General Zhang Zizhong was a famous senior general of our country who died in the War of Resistance Against Japan. At that time, when he was serving in the officer training corps of Feng Yuxiang's department, one of his servicemen later became an air defense instructor in the Red Army. What happened next?
His name was Wang Zhitao, but he was not called this name when he was working as a service soldier for Zhang Zizhong, and his name at that time was Wang Shouheng.
Wang Shouheng is a native of Cangxian County, Hebei Province, born in 1906. Because his family was poor, he had no money for him to study, but he was very studious, so he often ran outside the window of the school to eavesdrop on Mr. Li's lectures while herding cattle. This moved Mr. Teaching, who taught him his homework at night. After his parents knew about it, they thought that he might be a material that could be made, so they tightened their clothes and food for him to finish high school.
In 1920, at the age of 14, Wang Shouheng was unable to continue his study career, and in order to change his fate, he joined the army in response to Feng Yuxiang's troops, but was selected as a service soldier by Zhang Zizhong, who also served in the Feng Department Officers' Teaching Corps. Under the influence of General Zhang, Wang Shouheng grew up to be a young officer with both civil and military skills, and also became a tutor.
In 1925, Feng Yuxiang decided to select a group of outstanding young officers in the army to study in the Soviet Union, and Wang Shouheng entered the list as one of the 26 outstanding captain officers, and it was at this time that he also changed his name to Wang Zhitao.
During his time in the Soviet Union, Wang Zhitao successively studied at the Kiev Red Army School and the Moscow Higher Infantry School, and at the same time became acquainted with Chen Geng, Zuo Quan, Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang, Liu Bojian, Deng Yanda, and other members of our party, and became a member of our party. Because of his intelligence and studiousness, Wang Zhitao was appointed as a military instructor at the infantry school after graduation, and concurrently taught military courses at Sun Yat-sen University and Oriental University in Moscow, and at the same time he also served as a staff officer of the Military Department of the Communist International, and also served as the military chief instructor of the Lenin Academy, especially conducting special research on air defense command and tactics.
In 1933, after returning to China, Wang Zhitao did not return to the old feng yuxiang department, but came to the Central Soviet District, which represented the advanced forces of China, and he was assigned to the Red Army School as a military chief instructor, after which he also served as Li De's translator.
At that time, the planes of the Kuomintang army often flew over Ruijin to drop bombs or strafing, but the Red Army did not even have an anti-aircraft machine gun, let alone any air defense unit, until October 1934, the Air Defense Section of the Red Army General Headquarters, which was composed of Wang Zhitao, was established to be responsible for air defense training and guidance of air defense operations.
In order to break this situation of "one poor and two white," Wang Zhitao, the "commander of the light pole," first, dispatched personnel from various units of the Red Army to organize air defense training classes; second, transformed heavy machine guns into anti-aircraft machine guns. After three months of training, a total of 12 platoons of fighter cadets returned to their original posts and became the backbone of the Red Army's air defense force.
Wang Zhitao also changed from "commander of the light pole" to a real battalion commander and air defense commander of the central column of the Red Army, and under his command he also successfully shot down 6 enemy planes and injured a number of enemy planes.
Later, Wang Zhitao was mainly engaged in military teaching. He successively served as chief of the military education section of the Red Army University, chief of the military education section of the General School of the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, director of training, commander of the Military Reorganization and Training Command, chief of education of the Aviation School, president of the Senior Air Defense School, deputy director of the Tactical Research Department of the Academy of Military Sciences, and deputy secretary-general. During this period, Wang Zhitao also served in the combat unit for a time, and he successively served as the chief of the training section of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, the chief of staff of the 385th Brigade, the deputy commander of the 14th Military Subdistrict of the Jidong Military Region, the chief of staff of the Jidong Military Region, and the deputy chief of staff of the Jichareliao Military Region.
In 1955, Wang Zhitao was awarded the rank of major general and died on June 19, 1999, at the age of 93.
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