Last of China's ‘Flying Tigers’critically ill

Long Qiming, a former senior Flying Tigers pilot is critically ill in a hospital in Chongqing municipality on Tuesday, September 23, 2014.  [Photo/ China News Service]

Long Qiming, 91, the only Flying Tiger pilot on the Chinese mainland is critically ill and being kept alive by a respirator at a hospital in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.

Long, who speaks English and loves Mozart, was hospitalized in July with a serious lung infection at the No.1 Hospital affiliated with Chongqing University of Medical Science.

Long, born into a well-off Hong Kong family, joined the American Volunteer Group in 1943, who fought the Japanese during WWII as the Flying Tigers.

He flew the famous Camel Peak Aviation Route across the Himalayas--the so-called "death route"--delivering urgently needed military supplies to support China's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and carried out bombing missions against the Japanese in Myanmar.

After being demobilized in 1952, Long worked as a technician, porter and English teacher in Chongqing, China's wartime capital during WWII.

Between December 1941 to September 1945, the Flying Tigers shot down 2,600 Japanese military planes, destroyed 44 warships and killed 66,700 Japanese soldiers.