75 years ago, at the critical moment of the great armageddon between China's two destinies and two futures, an air disaster occurred that shocked China and foreign countries, and among the victims were a number of important leading figures of the CPC. The subsequent commemoration of the "April 8th" martyrs formed a widespread propaganda of the CPC's policy of peaceful nation-building and a stern condemnation of the Kuomintang reactionaries. However, at that time and now, there are many opinions about the causes of this air crash, and to this day, the truth of the air crash continues to be traced.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Kuomintang ruling clique pursued a reactionary policy of "dictatorship, civil war, and traitorism," and the Communist Party of China led the people of the whole country in a tit-for-tat struggle. On August 28, 1945, Comrades Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Wang Ruofei went to Chongqing to hold peace talks with the Kuomintang. In December of the same year, comrades Zhou Enlai, Dong Biwu, Wang Ruofei, Ye Jianying, Lu Dingyi, Wu Yuzhang, Deng Yingchao, and other comrades were sent to Chongqing to participate in the political consultative conference, and later Qin Bangxian was sent to participate in the deliberation of the constitution.
On April 7, 1946, the Chongqing Eighth Route Army Office sent a telegram to Yan'an, saying: Comrades Wang Ruofei, Qin Bangxian, Ye Ting, and Deng Fa flew back to Yan'an from Chongqing by plane on the morning of April 8.
Shocking bad news
At 8:45 a.m. on the 8th, an American C-47 transport aircraft took off from Chongqing in the rain. In addition to Wang Ruofei, Qin Bangxian, Ye Ting, and Deng Fa, there were also Mr. Huang Qisheng, a famous veteran educator, Li Xiuwen, his wife Ye Ting, his daughter Ye Yangmei, and his son Ye Ajiu; Huang Xiaozhuang, a teacher at the Lu Xun Art Academy (Huang Qisheng's grandson); Li Shaohua, staff officer of the 18th Group Army; Wei Wanji, adjutant of Comrade Wang Ruofei; Zhao Dengjun, adjutant of Comrade Qin Bangxian; Gao Qiong, the nanny of Comrade Ye Ting's young son Ah Jiu; and the crew: Captain Lan Qi, Ushis, and Mai Ou and Maldin, who wore the flying tiger logo, a total of 17 people. After the plane took off, the crew immediately used the radio to contact the US military observation group stationed in Yan'an and reported that everything was normal. The plane landed at the transit station xi'an, and after a short rest, took off for Yan'an at 11:55. Half an hour later, the crew contacted the U.S. military observation group again and reported that the flight was normal.
The weather in Yan'an that day was not good, with dark clouds and light rain. At about 1 p.m., Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Ren Bishi, Lin Boqu, and other leaders of the CPC Central Committee and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, as well as representatives of various organs, organizations, and hundreds of people rushed to the Dongguan Airport in Yan'an one after another to welcome their returning comrades-in-arms.
There was a faint roar in the air, and someone present deduced that the plane had reached the sky over Ganquan. Yet the roar grew farther and farther away until it disappeared completely. Subsequently, the U.S. military observation group received the last telegram from the crew: the plane was disoriented. After receiving this news, the CPC Central Committee paid great attention to it and immediately organized tens of thousands of military and civilian searches. The US military observation group also coordinated the dispatch of two planes to search near Yan'an for three consecutive days, but there was no result.
At about 2 p.m., villagers near the southeast of Xing County, Shanxi Province, heard the rumbling sound of planes, followed by a violent explosion. Li Wentang, the village chief of Zhuangshang Village, immediately led people to find out, and next to a boulder on the southern slope of the top of The Black Tea Mountain, he found the main body of the wreckage of the plane lying reclining, with the head facing up, the tail facing down, and the propeller had been broken. Under the wreckage was a scorched earth, surrounded by fragments of the body and the remains and relics of the victims. Because it was not clear whether the wrecked plane was friend or foe, a meeting of the village party branch was held that night, and it was finally decided to organize personnel to go up the mountain the next day and first carry the bodies of the victims down the mountain to bury them. When the meeting was nearly midnight, Liu Fu, the head of the district brigade, hurried to the scene, saying that a plane carrying important party leaders and senior generals was missing and was looking for it. Everyone had a premonition of the seriousness of the matter, and decided to go up the mountain at dawn to carry out the search, and at the same time sent people to the Jinsui Branch of the CPC to report. The sub-bureau immediately ordered Tan Zhengwen, minister of the Ministry of Security, and Gu Yizhi, his confidential secretary and head of the confidential unit, to lead people to the site of the incident to investigate.
On the morning of the 10th, Tan Zhengwen, Gu Yizhi and others rushed to the scene of the plane crash. After careful identification, the remains of Wang Ruofei, Qin Bangxian, Ye Ting, and Deng Fa were found. Because it was late, the remains of the four martyrs were first transported down the mountain and stored in the houses. The search continued the next day, and the remains of other victims were found one after another, and the list of passengers and the personal seals of Qin Bangxian and Huang Qisheng were found, as well as two badges with white characters on a blue background and the inscription "Chinese Communist Party Delegation", which further confirmed the identity of the victims.
At 10:00 p.m. on the evening of 11 November, after receiving a telegram from the Jinsui Border Region about the plane crash, the CPC Central Committee issued a very brief message through the Xinhua News Agency: Comrades Wang Ruofei, Qin Bangxian, Ye Ting, Deng Fa, and other comrades "were killed immediately at about 2 p.m. on the way from Chongqing to Yan'an on the eighth day of this month, when the plane lost their way, and at about 2:00 p.m. they encountered fog at the Black Tea Mountain, eighty miles southeast of XingXian County, northwestern Jinxi, and they were all killed immediately."
On April 11, the CPC Central Committee and all circles in Yan'an formed a funeral committee attended by 26 people, including Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Ren Bishi, Lin Boqu, Xi Zhongxun, and Li Dingming, and decided to lower the flag to half-mast for three days in the border area and stop recreational activities for one month. On the 13th, the Liberation Daily commented on "Mourning the Dead", calling the air disaster "an extremely heavy loss for the Chinese nation, the Chinese and the people", and published Mao Zedong's inscription "Although dying for the people is still glorious". On the 18th, the remains of the martyrs were transported to Yan'an by two planes. Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Ren Bishi, and other central leaders personally led representatives from all walks of life and more than 10,000 people from the masses to the airport to receive the spirits. On the 19th, more than 30,000 people from all walks of life in Yan'an solemnly mourned and buried the martyrs, and Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi and other relatives followed the coffin and sent their spirits for burial.
Track down the truth about the crash
While solemnly holding mourning activities, the CPC Central Committee launched an in-depth and meticulous investigation into the causes of the "April 8" air disaster.
At that time, at a time when the relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party were becoming increasingly tense, it naturally made people suspicious of the cause of the air crash and aroused a lot of speculation, and for a while rumors were spread, because there were so many CCP leaders who died, and the rumors naturally focused on one point: Was there any sabotage incident deliberately created by anyone? Yang Shangkun, who was in charge of the funeral work of the "April 8th" martyrs, recalled: "At that time, we really doubted whether the Kuomintang agents were playing ghosts. However, for the sake of prudence, the CPC Central Committee, according to a report by the Jinsui Border Region Government and in a news release released by Xinhua News Agency on April 11, attributed the cause of the air crash to "the plane lost its way, and the fog caused the mountain to be burned."
On 12 July, the Xinhua News Agency published an article entitled "The Death of Comrade Wang Ruofei and Others," revealing that Wang Ruofei and Qin Bangxian had been seriously obstructed by the realization of the armistice agreement, the army reorganization plan, and the CPPCC agreement, and had only braved bad weather to fly back to Yan'an in order to seek instructions from the central authorities in a timely manner and discuss countermeasures. On the 13th, the Liberation Daily published a commentary entitled "Mourning the Dead", which clearly stated that "they died for the cause of peace and democracy!" They died to uphold all the agreements of the Political Consultative Conference , in particular the agreements on constitutional principles , the armistice agreements, and the army-whole army agreements" On the 19th, the Xinhua Daily published "The 'April 8' Martyrs Are Immortal" written by Zhou Enlai, pointing out that "if there were no reactionaries' conspiracy to sabotage the CPPCC resolution, there would be no need for you to fly back to Yan'an this time in bad weather."
"April 8" air crash memorial service
On April 18, Tan Zhengwen and Gu Yizhi, investigators at the scene of the "April 8" air crash, took a special plane to escort the remains of the martyrs back to Yan'an, and specially reported to the CPC Central Committee on the investigation of the air disaster. According to the investigation of the scene of the plane crash and the questioning of the local people, they made the following analysis in their written report to the Central Committee:
First, the plane did crash into the Black Tea Mountain and crashed, not by exploding in the air. Because the impact marks on the boulders on the peaks on the side of the mountain are very clear and obvious, the plane exploded and caught fire after hitting the mountain. Second, the clouds in the sky are very thick, the mountains are snowing, the mountains are raining, and the drivers may be crashing into the mountains because of poor visibility and unclear view of the mountains and rivers. If the plane had flown higher, it would not have hit the boulders. Third, judging from the results of repeated searches of the scene of the aircraft accident, no suspicious signs of man-made explosions were found.
The C-47 is a twin-engine piston military transport aircraft developed by Douglas Company in the United States in the 1930s, but at that time the aircraft did not have "black box" equipment, coupled with the lack of effective technical means to analyze and identify the main components of the crashed aircraft, and the cause of the crash could only be attributed to bad weather according to the judgment.
At that time, in order to safeguard the armistice agreement and the CPPCC agreement, and in order not to leave excuses for the Kuomintang, the CPC Central Committee intensified the contradictions between the two parties and accepted the conclusion that the plane was accidentally crashed into a mountain due to rain and fog. Yang Shangkun once recalled: "After careful analysis, we and the observation team agreed that because of the harsh climate, thick clouds in the sky, and poor visibility, the pilot hovered over the airport, could not find the runway, had to change course, flew in the direction of Beiping, and unfortunately crashed into the 2,000-meter-high Black Tea Mountain." ”
A mystery to solve
For a long time, there have been different reasons around the "April 8" air disaster, and there have been "natural disaster theories" and "conspiracy theories."
In early 1998, Gu Yizhi published an article in The Ta Kung Pao in Hong Kong entitled "Memories of the April 8 Crash". The text said: "This plane landed at Xi'an Airport to refuel, and only took off to Yan'an after a short stop. Xi'an to Yan'an has been flying north, why did it fly to the northeast, and even to the black tea mountain east of the Yellow River? The reasons for this are still unclear and cannot be analyzed. Later, I heard Director Tan say that among the relics was a disoriented telegram. However, at that time, the weather along the northbound route of Xi'an and Yan'an was not bad, and the US captain was a pilot wearing a flying tiger armband. These have always been doubtful in my heart. ”
In July 2003, Ye Ting's eldest son, Ye Zhengda, wrote an article recalling that in June 1951, he and his second brother Ye Zhengming visited Zhou Enlai's home in Zhongnanhai. Zhou Enlai talked about the "April 8" air disaster, and clearly denied the conclusion that the plane crashed into the mountain in the thick fog, "Someone must have done something", because "at that time, there was only a little light rain in Yan'an, the plane had reached the sky over Yan'an, we had heard the sound of the plane, why did it fly to the Black Tea Mountain in the blink of an eye?" Isn't this what the Kuomintang agents did?! "Ye Zhengda is one of the first aviation experts trained in New China, and has participated in the design and development of five types of aircraft. While making public the contents of Zhou Enlai's talk on the "April 8th" air disaster, he cracked the reason for the plane's trek from the perspective of aviation technology: Kuomintang agents installed a simple timed sabotage device on the plane's magnetic compass and pressure altimeter line when the Xi'an plane stopped to refuel for a while. When the plane flew to the Ganquan area, the magnetic compass and the altimeter failed at the same time, causing the aircraft to lose course and altitude. However, in the absence of convincing and conclusive evidence, this view remains subjective and extrapolated.
In 2006, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the "April 8" air disaster, many newspapers and websites in China reprinted a reminiscence article, saying that Du Jitang, a Kuomintang military unification agent who had lived in seclusion in Taiwan for more than half a century, took the initiative to expose the news before his death, admitting that he had been ordered to create the "April Eighth" air disaster: He sent agents disguised as mechanics, took advantage of the C-47 to stop at Xi'an Airport, and placed magnets on the back of the altimeter and magnetic chart. As a result, the aircraft was strongly disturbed by magnets after take-off, and the navigation system and altimeter failed one after another, and eventually crashed into the mountain in thick fog and burned. However, Qin Tie, the son of Qin Bangxian, believed that the article was full of loopholes and low credibility, so he went to find the original source of the news and the key witness of "Du Jitang", but the results were not found.
In addition, many authoritative party history works published after the founding of New China or the memories of the parties concerned also have different expressions of the "April 8" air disaster. As recorded in the "History of the Communist Party of China": "Due to the Kuomintang's determination to undermine the CPPCC agreement, on April 8, Wang Ruofei, a representative of the CPPCC National Committee, and Qin Bangxian, a representative of the CPPCC Constitutional Review Committee, returned from Chongqing to Yan'an to report and ask for instructions on their work. He was killed in a plane crash on the way"; the "Annals of Mao Zedong" stated that "due to bad weather, the plane crashed in Heichashan, Xingxian County, Shanxi"; the "Annals of Zhou Enlai" expressed that "the plane was crashed on the way"; the "Zhu De Chronicle" clearly pointed out: "Because the plane was destroyed by Kuomintang agents, and it was lost in bad weather, it was crashed in Heichashan, Xingxian County, Shanxi."
Whether the "April 8" air disaster was a natural disaster or a conspiracy, an accident or an assassination has been debated for many years. However, due to the lack of convincing and conclusive evidence from all sides, the truth of the tragic death of this plane has not been solved to this day.
——Excerpt from the fourth issue of Yanhuang Chunqiu, 2021
Author: Xu Yan
Editor: Zhou Yiqian