He was a northeastern man, but he gained the love of a southern girl; he was a master of air combat, but he crashed into a building and died; he was the person who shot down the most Japanese planes in the War of Resistance, but few people remembered his name.
His name is Liu Pugang, a Chinese hero whose life is fixed at the age of 24.
Liu Pugang was born in February 1913 in Changtu County, Liaoning Province, from a privileged family, with excellent academic performance, and was admitted to the Liaoning Provincial First Engineering School. After the fall of the northeast after the "918 Incident", Liu Pugang angrily said that "the lost land must not be restored, and the national vendetta must not be repaid." Abandoning his pen from Rong, he was successfully admitted to the second phase of the Jianqiao Central Aviation School.
Pictured: Students of the Central Aviation School of Jianqiao, qingyi rich second generation and handsome boys
After graduating in February 1934, he was appointed captain of the 24th Squadron of the Fifth Air Group of the Air Force two years later due to his superb flying skills.
After the outbreak of the Songhu Anti-Japanese War in 1937, the 5th Brigade was ordered to participate in the war, Liu Chugang piloted the Love Aircraft No. 2401 Hawker fighter, and began the air combat journey: from the first record on August 16 to the middle of October, a total of 11 enemy aircraft were shot down, becoming an air combat hero with brilliant achievements, together with Gao Zhihang, Le Yiqin, and Li Guidan, they were known as the "Four Heavenly Kings" of the Chinese Air Force, and the number of shotdowns of 11 aircraft also created the highest number of downcoming enemy aircraft in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
What is the concept of this shootdown number? At that time, China only had a total of 300 internationally built aircraft, the vast majority of which were American Hawker 2 and Hawker 3 biplane fighters, which were already outdated at that time, and their speed and mobility were far inferior to the Japanese Mitsubishi 96 monoplane fighters.
Liu Pugang is brave in battle, and he is also a fierce general in love.
While studying at Jianqiao Aviation School, one day, 21-year-old Liu Pugang met a beautiful Hangzhou girl on the train and fell in love with her at first sight. He secretly saw the girl's ticket get off the station, and then asked the street boy all the way, and learned the girl's name and address.
When liu Pugang went back, he wrote a love letter with a warm pulse: "When I first met the city station, I saw fangzi." Juan Xiu is gentle and elegant, admirable, and seems to be an acquaintance with Yu Zeng. The car arrived at the bridge, hurriedly parted, but did not know whose girly show. If it is a posture, it will not be seen again. Geng Geng's heart, looking at the eyes. ”
This girl's name is Xu Xilin, 18 years old, a big girl from a family of scholars in Hangzhou, after graduating from the normal class of Hangzhou Senior High School, she served as the principal of Linping Primary School near Jianqiao.
The pursuit of this reckless youth, Xu Xilin at first ignored it, but Liu Chugang's tactics were to chase after it, send one hot love letter after another, and use the most powerful move: every time he piloted the plane for training, he would fly to Xu Xilin's house to do a low-altitude flight, boldly performing stunts, shaking the windows and wires.
This fiery way of wooing his sister first impressed Xu Xilin's parents: "It must be the young man with the surname Liu, you write back and make a friend with him, such a persistent young man is rare." ”
Xu Xilin finally wrote back and agreed to make a relationship, and in the summer of 1935, a couple of lovers got married in Hangzhou.
Being a pilot's wife is not an easy task, especially when you witness your husband fighting fiercely in the air.
In October 1937, Liu Pugang was transferred to Nanjing to defend the airspace of the capital, and Xu Xilin also moved to Nanjing. One day, Japanese planes attacked, and the Chinese Air Force took off to meet the enemy. Xu Xilin stood on his balcony, terrified to see her husband's No. 2401 fighter plane surrounded by the Japanese army, and when her husband returned home, he hugged his head and cried: "You are desperate in heaven, but I can't help at all." ”
The young Liu Chugang and his wife had a pact: to be a Chinese Red Warrior (German World War I ace pilot Richterhofen), to shoot down 100 enemy planes, to blow up the three islands of Fuso, and to flatten Mt. Fuji!
But he broke the contract.
On October 25, 1937, Liu Pugang was ordered to lead his men to Shanxi to support the Battle of Xinkou. Due to the unfamiliarity of the long route and the fuel of the three planes, Liu Pugang put down the only flare to assist the two wingmen in landing. However, in the process of forced landing in the dark, he accidentally bumped into the Kuixing Tower, which is more than 20 meters high in Gaoping County, Shandong Province, and unfortunately died.
When he couldn't see the airport clearly, he didn't choose to skydive, because he was reluctant to let his favorite plane, the Chinese plane, drop one less.
Two weeks before leaving, Liu Pugang wrote a letter to his wife, which was also the last love letter: "If I were to sacrifice for the country and kill myself, it would be my duty, you should always use your wisest brain and reason, don't be stupid, don't sacrifice everything because of me." I only hope that in the journey of life, you will always remember that you met such a person as me. My Lin, I will always love you. ”
Less than two years into their new marriage, Xu Xilin, 21, lost her 24-year-old husband and the man who had flown a plane around her head.
After learning the bad news, Xu Xilin swallowed 36 silver dollars in one breath and committed suicide, fortunately, he was found by his family in time and sent to the hospital for rescue.
After regaining his senses, Xu Xilin wrote a long letter of mourning to his deceased husband, in which he wrote: "Gang, in your stubborn desire for benevolence and benevolence, you have fulfilled your duty as a soldier, but I, who am in the middle of the sun and the moon, do not know how to spend this year... I am determined to start with basic education, take your heroic and indomitable spirit, instill in the future youth, so that your spirit can be carried forward, and I can also serve the motherland by this... Just! Although you cannot set foot on the Three Islands and personally fly our national flag over Tokyo, your comrades will never be able to shoulder this great task, and the lost land under the ravages of the enemy will surely be recovered one day! ”
Xu Xilin promised Liu Pugang to continue her education, and she kept her promise - in August 1938, the Nationalist government established a pugang primary school in Kunming, with Xu Xilin as the principal, and the students enrolled in the school were all serving in the Air Force or the children of the remnants.
After Xu Xilin went to Taiwan, he remarried at the age of thirty, and her husband was still in the air force.
Half a century later, in 1990, Xu Xilin, who was already 70 years old, crossed the strait to the tomb of Liu Chugang at the Nanjing Aviation Martyrs Cemetery and presented a banner written by his own hand: "Qin Shi Mingyue Han Shi Guan, The Long March has not been returned." But to make the Dragon City fly will be, do not teach Huma to cross the Yin Mountains. ”
Because of love, how can there be vicissitudes? So we're still young.