Foreword
A group of rich second generations sacrificed their precious lives in order to resist the invasion of the Japanese army and save the country in dire straits. They are China's first batch of pilots, and their average age is no more than 23. Today we will tell the story of the aviation school in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Defend the territory and resist the war
The rich second generation has become a derogatory term once upon a time, and now when it comes to the rich second generation, the first impression is that they drive a luxury car, live in a luxury house, or who my father is. However, during the Anti-Japanese War, there was a group of rich second generations, who were born in famous families, grew up with golden keys, and won at the starting line from birth. Among this group of rich second generations, there are returnees, Lin Heng, the third brother of Lin Huiyin, Yu Yanghe, the son of Yu Dawei, the "father of ordnance", and Zhang Xihu, the son of Zhang Boling, the founder of Nankai University. However, they all fought for the sake of resisting Japan and saving the country, and compared with them, many pampered middle-class young people can only be regarded as dwarfed.
When China launched an all-out war of resistance, Chiang Kai-shek once said that once the war began, no one divided between the old and the young, and the land did not distinguish between the north and the south, and as long as they were Chinese, everyone had the responsibility to defend the territory and resist the war. War has always been cruel, and many families have been broken and their wives separated because of war. The Chinese nation has experienced countless wars in its thousands of years of history, and the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression has brought endless suffering to the Chinese nation. The Japanese army invaded the land of China and killed countless Chinese people, in order to protect our country and people from **, in the fourteen-year War of Resistance Against Japan, countless patriots came forward and fought to the death against the Japanese army.
The first pilots
The rise and fall of the country is the responsibility of the husband. Against this background, the first pilots in our country were born. Everyone knows that the Whampoa Military Academy is the leader among all military schools, but what everyone doesn't know is that there is a school as famous as the Whampoa Military Academy, which is the Jianqiao Aviation School, which was later expanded as the Aviation Aviation School. It is the cradle of the Chinese Air Force, and it is this school that trained the first pilots in our country. In 1931, the September 18 Incident broke out, and Japan invaded China by force, occupying the three northeastern provinces in just four months. Previously, in order to cope with the aerial bombardment of the Japanese army, the national ** decided to set up Jianqiao Aviation School in Hangzhou, with Chiang Kai-shek as the principal. Hire Americans as instructor consultants and purchase trainer aircraft from the United States.
Jianqiao Aviation School is extremely strict in the recruitment of pilots, which not only requires cultural knowledge, but also has very high requirements for physical fitness, and is not afraid of hardships and fatigue. Xi courses include aircraft architecture, engine science, radio communications, and English. However, cultural knowledge alone eliminated a large number of people, and at that time, only the children of wealthy families could Xi learn advanced cultural knowledge, so in the end, those who could stay were basically the children of rich families.
Indeed, the first phase of the aviation school recruited 2,600 people into the army, but only 46 outstanding cadets graduated. But the school was not optimistic about these rich children fighting at first, and the thin skin and tender meat did not suffer much at first glance. What no one expected was that it was such a group of pampered rich children, who mostly persevered to the end and completed the final exam excellently. On the eve of the Anti-Japanese War, the aviation school trained six batches of cadets and more than 600 pilots.
Combat power gap
On October 31, 1936, after four years of professional training, it was finally time for them to show the results of their training, and it was also their first public appearance. The exhibition was held in Nanjing, and the people of Nanjing, who had heard the news, poured into the Nanjing airport to witness this historic moment. Although China has its own pilots, because China's aviation industry has just started, there is still a big gap between China and the Japanese army in terms of aircraft equipment, and air power is still an Achilles heel of China.
Relying on their advanced fighter planes, the invading Japanese army was fearless and wantonly bombed the land of China, and was undaunted in the face of the Chinese air force, which was not superior in quantity or quality, and resolutely rose up to resist. On August 13, 1937, the Battle of Songhu broke out, and the next day, Chinese pilots ushered in the first actual battle. At that time, there were more than 2,000 Japanese planes, and more than 900 Japanese planes came to China to invade and participate in the war.
Among our aircraft, there are less than 300 fighter planes, and less than 100 are the main aircraft of the "Hawk" type, which can be intercepted in aerial combat. Our pilots are very scarce, most of the fighters are purchased from foreign countries, the aircraft models are chaotic, mainly the American-made "Hawk" type, the performance of the aircraft is backward, and the pilots do not have much actual combat experience, but despite this, the Chinese Air Force pilots are still highly motivated.
Victory in the first battle
At that time, the Japanese army did not have a single air force, and their air force units belonged to the army and navy, which were often called air forces. The Japanese army targeted Shanghai. The Japanese Navy's Third Fleet attacked with the troops and anchored in the area of the Huangpu River and Hangzhou Bay. The Luben Marine Corps is entrenched in the Yangshupu and Hongkou areas of Shanghai. While Fleet Commander Kiyoshi Hasegawa was intent on destroying the fledgling Chinese Air Force in one fell swoop, our army was preparing to take the initiative to attack and destroy the Japanese army and naval bases stationed in Shanghai.
The 4th Flying Group, which received the order, rushed to Shanghai to provide support under the leadership of Captain Gao Zhihang. 18 Type 96 heavy bombers of the Japanese Kaoya Air Force were ordered to bomb Shanghai, and the arrogant bombing formation actually did not have many escort fighters, Gao Zhihang was the first to shoot down the enemy plane, the enemy was disrupted and difficult to parry, 3 enemy planes were shot down by our air force, 2 were missing, and 1 crashed on the way back. Only one plane of our army was slightly wounded, and it won the first battle, achieving a glorious record of 6:0, breaking the myth of the invincibility of the Japanese Air Force.
On 15 and 16 August, large-scale air battles broke out between the Chinese Air Force and the Japanese Air Force in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, and other places, and our Air Force shot down 11 enemy planes, and our army shot down more than 60 enemy planes in the following month's operations, and more than half of the elite Kaya and Kisarazu air units of the Japanese Air Force were annihilated by the National ** Air Force. Despite the brilliant achievements, a large number of pilots in our Air Force have also begun to appear. After the 14 August Air Battle, a large number of planes from Japanese aircraft carriers took part in the battle, and the air supremacy on the battlefield gradually fell into the hands of the enemy, and the situation became more and more unfavorable to our army.
Brave and fearless
When Zhang Xihu piloted a fighter plane to participate in the war, he died in a plane crash due to bad weather at the age of 27. In his family letter, he wrote: "Although my son is not sensitive, he cannot serve his parents to the end of his life, but he does not dare to be my sinner in China!."On August 19, 1937, Shen Chonghai, the captain of the Chinese Air Force, and Chen Xichun, a member of the Chinese Air Force, bombed the Japanese army at the mouth of the Yangtze River.
In order to boost morale, Chiang Kai-shek promised to reward 200,000 oceans for anyone who blew up and sank an enemy aircraft carrier, so as to encourage the Chinese air force to bomb the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet. In response to the chairman's call, on August 27, the Chinese Air Force held a mobilization meeting, at which Yan Haiwen, a second lieutenant pilot, said: "I am a native of Northeast China, but now I have become an exile, I do not fight for money, I want to fight back to my hometown in Northeast China, and avenge the 30 million exiled compatriots." ”
After that, Yan Haiwen led eight planes to take off from Hangzhou, broke through the Japanese defenses with ultra-low altitude flights, and bombed enemy targets. Unexpectedly, due to the change in wind direction during parachuting, he fell into the Japanese position, and the desperate Yan Haiwen pulled out a pistol and killed five Japanese soldiers in a row, and then shouted that the Chinese Air Force had no prisoners, and left the last bullet to himself, and died heroically, at the age of 21, the Japanese army was deeply impressed by Yan Haiwen's spirit of seeing death as home, and they collected Yan Haiwen's body, buried it in Shanghai Dachang, and erected a monument for him, engraved "The Tomb of the Warriors of the China Air Force". When Japanese reporters reported on his deeds, they also said that China is no longer the China of the past.
Sacrifice yourself
Liu Cuigang, one of the "Four King Kongs", often shot down 11 enemy planes in the war against Japan, and was the Chinese pilot who shot down the most enemy planes in China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, but unfortunately, Liu Cuigang made a forced landing due to weather conditions during a mission, and in order to protect the plane, he did not have time to parachute, and unfortunately died heroically at the age of 24. Three months later, on November 12, 1937, Air Force Captain Gao Zhihang was attacked by the enemy at the airport, and was hit by a Japanese artillery shell just after entering the cabin, and died heroically at the age of 30.
In the "429" air battle in Wuhan, Chen Huaimin, a pilot of the Fourth Brigade, was besieged by five enemy planes after shooting down an enemy plane, and the fuel tank caught fire. When his girlfriend found out, she jumped into the Yangtze River wearing the cheongsam he gave her. With the change of the war situation, the loss of pilots of the Chinese Air Force has become increasingly serious, and most of the pilots trained by the Chinese Air Force in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression have died bravely.
Less than half a year after the start of the war, the Chinese Air Force"The Four Heavenly Kings"The other three, Liu Cuigang, Le Yiqin, and Li Guidan were also killed. **The group photo of the first batch of students studying in the United States in the twelfth phase of the aviation school can be called the most shocking graduation photo in history, **There are 47 teachers and students in the middle school, of which 30 have died in the Anti-Japanese War (White Cross). * Jin Ying, a veteran of the eighth phase of the aviation school, later recalled: "The classmates were together, eating, living and living every day, and everything was together, just like their brothers at home, but when I saw it on December 1, there were only three of the 147 people left. ”
Because of the huge disparity in combat strength, each of our fighters often had to fight several times as many enemy planes when they took to the skies for battle, and by mid-September 1937, the planes of the Fourth Brigade of the elite fighter unit of our air force had basically been completely lost. Two months later, there were only more than 60 fighters of various types left in our air force, and in order to reduce the losses of the air force, during the battle of Xuzhou, Li Zongren asked our planes to participate in the battle, and only asked our planes to throw a few bombs in a few circles of the enemy's formation, and then sweep over our positions at a low altitude to boost morale, and then the task could be regarded as accomplished.
Soviet aid
Due to the encounter with the Japanese army's tight sea *** at this time, our planes are already one less than one, fortunately, the Chinese Air Force is not fighting alone, they also got the help of the Soviet Air Force volunteers, if there is no Soviet Volunteer Air Force manpower and material support, after the Songhu battlefield, it is almost difficult to effectively clamp the rampant Japanese Air Force on the battlefield. On December 1, 1937, 43 planes of the Soviet Air Force Volunteer Corps arrived in Nanjing, fought five air battles with Japanese aircraft, and shot down three Japanese planes.
In 1938, through arms purchases, the Soviet Union continued to support more than 400 of our planes and sent hundreds of pilots to fight in China. Although it was later reluctantly withdrawn due to the war in the Soviet Union, it still gave the ** air force units that were sluggish at that time the hope of trying to maintain the air defense front. On April 29, 1938, 39 planes of the 12th Air Brigade of the Japanese Army attempted to bomb Wuhan to celebrate the emperor's birthday, and were ambushed by our air force and the Soviet Volunteer Air Force on the way through, shooting down 21 enemy planes and capturing two Japanese pilots, and on May 21, our army joined hands with the Soviet Volunteer Air Force to shoot down 14 enemy planes.
Darkest hour
From 1939 to 1940, the Japanese Zero fighters began to be put into the battlefield, and the combat performance of the Zero aircraft far exceeded that of Chinese fighters, not to mention that the Soviet Union was reluctant to fight with the Japanese when the domestic war was tight, which made the Chinese Air Force, which gradually lost Soviet aid usher in the darkest moment.
At the beginning of 1939, the Soviet Union and Japan signed the "Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Treaty", the Soviet Air Force completely terminated the cooperation in aiding China, and all the Soviet Volunteer Air Force units were withdrawn to China. Even when fighting bravely, the damage of our air force is often greater than that of the Japanese army. The disastrous consequences of the frequent air raids by the Japanese army on our side are becoming more and more shocking.
For example, in the Japanese bombing of Chongqing on May 3 and 4, 1941, Japanese planes dropped bombs and incendiary bombs on the urban area of Chongqing, causing heavy losses to our side, and countless military and civilian casualties, only after the war, the official statistics of the military and civilians killed and wounded a total of 6,314 people were killed and wounded, 4,871 houses were destroyed, and the prosperous urban area of Chongqing was almost razed to the ground, and the corpses of the people were strewn all over the field, and there were ruins and broken walls everywhere, and the bombing caused nearly 200,000 people in Chongqing to be homeless.
Many died of suffocation and stampede in crowded bomb shelters as a result of prolonged bombing, and even thousands of people crowded into crowded bomb shelters. After the disaster, the engineer battalion sent by the Air Defense Command spent nearly a day and night sorting out the corpses, and many of the corpses went unclaimed. The latest statistics on the number of victims of the Chongqing bombing are:Person. Guo Moruo, who was in Chongqing, witnessed the tragic situation and wrote a short poem to record the tragic situation at that time!
On September 13, 1940, 36 Chinese planes met 66 Japanese planes in Bishan, Chongqing, and after a short and fierce battle, 11 of our planes were damaged, 13 planes were destroyed, 10 people were killed, and none of the Japanese Air Force planes were damaged. After this battle, the morale of the Japanese Air Force was greatly boosted, and it was even thought that the sky in China was full of sun flags.
Swear to serve the country
Pilot Xu Huajiang recalled: "We knew that the Japanese Air Force's planes were superior to ours, but we still had to resolutely meet them. The creed of our Chinese Air Force is: Swear to serve the country to the death and not survive!The Japanese fighter pilot who pursued Xu Jianghua later recalled: "I was really surprised to see that the Chinese Air Force fought tenaciously until it stopped in the air and then fell!"Zheng Shaoyu was the captain of the Fourth Brigade of the Air Force at that time, and he even proposed to the team members to collide head-on and die together. He said: "As long as I seize the opportunity, I am willing to be the first to hit the enemy's lead plane." ”
On the morning of March 14, 1941, in an air battle in Chengdu, Lin Huiyin's third brother Lin Heng was hit by an enemy plane and fell after heroically shooting down a Japanese plane, and died a heroic martyr at the age of 26. In 1937, Lin Heng, who was admitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Tsinghua University, angrily joined Rong under the inspiration of the anti-Japanese salvation and became the tenth student of the Chinese Air Force Aviation School. In the spring of 1940, he graduated second out of more than 100 cadets and died the following year. His sister Lin Huiyin was very sad and could only write poems to mourn.
Brother, I don't have a language that fits the timesto mourn your death;Lin Huiyin, "Crying Three Brother Heng".It is what the times ask of you
Simple, you give.
This cold and simple heroism is the poetry of the times
The glory of this silence is you.
Flying Tigers with Hump Route
Faced with such a situation, at the request of Chiang Kai-shek, Soong Ching-ling and General Chennault went to the United States to seek US assistance, and in the midst of all kinds of setbacks, they raised 100 P40 fighters for China to come to China to help in the war. On August 1, 1941, the American Volunteer Brigade of the Chinese Air Force was formally established. After months of arduous training, the combat effectiveness of our air force has been greatly enhanced.
On December 20, 1941, ten Japanese bombers attempted to bomb Kunming, all the way into a no-man's land, but were shot down by the Flying Tigers on the spot, 3 were wounded and escaped and crashed on the way, only one escaped to Hanoi, and our army did not have any plane damage. In the ensuing battles, the Flying Tigers hit several Japanese planes and fled. From then on, the Japanese Air Force no longer dared to invade Kunming, and ushered in a rare peace for the people of Kunming, who had suffered countless casualties from the Japanese bombing.
In the air battle that followed, the Chinese and US air forces fought together and dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese invaders. According to statistics, since July 1942, the Flying Tigers led by Chennault have shot down 299 Japanese enemy planes and lost 83 of their own. By 1944, the Japanese air force suffered heavy losses in the Pacific theater, and the Chinese air force began to occupy the initiative in the anti-Japanese battlefield.
Not only that, but through Sino-US cooperation, the "Hump Route" that provided aid to China and was not afraid of sacrifice was also famous, and they transported a total of 850,000 tons of strategic materials to support the War of Resistance during the most difficult period of the Anti-Japanese War. The U.S. Army's 10th Air Wing, which has 629 transport planes alone, has lost 563 aircraft, so much so that on a sunny day, pilots can navigate along the reflection of the aluminum wreckage between the valleys.
The US side lost thousands of pilots on this route, with a loss rate of more than 80 percent, and our crew also lost more than half. It is precisely because of the resistance and counterattack of so many people who are desperate for their lives and forget their lives that our country was able to win the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Conclusion
According to statistics, in the eight years after China's all-out war of resistance against Japanese aggression, nearly 1,700 pilots in China died heroically, their average age was only 23 years old, and more than 6,000 officers and soldiers of the Chinese Air Force were martyred. However, their sacrifices were not in vain, and in this war of resistance, the Chinese Air Force achieved good results, shooting down and destroying more than 1,220 enemy planes, damaging and damaging more than 230 enemy planes, blowing up and damaging more than 8,540 enemy tanks and vehicles, and damaging and sinking more than 8,000 Japanese ships. A high-ranking Japanese military officer once said: If it weren't for the outstanding performance of the Chinese Air Force, we might have gone anywhere we wanted. History will not forget them, and neither will we.
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