Photographs of the daughter's father found in her father's hometown. (Infographic/Figure)
One
Ms. Zhang Yajie, who was preparing to go to Taipei's Martyrs' Shrine for the first time during the Qingming Dynasty, said more than once, "All this is only because this is my mother's request, because she wrote it in her will, and I must do it." ”
Zhang Yajie, along with her mother's surname, whose mother was Zhang Hong'en, left a will before her death in September 2003, writing, "When I was alive, I always wanted to go near changde city and live in his burial place until my end, and I also went to the Civil Affairs Bureau to consult the relevant rules and regulations, perhaps they were afraid of trouble and did not return." Therefore, when you pass through Changde, please sprinkle my ashes into the flower soil next to the martyrs' tombs as my wish and memorial plan. ”
She was talking about the Memorial Cemetery of the Battle of Changde, which was introduced by the Ministry of Civil Affairs's China Heroic Martyrs Network: On November 16, 1943, the Japanese army attacked Changde City in three ways, and the 57th Division of the Kuomintang Army stationed in Changde at that time, under the leadership of Yu Chengwan, vowed to defend Changde to the death. After more than 20 days of fierce fighting, more than 5,000 officers and men of the 57th Division died heroically. In order to commemorate the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country, after the Battle of Changde in 1944, Wang Yaowu, commander of the 74th Army of the Kuomintang Army, decided to build a "Martyrs' Cemetery" in Changde, which was completed after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945.
Around 1945 or 1946, Zhang Hong'en saw his name here for the first time, thus confirming that he had sacrificed.
Two
he.
What was it like to become such a simple word in her will after many years of leaving him, and only mentioned it once, without mentioning the name throughout, but accompanied by the clearest wish to return to him?
His name was Yang Weijun, who died in the Changde Battlefield on December 2, 1943, at the age of 30, and was the commander of the first battalion of the 169th Regiment of the 57th Division of the 74th Army of the Kuomintang Army.
When his comrades-in-arms rushed to deliver the relics to Zhang Hongen as soon as possible after Changde's restoration, she immediately embarked on the search with her daughter, who was only a few months old.
She wanted to see him one last time.
Unfortunately, there was chaos in Changde City at that time, and this first search was fruitless.
The second time, after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, the mother and daughter took a group photo in front of the tombstone with their father's name on it.
Pictured on the right is a mother and daughter in front of their father's monument (infographic/photo)
Three
The first time I visited Zhang Yajie, she told me that she took my mother's surname, which is what my father meant.
The father did not say that if he sacrificed himself, he would ask his mother to remarry, at least the daughter did not remember that her mother had mentioned it.
The father also named the unborn child, saying that both boys and girls were called Yajie, which means "Asian Haojie".
It was in the autumn of 1942, when the war was strained, and Yang Weijun was ordered to go home on vacation to visit Zhang Hongen, who was pregnant.
What he thought at that time, and what she thought, now there is nowhere to find the answer, only that after his sacrifice, she often cried and sang "Qiushui Yiren", as a lullaby for her daughter, and sang it countless times in the years that followed.
So many years later, when my daughter brought up this detail to me, her husband, who was also over the age of old, heard it next to him and sang a few words, saying that he remembered it too.
"Looking through the autumn water, I don't see the shadow of the Yi people... Only your daughter yo, to comfort my broken heart. ”
Four
In 1942.
There must have been a short but very pleasant time before that last meeting, as a nurse in short supply at that time, she worked in the field hospital, dealing with the wounded every day, and should have been accustomed to the wounded, but met Yang Weijun, a tall and handsome wounded man who graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy.
Next, even if her mother objected to her marrying a soldier, she still had to go with him.
As determined as she was in her will years later.
In order to fulfill his mother's instructions, Zhang Yajie began to search for the place where his father died, and prepared materials to apply for martyrdom for his father, until he solemnly sprinkled his mother's ashes next to the martyr's tomb.
She had heard that so many fallen soldiers had emerged in the Battle of Changde (Yang Weijun's sacrificial defense of Changde alone was famous for the bloody battlefield of eight thousand Tiger Soldiers), and her mother was the only exception who asked to come back to reunite with her husband after death.
Since then, Zhang Yajie has come here every year to present flowers to his parents. This April, she will also go to the Taipei Martyrs' Shrine for the first time to pay homage to her father.
Five
At the behest of the mother.
Thinking of the story of clayton Kuhles, an American who searched for the missing crew of the "Hump Route" at his own expense, the detail that impressed me most during the interview process was that he did not stop after finding the first missing crew in 2002 and preparing the information to report to the relevant departments for follow-up, but because he learned that there were many units whose whereabouts were unknown, he set off again, even if the local jungle was full of danger, he almost took his life as an experienced climber, but he did not hesitate to do so, and has been more than 10 years.
You know, he spent his 60th birthday in the process and is no longer at an age when he is easily impulsive.
Why?
The answer was simple: His father served the U.S. Navy as a civilian electrician during World War II.
He wanted to commemorate his father in this way.
From 2002 to the present, he has found 22 crash sites and 193 missing persons have been identified.
Six
As a result, he also got to know the families of many missing crew members and found that he was not alone.
For example, when I asked, did these people come to China later to see where their families fought? As far as he knows, Kuris said, only one crew member's family has been to China, and that was the disappearance of CNAC #60机组 in November 1942. CNAC was an abbreviation for Chinese airline at the time, co-organized by Pan Am and the Chinese government, and the Hump route was first flown by them.
The unit has three members. Captain John Dean was a U.S. Navy pilot who later joined the Flying Tigers. A year later, in the summer of 1942, because the United States had entered the war, the volunteer Flying Tigers were disbanded and replaced by the U.S. Military Air Force. Dean chose to join CNAC when he was newly married and wanted to use his flying skills to save more money for his small family.
The other two, James Browne, 21, who plans to marry when he returns from China, doesn't think he'll be in China for long.
Indeed, he had been in China for less than two months at the time of his disappearance, and the captain was slightly longer, three months.
The third is K. L. Yang, Kuris writes, "Sadly, we have so far no knowledge of this radio operator, who may have come from China. ”
The website (www.miarecoveries.org) set up by Kuris for the search for missing crews contains reports of all identified crews, with names to be added.
Seven
To find the missing and recreate their wartime experiences, Braun's cousin, Robert Willet, embarked on the same path of research as Curris, including several trips to China, and in the process became an expert on the Hump route.
He was the only crew member Whom Kuris knew who had ever been to China.
At this moment, when I enter Willett's name, look at the articles and books returned by the search engine, and the report that he has entered old age but has not yet waited for his cousin to come home, and continues to run and appeal, I can't help but wonder, if there is no war, will he have another career choice, or even, another life?
The question also applies to Zhang Hongen, Zhang Yajie's mother and daughter, and Gary Zaetz, nephew of Eugene crew navigator Larry Zaetz. The first time he contacted me, he highly praised Kuris's search operation, and he is now Kuris's partner, and the website is designed and maintained by him.
They bonded because Kuris discovered the place where Eugene's crew was killed.
The wreckage of eugene's crew, the number on the fuselage, is still clearly visible. (miarecoveries.org Screenshot/Figure)
Eugene, full name Robert Eugene Oxford, nicknamed Eugene, joined the army in 1942 and was assigned to Kunming with the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force to carry out hump airlift missions. In January 1944, a group of eight of them took off from Kunming to Jambowa, India, and disappeared at the age of 24. Even if the wreckage of the plane was found, after a long period of erosion, except for Eugene, who was able to be picked up by a special plane arranged by the US military through DNA comparison, a solemn military funeral was held in his hometown in June 2017, and the other seven members of the crew were not so lucky and have not yet been able to return home.
Eugene crew in Kunming under the warm sun. (miarecoveries.org Screenshot/Figure)
Their crew disappeared in January 1944, more than 70 years ago.
This has to do with the lack of attention paid by the U.S. government, zetz said, and he wants to take the baton from his elderly father to push the missing crew back home.
The story of the war dead should be told by future generations, and as long as the living people have not forgotten, as the American movie "Dream Quest" said, they have not left, still in the hearts of their loved ones.
Father and mother reunited at the daughter's house (infographic/photo)
Hopefully, there will be no more wars on earth.