In honor of Memorial Day, we are featuring the records of military servicemen and women who lost their lives in the line of duty. Our Preservation staff in St. Louis learned the story of a young pilot through a blood chit that they found in his records. The long journey taken by this small silken scrap, called a “blood chit,” to the National Archives began when it fell from the sky. Lt. James Vurgaropulos carried this chit. James was born on February 22, 1919, in Lowell, MA, to Greek immigrant parents. He was a pilot in the 75th Fighter Squadron, 23rd Fighter Group of the United States Air Force when his plane went down on June 29, 1944, in China--apparently killing him instantly. He was 25 years old. Foreign pilots were issued a rescue patch called a hu chao with the chop (stamp) of the Chinese Air Force Headquarters, and text in Mandarin or Cantonese that read: “This foreign person has come to China to help in the war effort. Soldiers and civilians, one and all, should rescue, protect, and provide him medical care.” Wong Ch’ing Lien was one of the first people at the scene of the crash. He gave a witness statement to the Changsha Search Team and showed the team where James had been buried at the village of Eya-Ch’ung. Lien also helped the team recover the blood chit. By March of 1946, JAmess body had been moved to Shanghai, and paperwork had begun to amend James’s status to “Killed in Action.” Unfortunately for the Vurgaropulos family, James was not their only loss during the war. His younger brother, John, a bombardier on a B-26, was killed when his plane was hit by flak in 1945. John was later buried in Arlington National Cemetery, and James’s remains were moved from China to the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. National Archives preservation staff will create special archival housing for the blood chit that James carried, and it will be kept in a secure location at the National Archives at St. Louis. To read the full story of Lt. Vurgaropulos and his brother, the blood chit, and how we are preserving this important document, read todays post on the Prologue blog: blogs.archives.gov/prologue/?p=13350 Image: Photograph of James Vurgaropulos and the blood chit found in his file.
Posted on: Mon, 26 May 2014 13:02:04 +0000