John Yee is considered the last living member of the legendary U.S. Flying Tigers. When he was 19, Yee was almost blown to bits by a bomb dropped from a Japanese fighter plane, but he survived.[Special coverage]
Today, the 94-year-old veteran talked to Xinhua in an exclusive interview, telling his extraordinary tale as an eyewitness to a terrible time in world history.
Before the Pearl Harbor incident during World War II, Yee had been serving in the famous Flying Tigers, a group of American mercenary pilots sent to fight the Japanese troops in South China.
As a key translator for the Tigers led by General Claire Chennault, Yee acts today as a living reminder of a foundation of trust formed between the United States and China about 65 years ago.
Yee held a light-hearted conversation with Xinhua in the cozy living room of his home east of Denver in Aurora, Colorado. The walls were covered with various awards for his service in the war.
The war veteran, who was born in China in 1921 and moved to America in 1944, has a unique perspective on the fates of both China and America.
Today, Yee's life story has become a remarkable window into historic, explosive times for the two great nations.
Yee remembered his narrow escape from death with remarkable clarity and considered himself lucky to be alive.
"It was a sunny, warm, spring day in Kunming (the capital of China's southwestern province Yunnan)," Yee said. "Japanese bombers appeared out of nowhere. I ran fast... machine gun bullets ripped across the yard and almost hit me," he said, his voice cracking with an urgency to retell the tense moment.
"Suddenly, the ground shook with a deafening explosion and I was thrown on my face. I rose through a cloud of dust to find the bloody corpses of two young women and a little girl, lying in my yard."
They were blown through the air by a tremendous blast that left a crater where his neighbor's house once stood. All six family members were killed, Yee recalled.
"That day Japanese bombs dropped on Kunming from one end of the city to the other. When night fell, the entire city was dark without lights. All one could hear was the sound of wailing throughout the city. It was a city of death and destruction," Yee said.
Over the four preceding months, the Japanese had dropped thousands of bombs on the defenseless Kunming populace, massacring thousands of innocents including old people, women and children.
Yee remembers the haunting sounds of "screaming, wailing and crying" after a bombing, the city rendered powerless, the darkness hiding terrified, terrorized civilians who had survived.
In the same month, April 1941, then U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order, and enlisted resigned military genius Chennault to slow the Japanese juggernaut. In November 1941, 100 experienced American military pilots selected by Chennault and 100 P-40 fighter planes were sent secretly to Burma.
