My father was a veteran of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. In 1950, when he was in high school, he went to North Korea to defend his family and country. As for his history in the army, I have rarely heard him say it since I can remember, and sometimes it is intermittent and fragmented. I have told him many times to write a memory article and send it out, even if it can't be published, he can leave a memory of the past time, but he has been dragging it out for decades without starting to write.
Last month, when my father went west to collect his belongings, he found this article he had just written, which recorded the history of his military service and his trip to North Korea. Now send this article out (the text will not be deleted, the remarks were added by me), to comfort my father's spirit in heaven.
On October 25, 1950, the front page headline of "People's **" was publishedResist US aggression and aid Korea, defend the homeland and defend the countryThe editorial has aroused great repercussions among the people of the whole country. At that time, I was in my third year of high school at Lianzhou Middle School in Hepu County, Guangdong Province (Note: Qin Shi Huang conquered Baiyue in the south, and placed Nanhai County, Guilin County, Xiang County, and Jiaozhi County, and now Hepu County belongs to Xiang County;In 111 B.C., Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty Ping Nanyue, demarcated the junction of the South China Sea and Xiang County and placed Hepu County, and at the same time set up Hepu County, the county governance, and the county governance were all in Hepu;In 1950, Hepu County belonged to the Qinlian Prefecture of Guangdong Province, because Guangxi asked for access to the sea, in 1952, it was assigned to the Qinzhou Prefecture of Guangxi Province, and Hepu County Zhilianzhou Town). We submitted applications to school leaders one after another, asking them to sign up to join the army and serve the motherland.
The former site of Lianzhou Middle School
Kui Xinglou I was the deputy head of the third class of high school at the time, and I was applying for the Chinese Communist Youth League. In that atmosphere, I had no intention of continuing my studies, and I only hoped that the relevant authorities would approve our application as soon as possible. (Note: Lianzhou Middle School was founded in 1522, formerly known as Haitian Academy in the Ming Dynasty, and later renamed Hepu Lianzhou Middle School many times, after 496 spring and autumn periods, it is the first batch of demonstration high schools in Guangxi.) ）
After many days of waiting, two comrades were finally sent from Guangzhou to Hepu on December 23 to take charge of receiving the students who had joined the army. We filled out the registration form for joining the army, and I remember filling in the name, age, ethnicity, education level, family situation, as well as my height and weight.
On the 26th, the list of admitted personnel was announced, and there were 30 students in our school, including 24 boys and 6 girls. Of the 30 people, 22 are high school juniors, and the rest are high school sophomores. (Note: According to my father's recollection, life was difficult at that time, many people were malnourished and thin, and some of the students who signed up were not admitted, mainly because their height and weight did not meet the standard.) Among the students who stayed to continue their studies, my father contacted three classmates in Henan after transferring to the local area, two of whom became husband and wife and taught at Luoyang Institute of Technology and now Henan University of Science and Technology, and one taught at Xinxiang Medical College and worked as a doctor in the affiliated hospital. I've seen all three of them, and they've passed away a few years ago. ）
That night, Hepu County** held a farewell dinner for us.
At 8 o'clock in the morning of the 27th, we took two old-fashioned cars and set off for Guangzhou, and the whole journey from Hepu to Guangzhou was 560 kilometers. At that time, there was a big chimney in the middle of the front and compartment of the old-fashioned car, and charcoal was burned as fuel to propel the car forward, and we could only walk 100 kilometers a day, and we had to get down and push the cart when we encountered an uphill section. It took me seven days to arrive in Guangzhou, and it was January 3, 1951.
The driver is adding charcoal to the charcoal car, taken on January 18, 1941 (Note: China was an oil-poor country before the discovery of the Daqing oilfield, and the charcoal truck undertook a lot of transportation work for a long time before the end of the 50s. The so-called charcoal car is to put charcoal into a special gas stove for automobiles, so that it can be turned into gas at the appropriate temperature, so that it can be used as the driving force to start the engine.
Before the car starts, the assistant should light the furnace in advance, which generally takes 40-50 minutes from ignition to starting. While driving, it is necessary to add materials, poke the furnace, and master the degree of charcoal burning, and the driver and assistant work very hard every day. The charcoal car has insufficient power, slow driving speed, poor load capacity, and the car breaks down in the middle of the road. Especially on uphill sections, the car often stalls and passengers need to help push the cart. Sometimes, after the charcoal is burned, the passengers have to get out of the car to pick up firewood and branches to use as fuel.
Charcoal contains as much melanin as coal, and when a car runs down, the driver and passengers become black. ）
Now there are charcoal trucks in North Korea, and after two days of rest, each person is given 20,000 yuan (the second set of yuan), that is, two yuan for living expenses. The next day, we arranged to go to the Pingnan regimental school for Xi, and a week later, we were sent by car to a rural village in Huaxian County, a suburb of Guangzhou, for Xi and training.
The first lesson is walking. It is 25 kilometers from Huaxian to Conghua (note: county), and a total of 50 kilometers for a round trip every day. Plan to walk for two weeks. The slogan is: Only by taking a good road can we win the war.
In order to take care of us student soldiers, the leaders don't need to wear backpacks, backpacks, or leggings when walking. In this way, we departed at 6 a.m. and returned to the station at 6 p.m. Because this is combat training, everyone is very serious, and there are very few people who are left behind, especially after the fifth day, there are basically no people left behind. The walking training lasted for ten days, and the leader announced the end of the walking training.
The second lesson is to learn Xi politics. The contents of the study Xi include revolutionary theories such as "The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China" and "Report on the Investigation of the Hunan Agricultural Movement". After a month of intense study and Xi, everyone gradually transformed from an ignorant and simple-minded student into a young man with mature thinking and understanding of revolutionary principles.
After another week of Xi summary and autobiography, the training was over, and the whole training was less than two months before and after.
In accordance with the requirements of the recruit training team, in the last three days, the higher-level leadership organ came to assign the recruits' work directions. Because we are an air defense unit, most of the personnel are assigned to jobs such as radar, anti-aircraft artillery, communications and searchlights. I was the only one assigned to the Political Department (note: I guess it was because my father's calligraphy was good), and there were also a few people assigned to the Headquarters and Logistics Department, and they were all sophomores and third-year high school students.
When I was assigned to the Organization Department of the Political Department in March, I didn't understand anything, nor did I get any major work, but gave me more than a dozen copies of the "Revolutionary Soldier Registration Book" and told me to fill it out with a brush.
One day in May, the leaders talked to me, and the Central Military Commission asked us student soldiers to go to the battlefield for training, and decided to let me go to the third battalion of the 532nd Antiaircraft Artillery Regiment to work in a company, and the main task was to guard the "Yalu River Bridge." The life of this battle was very hard, and I was mentally prepared not to be afraid of hardships and sacrifices. When asked if I was afraid, I said that this was a glorious task to protect my family and defend the country, and I resolutely obeyed it. Then we set off.
One day in May 1951, we sang the song "Majestic and high-spirited, crossing the Yalu River," full of revolutionary passion, shouldering a glorious mission, and embarking on the glorious road of "resisting US aggression and aiding Korea, defending the homeland and defending the country." After more than three days of driving, I came to the bank of the Yalu River from Guangzhou. Soon, we entered combat readiness on the basis of no combat experience.
I don't know anything about artillery, but I think if you learn it by heart, you will learn it quickly. In this way, I studied hard, and with the help of my classmates, in less than a month, I became an all-round gunner and could go to war.
I served as the fourth gunner, that is, the important gunner in charge of the azimuth (note: responsible for the horizontal azimuth), and I was very happy, and I had my share in fighting enemy planes. We are a "37" anti-aircraft artillery team, with six guns in the whole company, and there are seven gunners in each gun position, the first gunner is responsible for the command (gun commander), the second gunner is responsible for firing, the third gunner is responsible for the high and low directions, the fourth gunner is responsible for the direction (responsible for speed and course setting), the fifth gunner is responsible for loading shells (one row, a total of five rounds), and the sixth and seventh gunners are responsible for sending shells. Because it is a combat unit, there are two more people in each squad in case of accidents.
The "37" cannon is a caliber of 37 millimeters, made in the Soviet Union, with a maximum firing range of 5,000 meters and an effective firing range of 3,000 meters (note: the effective combat distance is 4,000 meters, and the effective firing height is 3,000 meters).To deal with high-altitude enemy aircraft, they are mainly equipped with Soviet 75 (mm) and 85 (mm) caliber anti-aircraft guns, with a firing range of more than 10,000 meters. (Note: In September 1949, the Soviet Union assisted our army to form 10 anti-aircraft artillery regiments, and the M1939 37-mm anti-aircraft gun entered the sequence of our army during this period, and soon became the main weapon of our army's air defense operations.) The cannon has a high appearance rate, for example, the anti-aircraft cannon in "King Kong River" is the 37 cannon. ）
Since the antiaircraft guns were stationed, enemy planes rarely dropped bombs at low altitudes, and most of them dropped aimlessly at high altitudes, so they rarely encountered enemy bombs, and most of the bombs fell into the river.
During the three months of combat life, we encountered only one time two bombs dropped from a high altitude, which fell on the edge of the station, and two of our comrades-in-arms were wounded. We didn't encounter a big airdrop, which is also our luck.
War is brutal and life-threatening at any time. Since joining the fighting, everyone has a very firm confidence that only by defeating US imperialism can the security of the country be defended and the people be at peace. It is under this firm ideological teaching that everyone has strengthened their beliefs, so they are not afraid of any hardships and hardships, and they are not afraid.
It's hard to imagine what life was like back then, and it can be said that most young people today can't believe it and find it hard to accept. Basically, we stuck to our gun positions every day, because of the frequent incursions of enemy planes, the air defense sirens sounded more than 10 times a day, and the number of sorties reached 1,000 a day. Because the enemy knew that the Yalu River Bridge was guarded by antiaircraft artillery, enemy planes did not dare to rashly cross the river to blow up the bridge, so most of the bombs were dropped on the territory of the DPRK. After the bombing mission was completed, the enemy plane flew away, and the enemy was also very afraid of death.
We lived in the gun position all day, and we had to get up at five o'clock every morning, because most of the enemy planes came in the morning, and we had to be fully prepared. Moreover, as soon as the alarm of the anti-enemy battle sounded, he quickly returned to the gun position within ten seconds. When they found enemy planes, they opened fire, and sometimes they also opened fire when they heard the sound of enemy planes, and the shells were so dense that the enemy planes were so frightened that they did not dare to invade. Every day, we think about how to shoot down enemy planes, and we hope to shoot down enemy planes.
In the more than three months that the anti-aircraft guns displayed next to the Yalu River Iron Bridge guarded the Yalu River Bridge, they did not eat a single hot meal, and when they said they were eating, they mostly ate fried noodles or compressed biscuits (a spoonful of flour). I remember that I couldn't seem to eat hot steamed buns, let alone vegetables, there was no hot water, and I drank cold water.
We didn't sleep in a bed for a day, we were all back to back in a small bunker, so we chose this for more than three months. Because living in the bunker can ensure that the gun position is put on time and does not affect the battle.
Although the combat career was very difficult, compared with our infantry comrades who entered the court, we were much luckier, each of them had to march, and they also had to carry a backpack, ** and eat rations (sewing biscuits) for seven days. They live on the line of death every day, they are ready to sacrifice at every moment, and they have no fear of death. It can be said that a person who fights and survives is lucky. They think: sacrifice for the country, there is no Shangguang Cai.
I am now 90 years old, and I often think about my comrades-in-arms, and when I think back to the situation of those years, it really makes me think a lot of things, and the combat life of more than 70 years ago is vivid and unforgettable. Most of our comrades-in-arms in the 50s bid farewell to the West, and they were all heroes who contributed too much to the security and construction of the motherland. I very much hope that the people of today will not forget the sacrifices made by these predecessors to defend their homes and the country, and never forget that today's happy life was bought by millions of revolutionary martyrs with their blood and livesForgetting the past means betrayal!
Former veteran of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
April 2023.
The history of his father at the east gate of Hepu County in the thirties and forties of the last century, according to his occasional mention, is roughly as follows: After the victory of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, he successively went to Wuhan, Hengyang, and Guangzhou, and served as a company commander from a company under the political department in the 50s, and commanded the company to shoot down an enemy plane in the territorial air defense operation (according to his recollections, I guess it was in the Chaoshan area, and the specific battle still needs to be searched for information), and the third-class meritorious service is recorded. Later, he was transferred to Guangzhou Baiyun Airport to take charge of political security work, and with the abolition of the Air Defense Force, he was transferred to the Air Force. According to his recollection, one of the two ministers of the Guangzhou Air Security Department was transferred to Beijing and was supposed to take him there, but my mother was unwilling (it seemed that she was pregnant with my brother or something), and stayed in Guangzhou with the other minister. Later, he was transferred to the Air Force Division (the commander of the division was Liu Yudi, a famous ace pilot), which was responsible for Guangdong's air defense, to take up political security work.
During his tenure as a security guard, he was involved in many anti-enemy cases, perhaps because of secrecy or other reasons, but he did not say much detail. I only remember that he said that there was a hidden enemy who wanted to turn himself in and was killed by a male agent pretending to be a husband and wife, and later solved the case based on the tracing of the body.
During the ten years of turmoil, the rebels chased down the dignitaries from Guangxi. My father said that if he was handed over, he would definitely die, so I was very grateful to the political commissar at that time (he was an old Red Army, surnamed Zhu, I remember my parents took me to his house to play) for what he said: He (referring to my father) is a cadre trained by the party, who has made meritorious contributions to the revolution and defended the first leader (Wu Faxian, the commander of the Air Force, inspected the troops in a certain year, and then had to go back to his hometown, and his father undertook the defense work and escorted him back to Beijing), and he could not hand it over.
I remember that I rarely saw my father in my childhood, and it was only when I connected with the later trajectory that I realized that my father had been sent to a remote farm in Guangxi (Wuqi Cadre School) to work and be protected. According to him, there was also a famous warrior Nie Fengzhi who was farming together at that time.
During the turmoil, our family was hurt a lot because of the problem of composition (landlords), and some people or a large group of people did a lot of bad things to our family. My father was fortunate to be spared by being in the army, but he was also traumatized physically and mentally, and suffered a serious heart attack. I still remember when I was a child, I was called home while playing outside, my mother was crying so red in my eyes, my father was lying on a small recliner and told me to listen to my mother in the future, and soon an ambulance came to pick him up. When I grew up, I realized that it was almost a parting of life and death. Ever since I was a child, my mother taught me that if I found my father fainting, I should go to his jacket pocket and find a small box to open it, stuff the pills (it should be nitroglycerin capsules) under his tongue, break the small medicine bottle with a small stone, and dip cotton into the medicine inside and put it in my father's nose.
In my childhood and adolescence, I had to go to the major hospitals in Guangzhou with my parents almost every week (Air Force General Hospital, Navy General Hospital, Provincial People's Hospital, etc.), and my father later said that the doctor concluded that he could be "sacrificed" at any time and that his life would not be too long. He said that he didn't expect to live so long, and when he checked his body, he found that the heart disease was gone, and the internal organs of the body were normal except for the old ones. I estimate that it is probably because after transferring from the army, the environment has changed, the people and things around me have also changed, and the mood has improved, and the body has improved.
In 2021, when I went to pick up my father, I took a photo on the city wall, when the water in the house was 50 cm. The next day, the water overflowed the place where I was standing, and my father's various medals, medals, certificates, old **, memorials, etc. were previously placed in a small suitcase, and after the flood in 2021, I once found this box, and some of the paper ones were blurred because of the blisters. I don't know where he put this box later, and this time he will have to tidy it up.
Today, it is Erqi who passed away from my father, and I would like to remember the old man with this article. I salute my predecessors who have fought for our present peaceful and peaceful life!