Zhijiang Air Force Assists Xuefeng Mountain

1In the spring of 945, I graduated from Chengdu Central Military Academy and was assigned to the Special Service Brigade of Aviation Committee of Zhijiang Airport in Xiangxi 18 Company (air defense machine gun company) as the platoon leader of the second lieutenant, and was responsible for the security task of the subordinate units of the airport air force.

At that time, Zhijiang Airport had more than ten units, including the First Squadron of China-US Mixed Brigade, the First Squadron of Air Transport Brigade, Terminal 9, No.2 Factory, Farm Maintenance Team, Hospital, No.2 Squadron of Automobile, No.8 Transfer Station, Navigation Station, No.2 Oil Depot, No.14 Oil Depot and Guest House. Zhijiang Airport is surrounded by the Army, Air Force, Constitution Headquarters, Wang Di 1 1, 14, 19 automobile regiments and air defense units.

After the Battle of Xuefeng Mountain (also known as the Battle of Xiangxi) started, the Zhijiang Air Force was ordered to work closely with the ground forces. With the proper deployment of logistics support in the terminal building, the ground crew and ground crew are working intensively in an orderly manner. The ground crew includes: maintenance team, refueling team, gun cleaning team, bomb hanging team, phase cleaning team, signal team and farm maintenance team. Set up temporary tents at both ends of the runway and beside the taxiway, and be ready to go out at any time. When the plane was in the air, each group left the tent and returned to their positions where they were standing by. After the plane stopped on the runway, they scrambled to board, overhaul, refuel, clean guns, clean guns, hang bombs and take pictures. Each duty team completed all the tasks within the specified time with skilled movements. After the mechanical team leader finally accepted and signed them one by one, the signal group ordered the aircrew of this class to board the plane and take off. The sweaty and greasy ground crew with tools in their hands smiled and saw off the aircrew and wished them a triumphant return.

At that time, the activities of the air force were tense and frequent, and they were dispatched at dawn and returned at dusk. Sometimes it takes off at night to intercept enemy planes and evacuate by plane. On average, it is dispatched more than 8 times a day. One morning, a P5 1 reconnaissance plane was ordered to fly to Shaoyang to spy on the activities of Japanese backup forces. Although the left side of the fuselage was hit by enemy guns, the explosion was bigger than the head, but it completed the task. After landing, the pilot put his head out of the cabin and took a photo, which is recorded in history!

Cao Xiguang and others, who were sent by our company to the United States to study shooting and bombing techniques, said that there was a plan to fly three fighter planes (P5 1) and two medium bombers (B25) to Daping in Jiangkou to cooperate with the 74th Army. At that time, the number of enemy planes was several times that of ours. Due to the resourcefulness and proper command of the pilot, the P5 1 plane led the enemy plane away from the battlefield and was lured to air combat near Wugang. The B25 plane bombed behind the enemy lines in turn, causing heavy casualties to the enemy and running around. Our soldiers destroyed and wounded an enemy plane. The destroyed fuel tank caught fire and fell to the ground to burn; The injured one fled east at high speed.

When our plane returned to land, three crew members (including an American) were injured. The fuselage of the plane was full of holes and bullet holes. Ground maintenance personnel stayed up all night for maintenance. Rosty Yi rushed to the front again.

In the battle of Xuefeng Mountain, our air force exerted its greatest power and dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese army. Therefore, the Japanese army regarded Zhijiang Air Force Base as a "thorn in the side" in an attempt to "unplug" it, so the bombing of Zhijiang became more frequent.

At first, enemy planes attacked Zhijiang during the day to spy on the strength of our air force, air defense equipment and the location of weapons and ammunition depots. At the same time, the Japanese special authorities bought a large number of traitors, collected military information for them and instructed the bombing targets. The enemy attacked Zhijiang airport with bombers and fighter planes. Cunning enemy planes flew over the periphery of the airport at low altitude, which made our air defense weapons unable to exert their firepower, resulting in many airports being bombed, planes to be repaired being destroyed, and peripheral arsenals being bombed, resulting in huge losses.

After learning this painful lesson, we redeployed the ground, air and defense forces and cooperated closely to make the firepower cross into a net. Enemy planes dared not shoot and bomb at low altitude, but dropped bombs at high altitude. In this way, our losses will be much smaller. When the fighters of our air force confronted each other, they returned fire and dropped two enemy planes and crashed outside the airport.

After the enemy plane was hit by this, it dared not come during the day and attacked Zhijiang at night instead. Whenever enemy planes fly over the sky, the hateful traitors will fire flares to instruct the bombing target, causing different degrees of losses to all military points of our army. Because it was difficult to wipe out the traitors for a while, the Air Force authorities made a plan to "confuse the real with the fake": when the air raid alarm was issued, the ground crew of the subordinate units took the flare guns and flares and evacuated in the mountains and rivers separately. When enemy planes are in the air, they will release signals to lure the enemy to throw bombs. Flares fired around Sri Lanka are red and green, and yellow and blue cross. The enemy plane was at a loss and threw itself at random.

Soon, the Allies transferred two planes code-named "Black Widow" from the United States, which were the most advanced planes at that time. After the "black widow" joined the air battle, it accelerated the victory of the Xiangxi battle.