Twilight in Tientsin

The saga of a young platoon sergeant in the Marine Corps wounded on Iwo Jima and hospitalized on Guam. Although still in the hospital, he gets involved with a navy nurse and is busted and shanghaied out of his outfit. Then he is reassigned as a jeep driver in the Headquarters Battalion, Third Corps, U.S. Marines. The battalion is part of the advance group assigned to go to Tientsin to deal with the repatriation of the Japanese troops stationed there and in Manchuria.

On arriving in Tientsin, China, with that advance group, he is assigned as driver for a British female working with the U.S. OSS office in Tientsin, with whom he falls in love with despite clumsy mistakes. She finally responds but refuses to consider marriage.

In addition to the Japanese who have controlled the North China area and are being repatriated under marine supervision, Tientsin is the last safe haven for the "white Russians" who had fled from Communist Russia. In addition, the Italians still maintain a "Concession area," as have the French, who still maintained a garrison in Tientsin but whose troops are being sent to suppress the rebellion in French Indochina.

On returning to the United States, he gets out of the Marine Corps. Not having graduated from high school, he takes the college entrance exams and is admitted to college. With help from a tutor, whom he resents and doesn't care for, he does well.

After graduating and getting involved in home constructions, he finds his "tutor" is now the secretary to the banker whom he wishes to borrow money from. She is grudgingly forgiving, and they finally marry, have three children but she dies of cancer at an early age.

Lonely, he travels, including returning to China, and then went a trip to Canada where he meets the British "sweetheart" once again.