Bernard John Holmquist

Shipped to China

After fierce and bloody fighting on Okinawa, the Pacific war at a close followed by about three and a half more months on Guam, Bud and his fellow marines dreamt of a victory parade marching down some grand avenue in America with flags waving and bands playing. Instead they were put on ships for China arriving the 12th of October. The 6th marines shipped to China to accept the surrender of the Japanese, and to help fill the power-vacuum as the former enemy troops left China for their homes in Japan.

Filling a power-vacuum was not difficult. It was so easy that boredom set in. Bud wrote love letters for a fellow marine to his girl back home. The marine wrote them again in his own handwriting and sent them off. This filled in some of the time.

Eventually, Sergeant Coy asked Bud to head up building athletic equipment because of Bud's previous experience with H&S Company. Bud designed and built among other things a boxing rink, which was built in two halves so it could be moved inside and outside of the athletic building depending upon the weather.

After finishing with the athletic equipment Bud looked for more to do. He became regimental librarian, distributing books and magazines. This gave him good contacts such as with the cooks at the mess hall where he had liberty to come and go and grab a snack if he wanted.

Youth for Christ

At this time Bud lived behind the regimental movie theater. There he started a branch of Youth for Christ (YFC) with meetings weekly in Tsingtao. He felt that Christians among the soldiers and sailors needed a time and place to get together to hear the Word of God, support each other in their Christian walk with God, sing praises, and perhaps more importantly to have a place where non-Christian sailors and solders could come to learn about Jesus and be 'saved.' Being saved implied that a person would learn about God and his son Jesus, become aware of his own sinful nature and the sins he had already committed in his life, ask forgiveness of God and ask God to come into his life so that he could lead a Christian life from that day on. When all this is accomplished successfully, the person would have a free pass into heaven when this life came to an end.The alternative was hell which provided quite a motivation to become saved.

Herbert Colvin,¹ became the piano player. Floyd Perkins who later taught at Nazarene College, Colorado Spring, was also involved. Frank Connelly was the first speaker in Youth for Christ (YFC) in Tsingtao. He had been in a Japanese interment camp during the Japanese occupation, and was the chief cook in a concentration camp. Others involved in YFC were Clarence Rudd and Leonard Wood.² The Chinese pastor of the Southern Baptist church was Pastor Wong. He was helpful and friendly. Youth for Christ in Tsingtao was quite successful.

Meeting Dollan Rinell

Bud suspects that Hedvig did the most to get Bud and Dollan together because they liked each other. When Hedvig broke her hip in China he would go a visit her in Faber Krankenhaus. Hedvig didn't really get to know Bud until she was ready to go back to Sweden. She wore old fashioned clothes, taught bible study classes, taught Chinese women how to be good wives, sanitize items - many practical things. She moved around like an old Swede; probably had her hair in a bun on back of her head. Spoke good English. Bud gave her attention but not a lot because he was busy.

Dr. Frank A. Connelly acted as a father to Dollan. Dollan called him "Uncle Frank". He told her to be careful of the marines. Also one time right in front of Bud he told Dollan to clean her teeth.

On December 17, 1945 Bud wrote to his former high school principle, Mr. Tubbs. Mr. Tubbs wrote back on New Years Eve. Apparently, Bud had written to Mr. Tubbs of his hopes to go to Wheaton College, a Christian college in Illinois, and then to go into the Christian ministry. Mr. Tubbs wrote:

I was greatly impressed with your great faith in God [when a student at Morgan Park High School] and your willingness to place your life completely in his hands. I am glad to say that I do the same.

I admire you all the more for your willingness to go into the Marines, perhaps the most dangerous part of the service. The fact that you have come through unscathed is very good proof of the watchfulness God has exercised over you.

I shall be more than pleased to send your credits to Wheaton College. I shall put in an extra note which will certainly not prejudice your case and may, on the contrary, be of some help. If there is anything in the future I can do for you, do not hesitate to call on me. I don't know of anybody I would rather help than you. I believe you will be an outstanding success in the ministry.³

In a letter to Bud from Hedvig Rinell in Kioahsien² she writes:

Alice [Rinell] told me about the good meetings have in the Baptist church and about souls being saved. Wonderful! It gladdens ones heart to get such good news.

Not much to do on dates. Usually night clubs run by Russians. A Russian restaurant run by a tall skinny Russian made delicious beef stroganoff though the restaurant was not very clean. Bud took Dollan to that restaurant but not very often because they were both busy. Most "dating" was probably at YFC.

Bud could have reached the rank of corporal he thought, but did not push it. He was in special services, had a truck to use and thought that the Lord was blessing him where he was. He felt he had the "golden touch." The Lord seemed to be blessing him in whatever he did.³

Dollan left for Sweden via America on April 1, 1946 on board the Henry Wynkoop to go to nurses training in her old home town of Gothenberg.⁶ She and Bud did not have any special relationship going on. She was in love with another marine, Bud's friend, Herman (Van) Vanarsdale. On the way to Sweden through American Dollan stopped of in Geneseo, Kansas to see Van. She also met his parents and family. [1]

The Sixth Marine Division occupied Tsingtao until April 1, 1946. On that date, the division, was designated as the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade after it had been downsized by the loss of many of Marines who had returned to the United States. Coincidently it was one year to the day after its landing on the Island of Okinawa, that the Sixth Marine Division had ceased to be.

Bud and many of his marine buddies left for America on July 22. Bud's YFC Christian work was given over to the Chinese who ran it, probably up until the communist Chinese took over China.

Upon arriving in the USA Bud sent a telegram on August 29, 1946 from San Diego, California, to his parents in Chicago saying he had arrived saftely.

Bud was discharged from the marines on August 29, 1946. By that time he had made corporal. His rate of pay was $90 a month.

Dollan and Bud kept in contact, but their communication became less frequent. Seemed that they would each be but a memory to each other. Bud applied and was accepted to Wheaton College, which was about thirty miles west of Chicago. He attended his old church in Chicago, and again became president of the Senior Young People's Society.

Van and Dollan kept writing though. Around the summer of 1947, Herman Vanarsdale asked Dollan to marry him. She accepted.

However, it was hard to keep a relationship going with thousands of miles and an ocean separating you, especially during the late 1940s when travel from Europe to America was done by ship, and across land masses by car or train. Communication by phone was not always easy and was expensive. Letters could take weeks to arrive. The engagement did not last long.

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Footnotes