Li Yueying
1912 On August 24, 1912, a Chinese girl with yellow skin was born in Portland, USA. This girl is Li Yueying.
Her parents are both from Taishan, Guangdong, and her father is a businessman who set foot on this hot land of the United States in the early 20th century.
Parents had 8 children in total, and this number was not many for Chinese people in that era.
At this time, there were still relatively few Chinese people in the United States, and this Chinese family was still quite eye-catching when walking on the streets.
Li Yueying's father is a businessman, and his mother is a traditional full-time mother. They would never have thought that Li Yueying would become the first female Chinese pilot of the US military in the future.
Li Yueying's life is very short. She died while performing official duties at the age of 32.
Li Yueying has loved sports since she was a child and has a bit like a man. She likes to play handball , swimming, etc., and she learned to drive when she was a teenager.
After going to school, her English name was: Hazel Lee.
Li Yueying graduated from high school in the United States. When she was 20 years old, she found a job as an elevator operator in a department store, and her work was relaxed and leisurely.
html In the early 330s, even in the United States, not many women received higher education. Li Yueying was admitted to high school at that time and was considered an educated person.
One of the benefits of being an elevator operator is that you have to contact many people every day. At that time, those who went to department stores were all wealthy in society.
One day, she saw an admission brochure for the Chinese Flying Club. She was very curious and the scene of herself flying a plane soaring in the blue sky appeared in her mind. she was very excited and excited.
At that time, airplanes were rare things, and the main means of transportation for ordinary people were ships and cars.
Li Yueying had never even taken a plane at that time, but she had seen the plane flying in the blue sky, but she had a bold idea in her heart:
"I'm going to learn to fly the plane!"
When she went home and told her parents that she was going to learn to fly the plane, she really scared her parents:
A girl flew the plane! If you encounter any accident or failure at a high altitude, it is not a joke!
Especially the mother, after hearing her thoughts, she was tearful and said sadly:
"Yingzi, you are already 20 years old. I have gotten married and had children at your age.
Flying a plane is a man's business. You should think about finding a suitable man to get married."
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Li Yueying answered with confidence:
"Mom, there has been a women's flight team in the UK. Besides, men can drive, why can't women drive?
I just want to do something different."
In the end, my family couldn't resist her, so she asked her to receive pilot training. In 1932, she was successfully admitted to the Portland China Aviation School.
During the Portland study flight, Li Yueying also gained her love. She met Lei Yanjun (also Chinese) who would become her husband in the future.
When the Anti-Japanese War broke out, she had graduated from the flight school and successfully obtained the qualification of a pilot.
At that time, there were quite a few female pilots, and there were only about 200 people in the United States. In China, female pilots were as rare as giant pandas.
When Li Yueying learned that the Northeast had fallen, she quickly returned to her motherland.
She suggested to the relevant departments that she hoped to join Chinese Air Force to fight against the Japanese army, but the Chinese Air Force at that time did not recruit female pilots.
However, her fiancé Lei Yan successfully entered the Chinese Air Force and served for several years.
Li Yueying was not discouraged. She came to Guangzhou and worked as a pilot in civil aviation. She hoped that the authorities could see her flying ability.
1937, the Japanese army invaded China in an all-out manner. Li Yueying, who was determined to serve his motherland, applied to join the Chinese Air Force again, but was still rejected.
has no way to serve the country, so she had no choice but to go home. On the eve of the fall of Guangzhou in 1938, she returned to the United States.
After returning to the United States, Li Yueying worked for the then Chinese government in New York for a period of time.
As early as 1930, the US military considered the problem of using female pilots by imitating the UK, but encountered great resistance at that time:
The person in charge of the US Army Aviation believed that this would not work. In his eyes, women are more likely to be nervous than men,
, and women's physiological characteristics determine many inconveniences.
1941, after 's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, the war spread to the United States. At that time, the air force had a great advantage over land and sea operations.
At this time, the US military urgently needed pilots, and so many people in the country obtained pilot qualifications. Some male pilots died in the war, which led to a shortage of pilots. After the Pearl Harbor incident, major American companies began to produce aircraft for combat in large quantities, but at that time, male pilots went overseas to participate in the war in large numbers. How to transfer to the military base of in the US factory has become a very difficult problem.
This is the head of the US military, and only the female pilots in the United States think of them.
American female pilot Jacqueline Cochrane , who has broken the world flight record (transcontinental flight speed record and altitude record), has been supported by the Army Air Transport Command and decided to set up a women's flight training task force.
Li Yueying previously obtained the qualification of a pilot and has rich driving experience. She also joined this Women's Flight Group (WASP for short).
She received arduous training in Texas for 6 months, learning to fly various models of fighter jets at the Fighter Flight Academy. Later, Li Yueying was included in the fourth batch and became the first Chinese woman in the US military to carry out a flight mission. After graduating from
, Li Yueying was assigned to the third aviation transport brigade of in Michigan. Their mission is:
to fly the new aircraft produced by the aircraft manufacturer to the port and load it on ships to the European and Pacific fronts.
During World War II , the United States supported more than 15,000 fighter jets in the Soviet Union. These aid planes were basically completed by Li Yueying and her colleagues.
As of November 1944, Li Yueying and six other American female pilots had transported more than 5,000 fighter jets . The opening of these fighters such as
played a very important role in the Soviet Union's victory in the anti-fascist war .
During the war, the female pilots of the Women's Service Aviation Brigade had to fly seven days a week. There were no holidays and the work intensity was quite high, but they had no complaints.
In addition, they also risk the huge danger of being discovered by the enemy. Once discovered by the enemy, the ending may be torn to pieces. It can be said that it is the inner belief that supports them in this dangerous job.
They are not for material returns, nor for future promotion and wealth, but just hope to do what they can do to crush fascism.
11944, the day before Thanksgiving, Li Yueying received a task: transport the P-63 "King Cobra" fighter to Montana .
However, this day is not good and is not suitable for flight, so Li Yueying can only postpone the takeoff time.
The next morning, the weather cleared, and Li Yueying set out in a plane to complete the task he accepted.
When she took off, she felt that the mission was the same as before, and she also joked:
"This year's Thanksgiving is going to be celebrated in Montana."
She also planned to call her parents after the plane landed, wish them a happy Thanksgiving, and also said a few words of thanks to her parents.
But Black Swan Event happened:
Due to the weather on the first day, many flights were delayed, and on this day, many pilots were waiting for landing permits, which brought huge results to the control of tower command. Challenge.
When Li Yueying was about to land, due to a mistake in the control tower command, the plane she was flying suddenly collided with another plane!
In the flash, the plane she was flying caught fire in the air! Then it quickly fell from the sky.
Li Yueying was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment, but because of her serious injury, she The queen, she passed away in the hospital.
According to the policy at the time, female pilots of WASP have no right to hold funerals according to military etiquette and cannot enjoy the treatment of ceremonial guards and official funeral services like male pilots.
Their coffins cannot be covered with the American flag.
However, their contribution to fighting the fascism is indelible.
On January 7, 2009, US President Obama and Congress decided to award female pilots the Congressional Gold Medal. At the ceremony, Obama said emotionally:
"Every American should thank them for their selfless dedication."
Before that, in November 2008, the "World War II Female Pilot Exhibition" was in Arlington Country The opening of the American Female Soldier Memorial Hall in the Cemetery also made many people recall that time again. At the same time, it also made the heroic deeds of these heroines again present to the public.
Year after year, the huge ship of history is rolling forward. Those who have made contributions to world peace and development will not and should not be forgotten by future generations.
Zhang Ailing once wrote in the work The car from the era of
was driving forward with a loud bang. We were sitting in the car, maybe we were passing by a few familiar streets, but we were also thrilling in the firelight in the sky.
Li Yueying was in that wartime era, she was flying in the blue sky with a fighter plane. She experienced the thrilling scenes almost every day.
Finally, her life was frozen at the age of 32.
Just a few days after Li Yueying's death, news of her brother Victor's death in the battle also reached Li Yueying's parents.
lost two children at once. What a sadness!
In the United States at that time, the Chinese were inferior to whites. Li Yueying's parents found a cemetery in the local area for the two deceased children, but the cemetery actually refused to accept the two people who died in the war to bury them. The reason they gave was:
Asians are not allowed to be buried in white cemeteries.
Li Yueying's parents finally won the lawsuit and buried their two children in this cemetery overlooking the flowing water of the Columbia River .
After Li Yueying's death, her sister once said:
"Sister likes to take risks, wants to do what she likes, and does some new challenges for Chinese girls. ”
She did this with her practical actions!
Her patriotism is also worthy of the admiration of future generations.
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