This is the story of a man who lived one of the most controversial events in American military and diplomatic history. Wilbur J. Peterkin, Executive Officer, and eventually Commander, of an observer group (The Dixie Mission) served in the Communist Chinese stronghold at Yenan in North China during World War II. The Dixie Mission began with friendly official contact between military officers of the United States and the leaders of Communist China, but dissolved in the enmity and recriminations that characterized the first years of the Cold War. As a leader of this mission, Peterkin was to be one of the few Americans who worked closely with Mao Tse-Tung and other future leaders of the People's Republic of China.

Many historians and journalists have written on this critical period in Sino-American relations. Foreign service officers have been among the most prolific. John Davies, the embassy's first secretary, on assignment with General Joseph W. Stilwell, authored Dragon by the Tail, and an autobiography, Foreign and Other Affairs. Just before his death in 1984, John Emmerson, the embassy's Japanese specialist, published an account of his career entitled, The Japanese Thread. John Stuart Service, second secretary in the embassy, also assigned to Stilwell, wrote and edited two books designed to vindicate his role in Yenan during the years 1944 and 1945. He collaborated with John W. Esherick in Lost Chance in China, a collection of his official World War II dispatches from China. Service's book, The Amerasia Papers, recounts the trials and tribulations of his career before and after the loss of China. Gary May has written of the tragic life of John Carter Vincent in The China Scapegoat. Each of these books turns on the years of The Dixie Mission, and tells of the end of many brilliant diplomatic careers during the anti-communist witch hunt that grew out of the loss of China to communism.

Many American military officers have written on these years as well. The Dixie Mission's first commander, David D. Barrett, authored The Dixie Mission:L The United States Army Observer Mission in Yenan, 1944. General Claire Lee Chennault recounted his life and trials in China in his autobiography, Way of the Fighter, and General Albert C. Wedemeyer recalled his days in China in Wedemeyer Reports. Douglas MacArthur's memoirs of the period have also been published.

Other prominent individuals' stories are recounted by historians. Barbara Tuchman's account of General Stilwell's life in China is told in Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945. Russell Buhite, in Patrick J. Hurley and American Foreign Policy, and Donald Lohbeck, in Hurley's official biography recount, from totally opposite points of view, the role of Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley in the China controversies of 1945. Other historians and writers have contributed scholarly analyses of this period. These include: The China Tangle by Herbert Feis; The China Hands by E. J. Kahn; and The U.S. Crusade in China by Michael Schaller. Each of these critiques cites the importance of the Dixie Mission in China during World War II.

Most of the foregoing books include brief remarks on Colonel Wilbur Peterkin. Nowhere has there appeared a published account of Peterkin's life. Considering the significance of the Dixie Mission, it seems appropriate to add the store of one of its key figures to the historiography of the period.
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