After the founding of New China in 1949, the imperialist countries headed by the United States adopted a political isolation and economic blockade against our country, and at the same time frequently carried out military provocations against our country in a vain attempt to strangle new China in the cradle.
At that time, the United States was the world's number one military power, with the most advanced and powerful military force in the world, and from time to time it sent planes to China's territorial airspace to carry out raids and reconnaissance activities.
In the early morning of August 23, 1956, the US military sent reconnaissance planes to conduct an invasion reconnaissance of our Zhoushan Islands, and in the face of this blatant provocation, the newly established People's Air Force, which was only a few years old, quickly attacked and completely destroyed the US invasion aircraft, which was also the first time that our army shot down a US military plane that invaded China's territorial airspace at night.
However, the US military, which first provoked the incident, did not learn a lesson from this incident, but instead regarded the incident as a "great shame and humiliation" and dispatched an aircraft carrier battle group of 49 ships, including three aircraft carriers and cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and other auxiliary ships, to the surface of China's East China Sea to carry out provocations.
Suddenly, the east coastal areas of China were covered with clouds of war, and the situation was on the verge of breaking out.
U.S. Carrier Battle Group
So, in the face of the serious provocations of the US military and the advance of the aircraft carrier battle group, how did our military respond?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" > intrusion and anti-intrusion</h1>
In fact, the invasion of our airspace by the U.S. military in August 1956 was not accidental.
In the seven years from 1949 to 1956, the US Navy and Air Force repeatedly launched invasions into the territorial airspace of our coastal areas, and as many as 12 aircraft were shot down and injured by our air force aviation units and ground air defense units.
The earliest one occurred on September 20, 1952, when a US Air Force B29 bomber was shot down by He Zhongdao and Li Yongnian, pilots of the 2nd Division of our Air Force, when it invaded the skies over Chongming Island in Shanghai, China.
Two months later, on Sheshan Island in Shanghai, Yang Muyi, director of the 26th Regiment of the 2nd Division of the Chinese Air Force, and pilot He Zhongdao flew a two-plane to injure a US Navy PB4Y-2 patrol aircraft.
He Zhongdao and Li Yongnian introduced the battle
After entering 1953, the US military repeatedly dispatched patrol aircraft, fighter jets, electronic reconnaissance planes, and carrier-based attack aircraft to invade China's territorial airspace, and even strafed Chinese civilian ships normally on the sea.
Most of the aircraft invaded by the United States in China's territorial airspace were mainly electronic reconnaissance aircraft, such as PBM-5A, P-2V, P4M-1Q, etc. Through the detection, identification, positioning, and analysis of electromagnetic signals, they obtained the deployment of our military forces, the location of radars and radio stations, and the time of work.
It can be said that preventing the enemy planes from violating China's territorial airspace is the unshirkable duty of our air force and air defense forces.
It is worth mentioning that before August 1956, the results of our army shooting down enemy aircraft were achieved during the day, and there was no record of shooting down enemy aircraft at night.
P4M-1Q electronic reconnaissance aircraft attached to the U.S. Seventh Fleet
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > contest on the night sky</h1>
On August 22, 1956, the evening of the second quarter of the month, the clouds on the East China Sea were very thin, the visibility was good, the wind was not strong, and it was a good weather for flying.
At about 11:17 p.m. that night, the early warning radar of the air defense unit of our Nanjing Military Region sounded an alarm, and at a distance of 152 kilometers at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport, a large aircraft without an unknown nationality was detected, with an altitude of 1 kilometer, a speed of 245 kilometers per hour, and a heading of 140 degrees, which has now entered the airspace over China's territorial waters. After flying along our coastline for almost 9 minutes, the plane flew out of our airspace and headed southeast.
At 11:29, the guiding radar of the Second Air Force Aviation Division stationed in Shanghai also detected the signal of the aircraft, because the troops believed that this was only a routine reconnaissance and patrol activity of the enemy, so our army only carried out close surveillance of the enemy aircraft for the time being, and the pilot on duty was ready for a first-level battle and was ready to intercept the enemy aircraft at any time.
MiG 17 of the Chinese Air Force
12 minutes later, this invading enemy plane suddenly turned right to head 200 degrees, raised its altitude to 1,500 meters, flew at a speed of 300 kilometers per hour toward China's Dinghai and Ningbo areas, and at 11:54 a.m. once again invaded China's territorial airspace, approaching all the way to the Zhoushan Islands.
In order to protect China's sacred territorial airspace from being infringed upon by the enemy and to safeguard Shanghai's absolute safety, General Nie Fengzhi, commander of the Air Force of the Nanjing Military Region, quickly ordered the Fourth Air Force stationed at Hongqiao Airport to prepare for an interception.
At 11:56 a.m., Chu Futian, the duty commander and deputy commander of the Command Post of the Second Air Division, ordered Zhang Wenyi, the pilot of the Sixth Regiment and a pilot on duty, to fly the MiG-17Φ fighter at a speed of 120 degrees, an altitude of 1,500 meters, and a speed of 750 km/h from Hongqiao Airport and set sail toward the front point of the enemy plane.
MiG-17Φ fighters under maintenance
Considering that Zhang Wenyi took off late, the command post ordered Zhang Wenyi to increase the speed to 850 km / h and strive to shoot down the invading enemy aircraft near Qushan Island and Daishan Island.
As a well-trained pilot, Zhang Wenyi quickly understood the command intention of his superiors, knowing that the top priority was to buy time now, he looked at the speedometer and found that the speed in front of him was only 700 km / h, quickly turned on the accelerator, so that the speed of the aircraft rose to 850 km / h in just 20 seconds.
At this time, it was 0:05 a.m. on the 23rd, and a minute later, the radar navigator was keenly aware that if he continued to fly like this, Zhang Wenyi would probably accidentally rush to the front of the enemy plane and lose the fighter, so he quickly ordered Zhang Wenyi to reduce the speed to 600 km / h and change the course to 80 degrees.
At 7 minutes and 20 seconds, Zhang Wenyi followed the instructions of the navigator, turned right at a 30-degree slope, and reduced the speed to 400 km / h.
After several rounds of adjustment, Zhang Wenyi gradually flew to the rear of the enemy aircraft and reduced the speed to 300 km / h again.
Zhang Wenyi
Zhang Wenyi understood that in this situation, through the bottom-up search of bright clouds, it was easier to find the traces of enemy aircraft, so he took the initiative to reduce the flight altitude from 1500 meters to 950 meters. Zhang Wenyi originally wanted to find the enemy plane by relying on the altitude difference of about 300 to 250 meters lower than the enemy plane, but because the navigator measured the height incorrectly, the plane piloted by Zhang Wenyi was a full 550 meters lower than the enemy plane.
At 13 minutes and 30 seconds, the enemy plane flying in front spotted the MiG-17Φ, which had been chasing after it, realized that it was exposed, and panicked to change course, trying to flow to the high seas. Shortly after the enemy plane turned, Zhang Wenyi also immediately changed course, and at the same time accelerated the plane to 350 km / h, preparing to cut into the enemy plane close to the front from the inside.
After almost a minute, when Zhang Wenyi's plane was less than 4 kilometers away from the enemy plane, the navigator found that the target on the radar had disappeared, and it was not until 16 minutes and 42 seconds that he regained control of the situation of the enemy plane and determined that the enemy plane was about two kilometers in front of us.
Zhang Wenyi (right)
Zhang Wenyi's cockpit had no radar, and he could only rely on his eyes to carefully search the enemy aircraft from left to right and from right to left, and successfully found a large enemy plane 1500 meters in front of the left at 17 minutes and 02 seconds, with a height difference of about 600 to 500 meters. Zhang Wenyi immediately made a request for an attack, and in 09 seconds, the command post issued an order to approve the attack, asking him to shoot down the enemy plane in China's airspace and to let the wreckage of the enemy plane fall within China's waters.
After receiving the attack order, Zhang Wenyi immediately piloted the aircraft to raise the altitude and launch an attack from the right rear of the enemy aircraft.
When Zhang Wenyi's mobile cursor sight trapped the enemy's wingspan, for the sake of safety, he did not launch the attack at the first time, but waited until it flew to a distance of 600 to 700 meters from the enemy aircraft before decisively firing. However, due to the sharp rise of the lever, the shell passed through the tail of the enemy aircraft and flew out from above the enemy aircraft.
MiG-17Φ fighter
At this time, Zhang Wenyi's position was about 400 meters away from the enemy plane, and this move of flying from the bottom up just now allowed his plane to fly to a height of 100 meters higher than the enemy plane. In order to seize the fleeting opportunity, Zhang Wenyi once again pushed the nose down, aimed at the abdomen of the enemy fuselage, and fired three shots in unison again, thus igniting the flames at the base of the enemy aircraft's left wing.
The problem is that this is a large aircraft, although because of the large turning radius, slow action, far less maneuverability than the fighter, but the aircraft has two jet engines and two piston propeller engines, the aircraft wingspan is large, the balance stability is good, although it was shot, it can still insist on flying.
Seeing that the enemy plane had not yet fallen, Zhang Wenyi immediately flew the plane to the lower right of the enemy plane and prepared to attack the enemy plane for the third time.
When Zhang Wenyi was about 300 meters away from the enemy plane, he resolutely aimed at the enemy plane's abdomen and pressed the button of the machine gun, and then quickly detached from the upper left side of the enemy plane, at this time the enemy plane had been shot in many places, the fire was getting bigger and bigger, and he wanted to break the net with Zhang Wenyi and kept shooting at him.
Zhang Wenyi shot down a US reconnaissance plane to attack
However, the slow-moving enemy plane could not catch up with the dexterous MiG-17Φ, and watching the plane climb all the way to an altitude of 1800 meters, it could only flee in a shaky southeastern direction, and the plane fell down as it fled, and finally fell into Chinese territorial waters 15 kilometers southeast of Qushan Island, followed by an explosion.
The battle seemed to be long, but from zhang Wenyi's first firing to the enemy plane falling into the sea, it took only 3 minutes before and after, and at 0:46 on the 23rd, Zhang Wenyi piloted the plane to land safely at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport.
Hongqiao Airport
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="36" > cooling and warming</h1>
At that time, the air battle took place at night, and Zhang Wenyi could not see the emblem of the enemy plane clearly, and could not judge the origin of the invading aircraft, but only saw that it was an American aircraft. At that time, the Kuomintang Air Force in Taiwan Province was equipped with all kinds of aircraft made by the United States, and our army could not judge whether the aircraft was a US aircraft or an aircraft of the Kuomintang Air Force according to the shape.
Therefore, on August 24, 1956, the news published on the first page of the People's Daily identified this invading enemy plane as the plane of Jiang Bandit:
Our Air Force wounded one Chiang Kai-shek plane on Huangzeshan Island
Xinhua News Agency, 23 :00:00 on the 23rd of this month, found a Plane of Chiang Kai-shek's army over the southeast sea surface of Shanghai, sneaking into the skies over our Saddle Archipelago, and the plane of our Air Force immediately took off. Jiang Ji continued to sneak into the sky over the Shengsi Archipelago, encountered our plane over Huangzeshan Island north of Qushan Island, and was wounded by us, and the enemy plane immediately fled in a southeasterly direction.
The content of this telegram was personally revised by Premier Zhou, who made three changes: First, he only wrote about Chiang Kai-shek and did not mention the US plane; second, he indicated that the two planes had been encountered in China's territorial airspace; and third, he explained that the enemy's maneuver direction was to flee in a southeastern direction. These changes by Premier Zhou have left room for maneuver in the next developments.
Premier Zhou
What was shot down by Zhang Wenyi was a P4M-1Q reconnaissance plane of the US Seventh Fleet, so when the Seventh Fleet found out that the plane was missing, it immediately reported it to the above, which caused a public uproar in the US government and the public.
Less than five months ago, on May 9, the US Air Force RB-50 reconnaissance plane took advantage of the night to invade the skies over the area around Bohai Bay in China, and as a result, it was severely taught a lesson by Liu Jingfeng, deputy commander of the 27th Division of our Air Force.
Less than five months later, the US plane was taught a lesson when it invaded China's airspace, and after the news spread, the United States was bound to become the international laughing stock.
In order to deceive international public opinion and shirk its responsibility, Washington declared on September 25: "The Chinese Air Force attacked a US military maritime patrol aircraft on the high seas." ”
At the same time, Vice Admiral Pride, commander of the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet, was ordered to assemble a fleet from naval bases in Japan, Guam, the Philippines and other places, and dispatched the aircraft carriers "Hornet", "Essex", "Lexington", and a large fleet of 46 other ships, and sailed to the surface of the East China Sea.
Seventh Fleet
After arriving in the East China Sea, the US military dispatched 200 planes to fly around the sea every day, violating china's territorial airspace along the east coast of China from time to time, on the one hand carrying out armed demonstrations and provocations against our country, and on the other hand, in order to search for missing aircraft in the crash area and salvage the wreckage of the aircraft.
At that time, the situation was very tense, and there was a tendency for war to break out.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="48" > with static braking</h1>
In the face of the frenzied provocations of US imperialism, the Central Military Commission issued the instruction of "neither showing weakness nor being strong." Nie Fengzhi, commander of the Air Force of the Nanjing Military Region, also presided over a special operational meeting.
Nie Fengzhi
Most of the generals participating in the meeting were deeply worried about the current situation, they were not afraid to fight, and not long after the founding of New China, they could fight the United States back from the Yalu River to the "38th Line.", even if the United States Chen Bing donghai?
The problem is that the strength of the US navy and air force is far superior to that of our country, and if we fight with the US navy and air force, our chances of winning are very low.
Nie Fengzhi saw the concerns of the comrades, and he showed great indifference; after making a comprehensive analysis of the information from all sides, he pointed out that the United States did not want to fight with our country with live ammunition, they just wanted blackmail, for the following reasons:
First: There are only more than 200 US carrier-based fighters, and although the attack power is strong, it is impossible to fly to China's territory and land.
Second: Even if the US aircraft carrier is strong, it is impossible to sail ashore, and there is nothing to be afraid of.
Third: So far, there is no sign of sustained reinforcements from the US military, mainly blackmail demonstrations, and it is not really wanting to start a war.
Nie Fengzhi's penetrating analysis and his calm and self-assured attitude eased the more solemn atmosphere in the conference room a lot.
After that, Nie Fengzhi pointed out: "According to the spirit of the central authorities' instructions, we still have to be prepared to base ourselves on fighting, and it is a big fight and a special attack." To this end, Nie Fengzhi ordered the airfield units of the Nanjing Military Region to make echelon allocations and preparations for combat, and the air defense units to do a good job of air defense cover to prevent the US military from bombing all key points in eastern China. All units of the Air Force must also be prepared to cooperate with the Army in dealing with the worst-case scenario.
The PLA's fighter air force, naval aviation unit, and ground aviation unit shoulder the heavy responsibility of defending China's territorial airspace, and none of the fighters have the slightest slackness, and fighters conduct vigilance patrols over China's coastal areas around the clock.
Tao Yong
At the same time, under the command of Commander Tao Yong, the East China Sea Fleet of our Navy also stepped up its vigilance, cooperated closely with the Air Force, and closely monitored the enemy's every move.
On August 31, the U.S. State Department of State and the Department of Defense issued a joint statement saying that on August 23, the military plane did fly over the Chinese island, but that the Chinese Air Force's attack on the plane was improper, demanding that China bear full responsibility for the incident and demanding compensation from China.
In response to this cheeky and laughable statement issued by the United States, the People's Daily issued a statement on September 3 to respond.
In this statement, our side expressed "great regret" over the fact that it was the US military plane that was shot down, not The Chiang Kai-shek plane, but this incident also proves that after the incident, the US Seventh Fleet immediately came to the sea surface of China's Shengsi Islands to Dachen Island and dispatched a large number of planes to investigate our Shengsi Islands, which is a provocative act of deliberately violating China's territorial airspace and territorial waters. Our side sternly condemns this naked act of aggression by the United States.
In the face of China's strong rebuttal, the United States did not respond, and the Seventh Fleet searched the sea for more than ten days, salvaged two corpses, and then withdrew in ashes.
In order to obtain ironclad evidence that the US military has illegally invaded China's territorial airspace and territorial waters, it is necessary to search for the whereabouts of the personnel of the US plane and find out whether the enemy has laid mines in the waters of Langgang. From October 11 to December 25, the North Sea Fleet and the East China Sea Fleet each dispatched two minesweepers to conduct a large-scale search of the Langgang Mountain and the water area of the sea reef.
Unable to achieve its goal, on January 4, 1957, the East China Sea Fleet dispatched the 6th Frigate Detachment to search the relevant waters.
Later, the radar of the submarine "Yanzhou" detected the reaction of the metal object and finally calibrated the orientation, distance and water depth. Divers quickly jumped into the icy waters and salvaged the wreckage of the U.S. aircraft, including four engines, regulators, joysticks, pressure plates, cameras, and other equipment.
P4M-1Q
Soon after, fishermen in Zhoushan used nylon nets to fish out a lot of plane wreckage and two pilot corpses.
For humanitarian reasons, my country has decided to return the body to the United States through diplomatic channels. However, at that time, China and the United States were still in a state of hostility, so we decided to hand over the two bodies to the British Consulate in Shanghai for collection.
When the British diplomat at the British consulate in Shanghai received the signature, he shrugged his shoulders and said that he had been engaged in diplomatic work for so many years and had never done such an errand.
Soon after, the two bodies were transported from Shanghai to Hong Kong by a British merchant ship, and it was not long before they were transported to the United States.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="71" > aftermath</h1>
There were a total of 16 American pilots on that P4M-1Q, one of whom was James Dean, a U.S. Navy captain whose body had never been found.
James dean
After the plane crashed into the sea, Dean's wife always suspected that he was not dead, but was captured by the Chinese army, and had come to China twice in a decade to look for her husband's traces. Apparently, she had found nothing.
Dean was friends with a man named Rumsfeld before the accident, and he also saved Rumsfeld's life, and the relationship between the two was very strong. Rumsfeld later became a high-ranking official in the United States, so Dean's wife repeatedly entrusted him with private help in finding her husband's whereabouts.
In 1974, Rumsfeld became the chief of staff of US President Ford, and taking advantage of the opportunity of the relaxation of Sino-US relations, Rumsfeld negotiated with the Chinese government and asked the Chinese government to help find people, but found nothing.
Rumsfeld
Later, Rumsfeld ordered Javier, a senior intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy, to thoroughly investigate the truth after the P4M-1Q crashed into the sea. Harvey later told him: "The wreckage of the P4M-1Q can prove that at the moment of the crash, the plane fell into the water first, and the probability of Dean surviving as the pilot is almost zero." ”
Even so, Rumsfeld still did not believe that his best friend was dead, and he shared Dean's wife that Dean might have been captured by the PLA.
In October 2005, As U.S. Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld visited China and again asked for Chinese help in locating the missing U.S. pilot.
A year later, our military delegation was invited to visit the United States and handed Rumsfeld a copy of the secret archives of the 1956 air battle kept by the People's Liberation Army, which clearly stated: "The Chinese side has not captured any American pilots." ”
Chairman Mao
Since the end of World War II, the United States has often relied on aircraft carrier fleets to flaunt its might, as if it were invincible. However, it turns out that Chairman Mao's statement that "imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers" is extremely wise and correct. When people united to withstand the pressure of US imperialism, the United States itself fled with its tail between its legs.