Author: Shi Qian
As Washington and Chongqing were tug-of-war over the launch of the airstrikes, The Optimist Arnold was still trying to ensure that several airports in eastern China were ready to accept Doolittle' personnel, but with little success. On April 1, Stilwell asked Arnold to provide information on the number and type of aircraft returning, as well as the aperture of the fuel tank. Refueling can only be done manually, and filling the aircraft's fuel tanks with 5 gallons is time-consuming and laborious. There are very few tank cars or oil-carrying planes in China, and only a few airports in western China, such as Chongqing. The next day, Arnold provided information and told Stilwell that at least 25 B-25 bombers needed to be received.
The U.S. side needs to send U.S. military officers to China's eastern airports to verify the preparations of the Chinese side on the spot. Stilwell reported that he had placed The commander of the newly formed Tenth Air Force in India, Maj. Gen. Lewis Brilton, in charge, but had not yet received a report from him.
On April 3, an Army Air Corps captain named Sperrier piloted a C-39 (a combination of the fuselage and wings of the DC-2 with the tail of the DC-3) attempting to fly to airports in East China. It was raining heavily, and the limit was only 500 meters, the lowest observed by the Chinese meteorological department. Commander Sperrier later wrote: "Neither Captain Sperrier nor his C-39 had the necessary equipment suitable for this mission. "There is no official material on Sperrier's fate to date, but he did never arrive at the airport in eastern China.
On the 13th, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander was sent by Major General Brilton to leave Karachi for China to prepare for the airports, and also attempted to fly to these airports, he and the co-pilot Captain Edward Bacchus flew a DC-3 aircraft from Chongqing to Chengdu, where they obtained two Curtis Hawk III fighters from the Chinese Air Force. They are expected to inspect airfields in Guilin, Ji'an, Yushan, Quzhou and Lishui and direct Chinese there.
Bissell instructed them: "Keep those airports on alert from midnight on 19 April to 20, provide landing flares there, light the lights two hours before dawn on 20 April, check the fuel collected for the B-25 flight to Chongqing, prepare to launch a directional signal from two hours before dawn on 20 April, and ensure that an interpreter is present at each airport that morning." ”
Alexander and Bacchus flew to Guilin, where torrential rains and low visibility forced them to return, and they themselves nearly lost their lives. Alexander crashed on a sandbar in a river, and Bacchus was forced to skydive. Fortunately, neither of them was injured, and it took them 4 days to return to Chongqing.
Alexander and Bacchus flew out of Chongqing on April 17 in a DC-3 aircraft carrying four Chinese technicians scheduled to operate radio navigation equipment at those airports. As they flew as instruments in thick fog and rain, the radio on the DC-3 malfunctioned and they were forced to land in Kunming, southwest of Chongqing, farther away from the airport in east China.
On April 18, they made another attempt, but the weather was as usual and they could not establish radio contact with the largest base in eastern China. The raiders were convinced that without radio navigation, it would be impossible to slow down by instrumentation in the rolling mountains of Guilin, so they turned back to Kunming again. On 19 April, they were ordered to return to Chongqing, and by 19 April, the Doolittle bombers had finished their attack. The U.S. Army Air Forces Command in Chongqing was unable to verify the readiness of china's eastern airfields. Despite many attempts, the U.S. officers were unable to reach any of the airports.
On the question of whether Quzhou Airport was already equipped with a long-wave navigation transmitter at that time, Mr. Qian Nanxin, an engineer who was then in Quzhou's 13th Air Terminal, later recalled that he could no longer remember, and besides, his work had nothing to do with it. However, various data show that Quzhou Airport was already equipped with a long-wave navigation transmission station at that time. There are three reasons: (1) Before Xu Huansheng flew an expedition to Japan in 1938, in order to cooperate with this operation, Quzhou and other places had installed 7 anti-air radio stations. (2) In March 1942, when Ding Yan and others opened the route from Quzhou to Chongqing, Wu Jichong was the discipline instructor of the radio navigation training class, and his task to Quzhou should be to check the radio navigation station at Quzhou Airport. (3) On April 17, Alexander and Bacchus flew out of Chongqing in a DC-3 aircraft to check the preparations of Quzhou Airport. At that time, the plane was carrying four Chinese technicians scheduled to operate radio navigation equipment at these airports.
The Chinese side does not know the entire air strike plan of the US military, nor does it know when the US plane will fly from what direction, nor does the US military palace arrive at Quzhou airport to guide the Chinese personnel in making preparations. But even so, China's preparations are very serious.
At Quzhou Airport, the expansion project that began in 1941 was nearing completion in the spring of 1942. Chongqing's strict orders were completed again and again, and the soldiers of the 13th Aviation Terminal also took hoes and shovels and worked day and night with migrant workers to repair the airport. By the beginning of April, the expansion of the 13th Air Terminal had been completed in succession.
The stone mountain of Wangcun is surrounded by red sandstone, which can be easily mined to build houses, and the lower part of the office building of the 13th Aviation Terminal is built with this rock. There is an air raid shelter at the office of the 13th Air Terminal of Wangcun, and the entrance of the cave is opened south on a vertical cliff on the slope of the red sandstone hill, and the original landform has not been damaged, and the air cannot find this air raid shelter. The mouth of the bomb shelter has a large belly. It has nearly 300 square meters and can accommodate 100 people for accommodation and catering. The bomb shelter was carefully planned and built, with military beds and frozen eggs and other necessary food cubes for The American Raiders to prepare Western-style meals. In the wartime environment of the 1940s, Chen Youchao still demanded that the safety and health here meet first-class standards.
Japanese aircraft often came to bomb, in order to ensure that the damaged airport runway can be repaired in time, the 13th Aviation Terminal designated engineering and technical personnel Qian Nanxin to supervise the maintenance of the runway. He was also responsible for reporting damage within 15 minutes of being bombed, telegraphing Chongqing, and hosting the safety of the Stone Hill air raid shelter. The main workers involved in the maintenance of the runway were farmers from around the airport, who worked in the form of volunteer workers to fill the bomb holes. Migrant workers work at the airport during the day and sleep in the Tianfei Palace in the city at night.
The U.S. military's concerns about China's oil reserves are superfluous. The Chinese side has almost mobilized the strength of the national air force to ensure this operation of the US military. One day in March, Shi Bangfan, the director of the Transportation Department of the Aviation Commission, sent someone to call Ma Jingxing, who was in charge of transportation, to the office, and staff officer Li Zhong'an was present. Director Shi said to Ma Jingxing: "The US Air Force is going to land at the Quzhou Air Force Terminal in Zhejiang Province. At the meeting, we decided to send you to lead 47 cars to Quzhou from Chengdu to serve as the supply and transportation task of the US Air Force, and to take command of quzhou main station. This is a secret decree not to speak to outsiders, and it is limited to fifteen days to arrive, otherwise it will be punished as a delay. You follow the instructions of the order and the vehicle itinerary schedule strictly. Along the way, more than 100 technical personnel and more than 100 tons of oil and ammunition equipment were loaded at the air force depots passing by, and the daily arrival stations and departure times were telegraphed to the Aviation Commission day by day. If it cannot arrive on time, the captain is responsible, such as materials and personnel affecting the vehicle can not be driven out on time, the depot is responsible. The whole journey is more than 2,000 kilometers, and the task is arduous and important, and it also affects the issue of allied combat relations. You are actively prepared and have a limit of three days to go. ”
And handed over the order and schedule to Ma Jingxing in person. When Ma Jingxing received this task, he was very nervous, lest he behead him if he could not complete the task, and at the same time, he thought that resisting Japan and saving the country was the sacred duty of military personnel, so he used this to encourage the officers and men of the whole unit and the driving and repair personnel, so that they would all be full of ambition and energetic. Ma Jingxing led the team to arrive safely at Quzhou Terminus in only 13 days.
The soldiers at Air Terminal 13 found that the situation seemed to be getting more and more tense every day, especially the weathering, communications, and engineering personnel felt it most obviously. The 13th Air Terminal has received orders from Chongqing that the US aircraft will land at Quzhou Airport, asking for preparations to receive the US aircraft. In a cautious and dreary atmosphere, the air terminal began to be on full alert, ready to enter a state of combat readiness.
The station chief and the station chief take turns to stay behind at the communication desk to maintain close contact with Chongqing. The total value star lawsuit and the duty star officers issued action orders after listening. The detachments of communications, meteorology, oil bombs, firefighting, maintenance, emergency repair and service shall strictly observe their posts. The Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion and the Glance Guard Company were also closely monitored, and the local friendly forces also cooperated with the alert. All the officials were stunned, looking far away and listening, hoping to find out that the friendly opportunity was coming first. Some officers and men guarded the only radio at the Quzhou Aviation Terminal every day, hoping to get a little news of the arrival of the US military planes.
In order to illuminate the runway, the commanders of Quzhou Airport ordered soldiers to wait by the runway at night with horse lanterns to prepare to signal the planes. The equipment at Quzhou Airport is poor, and there are no special night flight runway lights. Only a tall fir tree was erected, with a headlamp as the main signal light, and when it was lit, the soldiers on the side of the runway lit the horse lamp in their hands. The officers and men of Quzhou Airport waited by the runway for more than ten consecutive nights, but they did not wait for the shadow of a plane, and everyone was very anxious.
Terminal 13 was finally informed that the U.S. plane would land at Quzhou Airport around dawn on April 19. Although many people know that American planes are going to land at Quzhou Airport, only a few people know the specific landing time.
The Second Road Headquarters of the Air Force in Guilin and the airports of the four provinces of Xianggui, Gansu, and Guangdong also received orders to meet the US planes. The following is an excerpt from the Command's April 1942 operational report:
The US Air Force Volunteer Brigade moved to Sichuan, and the road was ordered to prepare for the situation: the US Air Force Volunteer Brigade moved to Sichuan, and the road was under the jurisdiction of Ji'an Airport, which was a secondary airport, and Hengyang was an auxiliary airport. Ji'an Airport should be prepared for 42 aircraft (2 squadrons) and 115 personnel for 10 days, and Hengyang Airport should be prepared according to 20 aircraft (1 squadron) and 60 personnel for 3 days, and all the tools, equipment, communications, scenes, and fuel bombs of all accommodation and personnel should be completed by April 20.
In this report, the airports were prepared to welcome the U.S. Air Force Volunteer Brigade to Sichuan, while the U.S. Volunteer Flying Corps was fighting in Burma and Yunnan. Interestingly, the deadline was April 20, which was exactly when the Doolittle bomber fleet planned to arrive at the Chinese airfield.
Zheng Zixiang, then the station manager of Ji'an Air Station, recalled:
At that time, after the Kuomintang military made contact with the US side, it had decided to use various air bases in the southeast region for the use of US planes to land. In addition to informing the US side of the location of each air force base, and about to secretly negotiate with the US side the date and time of the landing of the US aircraft group in our country, the air bases were secretly notified, and the detailed instructions should be made to properly complete the preparations for the reception before the scheduled time. At that time, the author was serving as the commander of the Ji'an (i.e., Luling) Forward Base in Jiangxi in the southeastern region of the Chinese Air Force. All preparations have been made in advance on the instructions of the highest authorities of the Air Force.
The above two data prove that not only the 13th Air Terminal and the field station to which it belongs, but also the airports in the entire southeast region are preparing to welcome the arrival of US aircraft.
About author:Shi Kui, history teacher at colleges and universities, history researcher. He has been cultivating the history of the Party, the Military and the History of War for a long time. History lovers are welcome to exchange criticisms.