"I'd like to send my regards to you children, and I hope you younger people can remember history and the friendship between China and America," a veteran American pilot of the Flying Tigers Fleet said Wednesday in Beijing.
Richard Rossi was addressing the opening ceremony of a symposium marking the 60th anniversary of American volunteer pilots' fight against Japanese invaders during the Second World War.
His remarks were warmly applauded by children from a nearby primary school, who were organized to attend the ceremony to learn more about the history of the Second World War.
Rossi and two other veteran Flying Tigers pilots, Eriksen Shilling and Robert Raine, were moved by the children's applause.
In 1941, a group of American pilots formed the Flying Tigers Fleet to transport arms and other materials, and carried out air raids to support China against Japanese invaders.
Some of them were killed in the war, and people are still searching for their remains in China's mountains.
To commemorate the event, the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the organizing committee of the Chinese Cultural Ties Project sponsored the symposium.
Anna Chan Chennault, widow of Claire Chennault, the American general who led the Flying Tigers, told Xinhua that the Flying Tigers represent the upright spirit of the American people, and the symposium will help let younger generations know more about history and the friendship between China and the United States.
Bernard Yang, whose father once served as a pilot in Chennault' s fleet, briefed the symposium on his finding of the remains of a crashed plane, considered to be one belonging to Chennault's fleet.
Chinese and U.S. historians exchanged views on the contribution of the Flying Tigers at the symposium.
(Xinhua News Agency 09/06/2001)
