Sun Li-jen; Nationalist Chinese General

Sun Li-jen, 91, a Nationalist Chinese war hero who was accused of trying to topple President Chiang Kai-shek. Sun, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, was dubbed “the ever-victorious general” for his feats during World War II. In one battle in Burma, he led an outnumbered contingent that rescued about 7,000 British and Burmese soldiers held by about 10,000 Japanese soldiers. He was later made a Commander of the British Empire by the British government. In 1955, six years after the Nationalists lost a civil war to Communist forces and retreated to Taiwan, Sun and other officers were accused of plotting to overthrow Chiang. Some details of the episode remain unclear. Sun, who was Chiang’s chief of staff in 1954 and 1955, denied the charge but was placed under house arrest. He was freed in 1988, a year after Chiang’s death, when the Control Yuan, the government’s watchdog assembly, released a 1955 report that cleared Sun of involvement in the plot. On Taiwan on Monday of pneumonia.