In December 1949, Xu Dingzhong (second from left in the back row) became a member of the People's Liberation Army along with his colleagues. Courtesy of respondents
Guangzhou, September 3( China News Network Title: Aviation Saves the Country: Descendants of Chinese Pilots on the Hump Route Gather to Remember Their Fathers
China News Network reporter Suo Youwei
"At the beginning of 1942, when Chinese airlines recruited a large number of pilots to participate in hump airlift flights, my father Xu Dingzhong signed up to become a co-pilot and risked his life to airlift supplies to China. In addition to the effects of bad weather, there were also Japanese raids, and they often sent planes to intercept transport aircraft that had no ability to resist. ”
On the eve of the anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Xu Guoji, vice president of the Guangdong Provincial Aviation Friendship Association, said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Network.
The Hump Route is an air passage jointly opened by China and the United States in the mountains of southwest China during World War II to ensure the transportation of Strategic Materials, and its opening is a feat in the history of world aviation co-founded by the flight personnel of the two countries.
Born in Nanjing in December 1916, Xu Dingzhong worked as an aircraft mechanic after graduating from the second phase of the mechanical class of the Central Aviation Mechanical School in Nanchang, and later learned to fly.
Xu Dingzhong and his wife Zhao Min took photos in front of the Kunming Hump Flying Monument in the winter of 1994. Courtesy of respondents
"When my dad flew the Hump route, he flew for several days, sometimes staying at Tingjiang Airport in India." Xu Guoji provided a reporter with Xu Dingzhong's self-description of "Unforgettable Hump Flight" in his later years, saying that the time for flying back and forth from Tingjiang to Kunming was six hours, but sometimes after a round-trip flight was over, due to the backlog of materials or the turnover of flight personnel, it was necessary to fly an additional one-way, that is, three hours. The cumulative flight time per person per month is at least hundreds of hours, and even hundreds of hours in a month, which seems obvious today to be a serious overtime flight, but it is not a matter at all during the hump air freight... In the late stage of hump airlift, when the weather is good, when we can see the ground, we will occasionally find some silver glittering aircraft wreckage on the way, and these planes crashed either in the overlapping deep mountains and old forests, or under the cliffs of the abyss...
"My dad also got love during the hump flight and fell in love with my mom, a Bai girl. At that time, piloting was a very scarce profession, and my mother was born in Dali, Yunnan Province, where traffic was blocked, and even car drivers were rarely seen at that time, let alone pilots who flew airplanes into the sky. Xu Guoji told the love story of his parents: "There are enthusiastic people who introduce objects to my father, and my mother knows and runs to see what the pilot looks like." Because there were many people watching the liveliness at the door, she was not tall, and she jumped up from time to time in the back to look inside, and this scene was seen by my father and immediately felt good, and then the two of them walked together. ”
Chen Weiling's only photograph of an air force flight suit during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Courtesy of respondents
Xu Guoji recalled that in early July 1949, Xu Dingzhong went to guangzhou Baiyun Airport to serve as a controller at the newly opened tower of the air traffic control station at Baiyun Airport. At this time, Guangzhou was facing liberation, and some controllers of the tower left their posts in early October, "but my father insisted on working until the liberation of Guangzhou, and the control station was taken over by the Air Force Department (Aviation Department) of the Guangzhou Municipal Military Control Commission, and all the remaining personnel were taken over by the People's Liberation Army." ”
After the founding of New China, Xu Dingzhong was transferred to the Guangzhou Office of Civil Aviation along with other personnel of Baiyun Airport, during which time he and other controllers formulated the control regulations and regulations of civil aviation in New China with reference to the previous "Interim Rules for Air Traffic" and other regulations on control and command to ensure flight safety. Xu Dingzhong also worked as an instructor of pilots, and the students he taught were all over the civil aviation airports.
Under the guidance of Xu Guoji, this reporter came to the Guangdong Provincial Aviation Monument in the Songhu Anti-Japanese Memorial Park of the 19th Route Army in Guangzhou.
Certificate of insurrection issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China for Chen Weiling. Courtesy of respondents
The monument was built to commemorate the pioneers of China's aviation industry and the air force officers who died in the Northern Expedition and the War of Resistance Against Japan, in order to unite overseas compatriots and promote the reunification of the motherland. The front of the stele is engraved with the four characters of "Aviation to Save the Country" inscribed by Sun Yat-sen, the back is engraved with the name of the "Guangdong Provincial Aviation Monument" inscribed by Marshal Xu Qianqian, the south side is the stele, and the west side is engraved with the names of 266 aviation heroes who died in the line of duty.
Chen Anqi, who was interviewed with Xu Guoji in front of the monument, recalled that she was also her father Chen Weiling, who participated in the hump flight. Chen Weiling was born in Nanjing in September 1919, witnessed the indiscriminate bombing of Nanjing by the Japanese army in August 1937, and made up his mind to apply for the Air Force. At the end of 1937, Chen Weiling returned to his ancestral hometown of Guangzhou with his family and applied for the first phase of the Air Force Military School to learn to fly. From the end of 1940 to 1943, Chen Weiling carried out the task of defending Chengdu and Chongqing in the 11th Brigade of the Air Force. At the beginning of 1945, Chen Weiling was admitted to the Chinese Airlines as a co-pilot and participated in the hump airlift.
The pilot's descendants (from left to right: Chen Anqi, Xu Guoji, li Baoying) in front of the Guangdong Provincial Aviation Monument he Junjie photographed
"During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, my father flew 700 hours in the Air Force and more than 300 hours in the Hump Air in China Aviation." Chen Anqi said that at the end of 1949, Chen Weiling participated in the uprising, returned to the mainland from Hong Kong in 1950, worked in the civil aviation of New China until his retirement in 1981, and successively served as a captain of international routes and a flight instructor of a senior aviation school, with a flight time of more than 10,000 hours.
"My father said to us a few days before he died, 'If I still had the strength, I would like to fly and fight with little Japan, and I don't want to die in bed like this.'" Chen Anqi recalled the scene at that time with tears in her eyes. (End)