William Howard Chittenden’s Prisoner of War Chess Set and Tea Box

Japanese forces captured William Howard Chittenden, the first owner of this chess set, shortly after the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Chittenden, who had been serving with the Marine Detachment at the American Embassy in Peiping (Beijing), China, was then sent to Woo Sung prison camp, where civilian workers who had been captured on Wake Island were also imprisoned. At that camp he had access to Red Cross rations, which included cigarettes. Not being a smoker, Chittenden traded 20 packs for a chess set created by one of the civilian workers.

Chittenden, who would ultimately spend 1364 days in POW camps, was transferred to the Kiangwan prison camp in August 1943, where he performed forced labor. Before leaving Woo Sung prison camp, he gave his cherished chess set to a friend Vic Ciarrachi, with the hope that he could receive the set back after liberation. Unfortunately, Ciarrachi became separated from the chessmen during his own subsequent transfer to another prison camp; he packed the set and its tin in a box of garden tools that was then delivered to another camp.

At the Akahaira #2 coal camp, Platoon Sergeant Thomas R. Carpenter found the pieces and after his liberation, took them to the American cities where he was stationed. After his death, his sister first inherited the chess set and after her passing, his son Peter Carpenter inherited them. Observing that the pieces and the box bore the initials W.H.C., he embarked on an ultimately successful research project to reunite the set with its first owner. Seventy years after Chittenden and the set were separated, Peter Carpenter returned the set to him.

This set was loaned to the World Chess Hall of Fame by the Collection of the National Museum of the Marine Corps.