By chance, I suddenly learned the shocking news that my old regiment commander, General Wu Changfu, had unfortunately passed away in 2017 at the age of 76.
Young people may not be familiar with the name Wu Changfu, but those over the age of 50 must remember the worst forest fire since the founding of the People's Republic of China on May 6, 1987, in the Daxinganling area of Heilongjiang Province. The fire lasted for 21 days, burned an area of 1.01 million hectares and destroyed 61 houses40,000 square meters. Wu Changfu, who was the division commander at that time, was in charge of the commander-in-chief of the eastern line of firefighting in the Daxing'an Mountains, and he led an infantry division to be the first to rush to the fire scene, and after four consecutive days and four nights of hard work by the whole division, the fire was finally brought under control. At that time, Wu Changfu, who was known as the bearded division commander, shook the whole country.
I enlisted in 1976 and came to the 205th Regiment of the 69th Division of the original 23rd Army in Harbin, this unit may have been abolished now, the commander at that time was Wu Changfu, our regiment was a Red Army, and participated in the Battle of Menglianggu.
At the beginning of 1978, the Shenyang Military Region launched a large-scale military training campaign, and I remember that at the regimental training and mobilization meeting, Regiment Commander Wu stood on the high platform of the regiment headquarters playground against the cold wind to give us a mobilization report. Big-toed shoes are a kind of heavy and warm winter shoes issued by troops stationed in alpine areas, and the heel is wrapped in cowhide and is very strong, which shows how high the requirements for training intensity were at that time.
At that time, I was working as a chief officer in the regimental communications company, and I could hear the voice of Regiment Commander Wu basically every day, and his slightly hoarse accent still lingers in my ears. Commander Wu spoke kindly, never reported his position, no matter the size of the other party's position, he opened his mouth Hello, I am Wu Changfu, I remember that one day Commander Wu hit ** from the division headquarters to the regiment duty room, and it was the regiment chief of staff who picked up**, and he picked up ** and said I am the chief of staff, who are you? Commander Wu said that I was Wu Changfu, and the chief of staff was very embarrassed, so he hurriedly changed his name to the regiment commander, and what instructions did he have? This has also become a joke in our switchboard class.
In 1987, I also saw a report that he led a team to fight fires, and in 1998, I saw that he was the commander of the group army, and in 1998, I saw that he was the commander of the group army, and he led the team to participate in the flood fighting and rescue battle in Nenjiang. More than 40 years have passed in a blink of an eye, and I was surprised and very sorry to learn that the old head of the regiment had died, he was only over 70 years old, and he should have died prematurely when he was supposed to enjoy his old age, may the old head rest in peace in the spirit of heaven.