Day 9: Tuesday, October 15th, rainy. Yunnan Yi Airport.
Turning back to the Yunnan Post Archway, I came to the memorial wall on the right hand side of the archway once again. The eaves of the corridor are like three drops of water, the high side is low, the hanging mountain style, and the woodcarved couplets are hung on the central pillar: First-class people are loyal ministers and filial sons, two things Reading and farming. The wall has five sides, and the corners of the black and white flowers are treated according to the style of the screen wall of the Bai nationality. The white wall in the middle is used for writing. It is really writing, and I think it is written in one go. I admire the art workers here ! On the wall are selected a passage from US Army Air Corps Commander Chen Nord talking about the Hump route (far left), a passage from the famous reporter Xiao Qian about the Yunnan-Burma Highway and Huitong Bridge (far right), and the second from the right is selected from "Tea Notes of Ma Gudao, the second from the left seems to be about post stations in Qing history.
The largest piece in the middle is "Xu Xiake's Travel Notes" by Zhu Huirong. I searched the Internet and found that the first sentence is from "Diary of Dian Tour Thirteen", and the latter is from "Diary of Dian Tour Fourteen": "On the 16th, I traveled northwest from Pufei. Two miles, crossing a river, one li, crossing another river, and going uphill to the west." "So I came out of the west cliff of the mountain, and saw that the west dock was wide open, so I went straight down, five miles to the foot, and paved for Mopang." "Eight miles west of Jiewu, there are two stone beams spanning from east to west, and the bottom is dry, and the river flows from the north. It is two miles to the west, passing the Dashui Weir Pond. The weir is slightly north, and ten miles to the west, reaching the foot of the West Mountain. , is Xiaoyunan Station, where we stay." Three selected texts were grouped into one paragraph, and there was a sentence that read the text in and out, and "Xiazhuang Southeast" was noted in brackets after "Mopangpu", and "Little Yunnan Station" was noted in brackets at the end of the text. , which is today's Yunnan Station, in the east of Xiangyun County, has been an important traffic route since ancient times", which should be the geographical cognition of the writer.
Some online articles said that this is the commemorative text wall of the Hump Route Burma Road, probably because these two historical facts are too eye-catching; a pile of stone mills by the side of the parking lot (some people say it is made of cement, and it was shipped from the United States cement), the owner of the store said that he was repairing the airport, but in fact he also had a part in repairing the Burma Road. The rumors are a bit serious, at least it shows that memory is unreliable.
Standing under the archway of "Yunnan Station" and looking southward, under the oppressive sky is an open weedy field, and occasionally there is a lonely tree. Yes, this is also an important attraction of this trip-Yunnan Station Airport. The rain was not too heavy, but we had to carry an umbrella. Looking back at night, I was very fortunate that the time when the rain was heavy was still on the way, and it had little effect on our search for the airport relics. Walking southeast along a concrete road, there is a sign on the side of the road, knowing that it is a county road. Although there are village names along the way, our goal is still very vague, because there is no detailed guide, we can only make do with many travel notes and Baidu maps The small place names on the website, guessing, asking and looking.
The airport that was rolled out back then was too strong. It is estimated that it would take a lot of effort to re-cultivate it, so a large area was abandoned.
However, the places where there are more machine nests are planted with corn and tobacco leaves. Passing by a yard, it stretches out from the county road on a dirt road, with trees planted on both sides, and there is a factory behind it, which is not loud, but smells bad, it is a plastic factory. I have met villagers driving agricultural vehicles, and they can point out the location of the machine nest, but they are also very indifferent. That period of history is too long.
Yunnan Post is really a unique existence. In ancient times, it was an important commercial center on the Ancient Tea-Horse Road and a stop of the official post road system (otherwise it would not be called a "post"); in the 1930s and 1940s, the Yunnan-Burma The highway still passes through Yunnan Station, which is the current National Highway 320; today, the high-speed G56 still chooses to pass through Yunnan Station. Therefore, this piece of wilderness where no tall plants grow, the former airport, is surrounded by the Hurui Highway in the east and north, and the Hangrui Highway in the south. Just as the web article "Yunnan Post, the earliest ancient town called "Yunnan"" said: Yunnan Post is the only place that gathers caravan transportation, road transportation, railway transportation and air transportation in different eras. It is a place for human transportation. Living fossils of development history.
There is a story about a pilot in the sensational movie "Wuwen Xidong" two years ago. It is easy for us who came to this abandoned airport to believe that it should happen here. At least it emphasizes that the ancient and modern traffic gathering place Yunnan Post can use it as a Article, but the young man from the development company in Yunnanyi Primary School had never heard of this movie. The fellow W worker said: No wonder no one comes to this place, and they don’t know how to promote it! Propaganda can of course get some things for gold, but what about the reality? For example, some people on the Internet said that the aviation school moved from Hangzhou, while others said that it moved from Luoyang. What's the matter? I found a website that talks about the history of the Central Aviation School, and extracted some parts:
On December 28, 1930, the Central Aviation School moved to Jianqiao, Hangzhou. On January 28, 1931, the Songhu Anti-Japanese War broke out. Before the expansion of the aviation school airport was completed, it was harassed by Japanese aircraft. In 1933, the Luoyang branch school was established to provide primary flight education. On August 6, 1937, the aviation school moved out of Jianqiao, passed Xiaogan, and finally resumed school in Jiyang, Wujiaba, Kunming. Soon, it was restructured and called the Air Force Officer Academy, with Wujiaba Main School as the advanced class, an intermediate class in Mengzi, and a junior class in Yunnanyi, Xiangyun County. It became the base for training Air Force combat pilots during the Anti-Japanese War.
Both seem to be correct, but Luoyang is more accurate. The status of Yunnan Yi Airport in the Second World War, said on the Internet, "As the most important military base and material transfer station of the Allied Forces in the Far East, it has become the throat of China's success or failure in the War of Resistance, and it was famous overseas for a while." I found an article about " A Brief History of the Tenth Aviation School of the Air Force, aimed at this period of history and the post-war situation of the airport, is written in a detailed, concise and concise manner, with a huge amount of information, which is much better than the impression of travel: The Tenth Aviation School of the Air Force was established in Qiqihar in 1968 , From 1969 to 1976, various units successively stationed in various airports in northern Yunnan. The article introduces in detail the four flight training groups of the Tenth Aviation School, and the specific conditions of the four airports stationed in Zhanyi, Zhaotong, Luliang, and Xiangyun respectively. I'm going to copy some more:
Zhanyi Airport is located in the transportation hub of eastern Yunnan, and its military status is very prominent. From 1938 to 1939, a total of two mud-bound gravel runways, five dikes (commonly known as machine nests) were built, and traffic roads, taxiways, dikes, barracks, hangars, air-raid shelters, equipment warehouses, artillery shell depots, etc. were built. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, Qujing Airport built in 1927 was expanded in 1942 as an auxiliary airport of Zhanyi Airport. Zhanyi Airport is an important transit station in the "Hump Route" transportation. A large amount of materials and troops are airlifted to Zhanyi and then transferred to other places. In 1942, more than 2,000 people from the U.S. Army and Air Force arrived in Qujing successively, and were stationed in Qujing and Zhanyi counties respectively. More than 80 aircraft (up to 120 at most) from two squadrons of the U.S. Air Force stationed at Zhanyi and Qujing airports, transporting troops, weapons, and supplies to and from Myanmar and India. Zhanyi Airport also undertakes the task of training flight personnel and attacking Japanese military targets in Southeast Asia. In 1945, after Japan surrendered, the Kuomintang army took over Zhanyi, Qujing Airport and all equipment. During the civil war, the main forces of the army and air force in Yunnan were transferred out, and the airport was closed. It was taken over by the People's Liberation Army in 1950, but remained unused until the arrival of the Shi Aviation Academy. In 1985, during the million-dollar disarmament, the tenth aviation school was dismantled, and Zhanyi Airport was suspended again and became an alternate airport for military use. And Qujing Airport has been re-cultivated by farmers, and now it can't even be seen.
Zhaotong Airport was first built in 1935. It was a relatively simple airport. During World War II, it was expanded and became a rear military combat readiness airport, where B-29 bombers took off and landed. In 1950, it was taken over by the People's Liberation Army, the air station was under the command of the People's Liberation Army, and the airport was closed for a long time. In 1959, the Civil Aviation Administration of Chengdu organized the expansion of the airport. In 1961, the Kunming route was opened, and small passenger planes such as An-2 and Il-14 took off and landed. In 1970, the Tenth Aviation School conducted primary flight training here and added two turf runways for shared use by the military and civil aviation. In 1983, the Civil Aviation Administration of China decided to stop the operation of Zhaotong Airport. In 1985, the Tenth Aviation School was dismantled, and Zhaotong Airport was completely closed. Since then, it has been used as a backup airport by agricultural and forestry aircraft for aerial seeding operations and artificial rainfall operations. In 1993, a new civil aviation airport was built more than ten kilometers away, and the old airport has been merged into the urban area of Zhaotong.
Luliang Airport was one of the 28 airports built by the Nationalist Government in Yunnan during the Anti-Japanese War. In addition to the main runway for bombers and large transport planes, there are auxiliary runways, taxiways, short runways for destroyers and traffic planes, and emergency landing fields. It is known as the largest military airport in Asia. The U.S. Air Force units stationed here are the 68th Wing and the 23rd Expulsion Brigade (formerly known as the "Flying Tigers") under the command of the 14th Air Force under the command of General Chennault. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Luliang Airport It continued to be used by the Kuomintang Army Air Force until 1950 when the People's Liberation Army took over. In 1979, during the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, the most advanced J-7 squad of the Chinese Air Force at that time was stationed at Luliang Airport, and together with the J-6 Combat Regiment of Kunming Wujiaba Airport and Mengzi Airport, they jointly assumed the air supremacy on the western front in the self-defense counterattack important task. In 1985, after the tenth aviation school was withdrawn, the Air Force Kunming Command Post and the Air Force Chengdu Branch merged to form the Chengdu Military Region Air Force, and Luliang Airport became the flight training base of the Chengdu Air Force. The current Luliang Airport is a large-scale and complete modern air force training base, equipped with the third-generation fighter J-10 independently developed by our country.
Xiangyun Airport is actually called Yunnan Yi Airport, about 10 kilometers away from Xiangyun County. Yunnan Yi Airport is one of the important airports of the "Hump Route" in the Anti-Japanese War in China. It is a transit airport for combat preparations from Tingjiang Airport in Assam, India to Kunming Wujiaba Airport, Zhanyi Airport and other airports. In fact, Xiangyun owned Yunnanyi Airport and Baitun Airport during the Anti-Japanese War. The distance between the two airports is only four kilometers, and they are called sister airports. The airport used by the Tenth Aviation School for flight training was the Baitun Airport built during the Anti-Japanese War. After liberation, it was rebuilt into an airport for fighter jets to take off and land. On the way to the airport to fly, we saw an airport that had been planted with crops and only had a muddy gravel runway. This was the world-famous Yunnan Yi Airport during the Anti-Japanese War.
Yunnan Yi Airport was built in 1929. It was one of the 24 airports built by Long Yun when he was in charge of Yunnan. Originally a commercial airport. In 1937, Chiang Kai-shek sent personnel to Yunnan Station to take over the air fleet. The government once again occupied more than 1,000 acres of land in the villages near the airport, such as Qiansuo, Yunnan Station, and Jiuzhan, and requisitioned Xiangyun Xiangcheng, Huafeng, Hefeng, and other villages in batches. A total of 76,879 migrant workers in 13 districts of Hexiu, Pindian, Midian, Saijing, Exi, Qiansuo, Qiaobin, Tianmu, Wenyuan, and Longrun expanded and repaired the runway of Yunnanyi Airport, and built warehouses, oil depots and other facilities , and changed the commercial airport into a military airport. At the beginning of 1938, the elementary training class of the Kuomintang Central Air Force Academy was also moved from Luoyang to Yunnanyi Airport. The 13th and 14th sessions were successively trained, with a total of more than 300 pilot students (in 1939, the junior class was moved to Zhanyi Airport). In 1941, the Commander of the U.S. Air Force Base led more than 200 aircraft of various types from the 25th Combat Team and the 23rd Transport Team of the Fourth Air Force of the U.S. Air Force to station at Yunnanyi Airport to support China’s War of Resistance Against Japan. They did not leave until 1945 after Japan’s defeat and surrender. In May 1942, Japanese troops invaded my country from Burma. At that time, the 15th Fighter Fleet of the 14th Air Force of Chennault's "Flying Tigers" and the 13th Transport Fleet of the "Hump Route" were stationed at Yunnan Yi Airport. At the same time, the 38th Air Station of the Kuomintang Army and the 5th Motor Transport Team were also stationed in Yunnan Yi.
Before 1943, Yunnan Yi Airport could only be used for light aircraft to land. Later, in order to meet the needs of the war and facilitate the take-off and landing of heavy bombers, the national government decided to expand the airport. Chinese laborers make homemade stone rollers to act as "steam rollers". The largest stone roller is 1.8 tons high and requires more than 100 people to pull it. Baitun Airport is located between Songmei Village, Liuchang Town, Xiangyun County and Jiuzhan Village, Yunnanyi Town. It was built in January 1939 and expanded twice in 1943 and 1944. During the Anti-Japanese War, Baitun Airport was mainly used as the auxiliary airport of Yunnanyi Airport. After the founding of New China in 1949, it was idle for a while until 1961, according to the instructions of the Central Military Commission, the Yunnan Provincial Military Region established the Baitun Airport Construction Committee to rebuild it on the former site of Baitun Airport. In 1964, the new airport was completed and stationed by the People's Liberation Army. In August 1964, the US military launched a large-scale air strike on Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The aviation school established by the Vietnamese army at Haiphong Airport happened to be in the center of the US air raids. The Vietnamese government has requested the Chinese government to move the aviation school into Chinese territory. With the consent of the Chinese government, the Vietnam Air Force Aviation Academy was led by the political commissar Du Mei to move to Yunnan and stationed at Xiangyun Airport. In order to prevent US planes from bombing, the Vietnamese side also parked more than 30 of its transport planes at Xiangyun Airport. It was not until 1975 when the Vietnam Anti-US War ended and the reunification of the North and the South was realized that the aviation school moved back to Vietnam. In April 1976, the fourth advanced training regiment of the Tenth Aviation School settled in Yunnan and was stationed at Xiangyun Airport to take on the task of training fighter pilots. In August 1985, the Tenth Aviation School was dismantled, and Xiangyun Airport ceased to be used. Now it is left behind by the radar troops, and Xiangyun Airport is still used as a military backup airport for the troops.
Therefore, the road we have traveled must belong to Yunnanyi Airport, because Baitun Airport is still a military important place and cannot enter. The article also said that "in 1939, the national government moved the junior class of the aviation school from Yunnanyi Airport in Xiangyun County to Zhanyi", probably to make way for so many US military aircraft. In addition, there are troops of different designations such as the Chennault "Flying Tigers" of the U.S. Air Force and the Fourth Air Force of the U.S. Air Force in Yunnan Yi. From the above airports, Yunnan was simply a huge U.S. military base at that time. During World War II, the missions of these airports included the U.S. military attacking Japanese targets in Vietnam, and they used them to protect Vietnamese aircraft during the war against U.S. aggression and aid to Vietnam. The love-hate relationship played out here is really complicated.
"Jiwo" (the professional term is "weir" from the history of Shihang University) is very wide and covered with weeds, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is natural. At present, the pattern of opening on one side and surrounded by soil on three sides is still there. It is said that the soil is rammed up, not just with the original hills. From the perspective of the environment, this should be a flat dam, which is convenient for planning the layout. This is also the case in Yunnan. One of the reasons why the station is selected as a node by various traffic. I don’t know if there was a cover on the original roof, and if so, what material was it made of (if there is no cover, how can the plane be protected from being bombed by the Japanese army)? I have seen photos on the Internet. It is a "machine nest" built by the Japanese at the airport in Daxing, Beijing during World War II. It is completely made of concrete and can be used as a warehouse or even a house.
On the west side of the County Road, there is an aircraft nest behind the distant terrain, which is more like the background of the airport and pilot photos that W workers found on the Internet. Let us believe that at this moment, we can sense the years of wars, because this mountain that has not been easy for thousands of years! The return trip was still in the rain, and suddenly an elevated highway was erected outside the window, and a new highway was erected between the mountain ridges. Is the land of Xiangyun really born for traffic?