Text/Yuan Tie 1st Division 4th Regiment Yu Shihuai
On the occasion of the August 1st Army Day, I recalled my three experiences in distress in the army, which I will never forget.
At the end of 1970, before graduating from junior high school, I joined the army with honor. After three months of intensive training, the recruits were assigned to the laying team of the 4th Regiment of the 1st Division of the Railway Corps and participated in the construction of the third line. The focus is on laying the Xiangyu Railway, Hubei Shiyan, Bailang to Ankang, Shaanxi Province.
During this period, the company set two proud records in the history of the continental railway, namely: 12 hours of track laying and 1,200 meters completed; It took 12 hours to build the bridge and complete eight and a half holes (two holes are a bridge, just like the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge railway approach bridge).
At that time, due to my young age (not yet 15 years old), the platoon commander of the company took great care of me. In addition to the usual military training, in terms of work arrangement, I was either asked to move turnouts, or to watch the pipe wire rope on the track-laying machine or bridge.
Although the work is not hard, it is a great responsibility and involves personal safety. During this construction period, I was in danger three times and almost lost my life.
The first time was on the track-laying machine, and I can't remember the specific time and place, but I know that it happened at night.
One night, all the personnel of the company took the rail car and came to the construction site on time to take over the shift with other companies, and the leader arranged for me to go to the rail-laying car to see the wire rope of the winding machine. The wire rope on the coiling machine must be straightened out with a rod and skillfully, otherwise, once it is messy, it will be twisted, and there will be an accident and affect the progress of the work.
Halfway through, I ate a meal from the cooking class. In the second half of the night, it was laying tracks in a cave, and people felt a little stuffy. In addition, the smell of diesel smoke from the burning of the auxiliary rail machine made me a little sleepy and a little inattentive, and the gloves I was wearing were accidentally rolled into the machine. At this moment, I reacted quickly and took my hand out of the glove, which was rolled in by the machine, and my hand was intact, which was so lucky. If the hand is caught in the machine, it will either die or be disabled for life.
The second time, in the process of building a bridge, it was also a night shift, and it was raining heavily, and the leader arranged for me to move the turnout. Because, the 59-type bridge erecting machine must use two strands of road, back and forth, in order to lift the bridge, and then build the bridge.
The railway is built halfway up the mountain, with the Han River below, and the roadbed is a hillside that has been excavated, and at night, the situation on the hillside is unknown. At that time, it was raining heavily, and I was wearing a long raincoat issued by the army, pedaling beside the railway turnout, about one or two o'clock in the morning, it was dark, and I couldn't see my five fingers, only to see the bridge erector coming, and I could see people and things by the light.
Suddenly, the commander of the third platoon of the company shouted to me, and pointed anxiously at the hillside above my head with a gesture, telling me to leave quickly, due to the heavy rain, lightning and thunder, and the roar of the machine, I was wearing a raincoat, what he said, I couldn't hear it clearly, but I completely understood what he meant, telling me to get out of place quickly.
Fortunately, even if I reacted quickly, I kicked next to the fork, didn't even get up, even rolled and climbed, and quickly left the original position of the fork, at this time, just a boulder fell down from the top of the hillside, just smashed on the fork. At that time, if it wasn't for the early discovery of the third platoon leader, timely shouting and gesticulating, coupled with his own quick response, I am afraid that my life would have been fixed on the Xiangyu line.
Afterwards, I hurried to Platoon Commander He and thanked him in person for giving me a second life.
The third time is on the "hole complex" type bridge erecting machine. The "hole refu" type bridge erecting machine is different from the "59" type bridge erecting machine in the same way as the balance table, and the "hole re" type bridge erecting machine uses the stretched back to rise and fall forward, which is to erect the bridge erecting machine 0 column on the pier in front, and the bridge is transported to the appropriate position from back to front, and then put the bridge on the pier support.
Therefore, there should be four winding machines on the back of the bridge erecting machine, and someone needs to guard the wire rope to prevent the wire rope from falling out of order, so as to ensure the smooth and safe landing of the bridge. Generally, the bridge piers are more than twenty or thirty meters high, some are higher, and the back of the bridge erector must be about ten meters higher than the bridge in order to transport the bridge to the position of the zero column.
Therefore, the four personnel who take care of the reeling machine must operate at an altitude of thirty or forty meters, which is indeed a high-altitude operation, and people who are afraid of heights really dare not go up.
This time also counted my fate, the specific experience is: during the day, the squad platoon leader arranged for me to go to the bridge erecting machine to see the wire rope of the pipe winding machine, just when a bridge was about to fall to the pier support, suddenly, another group of wire ropes broke, the whole bridge erecting machine by the bridge hundreds of tons of heavy penetrating force, left and right back and forth a few times, seeing that the machine was about to be destroyed, when falling into the river, fortunately, at this moment, the bridge fell on the support, the bridge swing a few times, the bridge erecting machine stabilized, to avoid a major safety accident.
One can imagine what would have happened if man and machine had fallen from a height of forty or fifty meters. Afterwards, I was really scared.
Time flies, the years are like water, August 1st is coming again, on this occasion to pay tribute to the old chief, old comrades-in-arms. Now the clumsy words express the heart, pretending to be a poem:
A military dress is in full swing,
Xiangyu online New Year's Day.
Gratitude does not forget the sea,
Even though they are at the end of the world.
Yu Shihuai
July 2024 Written in Hexi, Nanjing
Production: Gu Taijian
Postscript:
Yu Shihuai was my junior high school classmate in Siyang Middle School, and he was also my comrade-in-arms who enlisted in the same regiment in the same year. He was only fifteen or sixteen years old when he joined the army, and he was small but very intelligent. He has experienced many units in his life, worked in the Post and Telecommunications Bureau, the Procuratorate, the Political and Legal Committee, and the Public Security Bureau, held various positions, and enjoyed the treatment of the department level when he retired.
In recent years, he has retired to spend time with his wife and grandchildren at home, listen to the news in the morning and take a walk, sometimes invite his comrades-in-arms to drink and chat, and sometimes sit down to write about interesting stories from his past work. The reminiscence articles he has written recently are now published in the form of beautiful articles, which are only for everyone to share, exchange and learn.
This is an account of three adventures he encountered during his time in the Railroad Corps. In that difficult and harsh environment, the railway soldiers often encounter tunnel collapses, high slope construction, aerial work construction, blasting construction... Security risks are everywhere. The Laoying Martyrs Cemetery was built by the First Division of the Railway Corps, and there are nearly 200 tombstones of the sacrificed comrades-in-arms in the park, all of whom were the comrades-in-arms of the First Iron Division who died in the construction of the Xiangyu Line. In order to build the national defense construction of the Xiangyu line, they will always guard the old camp of Shiyan near the Xiangyu line.
Editor: Yan Jingping "White Waves"