Flown Over Tiananmen: Interviewing the Flight Personnel of the Opening Ceremony of the New China

Author: Xiao Bangzhen
Publisher:
Publishing Date: Not available
Features: Witnessed the tragic scene of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor firsthand
Xing Haifan (original name Xing Wenzhuo) was born on September 16, 1916, in a farming family in Langzhong County, Sichuan. Han ethnicity. He attended a private school in his hometown, studying ancient poetry and classics, and later enrolled 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 serving the country. Xing Haifan received education in national consciousness and patriotism from a young age.
In 1937, when Xing Haifan was about to graduate from high school, the Lugou Bridge Incident occurred, leading to the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and a nationwide resistance against Japan. At that time, the Central Air Academy of the Kuomintang was recruiting students (on September 1, 1932, the Central Air Academy was established in Jianqiao, Hangzhou, and was renamed the Air Force Officer Academy in March 1939, later moved to Taiwan in 1948, abbreviated as Guankao—author's note). Influenced by the idea of "saving the country through aviation" ("saving the country through aviation" 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, he established an aviation detachment in the Guangzhou Revolutionary Army, creating China's earliest air force. 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" drafted in 1921 included nine items related to the development of aviation out of the total 63, fully reflecting his aviation. After a -plane manufactured in China successfully flew in 1923, Sun Yat-sen wrote the four characters "saving the country through aviation"—author's note).
With a sense of "give it a try," Xing Haifan was admitted to the 12th class of the Central Air Academy. According to the academy's requirements, students had to first 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 and Kunming in Yunnan 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 served as the commander of the American Volunteer Group, a brigadier general of the U.S. Army Air Forces 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. The 12th class of flight students (flight cadets) from Xing Haifan's group were sent to the United States in two batches, and Xing Haifan was in the second batch. At that time, World War II in the Pacific had not yet begun, and Xing Haifan and his companions took a plane from Kunming to Hong Kong, then boarded a ship for Manila. In November, they took an American passenger ship across the Pacific to the United States. By then, the Pacific was already turbulent, with dark clouds gathering, and war was on the verge of breaking out. For this reason, the United States dispatched a battleship to escort the passenger ship carrying Xing Haifan and his companions. However, the ship was still filled with a festive atmosphere, completely ignoring the signs of impending conflict and the scorching flames of war.
Xing Haifan and other passionate Chinese youth sat on the deck in small groups, discussing the deep suffering of their homeland and the national responsibilities they carried.
On the same year, December 7 (Hawaii time, Beijing time was December 8), it was a Sunday. Xing Haifan and his companions were on a passenger ship sailing between Australia and New Guinea, with a few days' journey to the Hawaiian Islands. Suddenly, the radio broadcasted a shocking news: the Japanese, with over 30 warships and 350 aircraft, successfully ambushed the U.S. Pacific naval and air base at Pearl Harbor, causing over 3,700 casualties among U.S. forces, 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 woke up from the shock. The U.S. and Britain declared war on Japan, marking the outbreak of the Pacific War in World War II.
On December 11, Xing Haifan and his companions finally arrived in Pearl Harbor. They had been plagued by Japanese submarine attacks along the way, and the captain ordered the crew to keep their life jackets on at all times. The ship docked in Honolulu for a four-day rest, giving Xing Haifan the opportunity to witness the horrors of the war. He recorded his observations as follows: "Some U.S. ships in the harbor were destroyed and lay capsized in the water, while others were partially submerged, with their tails still above water. The base barracks were in ruins, with broken walls and debris. At Hickam Airport, the scene was littered with shattered aircraft wreckage, and craters were everywhere. 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 never imagined that the brutal Japanese atrocities he had seen in the country would occur thousands of miles away in the Pacific. The main reason was that the U.S. forces were completely unprepared, with aircraft parked closely together, providing an ideal target for Japanese air raids.
When the ship left port, the wounded U.S. soldiers and detained U.S. officers from the Pearl Harbor Incident were taken aboard the ship. To show international friendship, the Chinese flight cadets voluntarily gave up over 50 first-class cabin positions for the wounded U.S. 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 thrilling journey to the United States.
War awakened people. After arriving in the United States, Xing Haifan and his companions immediately enrolled in intensive flight training. At that time, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party cooperated, forming the national united front. Although they were in a foreign land, Xing Haifan and his companions were deeply concerned about their homeland 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 United States, Xing Haifan, through diligent and hard training, mastered flight techniques and tactics and was assigned to the U.S. Air Force fighter pilot unit, ready to fight against the Japanese alongside American pilots. Since the War of Resistance against Japan at home urgently needed aviation personnel, Xing Haifan and his companions rushed back to the United States after graduation, flying across South America, across the Atlantic, through Central Africa, and finally returned to Kunming after traveling around the world, after a year apart.
At that time, the country was still in a difficult phase of the war. Japanese iron hooves could be seen everywhere in the sky and on the ground. After returning to the country, Xing Haifan was soon transferred to the Air Force Officer Academy, which had moved to Lhasa, 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 cadets.
Xing Haifan, while at the academy, his heart was with the battlefield. He deeply felt that as a seven-foot man, although he had excellent flying skills and a patriotic heart, he could not take to the skies to fight the Japanese aircraft but had to hide in air raid shelters from enemy air raids—how unbearable! Especially when Xing Haifan saw his classmate Wang Yanzhou coming to India to pick up aircraft, he already wore two cross medals for shooting down enemy planes, and he was very envious.
After Xing Haifan's repeated requests, it wasn't until March 1944 that the authorities agreed to his return to the combat units. On that day, Xing Haifan happily flew over the famous "Hump" route from India to return to the country.