There were ten columns in the East China Field Army, and of the ten column commanders, only one column commander was not awarded a rank at the 1955 award ceremony. And why wasn't he awarded a military rank?
He was Guan Wenwei, commander of the Eleventh Column of the East China Field Army, and although he was not famous, those who could serve as the commander of the East China Field Army Column must also have real ability. Guan Wenwei was born in Danyang, Jiangsu Province, and was already engaged in revolutionary work in 1926.
In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched the "April 12" counter-revolutionary coup, which created white terror throughout the country, and Guan Wenwei, who was in charge of underground work at that time, was arrested and imprisoned for betrayal by traitors, and the organization was also very seriously damaged, fortunately Guan Wenwei was not killed by reactionary agents, but was imprisoned, until the second cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communists to establish an anti-Japanese united front, Guan Wenwei was released, Guan Wenwei was imprisoned for seven years, and when he was released from prison, he was already a thing and a person outside.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, although Guan Wenwei lost contact with our party, he still remembered the mission entrusted to him by the party, so Guan Wenwei ran around in Danyang and pulled up an anti-Japanese armed force, which soon developed to more than two thousand people, and Guan Wenwei led more than two thousand people to resist the Japanese army. Guan Wenwei knew that the New Fourth Army led by our party was in the south, and although no party organization could be found, Guan Wenwei would continue to destroy the transportation lines of the Japanese army and support the resistance of the New Fourth Army from the side.
It was not until President Chen Yi led the first detachment to meet Su Yu in the Maoshan area that Guan Wenwei finally had a chance to find the party organization, so he immediately left for Maoshan, met with President Chen, returned to the embrace of the party organization, and incorporated the anti-Japanese contingent he had pulled up into the New Fourth Army.
After the establishment of the East China Field Army, Guan Wenwei served as the commander of the Eleventh Column and concurrently served as the commander of the Soviet Central Military Region, and in the later stages of the Liberation War, Guan Wenwei was transferred to the director of the Southern Jiangsu Administrative Office. After the founding of New China, Guan Wenwei served in the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, so at the 1955 award ceremony, Guan Wenwei, who had already left the army, was not awarded a military rank, and he was also the only commander without a military rank among the ten column commanders of the East China Field Army.