Did the American fighter planes from the Pearl Harbor incident make an emergency landing in Lin'an?

The first crew members took a group photo before takeoff

On the evening of April 18, 1942, a US bomber passed over Lin'an, flew west, and disappeared in an instant. Later it was found that it crashed on the top of Haotianguan Mountain at the junction of Lin'an and Ningguo.

Early the next morning, Lin'an Qingyun Shegan Village, a small mountain village with only a hundred households, caused a sensation. A huge thing happened.

"Early in the morning that day, someone hurriedly knocked on the door. When I opened the door, I saw that it was Kanniuwa from Youkou Village. Kanniuwa seemed to be frightened and was a little out of breath. He said angrily: "Come on, come on, I, I saw a strange man on the opposite side of Wudong Mountain. He was very tall, with a high nose, yellow hair, and blue eyes. Before he finished speaking, my husband Zhang Genrong started to follow him." Niu Wa ran towards Wudong Mountain..."

Zhang Genrong, male, born in 1914, is from Shegan Village. He secretly joined the Communist Party in 1940 and served as the Communist Party Secretary of the Tianmu District of the Central County Committee. Head of the underground party organization in Shegan Village until April 1941. Died in 2001.

Seventy years have passed. Although the passage of time has not diluted the memory of Zhang Genrong’s wife, Sun Linmei, about the past. She told us a touching story with great affection.

Zhang Genrong followed Kan Niu Wa to the foot of the mountain. As Kan Niu Wa said, he saw a very strange-looking person on the mountain in the distance. But he had seen a bit of the world and knew he was a foreign devil. He folded a firewood stick and held it in his hand. He greeted the other person with "Hey, hello" and slowly approached him. The foreign Japanese seemed to feel threatened and yelled something. Zhang Genrong could not understand him at all, so he continued to walk towards him. At this time, the foreign Japanese pulled out his pistol and pointed it into the sky "bang, bang, bang" Three shots were fired.

After the gunfire, Zhang Genrong had to stop dozens of meters away from the opponent. Zhang Genrong thought that since the foreign devil shot into the air, it meant that he would not hurt him and was just trying to scare him. He was telling himself not to get close to him again. Hearing the gunfire, many villagers had gathered at the foot of the mountain. Zhang Genrong began to shout to the foreign devil, telling him to come down from the mountain and that he would not be harmed. But after shouting for a long time, the other party was still fuming, and neither party understood what they were talking about. Then, Zhang Genrong threw away the stick, stretched out his hand to shake it and told him that he would not hit him. He put his hand on his chest and told him to please don't worry. He also put his hand on his mouth, as if to invite him down the mountain for a meal. look. After some sign language, the foreign devil seemed to understand something, only to calm down, and slowly walked down the mountain with doubts.

When Zhang Genrong led the foreign Japanese down the mountain, two things happened. One thing was that when I passed a house, there were several children playing at the door. The foreign devil took out a few biscuits from his backpack and handed them to the child in a friendly manner. The child took them and was about to put them in his mouth. The adults in the child's family hurried over and snatched them away, saying that they could not eat them because the foreign devil's food was poisonous. Another thing is that when passing the village entrance, many unsuspecting villagers gathered together with iron rakes and hoes in their hands, stopped the foreign devils, and shouted that they would beat the foreign devils to death. Because at that time the Japanese foreign devils were invading China, the villagers believed that the foreign devils must be bad and came to harm the Chinese people. In the chaos, Zhang Genrong protected the foreign Japanese while scolding the villagers loudly: "The matter has not been clarified. Please don't mess around. Let's take him to Zhang Jian's house to get Lingqing." In the chaos, a man snatched the foreign Japanese's pistol. The person who snatched the pistol was Yu Gensheng from Bizong Village, a village next door. This man himself was the "endemic scoundrel" and "broken foot pole" in the village. He heard that a foreign devil with a gun was coming, so he caught up with him and took advantage of the chaos to grab the gun (later, when Zhang Jian found out, he chased Bizong and took the gun back from Yu Gensheng and gave it back to the foreign devil).

Zhang Jian, male, from Shegan Village, was the party secretary of Lin'an Kuomintang County at that time. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he was imprisoned as a Kuomintang official. After being released from prison, he worked as an accountant at Hangzhou Qingchun Auto Parts Factory until he retired and returned to his hometown.

The villagers brought the foreign devils to Zhang Jian's house. It was almost noon, and Zhang Jian arranged for his family to cook a meal for him. He also explained to the villagers: The Japanese invaders invaded our country, and the one with the tall nose was a Western devil. They were different, but we didn’t know what he was doing in China. Although Zhang Jian is a member of the government and is educated, he does not understand foreign languages.

In the exchange with the foreign devils, I only understood the word "China". Because when they entered the village, the villagers made a fierce fuss and their guns were robbed, the foreign Japanese were very nervous and depressed. Zhang Jian handed him water and asked him to drink, and invited him to eat without eating. He just sat in the living room blankly. Zhang Jian then showed him a portrait of Sun Yat-sen and said that he was a member of Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang. The foreign Japanese looked at it and expressed that they recognized the statue, but waved their hands to express some doubts about Zhang Jian (later they learned from the mouths of the rescued American pilots that the Kuomintang traitors and the Japanese army had also used Sun Yat-sen's portrait to deceive captured American personnel).

"I was also there that time. I had been watching the excitement in the living room. When the foreign devils were sitting there, my uncles Zhang Genrong and Zhang Jian were extremely anxious because they could not speak. Later, Zhang Genrong Jian went to the oil port and asked Zhu Xuesan, Zhu Xuexue's younger brother, to come and clear things up." Elder Zhang Xu (a native of Shegan, Zhang Genrong's nephew, now 87 years old, is still alive.) recalls this past event with fresh memories.

Zhu Xuesan went to middle school, worked as a primary school teacher, and knows some English. As soon as Zhu Xuesan arrived, he said "How do you do! (Hello!)", and the sitting foreign devil immediately stood up, knowing that he was coming and could talk. Through Zhu Xuesan's communication with the foreign devil, everyone knew that he was an American pilot named Leon Nader came to China to help fight against Japan. He just flew a plane to bomb the Japanese territory and landed here because the plane ran out of fuel. At the same time, he learned that there were two companions who landed with him and were still hiding in the mountains. .

With the help of Zhu Xuesan, Leonard called Porter, who landed on Wudong Mountain in Shegan Village, and Fred, who landed on Gaoliang Mountain opposite, down the mountain and came to Zhang Jian's house together.

"I was a teenager that year. I heard that a foreigner had come to Zhang Jian's house, so I ran to see him. When I went there, there were already three foreigners there, two tall and one short. They were all wearing military uniforms, belts, and ear-covering hats. There were many people watching in the living room of Zhang Jian's house. The three foreigners shared biscuits with everyone. Some ate them, but some didn't dare to eat them. I also got my share because I was young and I was scared to see such people. I didn't dare to take their cookies. "Zhang Genrong's sister Zhang Qianhua (now living in Jiaokou Village, 81 years old, still alive) also clearly recalled the original scene (Zhang Qianhua's memory is amazing, she can still identify him in the group photo taken by the Doolittle crew at Tianmu Mountain) The three pilots were rescued in Shegan).

There was a little incident when the three American pilots were having dinner at Zhang Jian's house. Zhang Jian cooked a lot of food, but they didn't know how to eat it. The hard-boiled eggs couldn't be picked up because they didn't know how to use chopsticks, which made a lot of jokes. Zhang Jian asked them through Zhu Xuesan's translator if they wanted to drink. They asked for beer, but Zhang Jian didn't know where to get it.

In the afternoon, Zhang Genrong, Zhang Jian, Zhu Xuesan and others sent the three American pilots to the Western Zhejiang Administrative Office in Tianmu Mountain. When they arrived at Tianmu Mountain, they learned that the same crew had landed in Shengcun, West Tianmu. Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle and co-pilot Lieutenant Richard had been escorted to the Western Zhejiang Administration Office by soldiers from the youth camp in the morning. After meeting, the five rescued American pilots hugged each other tightly with joy.

Postscript: Regarding the rescue of the American pilot, the rescue location mentioned in previous materials was Bizong Village, but it was actually Shegan Village. Among the main rescue personnel, only Zhu Xuesan was mentioned, and Zhang Genrong and Zhang Genrong were not mentioned. Zhang Jian and two others. In addition, previous information said that the American pilots were tied up and escorted down the mountain by the villagers, and that they had lunch at Zhu Xuesan's house. This was not the case.

There were American pilots who were taken to Lin'an. The people rescued him, but no American aircraft from the Pearl Museum had ever reached Lin'an. The distance was too far, and the aircraft at that time did not have such good performance.