reason for the existence of this theater was to keep China in the war. Thus in the final campaign against
Japan she might form the anvil on which the hammers of Allied might would beat the enemy to a pulp. It was the
CBI's job to supply China, retrain, re-equip, and regroup her armies, and send them out once more to fight the
Japanese. Almost a quarter of a million Americans were assigned to this task; billions of dollars were spent;
thousands of lives were lost. It was an essential mission. What was accomplished here was awarded less
recognition, less honor, less support, less encouragement, than any other phase of of America's war effort.

It is true in a military way the CBI theater could not compare with the great wars in Europe and the Pacific; its
significance, primarily political, lay in the fact that for the first time men of a Western civilization had come to Asia as
allies to fight side by side with Asiatics in a common cause."

Night Gang Website Includes a Creative
Edge with Exclusive Artwork and
Graphics from Night Gang Studio

Night Gang Studio is
Mark Bursian. NGS
was created to provide
the Night Gang website
with unique graphics.
Bursian says,
"graphics and
illustrations invoke an
emotional and
intellectual quality that
visually defines or
expresses the ideas or
perspective of the
author". Bursian
studied advertising
illustration and figure
drawing at
Northwestern Michigan
College in 1972, he
then attended Kendall
School of Design in
Grand Rapids for a
year, studying
advertising design.

The CBI region prior to the outbreak of WW II. The illustration does not show the territories occupied by
Imperial Japan during this period.
Satellite image from NASA. Graphic by Mark Bursian Copyright © 2007 Night Gang Studio

The Scrapbook of T/Sgt Robert Bursian Gives an Interesting Portrait of
India and Burma during 1944 and 1945

Willie character
Copyright © Bill Mauldin

'Willie Wonders' is a
collection of tidbit
facts, trivia and FAQ's
that are unique to the
CBI. Willie's questions
are designed to give
you a background and
overview related to
page you're visiting. I
would welcome any
suggestions for what
Willie is wondering ...
like 'Where's Joe?'

S/Sgt Bob Bursian posing with 'Little
Joe', an orphaned Indian boy found living in
a fuel drum at the Dinjan airfield when the
330th ADS arrived. He was adopted by the
squadron and given minor duties to earn his
keep. The Dinjan airfield was a prime
Japanese ground target for aerial assualt.
Bob Bursian photo collection. Copyright © 2007
Night Gan Studio. All rights reserved.

Be sure to check out
the scrapbook site for
terrific C-47 nose-art
and airfield images!

A- Oh, Joe's around ...

Although Willie and
Joe were in the MTO
and ETO, they could
pass for Marauders.