Flown Over Tiananmen Square -- In Search of the Flight Personnel of the Opening Ceremony of the New China

Author: Xiao Bangzhen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Did you know? Our country, which was built by the army, organized a flyover parade for the founding ceremony. Why wasn't the founding ceremony held in the morning but at 3 p.m.? How did the flyover parade, from the order to the completion of the mission, take only 30 days? The flyover parade involved not 26 planes but 17. There were even planes with live ammunition in the parade, piloted by newly rebelled Nationalist Air Force pilots. All these historical truths are revealed in this book. It is the first comprehensive documentary work in China to reflect the history of the founding ceremony flyover parade. The author spent nearly two years interviewing all surviving flyover pilots or their families and comrades, recording and collecting a wealth of precious first-hand materials and photographs. Based on this, the author recounts the real feelings of each pilot participating in the founding ceremony and their winding life stories, documenting the organization, training, and implementation of the founding ceremony flyover parade, as well as some important historical situations during the early days of the People's Liberation Army Air Force. It holds great historical value and educational significance. The book is written in simple and sincere prose, accompanied by over 100 historical photographs, making it vivid and touching to read.
Eyewitness to the Pearl Harbor Attack
On September 16, 1916, Xing Haifan (original name Xing Wenzhuo) was born into a farming family in Langzhong County, Sichuan. Han ethnicity. He attended private schools and studied ancient classics and poetry in his hometown before enrolling in the county primary school. During his junior high school years, his teachers were Communist Party members from the Great Revolution, who taught students to care about national affairs and be dedicated to the motherland. Xing Haifan was deeply influenced by national consciousness and patriotic ideals from a young age.
In 1937, when Xing Haifan was about to graduate from high school, the Lugou Bridge Incident occurred, and the Kuomintang and the Communist Party cooperated to launch a nationwide resistance against Japan. At the same time, the Kuomintang Central Air Force Academy was recruiting students (the Kuomintang Central Air Force Academy was established in Qianqiao, Hangzhou on September 1, 1932, renamed the Air Force Officer Academy in March 1939, and moved to Taiwan in 1948, abbreviated as Guankao—author's note). Influenced by the idea of "aviation to save the nation" ("Aviation to Save the Nation" was Sun Yat-sen's theory and advocacy for developing aviation and the air force to achieve the goals of the National Revolution. After the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution, he called on overseas Chinese to organize the Overseas Chinese Revolutionary Air Corps to support the revolution, raise funds, and recruit aviation personnel. At the same time, an aviation detachment was established in the Guangzhou Revolutionary Army, creating China's earliest aviation unit. After Sun Yat-sen took office as the provisional president, he also set up a flying camp in the Nanjing Garrison Command. The "National Defense Plan" draft formulated in 1921 included nine items related to the development of aviation among the total 63 projects, fully reflecting his aviation. After a plane made in China was successfully tested in 1923, Sun Yat-sen wrote the four characters "Aviation to Save the Nation"—author's note).
Xing Haifan, driven by the idea of "give it a try," enrolled in the 12th class of the Central Air Force Academy. According to the academy's requirements, students had to undergo basic military training at the Chengdu or Liuzhou Military Academy before entering flight training. Therefore, it wasn't until 1939 that Xing Haifan transferred to, Yunnan, and Kunming for primary, intermediate, and advanced flight training. After passing an examination conducted by the chief advisor Claire Chennault (founder and leader of the American Volunteer Group during the War of Resistance Against Japan, appointed as an advisor to the Chinese Aviation Committee in 1937, later serving as commander of the American Volunteer Group, a brigadier general of the U.S. Army's Air Task Force in China, and a major general commanding the U.S. 14th Air Force), he was given the opportunity to study in the United States.
In October 1941, under the U.S. Lend-Lease Act, the United States was responsible for training Chinese aviation pilots. Xing Haifan and the other 12th-class flight students were sent to the United States in two batches, with Xing Haifan in the second batch. At that time, the Pacific War had not yet erupted, and Xing Haifan and his companions flew from Kunming to Hong Kong, then took a ship to Manila. In November, they boarded a U.S. passenger ship to cross the Pacific to the United States. By then, the Pacific was far from peaceful, with dark clouds gathering and war looming. The United States dispatched a battleship to escort the passenger ship. However, the ship was still filled with a festive atmosphere, completely ignoring the signs of impending conflict and the scorching flames of war.
The young, passionate Chinese students, however, sat on the deck in small groups, discussing their motherland's deep suffering and the national responsibilities they carried.
On December 7 of the same year (Hawaii time, Beijing time was December 8), it was a Sunday, and the passenger ship Xing Haifan and his companions were on was sailing between Australia and New Guinea. They were still a few days away from the Hawaiian Islands. Suddenly, the radio broadcasted shocking news: the Japanese had successfully ambushed the U.S. Pacific naval and air base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii with over 30 warships and 350 aircraft, causing over 3,700 U.S. casualties, sinking or damaging over 40 U.S. ships, destroying over 230 aircraft, and nearly annihilating the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored there. The entire ship was stunned, and the United States gradually came to its senses from the shock. The U.S. and Britain then declared war on Japan, marking the outbreak of the Pacific War in World War II.
On December 11, the passenger ship finally arrived at Pearl Harbor. They had been plagued by Japanese submarines along the way, and the captain ordered all crew members to keep their life jackets on at all times. The ship docked in Honolulu for a four-day rest, giving Xing Haifan a chance to witness the horrors of war. He recorded his observations in his notes: "Some U.S. ships in the harbor were sunk and lay in the water, while others were half-submerged, their tails sticking out of the water. The base barracks were in ruins, with broken walls and debris. At Hickam Airport, the scene was littered with shattered aircraft wreckage and numerous craters. How hateful war is! I vowed to fight for the elimination of war."
Xing Haifan saw that the buildings on the streets of Honolulu had been reduced to ruins by raging fires. He had never witnessed such Japanese brutality in his homeland, yet it had happened thousands of miles away in the Pacific. The main reason was that the U.S. military was completely unprepared, with no aircraft dispersed—each one was parked right next to the other, providing the Japanese with the perfect opportunity for relentless bombing.
When the ship left port, the injured U.S. soldiers and detained U.S. officers from the Pearl Harbor incident were taken aboard this ship. To show international friendship, the Chinese flight students voluntarily gave up over 50 first-class cabin seats for the U.S. wounded soldiers, while Xing Haifan and his companions stayed in temporary bunks in the dining hall.
It wasn’t until Christmas morning, December 25, that the ship safely reached San Francisco, ending the perilous journey to the United States.
War awakened people. Upon arriving in the United States, Xing Haifan and his companions immediately plunged into intensive flight training. At that time, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party cooperated to form the national united front. Though far from home, Xing Haifan and his companions were deeply concerned about their motherland and hoped to graduate as soon as possible to serve their country.
In October 1942, Xing Haifan and the other trainees in the 12th class graduated from the advanced aviation school in Luke, the United States. During his studies in the U.S., Xing Haifan, through diligent learning and hard practice, mastered flight techniques and tactics and was assigned to the U.S. Air Force fighter squadron, preparing to fight against the Japanese alongside American pilots. Since the war in China urgently needed aviation personnel, Xing Haifan and his companions returned to the United States immediately after graduation, flying across South America, across the Atlantic, through Central Africa, and around the world before finally reaching Kunming, where they had been separated for a year.
At that time, the war in China was still in a difficult phase, with Japanese iron hooves visible everywhere in the sky and on the ground. After returning to China, Xing Haifan was soon transferred to the Kuomintang Air Force Officer Academy, which had moved to, India (now part of Pakistan, the same below), to serve as a flight instructor, participating in training the 16th, 17th, and 18th classes of flight students.
Xing Haifan, though in the military academy, his heart was with the battlefield. He deeply felt that as a man of seven feet, though he possessed excellent flying skills and patriotic passion, he couldn’t take to the skies to fight the Japanese planes but had to hide in air raid shelters from enemy attacks—how unbearable! Especially when Xing Haifan saw his classmate Wang Yanzhou coming to India to pick up planes, he had already been awarded two cross medals for shooting down planes. He was very envious.
After Xing Haifan’s persistent requests, it wasn’t until March 1944 that the authorities agreed to let him return to the combat units. On that day, Xing Haifan happily flew over the famous "Hump" route from India to return to China.