Chinese people who are somewhat familiar with the history of the war against Japan must be familiar with the Flying Tigers. Its official name is “American Volunteer Brigade of the Air Force of the Republic of China”, and it was an air force unit composed mainly of American pilots who helped the Chinese resistance during World War II, mainly fighting against The Japanese in China and Burma.
The Air Volunteer Brigade was headed by retired U.S. Flight Captain Chennault, who in 1941, with the support of President Roosevelt, received 100 warplanes from the United States through the Lend-Lease Act and recruited 100 pilots in the United States.
At first, some of the volunteer brigade members proposed to paint shark heads on the heads of the planes to scare the Japanese, and in December 1941, the Air Corps won its first combat victory over Kunming. Since residents of mainland China had never seen a shark before, they mistakenly called the planes “flying tigers”. The next day a newspaper published in Kunming used the term “flying tigers” to describe the volunteers’ planes. When the Chinese interpreter in the Air Corps saw it, he told Chennault the name “Flying Tiger” and the team members thought it was a good idea, so the Air Corps was officially named the “Flying Tigers”.
Flying Tigers hero Zhou Xundian’s ambition
There are many heroes of the Flying Tigers, one of them is Zhou Xundian, who was born in Ningbo in 1921, in order to protect his country, in December 1939, he enrolled in the aviation machinery school run by the National Government Air Force; in 1941, he went through a rigorous examination and entered the 15th flight school to stay in the U.S. officer class. After that, he and 71 qualified students went to the United States for training and received formal flight theory and flight practice training.
In July 1944, Zhou Xundian graduated from the U.S. and returned to China to fight against the war, along with the 5th batch of pilots from the 15th class. They were assigned to the U.S. 14th Air Force, the 5th Brigade of the U.S.-China Air Force, or Flying Tigers, and Zhou was assigned to the 27th Squadron.
From his return to China in July 1944 to the unconditional surrender of Japan in August 1945, Zhou participated in 71 air battles against Japan, shooting down 2 Japanese planes, destroying 40 Japanese planes on the ground and 23 military vehicles. He was awarded 13 medals and decorations by both the U.S. and China for his participation in the war and his outstanding achievements, among which the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal were awarded in Roosevelt’s name.
Zhou Xundian, who was born and died many times, wrote in his autobiography later: In every mission, I was always serious and responsible, without thinking about Life and death. Just want to get out a breath and attack the target ruthlessly. “Lingering clouds, long air, acting on personal desires, doing it painfully, as long as it hits the enemy, it is painful to die.”
On September 9, 1945, Zhou Xundian, under the leadership of the deputy commander of the Fifth Air Force Brigade, escorted the commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang Army, He Yingqin, to Nanjing to attend the surrender ceremony, and was able to witness the Japanese surrender chief, Okamura Neiji, sign the surrender letter. That year, Zhou Xundian was only 24 years old, but he was already a hero in people’s hearts.
After the victory of the war, Zhou Xundian married his classmate Qian Chengping. They had hoped to live a peaceful and stable life, but unexpectedly the Chinese Communist Party provoked a civil war, and Zhou Xundian was once again involved in the war. Due to the corruption in the Kuomintang, the disgruntled Zhou sought an opportunity to leave the air force.
Deceived by the Chinese Communist Party, the tiger fell into the sun
After the fall of Shanghai, Zhou Xundian saw the Communist Party’s East China Military Region Aviation Office publish a “Notice” in the Liberation Daily, which stated, “Former KMT airmen may register and report to the East China Military Region Aviation Office, and those who are willing to join the work will be arranged for work at their discretion; those who are willing to return to their original hometown will be given travel expenses and can go Home.” In the midst of hesitation, Zhou Xundian was deceived by the illusion of “for the people” created by the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai, and joined the Communist Air Force, and was highly valued, specially escorting the Communist Party leaders to various places.
After the establishment of the Chinese Communist regime, Zhou Xundian was named to serve in the newly established Tianjin Air Training Brigade to train pilots. In his flight training, he did not have a single accident, and his excellent skills were admired. Zhou Xundian, who was instrumental in opening up the northwest route and training pilots for the CPC, received several awards for his efforts.
In 1964, Zhou Xundian was transferred to Sichuan with the flight school, while his wife and children still lived in Tianjin. Since then, he and his Family have been living in two separate places. There were only two small gatherings each year: one to visit his family and one to go home for a short stay between convalescences.
He was killed during the Cultural Revolution and his body was eaten by dogs
When the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, Zhou Xundian went back to Tianjin to visit his wife and children after his convalescence in Hangzhou in the spring and summer of 1967, but he was accused of participating in a “conspiracy to flee the country by plane”. From 1968 onwards, he was placed under isolation.
At first, Zhou was able to keep his family informed of his situation through letters. In his letters, he told his wife, “The situation is now so complicated that the case is getting more and more complicated. There are more and more problems – because everyone is under pressure to give a thorough and detailed account to obtain ‘leniency’, they are making things up out of thin air and implicating each other without regard to objectivity or others. Some people even said in their accounts that I had taken leave to return to Tianjin in October 1967 and used a false name to try to flee to a foreign country by land or by way of a small road.” After that, his family lost contact with him completely.
On May 2, 1970, the SDU hero, who did not die in the air war with the Japanese, was killed alive during the censorship at the age of 49, without leaving a last word. In a reminiscence article, He Wanru, a family member of another “two airlines” defector, He Ying, wrote: “He Ying and Zhou Xundian were sent to pull large trucks, and each Time they had to pull rice and coal, and when they were hungry they could only buy a salted duck egg to satisfy their hunger. Later, the flight director Zhou Xundian was killed alive, so they quietly buried him in the field. Because it was sneaky, the burial was too shallow and later dragged out by dogs ……”
Liu Shanben, the first pilot to defect to the Communist Party, sought his own death
The first person to join the SDU was Liu Shanben, who was born in Shandong in 1915 and enrolled in the Kakaiqiao Aviation School in Hangzhou in 1935, and after graduation was assigned to the 8th Brigade of the Kuomintang Air Force as an operations officer and captain pilot. In 1943, he was sent to the United States to study, and after the war ended in 1945, he flew a B-24 bomber given to him by the United States, returning to China via India and Pakistan to participate in the Communist civil war.
As early as the year Liu Shanben graduated from high school, he had read an article about Mao Zedong written by American journalist Snow in a magazine and was impressed by Mao. After he returned to China, he again found “New Democracy” written by Mao on a bookstall and believed its lies. After hearing the news that the Chinese Communist Party welcomed the surrender of Kuomintang officers and soldiers and gave them preferential treatment, especially after hearing Mao’s statement that “peace and democracy in China are the sacred rights of the Chinese people,” Liu Shanben decided to join the Communist Party when he did not want to fight the civil war.
On June 26, 1946, Liu Shanben and 10 others took advantage of the opportunity to go from Chengdu to Kunming to transport the communication equipment handed over by the U.S. Army, escaped from ground control and flew to Yan’an, setting a bad precedent for the Kuomintang Air Force to fly planes to the Communist Party. Mao Zedong and Zhu De were present at the welcome meeting, and Zhu De invited him to his kiln as a guest, while Mao received Liu Shanben in his office to prepare the first aviation school in the Northeast and took a photo with him. He was thus called a “leading man” by the Communist Party.
During his stay in Yan’an, Liu Shanben, deceived by the lies, made a speech to the KMT air force on Xinhua Radio, accusing the KMT of provoking a civil war, saying that the people of Yan’an were “living and working happily” and calling on everyone to “fight together for peace and democracy. After listening to Liu Shanben’s words, more than 100 Kuomintang airmen either flew planes or joined the Communist Party on foot.
In September 1946, Liu Shanben went to the northeast to participate in the founding of the country’s first aviation school (the old aviation school) and was appointed vice president, making a great contribution to the Communist Party’s efforts to train the air force, and in February 1949, he was approved to join the Communist Party. It was their defection that “not only accelerated the disintegration of the remnants of the Kuomintang military forces, but also gave us a rapidly growing air force and navy”.
In October of that year, Liu Shanben was allowed to participate in the parade of the founding ceremony, and in December, the Communist Party decided to establish six aviation schools on the basis of the old one, with Liu Shanben as the principal of the First Aviation School. After the outbreak of the Korean War, he served as the commander of an aviation division and led his division into the war, using electronic countermeasures and illumination bombing as combat methods for the first time.
In 1955, he was awarded the rank of major and in 1964, he was promoted to the rank of major general in the Air Force. He was also elected as a delegate to the First, Second and Third National People’s Congresses, a member of the First Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and a member of the National Defense Commission.
However, after the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Liu Shanben did not escape his fate. He was uncomfortable with Air Force Commander Wu Faxian and others who were fighting against one faction at the Air Force Academy, and he could not bear to see his comrades and leaders being beaten up on trumped-up charges for years. Wu Dou ……”
In 1967, the Air Force Academy illegally set up the “Liu Shanben Task Force” to smear him as a “fake uprising, real agent” and a “mega agent”. “The task force not only criticized and physically punished him, but also made him leave early and return late.
The task force’s questions included: “The KMT had many pilots, why were you singled out for training in the United States? Did you have a special relationship with Chiang Kai-shek?” “Which instructors did you know during your study in the United States? Which classmates? What other friends did you have? What conspiracies and collusions did you have? Give a detailed account, and also write down the references for each stage according to the dates.” “You were favored and promoted in the KMT air force, if you had gone with Chiang Kai-shek, you would have gotten high rank and promotion, why did you abandon all this and risk your life to go to Yan’an and suffer?”
Late at night on March 2, 1968, Liu Shanben was raided by the task force and taken to a suite on the second floor of the west end of the Air Force Academy office building for interrogation. After being tortured for several days, Liu Shanben died on March 10, at the age of 53. Most of the Kuomintang pilots who followed Liu Shanben to the Communist Party also met a tragic end.
Conclusion
I wonder if Zhou Xundian and Liu Shanben realized at the moment of their death that what they believed in at the beginning was just a democratic pie drawn by the Chinese Communist Party, and that their choice was really wrong. They had not only harmed themselves, but also their families, and even their friends and colleagues. It is really a mistake!
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