In Foot & Langley's book on MI9, on page 279, is this paragraph: ‘Early in 1944 Capt Bairnsfather of the Chinese maritime customs organised operation ‘Vancouver’, which with the help of Chinese army and guerrillas rescued 500 Indian troops from camps in Yunnan’ Unfortunately the book has no footnotes. The index gives initials as GEB. This is the same surname as Bruce Bairnsfather, who drew Old Bill in the trenches of the Great War. I've never seen anything more about this online or in print or an archive. Does anyone have any clues?
From: Vancouver | Operations & Codenames of WWII Via Google Books try: From 2004 https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/For_Your_Tomorrow/ZMMO-X1D2I8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq="operation+vancouver"+++"yunnan"&pg=PA306&printsec=frontcover and another book in 2011: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Canadians_Behind_Enemy_Lines_1939_1945/Y0-HoDk45MQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq="operation+vancouver"+++"yunnan"&pg=PA293&printsec=frontcover Background and may be the time before the mission, see a Google Book: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Chinese_Journals_of_L_K_Little_1943/Q9NBDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq="customs+service"+++"Bairnsfather"&pg=PT288&printsec=frontcover His probable father's background, b. 1887, d. 1959; a snippet: Bairnsfather | Page 1 of 1 | Related Topics | National Library of New Zealand | National Library of New Zealand His probable father's website: Home Page Which has no mention of service in China and clearly states he remained in the UK during WW2.Perhaps the author / owner can help? Hopefully somewhere the man involved in the operation is fully named. One link states his initials were R.M. P. See: Customs Service Officers in Charge 1921 - 1935 v He was in China: From: Chinese Shan presentation dha | Mandarin Mansion There is this odd reference in Author: Ladds, Catherine; Title: Empire careers : the foreign staff of the Chinese Customs Service, 1854-1949: From: https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/34502208/442137.pdf
