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Special> Noble Sacrifice, Costly Lessons> Latest News
UPDATED: August 3, 2015
Nanjing Honors Heroes of 'Hump Airlift'
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Liao Yongbao was 64 years old before he learned the where-abouts of his father's grave. That was in 2004, when Liao, now 75, first saw his father's name engraved on a black marble tablet.

Liao Jingcheng, who was killed in aerial combat on June 18, 1941, when his son was just 10 months old, is buried at the Nanjing Anti-Japanese Aviation Memorial Hall, a complex in Zhongshan, one of the most picturesque areas of the capital of Jiangsu Province, surrounded by trees and bathed in melodious bird-song.

"After years of searching I finally found my father in the memorial hall," Liao said. "Tears streamed down my face as I read his name and the details of his life on the marble slab. I began to learn more about him when the workers sent me material related to him," he said.

"In 2009, the Jiangsu province government officially honored my father as a revolutionary martyr. Although I never had the chance to grow up with him, he will always be my hero."

The memorial hall holds the remains of 3,305 martyrs from the Japanese occupation of China: 2,197 of the dead were from the United States, 236 came from the former Soviet Union, and two were Korean nationals. The other 870 were Chinese.

The martyrs' cemetery, built by the government of the Republic of China, tells the story of how airmen from China, the U.S. and the Soviet Union fought side by side against the Japanese.

The graveyard was badly damaged in the late 1960s, but in 1987 work began to restore it to its original glory, and construction of the memorial - 30 black marble tablets engraved with the names of the fallen in Chinese, English and Russian - was completed in 1995. A memorial plaza was added a short time later.

In 2008, the Nanjing government invested 40 million yuan ($6.4 million) to renovate and expand the hall, which was officially opened to the public in 2009.

Help from overseas

"The heroes sacrificed their lives in the battle against the Japanese aggressors, which was also part of the global war against fascism," said Luo Chaojun, deputy curator of the memorial hall. "Every year, more than 100,000 people visit to pay tribute to them. Their contribution to the country will never be forgotten.

"In the autumn of 1937, the Soviet Union government sent 1,091 aviators and technical experts to aid China's fight against Japan," he said.

"Before they returned to the Soviet Union in 1941, they had taken part in more than 50 battles in several major cities, and managed to shoot down 81 Japanese aircraft and blow up 114 aircraft and 14 ships."

According to Sun Yao, a guide at the hall, in the early years of the Pacific war, all aid from the U.S. came in the form of private donations from individuals, but following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government officially began providing aid too.

"The Soviet Union was the first country to offer help to China, but the U.S. played a crucial role in the latter half of the war against the Japanese," Sun said, adding that U.S. aviators destroyed more than 2,600 Japanese aircraft and 44 ships, and killed or wounded more than 66,700 soldiers.

It's appropriate that the hall is currently hosting an exhibition about the "Hump Airlift", the longest, largest and most dangerous strategic airlift of World War II.

The operation, which began in 1942 and continued daily until 1945, saw military supplies, fuel, food and clothing transported over some of the most dangerous airspace in the world, from Assam in northeastern India to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. The routes - one north and one south - were China's only lifelines with the outside world once the Japanese had closed all the sea and overland routes into the country.

The planes left Dinjan airfield in Assam and headed east to cross the Himalayas, the Gaoligong Mountains, the Hengduan Mountains and several major rivers before finally arriving at Kunming. The route got its nickname because the aircrews thought the rolling mountains resembled camels' humps.

For the pilots, the flights required endurance, supreme flying skills and bravery. At an average height of 4,500 to 5,500 meters, the terrain over which the aircrews flew is some of the highest in the world, reaching 7,000 meters at its highest point. Moreover, the local microclimate results in thick fog, violent thunder-storms and strong winds.

According to Sun, China National Aviation Corp, which was jointly owned by the Chinese government and Pan American Airways, and the U.S. Army Air Force Air Transport Command combined to undertake the airlift and transport large quantities of supplies to China. CNAC was the perfect partner, having already undertaken many military transport flights between 1938 and 1941.

Severed lifelines

In July 1937, a gunbattle at Lugou Bridge - also known as the Marco Polo Bridge-in Beijing signaled the start of Japan's invasion of China. Although the Japanese occupied several major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing, the war quickly reached a stalemate.

The severing of all the supply lines on land and at sea left China isolated and in desperate need of supplies, without which it could not hope to survive.

The Hump Airlift was the only feasible response, but its success came at a high price and took a huge toll on both men and machines.

"China and the U.S. allocated 2,200 aircraft and more than 84,000 people to transport more than 740,000 tons of supplies and 33,477 combatants via the Hump," Sun said. "Those airlifts became aerial lifelines for China."

The 100 aircraft owned by CNAC, the only commercial airline involved in the operation, transported 74,809 metric tons of supplies in 43,611 flights.

"The airlift was the longest, most dangerous and most difficult in the history of global aviation," Sun said. "Both countries made enormous sacrifices to achieve it."

According to the literature at the memorial hall, many pilots preferred to take the northern route, which was far more difficult to fly than the southern one, to avoid Japanese fighter planes. Irrespective of the route they chose, however, they still had to negotiate high mountains and contend with adverse weather conditions on the "Routes of Death", as many of the pilots called them.

"More than 1,500 pilots and aircrew members lost their lives in the Hump Airlift," Sun said. "More than 500 aircraft crashed, of which 468 belonged to the U.S. About one-third of the 103 pilots and aircrew employed by the China National Aviation Corp were Americans."

About 100 of the downed planes have never been located, meaning their crews have never been formally honored.

'Aluminum Valley'

The hall's literature tells of how one former hump pilot always referred to the airlift as "Aluminum Valley", because on clear days the crews could see the glistening wreckage of crashed aircraft scattered in the valleys below.

Luo said 990 newly identified martyrs - 586 Chinese and 404 U.S. nationals - will have their names and stories engraved in the hall by August 15. The number of heroes will rise to 4,295, with U.S. nationals accounting for more than 60 percent of the total.

Li Juan, director of the Nanjing Aviators' Association, said the process of finding and identifying the fallen is often difficult and time-consuming. "We have to check the information with known materials, foreign embassies and authorities, including defense departments," he said.

"The association will continue to work with aviation organizations and museums in Taiwan, HongKong, the U.S. and Russia to identify more martyrs.

All the relevant information, including name, rank or title, hometown, dates of birth and death, military experience and cause of death will be recorded. Some relatives have asked for more details so they can learn more about their family's lost heroes.

"We pay our respects to the heroes by identifying them, engraving their names in marble and reuniting them with their old comrades, the men they fought side by side with."

Luo, the hall's deputy director, said researching personal histories and the conflict proved difficult because many of the men were very young when they died.

"The average age of the heroes who were killed was 23," Luo said. "Some of them have been forgotten by posterity and aren't remembered at all. Also, very few experts in China conduct research into the history of Chinese aviation, while the number of experts researching the country's history during World War II is small."

"We'll continue to keep history in mind, commemorate the martyrs, and cherish our life today," he said.

For Sun, the Hump pilots and aircrews are the forgotten heroes of China's WWII history. "The people who flew the airlift may not be as famous and glamorous as the Flying Tigers, but they transported every single gallon of fuel and every bullet used on the battlefield," she said.

"The history of the Hump Airlift was written in the blood of these young heroes. We will always remember their names and hold them close in our hearts."

(China Daily August 3, 2015)



 
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