After the Hubei Jute Uprising in November 1927, several armed uprisings were held in the border areas of Eyu-Anhui, and the Red 4th Army and the Red 25th Army were established successively.
In November 1931, the two armies formed the Fourth Front Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army at Qiliping, Huang'an County, Hubei Province, with Xu Qian as the former commander-in-chief and Chen Changhao as the general political commissar.
In the winter of 1931, the Red Fourth Front marched south and attacked Huang'an City (present-day Hong'an County). There were more than 10,000 enemy defenders in the city, the fortifications were strong, and there was an artillery battalion. The Red Fourth Front not only did not have artillery, but also did not understand explosives, so it adopted the tactic of encircling points to attack reinforcements.
Huang An was besieged for more than a month, and enemy reinforcements were repelled several times, but the city gate was still not opened. In the end, the Red Fourth Front decided to bomb with the only aircraft of the Red Army at that time.
How could the Red Fourth Front have aircraft?
The plane was a German-built trainer plane that had been captured from the Nationalists a year earlier.
The workers of the Red Army Arsenal selected two more than 100 pounds from the "stink bombs" dropped by the enemy planes, repaired the firing pins and detonators, and installed two hanging bomb racks under the wings. In this way, the advanced trainer aircraft became bombers.
"Historical Review- Memoirs of Marshal Xu Qianqian" writes: "The headquarters of the Fourth Front Army decided to attack the city on the night of December 22... During the day, Chen Changhao got on a plane... After the plane reached the skies over Huang'an, it spun around a few times, and the enemy thought that they were airdropping supplies, and they ran out to prepare to grab things. Unexpectedly, it was the Plane of the Red Army that came. Leaflets were scattered and two large bombs were dropped, causing panic among the enemy. ”
Xu Xiangqian
In this way, the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army completed the first air raid against the enemy in the history of warfare. The enemy in Huang'an was terrified, afraid that the Red Army planes would fly back again, and the city was about to run out of ammunition, and a few days later, the enemy abandoned the city and fled south. The Red Army took advantage of the victory to chase after the enemy and completely annihilated the fleeing enemy.
Chen Changhao, who threw leaflets and bombs on planes under Xu Shuai, was the general political commissar of the Red Fourth Front. That generation, whether it was a military commander or a political work cadre, was able to take the lead at a critical moment, and was a good man at the top!
How was the plane captured?
On the morning of March 16, 1930, Long Wenguang, the commander of the Kuomintang Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, was ordered to fly an airplane from Hankou to Kaifeng, Henan Province, on an emergency airdrop communications mission. Encountering heavy fog on the way and a lack of fuel, the plane landed near the Chenjia River in today's Luoshan County, Henan. The Red Guards, who were nearby at the time, captured the plane and captured the pilot, Long Wenguang.
Subsequently, according to the instructions of Xu Xiangqian, chairman of the Military Committee of the Eyu-Anhui Revolutionary Committee, Qian Jun, captain of the pistol team of the Eyu-Anhui Border Special Zone, led people to disassemble the plane and transport it to Xinji in Xinxian County, Henan Province, where the special committee was located, in the form of ants moving.
Qian Jun, a native of Guangshan County, Henan Province, entered the Shaolin Temple at the age of 13 to study martial arts, returned to his hometown at the age of 18, began to participate in revolutionary activities in 1925, and later became a founding lieutenant general, who served as deputy commander of the Nanjing Military Region.
The captured Long Wenguang was originally a very ambitious soldier, and after a conversation with Xu Xiangqian, he deeply felt that defecting to the Communist Party was the right choice.
Long Wenguang
The next day, Long Wenguang expressed his willingness to join the Red Army. Xu Xiangqian listened, clasped his hand tightly, and said happily: "Congratulations to you and your plane on the way to the light, on behalf of the Soviet government, welcome you to the Red Army!"
In order to show his determination to join the Red Army, Long Wenguang changed his name to Long Chiguang.
Long Wenguang found a helper who knew mechanical knowledge, repaired the plane, assembled it, and applied a new layer of paint to the fuselage. The blue sky and white sun emblem on the tail of the plane are gone, and in its place are two bright red five-pointed stars, named "Lenin".
In order to strengthen the use and management of the "Lenin" aircraft, in May 1931, the Eyu-Anhui Military Commission also set up the first aviation bureau in the history of our army in Xinji, with Long Wenguang as its director.
Since then, the "Lenin" aircraft often took off from Xinji Airport to carry out aerial reconnaissance and throw revolutionary leaflets in the areas of Dabie Mountain, Gushi, and Huangchuan, which greatly shocked the enemy.
In June 1932, the Kuomintang frantically "encircled and suppressed" the revolutionary base area of Eyuwan with 300,000 people, and Chiang Kai-shek personally sat in Wuhan and successively mobilized dozens of aircraft from four air groups to destroy Long Wenguang and his "Lenin" aircraft in the air.
However, in several thrilling encounters, Long Wenguang, with his superb skills and extraordinary courage, jumped out of the enemy plane's encirclement and blockade and injured an enemy plane.
Chiang Kai-shek was angry and offered a reward of 100,000 oceans to capture Long Wenguang.
The Red Army was in an increasingly dangerous situation and was constantly moving, and the huge Lenin aircraft was very laborious in each transfer.
In desperation, the Red Army had no choice but to disassemble the Lenin plane and specially dispatch a team of several hundred people to carry the dismantled aircraft parts over the mountains and mountains to fight guerrilla warfare with the enemy. Even so, it still seems bulky.
Helplessly, Xu Xiangqian gave the order: In order to facilitate the destruction of the enemy, bury the "Lenin" plane on the spot.
Long Wenguang, director of the Red Army Aviation Bureau, was also unfortunately captured by the Kuomintang army on September 10, 1932. Chiang Kai-shek failed to persuade him to surrender and brutally sentenced him to capital punishment.
At the time of his death, Long Wen was only 34 years old.
The Aviation Directorate of the Red Army also naturally disintegrated.
In September 1951, when Wang Shusheng, then commander of the Hubei Military Region and later a founding general, led the Eyuwan Branch of the Visiting Delegation of the Old Southern Base Area of the Central People's Government to The Dabie Mountain, which had been away for 20 years, to comfort the people of the old area, the masses of Dabie Mountain dug out part of the "Lenin" they had carefully protected from the cold mountain pass with a hoe.
When the rusty remnants of the "Lenin" appeared in front of the people again, everyone silently took off their hats, bowed their heads in sorrow, cried a lot, and burst into tears, and couldn't help but think of the contribution of the first aircraft of the Red Army, and thought of the first Red Army pilot, Long Wenguang...
As the first aircraft in the history of our army, the remnants of the "Lenin" are still displayed in the China Aviation Museum. (Liu Jixing)