The Beijing Winter Olympics schedule is about to pass, in just a few days, we have witnessed the "genius girl" Gu Ailing's faith jump, "hot-blooded teenager" Su Yiming's style ... The Olympic Games held at their own doorstep certainly have an unusual significance to their countrymen. But when it comes to the most special Olympic Games in history, it has to be the POW Camp Olympics 70 years ago.
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War suddenly broke out, and two days later, a multinational coalition led by the US military brazenly invaded Korea. In order to protect the hard-won new China, the volunteer soldiers resolutely crossed the Yalu River and rushed to Korea to fight, and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea began.
After two years of bloody fighting, the volunteers gained the initiative in the war and captured a large number of Allied soldiers, a total of 13,107 people. It was certainly inconvenient for the marching army to bring so many people, so the volunteer army built a large prisoner of war camp at the rear base of Bitong County.
As we all know, our army has always given preferential treatment to prisoners, not only providing them with cotton clothes and food, but also regularly organizing sports to promote the healthy physical and mental development of prisoners of war. Each POW camp purchased a large number of sports equipment and built a total of 82 training grounds, where the PRISONERs could play basketball and skate during their breaks.
In July 1952, the 15th Olympic Games were held in Helsinki, Finland, which was the first Olympic Games participated by New China. The PRISONERs could not sit still, some of them were athletes before enlistment, and the soldiers were naturally brave and aggressive, so they proposed to the volunteers that they also wanted to hold a sports meeting in the prisoner of war camp.
The person in charge of our army thinks that this is a good idea, which is good for mobilizing the emotions of prisoners of war, educating anti-war ideology, and the most important thing is to let the reporters in the prisoner-of-war camp record it, so that the whole world can see our army's generous prisoner policy.
Speaking of this reporter, it is also very unlucky. This man, Frank Knoll, once took a group of survivors who were hit by a torpedo during World War II, won the Pulitzer Prize, and is a well-known figure in the media circles around the world.
After the start of the Korean War, Frank felt that the second spring of his career was coming, and wanted to win another Pulitzer Prize, so he rushed to the front line with the Ace troops of the US Army, and was captured alive while he was frantically pressing the shutter.
Our army generally does not arrest reporters, but Frank is dead, wearing a military uniform, holding a pistol around his waist and sitting on a military jeep, and there is a machine gun next to him. As a result, he was treated as an American officer by the volunteers and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.
After much confirmation, Frank finally clarified his identity. Our army originally wanted to release him, but when the Associated Press learned that Frank had been arrested, it was overjoyed and sent firecrackers to celebrate. For the sake of precious exclusives, of course, I would like to ask: What American media can resist the temptation of first-hand information from volunteer prisoner-of-war camps?
The point is that Frank himself doesn't want to leave, and he seems to see a second Pulitzer trophy beckoning to him. Out of respect for my own wishes and for the sake of propaganda, our army left Frank behind. It wasn't long before the Associated Press sent a lot of professional equipment and told Frank to work well.
Everything is ready, but what should be the name of this sports meeting? The "Organizing Committee" received a lot of suggestions, and finally decided to adopt the idea of an African American prisoner of war, he mentioned that the Olympic Games have so many countries participating, we also have prisoners of war from more than ten countries, simply call it the Olympic Games.
On November 15, 1952, the "Olympic Games of the Chinese Volunteer Army Bitong Prisoner of War Camp" was grandly opened, and the slogan of the conference, "Peace", was written in Chinese, English and Korean, respectively, expressing the purpose of "sports for peace".
More than 500 PRISONERS from 14 countries competed fiercely for medals in 27 sports.
The U.S. team performed the most prominently, and in the most popular 100-meter sprint, African-American John Thomas ran a good time of 10.6 seconds, ranking first. You know, the world record at that time was only 10.2 seconds. It can be seen from this that the living conditions of the prisoners of war are indeed very good, and their physical fitness is limited.
In addition, the gold medals in the 200-meter run and various weights of boxing events have also been won by American players, and the team with Americans as the main force has also performed prominently in the three-ball competition.
The camp management cadre later recalled that he was most impressed by boxing, although he himself did not like such a barbaric sport, but the American soldiers were really capable of fighting, as fierce as lions.
Of course, the American team has not forgotten their "traditional skills". An American boxer who stole rice wine from the cooking class before the competition won the championship, only to be reported by an African-American soldier, whose results were canceled and punished by feeding pigs. No way, who let him take a "stimulant".
When it comes to wrestling, it's the world of Turkish and Korean players, who have beaten American soldiers hard in their respective advantages.
It turned out that in this prisoner-of-war camp, there were also three, six, nine, and so on. According to the division of national strength of various countries, white PRISONERs of War in the United States are first-class, Prisoners of African Descent are second-class, and prisoners of war in smaller countries are more bullied, otherwise you think that the white prisoner of war who drank yellow wine would be accused of being accused, and it is not that he has done too much evil in peacetime.
Among those "last-class" PRISONERS, Turkish PRISONERs of War were the most bullied because they were considered different from their religious beliefs in Western countries. The most bizarre thing is that American prisoners of war often put pig skins in the bowls of Turkish prisoners of war to prevent them from eating well.
In addition to Korean wrestling, Korean athletes also perform well in long-distance running. According to volunteer veterans, Rhee was the best at running, and those Korean soldiers who were not captured were forced to run away. These in the prisoner of war camp, those who are still slow to run, can cover all the medals in the 3,000-meter long run, and you can imagine how strong the escape ability of the South Korean soldiers is.
In short, in addition to diving, swimming and other water sports, because the weather is too cold to achieve, ball, athletics, skating, gymnastics and other major sports are available, no worse than the regular Olympic Games.
After the competition, the volunteers also prepared generous prizes for the winners, including cloisonné vases, sandalwood fans, silk scarf handkerchiefs, jade necklaces, silk umbrellas and so on purchased from all over China. These exquisite oriental crafts were highly sought after by prisoners of war and were no less popular than today's "top-class" ice piers.
Frank dutifully recorded all these beautiful moments, and after the photos of the Olympic Games in the prisoner-of-war camp came out, the world learned that the Chinese Volunteer Army was a benevolent division, and the rumors of the United States slandering our army's mistreatment of prisoners were self-defeating.
Frank also made a lot of money from these photos, and the total amount of money he received was as high as a million dollars, and 70 years ago, $1 million was a huge amount of money.
After the war, our army released all prisoners of war, 22 refused to repatriate, voluntarily stayed in China, 12 of them participated in the POW camp Olympic Games, one of them named Winneris, an American prisoner of war, who settled in China for life. During his lifetime, he mentioned the life of the prisoner of war camp many times, and praised the volunteer army, saying that it was the great love of the Chinese people and the resolution of the hatred of the war, so he wanted to stay in China to explore the truth.
The refusal of Winaris and others to repatriate has caused the United States to lose face and is still smearing the volunteer army, and the pattern is small and the Koreans have a fight.
Whenever we mention the Korean War, the first thing we think of is the tragedy of Shangganling and Chosin Lake, but in addition to the war, we also want to remind some countries with bad intentions that we can do the Olympic Games for friends, we are good at it, and we can also do it well for prisoners of war.