Visiting a Hero at the Foot of Hero Mountain: The Story Behind the Micro-Video "Aerial Bayonet Fight"
The story behind the Air Force Political Work Department Propaganda and Culture Center's micro-video "Aerial Bayonet Fight"——
Visiting a Hero at the Foot of Hero Mountain
■ Feng Yingdanmei
Poster for the "Aerial Bayonet Fight" episode of the micro-video series Hello! Air Force Veterans. Provided by the production team.
The car turned onto Hero Mountain Road in Jinan, and sunlight was filtering through the branches of the locust trees, casting shifting patches of light on the car window.
"Hero Mountain." I silently repeated the name of the road, imagining what kind of flames and smoke that old man living on this street had once walked through, and what he must look like now.
These were the questions in my mind before our film crew arrived at Tao Wei's home. I did not yet know that the interview ahead would let me touch that period of history so vividly, and understand so deeply what it means to be a hero.
It was summer in Jinan, and the heat was at its peak. Before setting out, we carefully read through Tao Wei's background materials: one of New China's first-generation pilots, who went to Korea to fight at age 19 and created the legend of the "aerial bayonet fight (空中拼刺刀)" at a distance of 120 meters… To be honest, that reputation was so formidable it made one a little nervous, and stirred up a great deal of curiosity.
When we arrived at Elder Tao's door, director Xie Yuchen knocked. An old man opened the door. He stood in the doorway wearing a dark blue cultural shirt with the Air Force emblem printed on the left chest. "You must be the ones here to film—come in and sit down." He smiled with squinting eyes and waved us inside.
The old man was Tao Wei, born in September 1934, turning 92 very soon.
"Jinan summers are very hot—have some water first and rest a bit." Elder Tao's mind was clear and his manner gentle. Looking at this kind old man before us, we momentarily forgot we had come to conduct an interview; it felt instead as though we were children returning home after a long journey away.
The interview began, and filled with curiosity, we let our thoughts follow Elder Tao back through time to that era of raging war.
Elder Tao produced an old newspaper—the Yangtze River Daily (《长江日报》) dated January 17, 1951. He pointed to a photograph on the front page and told us: this was a scene of Wuhan citizens seeing off young students enlisting in the army. One of the young men in the photograph was Tao Wei, not yet 17 years old.
"There were five siblings in our family, and I was the youngest… My second elder brother also enlisted…" At this point Elder Tao paused. "So after I was selected to study flying at the aviation school, my mother often said, 'He's flown, he's flown, this time he's really flown.'"
Even in Tao Wei's calm retelling decades later, his mother's words still carried the weight of emotion. It was the complex state of mind of a mother watching her not-yet-fledged youngest son about to soar toward an unknown and dangerous sky—pride, worry, reluctance, and endless longing all intertwined. I seemed to see a young man shouldering his pack and walking out the door, his mother standing at the threshold, watching his retreating figure, softly murmuring those words.
As he was leaving, Tao Wei's mother asked only one question: "Can you win?"
The young Tao Wei did not know the answer at the time. But he turned and walked away without looking back. Still a high school student, he stepped out the door in a single stride and walked into a battlefield thick with gunsmoke. In the years that followed, he would become one of New China's first-generation pilots, the legend of the "aerial bayonet fight," a hero looked up to by the people.
When Elder Tao spoke of his experiences in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, his tone was very calm, like someone tracing the grain of an old object.
He recounted his first combat sortie with a smile on his face: "When the ground crew saw that I had opened fire, they were very happy…" But back in the rest room, he had fallen into grief—"Of the eight of us, three didn't come back." "We were eight pilots, four to a room, and by the time the fighting reached its final, most intense stage, only the squadron commander and I were left." His flight leader had ejected, only to be pursued by American aircraft; his parachute was shot up and he was ultimately killed. Regimental Commander Chen Liang was likewise strafed by enemy aircraft after ejecting. "Chen Liang was a veteran soldier—he drew the pistol he carried on him and was still firing back." Elder Tao's voice dropped low, carrying a blunt ache that comes from having lived through great hardship. Everyone present fell silent, and an indescribable sorrow spread through the entire room.
I took the initiative to break the silence, pressing him about the aerial engagement on May 17: "When you heard that the enemy was destroyed at such a close range as 120 meters, did you have any sense that you had made history?" I was hoping to hear a vivid, rousing recollection of that battle.
Elder Tao shook his head calmly and said: "No." He gestured gently with both hands and described the harrowing aerial combat situation in plain, easy-to-understand terms—pulling back the throttle, deploying the speed brake, like a car traveling at high speed suddenly slamming on the brakes, so that the enemy aircraft behind instantly shot forward, reversing the roles of attacker and attacked. It was only after landing that Wang Xiangyong, deputy commander of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army Air Force's 4th Division, showed him the camera film and told him: the firing distance was 120 meters. "He said, 'This is an aerial bayonet fight.'" We tried to find even a trace of a ripple in his expression. But Elder Tao only gave a slight nod.
In that moment, I suddenly understood: for someone who has been tempered by the fires of war, a legend like this has long since merged into the river of memory, becoming just one wave among many.
On the day of the interview, Zhang Qinyuan, a student from the Air Force Youth Aviation School, also came along with the production team to pay a visit. He was 17 years old—about the same age Tao Wei had been when he went to Korea to fight.
Looking at this vigorous young man before him, Elder Tao's eyes held both gratification and a barely perceptible trace of envy. What he perhaps envied was that young people today can pilot advanced fighter aircraft and patrol the skies; what he hoped was that these young people would cherish everything that had been so hard-won, fly higher, and see farther.
During a break in the interview, Elder Tao's wife was wheeled in by a caregiver. Several of us, for the sake of the filming, were either standing against the wall or sitting on the floor. When she saw our director sitting on the floor, she immediately grew anxious and urged the caregiver to bring her a stool, repeating over and over: "The floor is cold—don't sit on the floor. You're a young woman; it's not good for your health." We took the stool, and felt an exceptional warmth in our hearts. "Rest a while, have some fruit, drink some water." The old woman's hearing was not very good and her speech was not entirely clear, but her eyes were full of tenderness.
As the interview neared its end, our director raised one final question: "Elder Tao, why did you not return to your hometown in Hubei to enjoy your later years, but instead stay in Shandong?" Elder Tao looked at his wife in her wheelchair and said gently: "Because her home is here. With her here, I have a home."
When we left, the setting sun had already dyed Hero Mountain Road a warm orange-red. I looked back, and that ordinary "little home" stood quietly in the gathering dusk. The battles, the sacrifices, and the passing on of the torch that live in Elder Tao's memory… had all been carefully tucked away into the ordinary fireworks of everyday life.
All those years ago, Tao Wei flew toward a battlefield thick with gunsmoke, flew through the haze of war, and extended the flight path of peace into what we can see today—and into a farther future we cannot yet see. More than 70 years have turned, and the war eagles have been continuously updated and replaced. Above the clouds, that fighting spirit (血性) of daring to draw the sword has always flowed in the bloodline of the People's Air Force.