The Unforgettable Child of the Anti-Japanese War, Nanqiao Mechanic

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The Unforgettable Child of the Anti-Japanese War, Nanqiao Mechanic

The Marco Polo Bridge Incident broke out in 1937, and Japan launched a full-scale war of aggression against China. At that time, most of the land and sea passages between my country and the world were blocked by the Japanese army, and overseas aid to China could not be transported back to China. In addition to relying on the heroic resistance of the Chinese people to fight against the enemy, timely replenishment of weapons and supplies is extremely important.

The Anti-Japanese War entered a stalemate stage. In order to open up international traffic lines, more than 200,000 people along the western Yunnan route, more than 10 ethnic groups, prepared their own dry food and tools, ate and slept in the open, carried hoeing and planing on their shoulders, split mountains to open roads, and built bridges across water. It took 9 months. More than 3,000 people. In August 1938, a Yunnan-Myanmar Highway, which started from Kunming and ran through western Yunnan to Myanmar, was built for nearly 1,000 kilometers. It was called "a miracle in the history of roads". The Yunnan-Burma Highway has a total length of 1,146 kilometers, including 959 kilometers from Kunming to Ruili Wanding. It was the only international passage in China at that time, and it was a veritable "lifeline of the War of Resistance".

The anti-war supplies entered the country through Wanding Bridge, and the Chinese Anti-Japanese Expeditionary Force crossed the gate through Wanding Bridge.

With the development of the war, the traffic volume of the Burma Road increased sharply, and there was a shortage of driving and maintenance personnel at the moment, and there were emergencies at the front and rear. The national government urgently asked Mr. Tan Kah Kee, the leader of overseas Chinese in Nanyang, to recruit skilled drivers and repairmen to return to China to serve.

In February 1939, Tan Kah Kee, on behalf of the Nanqiao Association, issued a "Notice" on the recruitment of overseas Chinese mechanics, "The Association has received the electricity from the motherland and commissioned the recruitment of mechanics and drivers of automobiles to return to China to serve. . . . The great cause of the rejuvenation of the motherland is urgently needed, and I hope that the overseas Chinese leaders and compatriots everywhere should pay close attention to it.”

Inspired by the patriotic spirit of Tan Kah Kee and many overseas Chinese leaders, from February to September 1939, 3,192 young overseas Chinese mechanics from Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, formed the "Nanyang Overseas Chinese Automobile Drivers and Auto Repair Mechanics Returning to China Service Group", returning to China in nine batches to serve. At that time, the recruiting conditions were strong male car drivers and repairmen between the ages of 20 and 40. Some of them even gave up their superior life at that time to return to China to serve. Among them were 4 modern Mulans who disguised themselves as men.

They traveled around Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangxi, Hunan, Myanmar, India and other places to provide logistical support for the War of Resistance.

The front line of Yunnan and Burma is located on the edge, with a backward economy, high mountains and dangerous roads, and the environment is very difficult. How dangerous are the overseas Chinese mechanics? The “Washboard Road” of the Yunnan-Burma Road was completed in less than a year. It has to cross mountains with a height difference of three to four kilometers, and cross several large rivers such as the Nujiang River and the Lancang River. Fall, fifteen to the end. In the event of heavy rain, the road surface was washed away, and all kinds of difficulties can be imagined. Once infected with malaria in the tropics, it can only be close to death. There are also daily bombings of key targets by Japanese planes, and strafing and bombing of running vehicles along the route. In addition, there is a lack of supplies at each station, and even the living expenses cannot make ends meet.

During the three years from 1939 to 1942, nearly 1,800 of the 3,200 mechanics died, sending about 500,000 tons of military supplies and more than 15,000 vehicles to various anti-Japanese battlefields in China at the cost of one life per kilometer.

Due to the bombing of Japanese planes, after May 1942, the transportation on the Burma Road was completely cut off. The busy drivers and vehicles became redundant, and the Nanqiao mechanics were disbanded. Sudden unemployment made the Nanqiao mechanics very embarrassed. They had no relatives in the rear. In addition, Southeast Asia was basically occupied by the Japanese army and could not go back. More than a thousand people stayed in the motherland to fend for themselves, and another thousand people returned to the country of residence after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.

On the 60th anniversary of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 2005, the Nanyang Overseas Chinese Machinery Workers returned to China and the Anti-Japanese Memorial Park was completed in the small town of Wanding. The memorial park is composed of monuments and memorial halls.

The memorial garden uses a lot of symbolic techniques. There are 50 steps from the entrance to the exit of the memorial hall, which symbolizes more than 500,000 tons of anti-Japanese supplies on the Burma Road. . The height of the building is 20 meters to commemorate the more than 200,000 people of all ethnic groups in western Yunnan who used their flesh and blood to dig the Burma Road. The general plan of the memorial hall forms a "V" character, representing the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.

With the death of the last Nanqiao mechanic, Nanqiao mechanic no longer exists.

In 2015, the Nanqiao Mechanical Workers Memorial Hall was listed by the State Council as a national anti-Japanese war memorial facility.

In 2018, "Nanqiao Machinery Archives" was selected into the "Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Region Register".