Some time ago, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the sacrifice of Wang Wei, a pilot of our navy, for the country, the people of the whole country expressed their deep feelings of mourning for him.
20 years ago, in order to protect the safety of the country's territorial airspace, Wang Wei flew a fighter jet to crash into and destroyed a US reconnaissance plane, sacrificing his life for the country.
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's national defense capacity building was just beginning, and it was often "militarily harassed" by Western countries. In the face of provocation, a mysterious force at that time stepped forward, from the formation to the first operation of only one year, but repeatedly achieved miraculous feats, became a core force to defend the national airspace security.
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In the 1950s, the two camps, the East and the West, led by the United States and the Soviet Union, began a decades-long confrontation. This confrontation was first embodied in the military aspect, when both the United States and the Soviet Union were nervously upgrading their armaments, and at the same time they were trying to understand the situation of the other side, which is the so-called "knowing oneself and knowing the other, never losing a battle."
In order to accurately obtain information on the defense construction of the Soviet Union, the Americans spent great financial and material resources to develop a new type of high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, which is widely known as the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft.
Speaking of this reconnaissance aircraft, I believe that military fans will not be unfamiliar, this reconnaissance aircraft began to serve in the United States Air Force in the mid-1950s, and in the following decades, it played the main force of AMERICAN air reconnaissance, and its "footprints" spread to almost every country in the world.
Because of its wandering tracks, this reconnaissance aircraft is covered in dark black, so it is also known as the "Black Widow".
In 1956, the "Black Widow" began to officially enter service, conducting intelligence reconnaissance and gathering, and its first mission was to fly over the Territory of the Soviet Union to scout the defense of the Soviet Union.
During its first mission, the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft relied on its multiple high-definition cameras to take photographs of several military bases in the Soviet Union.
At that time, the Soviet Union was obviously shocked when it ushered in such an "uninvited guest", because the Soviets found that neither radar nor their own aircraft could effectively limit the movement of U-2 reconnaissance aircraft.
In the following reconnaissance operations, the footprints of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft covered almost half of the Soviet Union, and although the Soviet radar found the signal of the other side, the flight altitude of the Soviet aircraft at that time could not reach the height of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, so it could only watch the other side flee in front of its own eyes.
The success of the Black Widow's expedition to the Soviet Union fueled the arrogance of the Americans, and for a period of time afterwards, reconnaissance aircraft often flew unscrupulously into the airspace of other countries for military reconnaissance.
In 1958, the "Black Widow" began to invade our country, repeatedly entering the airspace of our country to collect intelligence.
Due to the limited national defense strength of our country at that time, there was always no effective way to strike in the face of the invasion of enemy aircraft. The emergence of the "Black Widow" made the Soviets very angry, so the Soviet Ministry of Defense ordered to speed up the upgrading of national defense capabilities, and the most important project was the development of the "SAM-2" air defense missile.
The SAM-2 anti-aircraft missile is the first generation of surface-to-air missile system made by the Soviet Union, which began to be developed as early as 1953, and the emergence of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft in the United States can be said to have accelerated the advent of the "SAM" missile.
The biggest feature of the "SAM" missile is that it can accurately strike high-altitude flying weapons, and it is the nemesis of the American "Black Widow".
After the Soviet Union announced in 1957 that it had completed the development of the SAM-2 missile and exhibited it for the first time in a military parade in Moscow that year, American reconnaissance aircraft seemed to have been deterred and reduced military reconnaissance of the Soviet Union.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" >2. Ground and air forces were built quickly, and the morale of the first battle was strong</h1>
As early as 1956, Zhou Enlai, then premier of the State Council, decided at the meeting to set up China's Missile Administration and Missile Research Institute, and in the following period of time, he sent officers to the Soviet Union for study and exchange on many occasions.
After the U-2 reconnaissance planes began to aim their cameras at Chinese soil, the central leaders decided to speed up the formation of missile forces, and since the Soviet Union had successfully developed the SAM missile, seeking assistance from the Soviet Union became the most direct and effective way at that time.
In June 1958, Beijing welcomed a soviet military expert group that had come to China to assist the PLA in forming a surface-to-air missile battalion.
In the following six months, our army established the first missile school and the first surface-to-air missile battalion. At that time, for the sake of secrecy, this missile battalion was called "Unit 543" and was declared a "geological survey unit" to the outside world.
After the successful formation of the "first battalion," our army set up the second and third battalions of the missile battalion in Beijing and Nanjing, respectively.
At the beginning of 1959, the soldiers of the first battalion were first instructed and trained by the Soviet regiment of experts. Under the guidance of the Soviets, the officers and men of our army learned the theoretical knowledge and operational techniques of the "SAM" missile system.
However, the help provided by Soviet experts was not as harsh as that of teachers in schools teaching students. In order to prevent the leakage of core technology, the Soviets had very strict confidentiality requirements for Chinese officers involved in the study, and issued five or six "certificates" for attending lectures alone, which were used to enter and exit gates, classrooms, launch bases, and so on. In addition, students cannot turn their heads and ears during the lecture, and the scratch paper and notes in the class cannot be taken out of the classroom.
Strict confidentiality requirements, coupled with the language barrier, the teaching content of the experts in the classroom can only be conveyed through translation, and it is in this learning environment that the officers and men of the missile battalion began to learn the missile combat system.
Although the Soviets set many confidentiality requirements for the study of our army, what the experts did not expect was that the Chinese soldiers, with their own memories and determination to the cause of national defense, achieved very good results in the four-month study.
Later, even Soviet defense expert Slyosky said that the achievements of Chinese officers in the study of the SAM missile system were no less than those of military talents cultivated by the Soviet Union itself.
After the Soviet expert group returned home after completing its teaching tasks, our army organized missile live-fire training on many occasions, and unlike when teaching, live-fire training did not hit an umbrella target, but a target aircraft.
The speed of the target aircraft is not much different from that of the common high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, and it is very close to the actual combat scene, and the performance of the officers and men of the missile battalion in the live-fire training also lived up to expectations, and successfully shot down the target aircraft one by one, which greatly boosted the morale of the army.
Of course, live-fire training was not the original intention of this missile battalion, and the "good drama" was about to be staged.
In September 1959, on the day of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the officers and men of the missile battalion received orders from the organization to enter a state of first-level alert to ensure the safety of Beijing's airspace during the National Day.
Just as all the officers and men of the missile battalion were sharpening their swords and swords, during the National Day period, the skies over Beijing were unusually calm, so until October 5, the alert was lifted.
However, two days after the alert was lifted, at about 9 a.m. on October 7, the Fujian front received a radar report that an RB-57D reconnaissance plane flew to the mainland from over Zhejiang, at which point the Fujian Military Region immediately dispatched fighters to intercept it.
However, the reconnaissance plane, taking advantage of its altitude, has been flying north with great swagger, and the fighter plane has no choice but to take it.
The RB-57D reconnaissance aircraft is also a model developed by the United States, and after the Kuomintang defeated Taiwan, it once purchased this model from the United States, plus the aircraft entered from Fujian, so it can be basically concluded that this is a reconnaissance operation of the Kuomintang.
In fact, from the beginning of 1959 to June, the Kuomintang Air Force flew RB-57D reconnaissance planes into the mainland airspace 17 times, and the arrogance was really irritating.
At 11:15 a.m., when the reconnaissance plane was still about 480 kilometers away from Beijing, Yue Zhenhua, commander of the second battalion of the missile battalion, immediately issued an order: Three missiles, destroy the enemy plane!
Immediately, several loud "booms" were heard from the missile launch site, and three missiles rose from the ground, plunged straight into the clouds, and sprinted toward the Kuomintang reconnaissance plane with precision.
After a while, the three missiles met the enemy plane in the high air, and suddenly it exploded into a ball of fire in the sky.
"Report, all three missiles hit the target!" Yue Zhenhua heard the report of the front-line soldiers from the earpiece, and his clenched fist was excitedly swept into the air.
The successful hitting of these three missiles not only means that the missile battalion won the first battle victory, but also the first case in the world's military history in which a ground-to-air missile shot down an enemy plane.
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After the "543 Unit" became famous in World War I, it did make the Kuomintang Air Force quite peaceful, and for a period of time, the Kuomintang reconnaissance planes rarely entered the mainland airspace.
However, there are Americans behind the Kuomintang, and they have never had a dead heart. After the RB-57D reconnaissance plane was shot down, the Taiwan authorities heard that the US military had developed a reconnaissance plane with better performance than the RB-57D, so they asked the Americans for assistance.
The Americans never refused such a thing, and this time they sold several newly developed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft to the Nationalists and sent experts to guide the Nationalist Air Force in its operations.
Under the guidance of the Americans, the Taiwan Air Force set up a "Black Cat Squadron" to specially fly U-2 reconnaissance planes to collect intelligence on the mainland.
In January 1962, on the runway of Taiwan's Taoyuan Airport, a black plane rushed into the sky, which was the first time that the Kuomintang sent a U-2 reconnaissance plane to fly into the mainland airspace.
About ten hours later, the plane returned to Taoyuan Airport "unharmed."
The successful attack of the U-2 reconnaissance plane made the Kuomintang authorities very excited, and at the same time, the top level of our party was very angry.
Since the highest flight altitude of our army's aircraft at that time could not reach the height of the U-2 reconnaissance plane, everyone agreed to let the missile battalion come out.
However, the biggest problem in front of us is that the surface-to-air missile system is a relatively fixed heavy weapon, and the enemy's reconnaissance planes come and go without a trace, and it is difficult to carry out effective strikes.
Later, after discussions between the Central Military Commission and the missile battalion, it was decided to use the "guerrilla warfare" that our army is most familiar with to compete with the U-2 reconnaissance plane.
In June 1962, the soldiers of the second battalion of the missile battalion moved from Beijing to Changsha, Hunan Province, with the "big guys" for deployment, but when the missile launcher was installed in Changsha, they did not wait for the enemy plane for a period of time.
Faced with a cunning opponent, the officers of the missile battalion were not discouraged, and they re-analyzed the situation and formulated new strategies.
After careful analysis, Liu Yalou, who was the commander of the second battalion at the time, found that the other side's reconnaissance planes had entered the mainland 11 times in the past, and 8 of them had passed through Nanchang, and that every time there was an aircraft movement in the direction of Fujian, the U-2 reconnaissance plane would conduct reconnaissance in the next few days.
Therefore, Liu Yalou decided to move to Nanchang again.
In early September 1962, in order to lure the enemy, the Nanjing Military Region took off several heavy bombers in succession and flew in the direction of Nanchang.
At 6:00 a.m. on September 9, a U-2 reconnaissance plane took off from Taiwan's Taoyuan Airport and flew in the direction of Fujian.
Shortly after the reconnaissance plane took off, it was detected by our army's radar, and Liu Yalou immediately announced that the whole battalion had entered a state of operation.
More than an hour later, the U-2 reconnaissance plane flew over Fuzhou and continued its journey north.
Based on his previous experience in "dealing with" the U-2 reconnaissance plane, Liu Yalou knew that the reconnaissance plane had a radar early warning device that could intercept the radar signal from 60 kilometers away, so as to determine the location of the missile launch and avoid the attack on the ground.
Liu Yalou knew that this "turtle in the urn" action could not be lost, if it was missed, it would be difficult to have the next chance, so he wanted to let the missiles launched strike the other side accurately, rather than striking grass and snakes.
Liu Yalou ordered the soldiers at the launch site to turn off the radar signal and wait for the enemy to arrive. The warriors who received the order were full of doubts, but they all turned off the radar as required.
At this time, Liu Yalou was nervously staring at the hands on his watch in the combat headquarters, silently calculating the time when the U-2 reconnaissance plane would arrive.
At 8:32, Liu Yalou speculated that the enemy plane was about to enter the range of the missile, so he decisively issued an order: turn on the radar, catch the target, and launch the missile!
After the fighters turned on the radar, small dots representing enemy aircraft immediately appeared on the radar screen, and then three SAM missiles on the launch site took off one after another.
Because the Kuomintang reconnaissance plane was so close to the launch site at this time, it was difficult to escape the range of the missile even if it received a radar signal.
A few minutes later, the three missiles hit the target accurately, the bullets were not false, and the U-2 reconnaissance plane that was hit fell not far from the outskirts of Nanchang City.
The Battle of Nanchang once again made "Unit 543" famous, and this was the first time that China shot down a U-2 reconnaissance plane in its territory, which shocked the Kuomintang and made the Americans feel incredible.
Since then, the "543 Unit" has become more and more courageous in the Vietnam War, shooting down a number of enemy planes in Quzhou, Jiangshan and other places in Zhejiang Province, and has made remarkable achievements in the cause of protecting the security of the country's airspace, and is a veritable heroic unit.