0397 Flying Tiger Pavilion

Flying Tiger Pavilion.

Seeing these five big characters, Wang Liang couldn't help but think of a person, General Chennault.

Claire Lee Chennault, Major General and Pilot of the U.S. Army Air Corps.

Born on September 6, 1893 in Commes, Texas, USA, Soong Meiling appointed Chennault as an advisor to the Chinese Air Force on June 3, 1936 to help establish the Chinese Air Force.

On August 1, 1941, the American Air Volunteer Corps of the Chinese Air Force was established, with Chennault as the captain of the colonel.

During the Sino-Japanese War, Chennault himself shot down forty-one Japanese fighters in China.

Wang Liang sighed: "I don't remember how you came to China, but I remember how you left. ”

July 6, 1945, was the day Chennault left office.

The Chinese government bestowed him the highest honor, and Yun Province announced that the road leading from downtown Kunming to Wujiaba Airport would be renamed Chennault Road.

On August 2, 1945, Chennault's farewell ceremony was held, and Wang Liang also attended.

At about 6 p.m., tens of thousands of Chinese rushed to the scene of the farewell ceremony to see the true face of the American general.

Wang Liang still remembers that when General Chennault's open-top jeep appeared on that road, the whole road was already surrounded by citizens who had come to see him off.

The gendarmes who maintained order simply had no way to effectively control the scene.

The citizens loved the American general from the bottom of their hearts.

The scene was full of voices.

Everyone waved their hands and shouted Chennault's name loudly.

Chennault, who was nearly sixty years old, was deeply moved by this scene, and he couldn't speak Chinese in tears, and repeatedly responded to everyone with the word "top good".

Dididi——

The citizens who had come to see them off blocked the road, and General Chennault's car could not pass through.

It was not until eight o'clock that General Chennault's car appeared at the venue.

Wang Liang struggled to recall the scene: "I remember that the convertible car was not driven over, but pushed to the venue by a dozen strong young men. There were steps in the venue, and General Chennault tried to get out of the car, but the car was carried directly into the hall as a sedan chair. ”

It is in this special way that the simple people of the mountain city express their reluctance and respect for the heroes.

In order to express his gratitude, when Chennault left the mountain town, the citizens of the mountain town spontaneously presented him with tens of thousands of small gifts.

The Kuomintang government gave Chennault a golden key to show that the door to China would always be open to him and that the family would return at any time.

Among the gifts given by the common people, Chennault chose some to bring back home.

At that time, Wang Liang recalled the past years, and he couldn't help but have a lot of touches.

After the full-scale outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese devils quickly occupied air supremacy in China by virtue of their absolute superiority in the air force.

Japanese planes wreaked havoc on the battlefield, indiscriminately bombing China's key strategic cities such as Shanghai, Wuhan, Chongqing, and Xi'an, and the weakened Chinese Air Force was barely able to fight back.

Countless innocent Chinese died in the bombing.

In troubled times, life is not in your own hands, how sad it is.

Every day and every night, when the air raid sirens sounded, they had to rush into the bomb shelter as fast as possible.

Wang Liang sighed.

On that day in 1945, Wang Liang recalled that four years earlier, Chennault had led U.S. Air Force pilots to the Chinese battlefield to fight the Japanese invaders.

Since the US government had not yet declared war on Japan at that time, this air force was called the 'Chinese Air Force American Volunteer Air Force for China', and each plane had to be painted with the blue sky and white sun logo.

It was with the assistance of this air force that China dealt a heavy blow to the invincible and vicious Japanese Air Force.

The Air Force continuously bombed Japanese airfields, Japanese military bases, and strategic targets, and even directly bombed the Japanese mainland, making great achievements in China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

Today, Wang Liang looks at the collection in the exhibition hall.

Lunch boxes used by pilots back then

General Chennault boarding the plane

Flying Tigers logo

U.S. military guns

Wang Liang said: "Nearly 500 young soldiers of this American air force have died on Chinese soil. ”

These things are also little known.

The relationship between China and the United States is complicated, and for various reasons, there is not much propaganda and not much intensity in these areas.

But Wang Liang felt that those people and those things that year could not be forgotten.

Perhaps there is an ideological opposition between us, but this is not a barrier that prevents us from being good friends and brothers.

In order to commemorate these Allied soldiers, Fan Jianguo burned the photos of American officers and soldiers that could be found into porcelain plate paintings in the Flying Tiger Theater in a unique form in China.

Hanging neatly on the walls of the exhibition hall, let people remember and remember forever.

In the center of the exhibition hall, Wang Liang noticed a photo of Fan Jianguo and an old foreigner.

It's not hard to speculate that this is an American.

He looked like he was eighty or ninety years old, in a wheelchair.

"This is a veteran of the Flying Tigers, his name is Robert Grubb, and he was a pilot of the 10th Air Wing of the United States."

Fan Jianguo continued to introduce to Wang Liang: "In two thousand and one years, after many inquiries and searches, I got some information about the veteran of the Flying Tigers, so I invited him to our museum......

Fan Jianguo restored the situation at that time for everyone.

When he saw the photos of his comrades on the wall, Robert couldn't help but cry.

He asked Fan Jianguo: "Are they all US troops here?" ”

Fan Jianguo replied, "Yes." ”

Robert asked, "Have you ever been a soldier?" What is the military rank? ”

Fan Jianguo replied: "I have been a soldier and my military rank is captain. ”

At this time, Robert, who had inconvenient legs and feet, stood up from his wheelchair stiffly, raised his hand to give Fan Jianguo a US military salute, and said in a trembling voice: "First, you are a commander, and my military rank is lieutenant. Second, thank you for building such a good museum for the U.S. military, and thank you for remembering me. ”

Fan Jianguo hurriedly raised his hand and returned the salute: "It should be that we thank you, it was you who helped us defeat the Japanese invaders with sacrifices." ”

The feelings of the Chinese and American peoples and military personnel of the two countries have crossed ideologies and time and space here, and they have given each other the highest salutes.

Speaking of which, those who have served in the army feel the deepest.

What moved Fan Jianguo even more was Robert, who has a little-known story for the former Flying Tigers pilot.

While he was in China, he fell in love with a beautiful American military nurse.

But by the end of the Sino-Japanese War, the nurse was gone.

Robert has always kept a collection of photographs of his lover and framed them from the aluminum sheets of the downed Japanese plane.

Robert never married......

[True Story, Non-Fiction]