Details
The A1 Airfield (coordinates: 30°25′13.25″N, 103°50′41.88″E) that is located at a thousand-year-old town on the Western Sichuan Plain in China is a code name forgotten by history for a long seven decades. Even when surrounded by the harsh realities of war, when blue eyes encounter the white gardenias in China, love can still happen. And their perseverance and determination can even deter death. The American AAF officer and his Chinese lover will find rebirth after he completes his noble mission.
About Author
Ms. Yang Song, who uses pseudonym Gege Yangsong for her published work, is from Beijing. She used to live and work in China’s Sichuan Province when she was an army surgeon in the Chinese military.
Ms. Yang has intimate knowledge about the life, work, study and training of China’s commercial airline pilots. Based on her knowledge, historical facts and legends she has heard about aviation in Sichuan, she created a trilogy about these pilots’ stories: A1 Airfield - the Legend of a B-29 Crew in China during WWII, Cleared for Takeoff and Cleared for Landing.
About the Translator:
Ms. Wei Jing is a journalist, author and business consultant based in Washington, DC, the United States. Centering around US-China relations, her career has spanned a wide spectrum from White House Correspondent to aerospace sales.
Ms. Wei has published three books: Grandma’s China, a personal journey through China’s Transition (2009)； Wei Jing's Diary in the Iraq War (2004)； and Journals from Studyingin America (2000). A1 Airfield is her first translation work.
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From the Author
The A1 Airfield (coordinates: 30°25′13.25″N, 103°50′41.88″E) that is located at a thousand-year-old town on the Western Sichuan Plain in China is a code name forgotten by history for a long seven decades.
While researching for my first novel, Cleared for Takeoff, I stumbled upon a dust-covered door that leads to a past of 70 years ago at A1 Airfield. The cracked runway that still sits there silently and the rusty nozzles from the old fuel depot seem to bring back the roars of the mighty B-29 Superfortress Strategic Bombers that entered the China Burma India (CBI) Theater with an aim to bomb Japanese home islands in 1944. Their secretive but heroic mission during World War II inspired this story about the flight crews who firebombed Tokyo and the young aviators’ romantic encounters in China.
I would like to dedicate this story to the 70th Anniversary of the Victory of Allied Forces of World War II. We shall never forget the contributions and sacrifices made by the Chinese and American peoples in the Pacific Theater during this war.
Toward the end of World War II, a bomber wing of the U.S. Twentieth Air Force of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) was stationed at the Western Sichuan Plain with the world’s then most advanced long-range bombers, the B-29 Superfortress. During operation days, hundreds of young American pilots and crew members, many with their big blue eyes the color of the clear sky, and dressed in their stylish flight jackets, would walk to the giant flying machines on their way to bomb the Japanese home island or other strategic targets.
On each of such a morning, 11 crew members would board one B-29 in single file. They would always wave to the ground crew and whoever watching , coupled with their signature bright smiles. Then the big bird would slowly taxi out, and take off in an instant. Everyone knew, including the young crew members onboard, that this quick moment at takeoff could mean farewell forever; that when it was time for the young men to return from their assignment that evening, some, or sometimes many of them, would have perished during their daring endeavors.
The 58th Bombardment Wing (very heavy), under the command of the Twentieth Air Force, was established on April 22 and activated on May 1, 1943. In August, 1943, it was decided that the wing would be stationed in China by the end of 1943 with the secret mission of eventually bombing Tokyo and bringing the Pacific War to an end.
In order to accommodate the heavy bombers, an estimated 350,000 Chinese laborers built four airports from scratch as staging bases in western Sichuan Province in an incredibly short period of four months. American war planners chose the particular locations in western China because their distance to Tokyo was within round-trip range of the B-29s, and in the meantime out of Japanese controlled areas in war time China. These forward bases, plus the four logistic bases in India, enabled the B-29s to operate from China for its strategic bombing missions over Japan and critical military industrial targets in the CBI. The support for the B-29 effort was one of the most tremendous contributions made by China to the forced surrender of Japan, therefore contributing to the early ending of the war and fewer casualties on all sides.
Even when surrounded by the harsh realities of war, when blue eyes encountered the famously fragrant white gardenias in China, love would still happen, and its perseverance and determination would deter rules and prejudice, even life and death. When an American AAF officer on assignment stumbled upon true love on a foreign land, what choices would he make? When faced by possible fatality each time he flew away from his gardenia, what could be sustaining his will to fight and complete the mission? The exuberant gardenia blossoms may hold the clue.
This is a love story that lasted just one day in actuality but a lifetime in memories and longing… a longing across the Pacific Ocean that spans nearly half a century, over 13,500 days and nights.
