Blue Guards: Women in the Navy

On April 23, 1949, the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army was founded. In her ranks could be seen the heroic bearing of servicewomen. But it was not until 42 years after the establishment of this special arm of the services--on March 14, 1991--that it began to have genuine women sailors. The commanding officer and political commissar of the South China Sea Fleet issued orders, appointing Chen Jinfeng and 16 others to form the first batch of women sailors of our armed forces and to take part in anchoring training with the medical ship the Nankang. At daybreak that day, the 17 women sailors lined up

on the deck. "Occupy positions, fight fires, plug holes. " The shouts

of the stern captain thus drove this special group of new sailors from the front deck of the ship to the back, from the third-class cabins to the operation room. Force 6 wind caused layers of waves to surge and the ship swayed over 10 degrees. The women sailors felt dizzy as if their heads were splitting. Even drugs for seasickness were of no use. One of them burst out vomiting, and then another followed. Basins, buckets, and the cabins were all covered with traces of vomiting. The vast sea seemed unwilling to accept the Chinese servicewomen. Training to them was little short of being cruel. Like the servicemen, the servicewomen had to drill in every thing and complete all kinds of specialties and joint training subjects. There was no water for baths on the ship and even drinking water was limited. In order to reduce troubles, some women sailors took with them more than a dozen sets of underclothes. Even so they couldn't solve the problem wholly. "Chen Xia, shoot!" ordered the captain. Chen Xia hurriedly held up the submachine gun, but the target simply couldn't be fixed within the ring sight. She fired two shots addleheadedly, threw the gun to a serviceman beside her, and then, with her head in her hands, squatted down by a big pile of anchor lines, waiting to be scolded by the officer on duty. No one came to scold her. Huge waves lifted the ship and people on it were already reeling right and left. Many men sailors vomited so much that their tears came out. Seawater wetted Chen Xia's uniform and short hair. She suddenly stood up and, loading the gun with bullets, aiming, and then shooting, the servicewomen eventually sank the target. During the 15-day anchoring training, the servicewomen often lay awake all night and couldn't eat anything for days on end. Though they were confronted with embarrassment and sufferings hard to bring up, none of them cried. Fifteen days later, people discovered to their surprise that the line of originally fair women sailors were black all over--black eyes, black hair, black complexion--except for their teeth which were white.

Women lucky enough to join the Navy were all to become attached to the great sea. In 1965, a girl from Anhui came alone to the examination room of the PLA Art College located in Nanjing. The artists in charge of the examination were touched by her unaffected and meaningful singing. She was enrolled. Soon she was sent to the South China Sea Fleet of the Navy for training. Working as a telephone serviceman and communicating·with sailors wearing striped shirts, she felt the phone line smelt of sea tide. Working as a cook, she ate each meal with the saltiness of seawater. At the same time, she was also attracted by the splendid and deep colour of blue. She became a singer of the Art Troupe of the Political Department of the Navy. Her song, Xisha, Beloved Homeland has warmed the hearts of generations of sailors

on naval vessels. Nurtured by the great sea, she has become a first-class actress of the country. Her name is Bian Xiaozhen. She was unaware that when she was performing in the North China Sea, a little girl off the stage was so attracted that she quietly memorized all the words and music of the songs and chanted silently. In 1985, the little girl's personal albums, The Wind Says You Are Coming and Return, rosy Clouds, were published and put on sale respectively by the Northern Audio-Visual Publishing Firm and the Chinese Audio and Video Publishing Firm. What was noticeable was that she was also the orchestrater and supervisor of the manufacture of the songs. Her name, together with her songs, has become widely known. She is Fan Linlin. In 1988, this girl, a naval serviceman's daughter whose growth was accompanied by the rhythm of the great sea from childhood on, became a member of the Navy like her father. She and Song Zuying, an actress of the Miao nationality who also became a member of the Navy, raised wave upon wave of songs on naval vessels--floating stage at sea, on islands far from the mainland, and on airports where fighting eagles stopped over. The cheering sailors were reluctant to part from their beloved "singing stars, " so much so that greetings from the great sea and border sentry posts followed the singers even back to Beijing. In 1991 and 1994, Fan Linling and Song Zuying visited Thailand and Russia with a naval formation of warships. Saluting in a line on the deck by the side of the ship like the others, they felt an unprecedented sense of pride that suddenly replaced the fatigue of their long journey. In the hearts of foreign friends, overseas Chinese and officers and men of the friendly foreign forces, they left the Chinese sailors' artistic images and their songs imbued with the rich flavour of the ocean. their names, together with those of several dozen other excellent actresses of the whole armed forces, have been ranked among the fires-class performers of the motherland. But the joys and sorrows of long voyages on the warships have been printed like patents in their unique life journeys.