HANGZHOU, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Holding a photo frame embedded with a fragment of a bomber, Beverly Daigle wiped away tears. The piece of metal came from the B-25 flown by Crew No. 13 of the Doolittle Raid -- the plane her father, Sergeant Robert Bourgeois, served aboard as bombardier.
"Getting a piece of the plane has really touched me," said Daigle, standing beside Zheng Weiyong, vice president of the Quzhou Doolittle Historical Research Association, in whose home the emotional handover took place on Wednesday.
"I'm so thankful for the gentleman who found this. The history is very important. Our journey is very important on both sides."
On April 18, 1942, a group of 16 U.S. bombers carried out a surprise raid on Japan in retaliation for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. After the mission, 15 planes heading to a friendly airport in Quzhou in China's Zhejiang Province ran out of fuel and crashed in various localities in east China. Of the 75 airmen aboard, 64 were rescued by the Chinese people.
Their rescue came at a tremendous cost. Some locals were tortured or killed by the Japanese soldiers who came to hunt for the Americans. After the rescue, the airport in Quzhou was subjected to intense bombing by the Japanese, who also waged biological warfare by spreading cholera, plague and other diseases.
In China, the Doolittle story has long been regarded as a symbol of the friendship forged between the Chinese and American peoples during their joint fight against fascism.
All members of Crews No. 13 and No. 14 came down in east China's Jiangxi Province. With help from Chinese civilians and military personnel, they eventually regrouped in Quzhou and arrived safely at the home front. Daigle's father was one of them.
On Tuesday, Daigle and four other representatives of the Children of the Doolittle Raiders arrived in Quzhou.
At the air-raid shelter where her father had once rested, she fell silent. She reached out and touched the shelter's stone wall, where the names of two Doolittle Raiders remained legible after more than 80 years.
"Luckily, they're still here," she said, her fingers tracing the carvings.
Since World War II, and particularly since the 1990s, descendants of the Doolittle Raiders have visited Quzhou repeatedly to trace where their fathers once stayed. In Quzhou, a group of volunteer researchers has worked to preserve this history. They have dug through archives and trekked through mountains and villages to help the Doolittle Raiders' descendants retrace their fathers' footsteps.
Zheng Weiyong is one of them. In his study, a hand-drawn map, 1.2 meters high and 2.4 meters long, records about 20 years of his fieldwork, with more than 100 crash sites and villages where pilots landed marked on it.
Zheng has visited the United States four times at the invitation of surviving Doolittle Raiders and their families. "We need to tell the world clearly how the Chinese rescued them," he said. "If the Chinese don't dig into these good deeds, who will?"
The descendants stood before the map for a long time, trying to read from the markings where their fathers' planes fell, where parachutes drifted, and the difficult routes they took under the protection of Chinese civilians.
"You need to understand the geography of the entire flight route -- where these pilots jumped and where the planes landed," said John Thomas Johnson, son-in-law of John Hilger, commander of Crew No. 14. "Without that geographic information, you can't tell the full story."
The markings on the map helped bring the fragments home. This time, Zheng returned five pieces from Crews No. 13 and No. 14 to the descendants. The fragments are mounted in frames noting the discovery location, finder and date, along with the following text:
"This fragment witnessed the Sino-American joint fight against Japanese militarists. The bravery, humanitarianism and selflessness demonstrated by the American and Chinese people during the Doolittle Raid and the rescue operations will be eternally remembered by posterity."
In return, Johnson Kimberly Jane, granddaughter of commander John Hilger, presented a model plane to the association. The inscription said her grandfather owed his long and fulfilling life to the Chinese people's "courage, kindness, and sacrifice," and that his family would be "forever grateful."
John Thomas Johnson, a journalism professor at the University of San Francisco, said the full story of the Doolittle rescue owes much to the dedication and collaboration of many people in both countries.
He hopes to do more research on the selection, formation and training of the crews after returning to the United States to "add more detail to that aspect of the story."
Hugs were the most common gesture between the descendants and members of the Quzhou research association, suggesting that, after more than 80 years, the bond between the Chinese and American peoples is still going strong.
Before leaving, John Thomas Johnson wrote a line for the journey: "Friendship today and tomorrow." ■
