DR. QUACK NEVER FORGOT HIS FRIENDS FROM WARTIME CHINA

Dr. Jim Kinder, who died recently in a tragic automobile collision, was more than an outstanding pediatrician caring for the children of Cape Girardeau.

I first met him in Hanchung, China, about Christmas of 1944. He was a young medical-school graduate who had been called into service as a captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps before he had completed his internship. He never complained about this. He was a patriotic guy who believed in serving his country.

He was tall and looked half-starved. He had a painfully thin face and a ragged crew cut. He was wearing a worn A-2 jacket and G.I. shoes. He didn't look old enough or wise enough to be a doctor.

He was part of the Chinese-American Composite Wing, a volunteer group of fliers who had been organized with the approval of FDR at the request of Chiang Kai-shek's wife to be a part of the 14th Air Force under Gen. Claire Chennault.

Dr. Kinder has already experienced bombings and enemy action at several forward air bases as a flight surgeon and had most recently left Kweilin in Southeast China, just a step ahead of the invading Japanese army.

Being temporarily without a base, the brass sent him north to Hanchung to be a part of the 1st Bomb Squadron. He was a veteran of a year and a half of combat service in China by the time I met him in Hanchung. He knew virtually everybody in the 14th Air Force from buck sergeants to Chennault, the commanding general.

Everyone liked Jim Kinder. Rank meant nothing to him. He was as at ease with the enlisted men as he was with the officers. He endured the rats and fleas and dismal living conditions with the rest of us. With irreverent respect and affection, we called him Dr. Quack.

He quickly established a small infirmary and hired a Chinese nurse to assist him. His equipment was simple and limited. His pharmacy looked like a collection of old brown bottles. But he was creative and skillful. With limited resources, he treated everything from dysentery, which everyone had, respiratory ailments, wounds and fractures to the occasional case of venereal disease. The closest hospital was Chengtu, miles away by air.

Dr. Kinder was a flight surgeon in the true sense of the word. As often as he could, he was on the planes, getting his flight time like the rest of us. He had no regard for danger. He would go anywhere he was needed in order to give medical care.

Jim Kinder, our Dr. Quack, understood us. He knew our needs, which included recreation. Hanchung was at the end of the China supply line. Mail calls were infrequent. We had no PX. Our mess hall was limited to eggs, chickens that looked like crows, rice and water buffalo.

Doc joined us in the local native restaurants, which accounted for the dysentery. He was generous with his medical alcohol, which we cut with water, lemon powder and a crude sugar for our parties. Somehow, Doc managed to get enough stateside whiskey to serve two ounces per man after missions.

When we located a Taoist temple at Meow Tai-dz a few kilometers north of Hanchung, he would send us there for R&R several days at a time. On a few occasions, Doc joined us on rest flights to Sian for some good food and a change of pace. He was one of the first to do whitewater rafting on the Pau River.

Dr. Kinder, who had been with the CACW from its inception at Malir Field near Karachi, was still with the 1st Bomb Squadron in Hanchung on Aug. 15, 1945, V-J Day, when World War II ended and the CACW was officially disbanded.

After two years overseas away from his family and home in Cape Girardeau, Doc Jim was skin and bones, sallow, worn out and sick. He was more than ready to leave China but shared some of the regrets of leaving felt by those of us who had seen less of the war. We left Hanchung and flew over the hump from Kunming to Calcutta, where we boarded a troop ship for Uncle Sugar. We separated at Camp Kilmer on arrival, not know when, if ever, we would meet again.

But Dr. Quack wasn't about to forget the friends he had made. Gradually, cards began coming from him, and then letters (pecked out with two fingers on his finicky old typewriters with lots of strikeouts and handwritten interlinearation. A network of Hanchung friends was thus established.

In 1978, Jim and his wife, Mary, invited the Hanchung friends to a reunion at their country home in Cape Girardeau. After more than 30 years, we were together again: Me, Nicklenose Wilson, Hairlip Halla, Buck Blake, Deacon Larson and Ponza Hodge and Dick Varney, our old commanding officers. And our wives, who had heard so many stories of our wartime exploits.

For several days we relived the past and learned about each other and our lives after the great China adventure.

We learned that Jim Kinder had completed his medical education, had taken a residency and had specialized in pediatrics. He and Mary had married and raised four boys. Our Dr. Quack was not James A. Kinder, M.D., F.A.A.P., caring for children in his home town.

It was no surprise to any of Jim's Hanchung friends that he was an active practitioner until he was past 80 years of age or that when he closed his office he took his skills to the county's public health center where he continued to care for Medicaid patients who needed someone like him to help them, just as he had helped so many of us.

Young or old, Jim Kinder, our Dr. Quack, was a great and dedicated doctor. He spent his life well. He will be remembered.

William F. Carroll is a partner in the Carroll & Donaldson law firm in Crown Point, Ind. He was a pilot in the 1st Bomb Squadron.