recalled spending at least nine months of each year traveling, and he returned to the United States on at least five occasions. His first book was coauthored with Edward Anthony, a professional writer, and published in 1935.6
Enders became aware of the disorganized nature of the Chinese government, and of the unwavering focus of Japan on the conquest of China. He sold twenty U.S. Corsair airplanes to Chiang Kai-shek, and then worked for him as technical aviation advisor for two years (1927–1929). In 1932 he met Chos’gyi Nyimo, Panchen Lama of Tashilhunpo, in Madame Chiang’s living room at the Chiangs’ summer home. The Panchen appointed Enders to the Upper House of the Tibetan National Assembly. This was apparently on the basis of his chela–guru relationship to Chanti, his unique skills as a pilot, and his Hindustani, Tibetan, and Chinese language skills, which were remarkable for a “foreign devil.” Enders’ “Passport to Heaven” is on the endpapers of his book, Foreign Devil, and he described his plan to fly gold out of Tibet for the Panchen Lama in a story published in 1936.7
When Enders returned to China in 1936, he found the Panchen Lama had just nominated the boy who would become the fourteenth Dalai Lama. Soon after, Japan invaded North China, and by the first week in September it was clear that Shanghai would fall. The Panchen slowly progressed back toward Lhasa; he died at the monastery of Jyekundo, close to Lhasa, on 30 November 1937. The plan to fly the gold from Tibet collapsed. Enders escaped at night via Nanking, and sailed for home.
After Enders’ return to the United States, he taught history at Purdue University from March 1937 until 29 April 1941, giving lectures there and elsewhere on his wide range of experiences. On 17 September 1941 he was commissioned as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, assigned to G-2 (Military Intelligence Division, or MID). He was superbly well qualified, and he probably had little trouble getting approval from the Army for appointment as a military attaché in the State Department. It appears that during the final weeks before he left for India, when he was en route to Afghanistan, he paid a visit to the British embassy. There he met the assistant military attaché, Lieutenant Colonel Reginald “Rex” Benson, who had arrived in March 1941. Copies of Enders’ letters from India in November and December 1941 to his wife, Betty were forwarded by Betty Enders to Gordon’s niece Trudy Enders on 9 May 1942. Betty mentioned that she had heard that Gordon’s brother, Robert, who had been a professor at Swarthmore before the war, was in Washington at that time. Robert Enders later became a translator for the OSS.
The letters from India were typed by Enders over a period of several days. His wife sent excerpts to WBAA, the Purdue University radio station, but the letters have never previously been published. While en route to Delhi in late 1941, Enders wrote the following:
[Tuesday 18 November] Last night before taking the train I had dinner at the Farbos, an Italian-owned restaurant, which is considered the best in Calcutta. Its windows are covered for blackouts but it is gay and full of cooling fans inside. We saw dining two Indian sisters who are reputed to be the most beautiful in Hindustan. They had been done by famous portrait painters. I took the 9:03 train and had a very comfortable two-bunk compartment to myself, and the whole car is air-conditioned. A bearer brought coffee at 7:30. We breakfasted at 9:00—the food being wired for at headquarters was brought to the compartment on trays.
I am drinking in the Hindustan that I knew 30 years ago. The big changes so far have been turkeys. There are large flocks of them in the country tended by half-naked little boys. Of course, there are motor cars everywhere and they are new. The Grand Trunk Road is now paved, and there are Hindu, Mohammedan, and vegetarian restaurants at the big stations. But otherwise I see no marked differences.
Looking at the fields I’ve seen parrots, pigeons, and the big, blue cranes we call sahnus. The lentils, kaffir corn, sugar cane, and grain, the sisal and mustard are still there. The cattle are on the plains—at the kites and vultures [sic]. Little boys still herd the goats and irrigation is still done with Persian wells. There are ponds with water-buffalo and water-chestnuts in them, and the dhobis [washerman/woman (Hindi)] wash their clothes by beating them on stones, while their sway-backed little donkeys graze with hobbled forelegs near-by.
In the villages the trees are still thick, with the cleared off thrashing floors, the mud huts with the animals tied outside, and the women still making dungcakes for cooking. It is India all right!
[Wednesday 19 November] We stopped to take our lunch at Fatehpur-Haswa, where my father is buried.8 I saw that the Grand Trunk Road was not paved, and caught a glimpse of the great Peepul Tree in the monkey temple yard where they feed the monkeys in the evening. It’s quite remarkable how I seem to feel the texture of the white dust everywhere, and to know the smell of the grasses, and the sound of the trees.
At Etawah, tea was brought in.9 The same old buck-monkeys were in the station courtyard—with the oxen and bullock carts parked by the road side, with the animals lying along side ruminating. I remembered from childhood hearing the Punjab mail going by our house in the early morning at Etawah, and I remembered where the tracks were from our house. Our bungalow wasn’t visible because it sits back from the road. As the train crossed the Grand Trunk Road I was pleased to find it still unpaved, with nary a motor car in sight, but a line of camels, carts, and horse-drawn ekka [buggy], all waiting for us to pass at the same old crossing with its iron gates.
In the fields, during the day, I saw some gorgeous peacocks pecking among the lentils. When evening fell, the cooking smoke streamed out whitely among the mango trees and I could see the little dung fires with dim shapes moving around them. To me it was a kind of reincarnation.
[Saturday 22 November] In a few minutes I must dress in uniform to have dinner with General Sir Archibald Wavell whom I met the first day. It’s to be kind of an American affair with General Wheeler and his party, some of whom I met in Washington and some in Honolulu. . . .10
[Sunday 23 November] I greatly enjoyed the dinner at which were about fifteen—three of us Americans. General Wavell’s three pretty daughters were included. The long table stretched in front of a large fire-place, with the commander-in-chief sitting in the middle and Lady Wavell opposite. I was placed at her left. After dinner I talked with General Wavell and his very charming wife. . . .
[Saturday 29 November]11 I’m all set to cross the border into Afghanistan on Wednesday or Thursday of next week. The trip from Delhi up took its allotted 24 hours and the journey was very dusty. . . .
[Monday 1 December] . . . My today’s schedule is tiffin [light midday meal] with the R.A.F. [RAF, or Royal Air Force] and dinner with the governor, Sir George Cunningham, to whom I carry Colonel Benson’s letter of introduction. . . .12
[Tuesday 2 December] I have had my dinner with the Governor and am now set to go through the Khyber Pass. . . . [Y]esterday, I lunched with the local R.A.F. acting chief, his wife and some friends. We talked a lot of shop (my host and I) up to tiffin, and, after eating, we went out to see his farm. . . . At this point a distinguished Pathan landowner from Kohat [a city in North Waziristan] drove up (by previous arrangement) and two carloads of us went into the native city of Peshawar. The landowner was a “Rai Bahadur,” the holder of a title and has two sons in the Frontier army.13 Both of them are Oxford. . . . We went back to tea with our party because we were all late, and then back here to dress for the Governor’s dinner and the dinner was most satisfactory. There were Lady and Sir George Cunningham, a Mr. and Mrs. Joyce of the Civil Service, two A.D.C.’s [aides-de-camp] and myself. The Cunninghams are delightful people and my after dinner talk with him, most informative and helpful. . . .
[Wednesday 3 December] . . . In Delhi I sat in a conference with our General Wheeler and British G.H.Q. [general headquarters] and have received what are practically orders to drive up to Russia and into Iran
