"It's good to be back home", American veterans revisit airport used in wartime

"It's good to be back home," said Harold George Brown, a former US pilot who fought in China during the Second World War (WWII), when he revisited an airport in southwest China, which was used in the wartime.

Picking up a small stone on the runway of the Xinjin Airport in Chengdu, capital of southwestern Sichuan Province, Brown gazed at the runway, now covered with grass, extending into the distance, tears in eyes.

"I'll bring it (stone) back to the States," Brown said, choking with sobs.

Sixty years ago, 22-year-old Brown joined Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. He piloted a B-24 cargo-transport plane, transporting oil, materials and Chinese armymen between Kunming, capital of southwestern Yunnan Province, and the Chengdu-based Xinjin Airport.

The Xinjin Airport was the largest one for bombing planes in Asia during the WWII. The airport was built by 220,000 farmers of Sichuan in several months starting from the end of 1943. Twenty-seven B-29 heavy-duty bombers and 297 staff who were in charge of plane maintenance of the US Air Force 14th air fleet and P38 and P61 pursuit planes equipped with radar system of the US Air Force were stationed at the Xinjin Airport during the wartime. The aviation headquarters of the US Air Force which helped China in the war were also stationed at the airport. The Xinjin Airport was where the Allied Forces took off for the first time and bombed Japan's mainland during the WWII.

Brown is one of the 12 American veterans who visited the Xinjin Airport on Friday. They are members of the then American Volunteer Group that fought in China as the prestigious "Flying Tigers" and US pilots who steered transport planes from southern India to southwestern China via the Himalayas, known as the 500-mile "Hump" route. They and their relatives, totaling 51 people, gathered at the Xinjin Airport at the time when China celebrates the 60th anniversary of its victory in the war of anti-Japanese aggression and the victory of world's anti-Fascist war.

Brown said he remembered clearly the situation when the airport was built.

"Tens of thousands of people, including women and children, carried stones with bamboo baskets to build the airport," Brown recalled, "People hammered big stones into small pieces and then rammed the stone pieces with large rollers to make the runway solid."

"About 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese people worked at the airport, some of them standing in a line to pull the large roller and others hammered stones into small pieces. It was so grand a scene, " said Harolde Corbin, who was a transport soldier in the wartime.

"All by hands, it's really a miracle!" Corbin said.

Brown said, each time when he landed, farmers who repaired the runway would dodge to one side to leave enough space for the plane. But sometimes, the plane would veer away from the correct track and some farmers were stricken to death, Brown said, "I'm sorry!" Both Brown and other veterans lowered their heads.

Among this group of veterans is a special woman tourist who did not fight in the WWII.

Diane Marie Eaton, a 58-year-old retired teacher from the United States, is very fond of history and has a good collection of books and CDs about the WWII. And She knows the Xinjin Airport.

Eaton said, the current journey to the airport is of uncommon significance to herself. "This was part of the history of our country and also part of your country's. That was a hard time and luckily, we won the war," Eaton told Xinhua.

"No war and everybody lives their their own life: working, staying with the family and sending children to school...that is the life we need," Eaton said.

Currently, the Xinjin Airport belongs to the China Civil Aviation College and is used for training civil aviation pilots.

Source: Xinhua