It was 1943 when 21-year-old Ruth Chan enlisted in the Army Air Force Women’s Army Corps. “I really believed that if I volunteered, the war would end sooner,” she says. “I thought our fellows, including my brother Edward, could come home sooner.”
Vivacious still, though almost 101, Ruth lives with her daughter Gwen in the Pocket. She says her hearing and memory aren’t very good, but I beg to differ. Her wartime memories are vivid, and she’s a very good mahjong player. At our weekly games, she wins more than she loses.
Her parents were Chinese immigrants. Her father, Chuck Wing Chan, landed in New Orleans in 1906. He later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and married Lum Sue Ying from Guangdong. They eventually settled in Locke and operated the Happy Café on Main Street. Ruth and her four siblings were born in Walnut Grove; older brother Edward was born in China.
After graduating from high school, she moved to Sacramento for college and worked as a live-in maid for $20 a month. But she sought adventure and heard the patriotic call to serve in WWII. So one day, she found herself downtown signing papers to join the military.
Basic training was in Iowa, where she was the only Chinese woman in her unit. She recalls early morning reveille and marching all day. Her first assignment was clerical work at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. Being tall, she was recruited as captain of the women’s basketball team. On game days, they traveled to different bases in cargo planes, sitting on wooden crates. “Now you couldn’t pay me to travel like that,” she says.
Ruth then moved to Mitchel Air Force Base in New York, where she helped care for injured servicemen. The work had two perks: 1) she could sleep in a hospital room and not the women’s barracks, and 2) she got to escort wounded soldiers to shows at Radio City Music Hall and on Broadway. “I enjoyed my time in the service,” says Ruth. “I was from a small town. I became more independent and confident.”
Ruth was subsequently promoted to the rank of Corporal. After her discharge in 1946, she returned to Sacramento and reconnected with a childhood friend, Harry Jang, a decorated veteran who was studying architecture at UC Berkeley.
Born in Courtland in 1919, Harry was one of 12 children. In the war, he wanted to be a pilot but was trained as a navigator and flew on B-17 bombers. Harry was sent to Thurleigh, England, and survived more than 35 missions over Germany. For his service, he was awarded the medal of Distinguished Flying Cross. The classic war movie “Twelve O’Clock High” was based on his squadron. Both Harry and Ruth received Congressional Gold Medals in 2020.
With the war behind them, the couple married, worked, raised three children and settled into retirement. Next to mahjong, Ruth’s other favorite pastime was golfing; she attained a handicap of 17. Harry died from a stroke in 1998 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. “A place has been reserved for me at Arlington. I look forward to being with Harry again,” Ruth says.
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