The Sad Death of a Marine in Peking, 1933

Sergeant Thomas Wilson, 35 years old, of the United States Marine Crops was rotated to Peking in the summer of 1933 to join the Legation Guard protecting the American Consulate in the city. On September 24th he killed himself with his shotgun in Legation Guard Barracks (below) just adjacent to the consulate compound (which you can still walk across today). The suicide caused chaos momentarily in the compound as it was close to the residence of the US Minister to China Nelson T Johnson.

Wilson, from Birmingham, Alabama, had previously served with the Marines in Nicaragua, left no suicide note. His wife Gladys was left in shock.