In the early morning of April 4, 1951, the 13th Squadron of the 3rd Bomber Wing of the U.S. Far East Air Force was bombing the Volunteer Shariyuan Railway Station when a bomber was volleyed by Volunteer ground fire and exploded. Soon after, U.S. representatives took advantage of the negotiation opportunity to ask the deputy commander of the Volunteer Army, Xie Fang, to find the whereabouts of the American bomber pilot who was shot down that night, because he was the only son of Van Vleet, commander of the US Eighth Army. After hearing the news, Xie Fang praised the Van Vleet father and son and promised to help find it.
Van Vleet, who fought in two world wars, was a professional soldier. He was superstitious about the tactics of the sea of fire, and the amount of ammunition he used was more than 5 times that of the US military's operational norms, and was known as the "Van Vleet Ammunition Quantity". In the Battle of Shangganling, he increased the number of artillery preparations from 30 rounds of artillery to 260 rounds, causing huge casualties to the volunteer army.
His son, Van Vleet Jr., was a captain in the 13th Squadron of the 3rd Air Wing of the U.S. Far East Air Force and a B-26 bomber pilot. From August 1951 onwards, the U.S. military began to carry out "strangulation warfare" against the Volunteer Army, and Van Vleet Jr. was the loyal executor. Their slogan is "Destroy every car and every bridge on every road".
U.S. troops bomb the bridge behind the Volunteers
After more than two months of continuous bombing, the bombing density of the US army increased further, and it would go out day and night, dropping a large number of bombs, incendiary bombs and butterfly bombs on the volunteer transport lines. The "strangulation war" put the logistics of the volunteers in a dilemma, the railway line between the front and rear was completely cut off, and the grain storage of the front-line troops did not even arrive for a week.
But the volunteers did not sit still, and quickly established a trinity air defense system, and logistics began to slowly recover. But little Van Vleet did not take this to heart at all, and he repeatedly retreated from the anti-aircraft fire of the volunteers, so he became more and more rampant.
Volunteer anti-aircraft artillery fire
At 3 a.m. on April 4, he flew a bomber to the Shariyuan railway station, an important transportation node for the Volunteer Army. When he reached the target airspace, he lowered the flight altitude from 1,000 meters to 800 meters, and Wang Xingmin, a platoon commander of the 3rd Platoon of the 9th Company of the Artillery Regiment of the 119th Division of the Volunteer Army, who had already been ambushed here, immediately put him into the ring of sight and immediately opened fire decisively.
The anti-aircraft guns spewed out angry tongues of fire, and 8 shells swept from the nose of the B-26 to the tail, and the planes did not have time to drop the bombs, and they were shot and exploded. The next morning Van Vleet received the news and stood still for a few minutes. He was an advocate of the "strangulation war", and his son died in the bombing operation, which is considered to be the recovery of Skynet.
He then entrusted the American negotiators to ask the volunteers to find out the whereabouts of his son on his behalf. The news reached the ears of our negotiators, General Xie Fang, who said:
The left side of the front row is the solution square
"Van Vleet is our nemesis on the battlefield, but he does not allow his son to live a good life at home, and to follow him to this poor place to fight, from their standpoint, it is a manifestation of loyalty to the country, as a soldier, I respect this spirit." If little Van Vleet were alive, we would be lenient as a matter of policy, not taking him hostage because of his status, and if he was dead, we would try to find his body and return it. ”
The volunteers did what they said they were, sending men to conduct a careful search at the site of the plane crash, but found nothing. The aircraft was not flying at a high altitude at that time, the bomb had not yet been dropped when it was hit, and it had a large amount of fuel, so it exploded directly in the air. Little Van Vleet may not have had time to skydive and was blown to pieces along with the plane.
The tomb of the VanVleet family, at the bottom of which is his son Fanvleet Jr
Van Fleet was very sad after receiving the report, but he had to admit that in the search for the whereabouts of his son, the Volunteer Army was a civilized teacher of credit, dignity and humanity, and in Van Vleet's own words, it was "full of chivalry".