Chinese WWII pilot: From war hero, to outcast, to hero again, By all accounts, Long Qiming was a Chinese hero during Apple War II. He piloted burden planes over the Himalayas, allowance to resupply China afterwards Japan's aggressive had cut off acreage routes into the country's interior.
Yet afterwards WWII and the founding of the People's Republic of China, Long paid a acrid amount for his accommodation to break in his adopted homeland, acreage China. Long was built-in in Hong Kong, so he captivated a British passport. He aswell had aureate planes for the 14th Air Force Chinese-American Composite Wing, an arm of China's nationalist government.
When Mao Zedong and his Communist Party bedeviled ability in China, both of these access — Long's British authorization and his accord with U.S. and nationalist armament — came into question. At the alpha of China's Cultural Revolution, the government chock-full alleviative him like a war hero. Instead, according to his son, Long Wenjun, "they anticipation he was a spy."
In a contempo account at his Chongqing apartment, Long Wenjun anecdotal the ups and downs of his father's roller coaster life. From an aboriginal age, his ancestor was a refugee, afresh a war hero, afresh an outcast and assuredly a hero again.
The chief Long had bidding achievement that he would reside to see this year's 70th ceremony of the end of Apple War II, but that was not to be. Endure October, he anesthetized abroad at age 91.
Born in Hong Kong, Long had consistently advised China to be his homeland, and he and his brother fled to the acreage afterwards the Japanese had invaded Hong Kong in 1941.
Proficient in English, Long was accepted into a U.S. Army Air Armament training affairs in 1942 to aid the Chinese attrition adjoin Japan. The next year, he started aerial "The Hump" — burden deliveries over the Himalayas. Later, he reportedly flew bombers.
"During this aeon of time, my ancestor was actual amorous about the country (China)," said Long Wenjun, now 67. "He was altered than the Americans. He wasn't just angry adjoin the Japanese, he was angry for our own country and families."
After the war, Long Qiming could accept alternate to Hong Kong or possibly emigrated to the United States, but he chose to break in China. He abutting a Chinese aerodynamics aggregation but, amidst the accumulation paranoia of the Cultural Revolution, he was affected to accord up that job. He went to plan for the Chongqing Iron and Steel Group.
Long Wenjun was visibly afflictive administration what his ancestors went through during this period, but he did allotment some details. He said his ancestor at one point was bedfast for 20 days, afterwards badge raided the family's home and took abroad some of his war mementos. The ancestors was breach up, with some of Long Wenjun's six ancestors "sent off to the country."
One section of affirmation that badge acclimated adjoin Long was the money and aliment he had accustomed from overseas, including from U.S. buddies. According to Long Wenjun, the ability were beatific by accompany afraid that his ancestor and the ancestors was traveling athirst during China's Great Famine, which dead millions in a three-year aeon starting in 1958.
Long Wenjun was able to acquisition plan in Chongqing and escape the affectionate of abuse meted out on his father. But to abstain agitative suspicions, he absitively not to apprentice English and abhorred absolute data of his family.
After Mao died and China opened up to the world, Long Qiming was afresh acclaimed for his WWII heroics, and he was accustomed to biking and collaborate with adolescent war pilots in China, Hong Kong and the United States.
In Chongqing, the city-limits opened a building on the Aerial Tigers — mostly U.S. pilots who fought adjoin Japan in 1941 and 1942 — that includes a affectation committed to Long Qiming. In 2014, Long appear a account — "Hero of the Himalayas" — application Eddie Long as his pen name.
Long's ancestors aswell recovered from the Mao years. Long Wenjun fabricated a acceptable assets in a gold abstraction business. He now lives in an affected high-rise that overlooks Chongqing, the above wartime basic of China.
When his bloom attenuated endure year, Long Qiming became the focus of abundant Chinese account stories, including an all-encompassing section in the Shenzhen Evening Account that included data of his activity during the Cultural Revolution. That adventure acclaimed a Chinese TV alternation was in the works that ability highlight Long Qiming's role during the war. According to Wang Luoyong, an amateur who is allotment of the project, Long will absolutely be featured in the series, which may air as aboriginal as next year.
When he anesthetized away, Long Qiming was broadly memorialized. Abundant accompaniment newspapers and broadcasters proclaimed him to be "the endure actual Aerial Tiger." Even that affronted controversy.
The "Flying Tigers" was a appellation accustomed to the American Volunteer Group, or AVG, allowable by Claire Lee Chennault and paid by the Chinese government. Although they didn't alpha aerial missions until afterwards Pearl Harbor, their training started above-mentioned to the Japanese bastard attack. The Aerial Tigers were about clandestine mercenaries, and able ones, inflicting austere accident to Japanese forces.
The AVG clearly disbanded in July 1942, and back then, a part of U.S. adept groups, the appellation "Flying Tigers" has been aloof for those aboriginal AVG pilots. But in China, the characterization of Aerial Tigers has been continued to any pilots who helped action the Japanese, afore or afterwards 1942.
Based on the Chinese definition, Long may in fact accept been the endure active Aerial Tiger. Some WWII historians, such as Richard B. Frank, anticipate that Long and added Chinese pilots in the war deserve added acclaim than history has accustomed them.
"Their achievements are absolute and deserve to be remembered," Frank, the columnist of several books and affidavit on the war, said in an email barter with McClatchy. "That is apparently why in China it is accepted to alarm all these aviators 'Flying Tigers,' whether they were with the AVG or not."
Yet afterwards WWII and the founding of the People's Republic of China, Long paid a acrid amount for his accommodation to break in his adopted homeland, acreage China. Long was built-in in Hong Kong, so he captivated a British passport. He aswell had aureate planes for the 14th Air Force Chinese-American Composite Wing, an arm of China's nationalist government.
In a contempo account at his Chongqing apartment, Long Wenjun anecdotal the ups and downs of his father's roller coaster life. From an aboriginal age, his ancestor was a refugee, afresh a war hero, afresh an outcast and assuredly a hero again.
The chief Long had bidding achievement that he would reside to see this year's 70th ceremony of the end of Apple War II, but that was not to be. Endure October, he anesthetized abroad at age 91.
Born in Hong Kong, Long had consistently advised China to be his homeland, and he and his brother fled to the acreage afterwards the Japanese had invaded Hong Kong in 1941.
Proficient in English, Long was accepted into a U.S. Army Air Armament training affairs in 1942 to aid the Chinese attrition adjoin Japan. The next year, he started aerial "The Hump" — burden deliveries over the Himalayas. Later, he reportedly flew bombers.
"During this aeon of time, my ancestor was actual amorous about the country (China)," said Long Wenjun, now 67. "He was altered than the Americans. He wasn't just angry adjoin the Japanese, he was angry for our own country and families."
After the war, Long Qiming could accept alternate to Hong Kong or possibly emigrated to the United States, but he chose to break in China. He abutting a Chinese aerodynamics aggregation but, amidst the accumulation paranoia of the Cultural Revolution, he was affected to accord up that job. He went to plan for the Chongqing Iron and Steel Group.
Long Wenjun was visibly afflictive administration what his ancestors went through during this period, but he did allotment some details. He said his ancestor at one point was bedfast for 20 days, afterwards badge raided the family's home and took abroad some of his war mementos. The ancestors was breach up, with some of Long Wenjun's six ancestors "sent off to the country."
One section of affirmation that badge acclimated adjoin Long was the money and aliment he had accustomed from overseas, including from U.S. buddies. According to Long Wenjun, the ability were beatific by accompany afraid that his ancestor and the ancestors was traveling athirst during China's Great Famine, which dead millions in a three-year aeon starting in 1958.
Long Wenjun was able to acquisition plan in Chongqing and escape the affectionate of abuse meted out on his father. But to abstain agitative suspicions, he absitively not to apprentice English and abhorred absolute data of his family.
After Mao died and China opened up to the world, Long Qiming was afresh acclaimed for his WWII heroics, and he was accustomed to biking and collaborate with adolescent war pilots in China, Hong Kong and the United States.
In Chongqing, the city-limits opened a building on the Aerial Tigers — mostly U.S. pilots who fought adjoin Japan in 1941 and 1942 — that includes a affectation committed to Long Qiming. In 2014, Long appear a account — "Hero of the Himalayas" — application Eddie Long as his pen name.
Long's ancestors aswell recovered from the Mao years. Long Wenjun fabricated a acceptable assets in a gold abstraction business. He now lives in an affected high-rise that overlooks Chongqing, the above wartime basic of China.
When his bloom attenuated endure year, Long Qiming became the focus of abundant Chinese account stories, including an all-encompassing section in the Shenzhen Evening Account that included data of his activity during the Cultural Revolution. That adventure acclaimed a Chinese TV alternation was in the works that ability highlight Long Qiming's role during the war. According to Wang Luoyong, an amateur who is allotment of the project, Long will absolutely be featured in the series, which may air as aboriginal as next year.
When he anesthetized away, Long Qiming was broadly memorialized. Abundant accompaniment newspapers and broadcasters proclaimed him to be "the endure actual Aerial Tiger." Even that affronted controversy.
The "Flying Tigers" was a appellation accustomed to the American Volunteer Group, or AVG, allowable by Claire Lee Chennault and paid by the Chinese government. Although they didn't alpha aerial missions until afterwards Pearl Harbor, their training started above-mentioned to the Japanese bastard attack. The Aerial Tigers were about clandestine mercenaries, and able ones, inflicting austere accident to Japanese forces.
The AVG clearly disbanded in July 1942, and back then, a part of U.S. adept groups, the appellation "Flying Tigers" has been aloof for those aboriginal AVG pilots. But in China, the characterization of Aerial Tigers has been continued to any pilots who helped action the Japanese, afore or afterwards 1942.
Based on the Chinese definition, Long may in fact accept been the endure active Aerial Tiger. Some WWII historians, such as Richard B. Frank, anticipate that Long and added Chinese pilots in the war deserve added acclaim than history has accustomed them.
"Their achievements are absolute and deserve to be remembered," Frank, the columnist of several books and affidavit on the war, said in an email barter with McClatchy. "That is apparently why in China it is accepted to alarm all these aviators 'Flying Tigers,' whether they were with the AVG or not."
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