Backgrounder: Doolittle Raid rescue, a legacy for China-U.S. friendship

HANGZHOU, April 22 (Xinhua) -- During World War II, China and the United States joined hands to fight Fascism. Among the stories from this time, the Chinese people's heroic rescue of U.S. airmen after the Doolittle Raid on Japan has united people from the two countries.

Chinese and American people last week gathered in Quzhou City in east China's Zhejiang Province to mark the 83rd anniversary of the Doolittle Raid and celebrate the friendship between China and the United States.

On April 18, 1942, a group of 16 U.S. bombers, led by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet and air-raided Japanese cities, including Tokyo, in retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Ahead of the raid, bombers took off at a location farther from Japan than in the initial mission plan, as they had encountered Japanese patrol crafts.

After the raid, 15 bombers headed for an airport in Quzhou as previously planned, and the other one steered toward and landed in the Soviet Union. The airport in China was considered a friendly territory for the Americans, and was geographically close to mainland Japan.

However, due to the increased flight range, the 15 planes had run out of fuel before reaching their destinations. With conditions exacerbated by bad weather and poor communication, they crashed or were ditched in various parts of east China, mostly in Zhejiang.

Of the 75 airmen aboard the planes, 64 were rescued by the Chinese people, most of whom were villagers who had received no official notice.

Many villages involved in the rescue still tell their stories of finding the "strange-looking foreigners" who couldn't speak Chinese, and of their efforts to shelter, care for and protect them.

In a village in Zhejiang's Ningbo, for example, locals identified the airmen as Americans and cooked eggs and shrimps for the pilots before using a boat to help them leave the village.

These U.S. soldiers made contact with local authorities and were transferred to safe zones.

Facing Japanese soldiers searching for the Americans on the coast, the locals refused to tell the whereabouts of the airmen.

Their rescue, however, came at a tremendous cost. Many villagers were suspected of sheltering the Americans, and some were even tortured or slaughtered by the Japanese.

After the Doolittle Raid, Japan launched a campaign in May 1942 to destroy air bases, airports and other infrastructure in the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangxi, lest they were used by Chinese or U.S. air forces. The airport in Quzhou was subjected to intense bombing. Japan also waged biological warfare by spreading cholera, plague and other diseases.

The three-month campaign resulted in massive civilian deaths.

Over the decades, the rescue of the American airmen has stood as a testament to the friendship between people from the two countries forged in the war against Fascism.

In 1992, five of the Chinese rescuers were invited to the United States to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid. Doolittle and then-U.S. President George H. W. Bush sent their warm greetings.

The children of the American pilots have also visited the Doolittle Raid Memorial Hall in Quzhou to pay tribute to the Chinese people for their heroic efforts.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.

During this year's commemoration of the rescue, the USS Hornet Museum -- a museum converted from the retired U.S. aircraft carrier -- gifted an original film reel of a 1942 Doolittle Raiders training exercise to the Quzhou Society for the History of the Doolittle Raid. The society also donated the wreckage of a B-25 bomber from the raid to the U.S. museum.

(Intern Zhang Jiaxuan also contributed to the story.)