Sex
Female
Status
Deceased
Kay Mah, pre-war journalist in South China Morning Post.
Major Colin Mc Ewan:
'Castra' was one of those American-born Toishan Chinese whom I held iin such high regard. Born in Butte,Montana, she spoke American and Chinese equally fluently. Afteer returning to China as a girl she had married, had a family, divorced her husband who had been in the Chinese Diplomatic service, and when the war broke out was working as a journalist with the South China Morning Post.
Earlier I had been using her as a messenger between us and Hongkong via Macao, but was also profiting from her situation reports on conditions in Hongkong. As a pre-war journalist she had a host of contacts at every level in Hongkong, and of course as a Toishan Chinese was a member of a very wide spread but close-knit club.
She earned her code name by going on to two of the offshore islands in the Canton delta where the Japanese were building fortified gun emplacements against possible invasion by the American fleet. This operation started by her mentioning on one of her return trips from Hongkong that she had heard that the Japanese were up to something on those same islands, and she 'reckoned' that she could get on the islands and, as a coolie woman, work on them and find out what it was all about. This she did, and returned a month later with a description and a set of sketches which, my Headquarters confirmed later, filled out the detail they needed to fill out the blanks on their air reconaissance reports. She became one of my best independent agents.
Came the day when she was very much overdue on her return from Hongkong, where she had been doing a survey of coastal shipping and ... starting the organisation of an underground ferry service from Hongkong. News came back that she had been caught and was in Japanese hands. Luckily she had not been picked up individually, but in a random sweep of the dock area, and although badly beaten up in the routine questioning, was not put in the top Kempetai gaol. A deal was worked with the Korean guards, a cash deal I mean, and Castra returned to the fold. Admittedly it was not my money, but I cannot remember any other occasion in my life when I paid out so happily and so thankfully.