"Doves of Peace"amid the Smoke of Gunpowder: Chinese People's Women Volunteers(1950-1953)

When the Chinese volunteers, singing military songs, crossed the Yalu River in Oct. 1950, there were no servicewomen in this mighty force. he Wei, a service-woman who had followed the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army since the War of Resistance Against japan, left her troops at this time. It was on a winter morning in 1950 that the troops held an oath-taking rally before going to fight in Korea. He wei and her comrades-in-arms made a solemn vow: Resist USaggression and aid Korea. Protect our homes and defend out country. In the evening when the troops were just about to leave for Korea, a senior officer had a talk with her, saying that she should remain in the motherland to receive education and participate in the construction of New China. She was asked to leave for Beijing immediately and check in at the General Political Department. She burst into tears, being reluctant to separate from the troops with which she was linked to gether and had become one through her long-term war career. She was reluctant, simply reluctant! But this was an order and it was a bounden duty for servicemen and servicewomen to obey orders. With tears in her eyes, she bid good-bye to her comrades-in-arms marching to the front and her husband who was in command of the troops.

This was a triphibious war in which we fought with the most mighty forces of united nations headed by the American troops. When marshal Peng Dehuai was about to go out to battle with his troops, he resolutely left all their servicewomen back at home. Cao Xin, director of the art troupe of the 15th Army, made great efforts before he managed to persuade his women members to stay in the rear office at home. At first, he couldn't straighten out his thinking either. What happiness the servicewomen had brought to the soldiers! he even coulen't imagine how to perform those moving songs and dances without the serviceomen on the stage. But when he and his rtoupe memberrs marched towards the front wich the troops at the speed of nearly 100 li per day wich enemy planes diving to bomb wantonly and indiscriminately, he completely understood what marshal Peng really meant: It as time for out servicewomen to enjoy the peace in New China.

Tempered by the war, the Chinese women had become mature, transcending over the parochial field of domestic life and roaming about in a more open space. The hostilities in the Korean front once again stirred the hearts of the Chinese women. One after another they wrote applications and blood letters for the approval of their going to the front. A young woman by the name of Zhang Weimin was a mother who had just given birth to her child. She said:"All mothers love their children. But when so many children's lives are in danger, how can I just stay at home and take care of my own baby? The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea is being fought to protect thousands of millions of childer. "Thus, by March 1951,many young mothers and young girls had quitted their peaceful and happy life, bid farewell to their family members and lovers, and headed bravely for the front. They "flew" to the battlefield enveloped in the smoke of gunpowder like a crowd of "doves of peace" holding olive branches in their mouths and cherishing the lofty ideals of patriotism and internationalism.

Liu Ruobing, a girl from Sichuan, had just reached the age of 17 when she arrived in Korea. She was assigned to a division field hospital to work as a nurse. During the long march, she and many other girls got blisters on their feet. But none of them complained, fearing that they might be sent back home or left behind for a rest . Some girls found cracks in their feet which caused them so much pain that they simply filled them with balls of rice. Entering Korea to fight was a hard-won right for the servicewomen. So when some people said openly: "Servicewomen are good for nothing!"they were determined to show them what they could do. It was raining cats and dogs and the troops marched on in the heavy rain. The blisters on Liu Ruobing's feet, soaked open by the rain water mixed with the silt that had entered her shoes on the way, caused the unbearable pain at first. Then the pain gave way to numbness and her feet became as heavy as the sliding weight of a

steelyard. Seeing the way she walked, the squad leader Guo Xiaojiang asked in solicitude:"Can you manage?"She nodded with a smile at the squad leader. The exhausted servicewoman simplified all her words and actions. During a rest on the way, they could find no shelter and lacked rain gear. Liu Ruoging fell asleep on a rock beside the road. Rain drops clapped on her face. The considerate squad leader took out a drinking cup and put it on Little Liu's forehead to catch the rain water. But the latter was not at all aware of this .By the time the bugle for muster sounded, the cup on her forehead was already filled with rain water. The newly-enrolled servicewoman was constantly presented with all sorts of trials of war. The fifth campaign was one in which our troops fought the hardest of battles for the longest of time and suffered the greatest of casualties on the Korean battlefield. There were craters after craters and corpses were burning everywhere. As the road was blocked by the enemy's ground artillery fire, the automobiles and teams of stretcher-carriers for transporting the wounded soldiers became unavailable. The 17-year-old servicewoman and her comrades-in arms had to carry wounded soldiers heavier than themselves and transfer towards the rear. When she came back again, the president of the hospital stopped her: "Here are 38 slightly wounded soldiers. We've decided that you're to take them back to the rear without a single loss. I'll lead the rest to carry out a new mission." Receiving a task all by herself for the first time, Liu Ruobing was at a loss what to say. Imitating the way of senior comrades, she saluted the president with her hand:"I promise to accomplish the task. The wounded will be live if I'm alive. "This was an oath constantly on their did she feel its real weight. Of the 38 slightly wounded soldiers, almost each was older than she .They were"slightly wounded" only when they were compared with those seriously wounded soldiers who were out of consciousness. Liu Ruobing was fully aware that they were surrounded by the enemy on both sides. Some zones were in a jagged, interlocking form; some were blockaded by the enemy. With the sound of the wild roaring of the enemy planes, the bombardment of shells, and the shooting of machine-guns constantly on their ears, they could meet the enemy face to face at any time. Except for some parched flour bags and canteens of the dozen or so wounded soldiers on her, Liu Ruobing did not even have a grenade. For the first time and in earnest she envisaged the manner of dying: fight recklessly with the enemy and die together with them. Such, however, was impossible for a girl like her. A soldier without arms on the battlefield was like a rabbit among a pack of wolves. The girl who was in command of troops for a while without ideas. "It all depends!" she said to herself. If she was captured on the road, she would imitate the korean heroine Zhao Yuzhao and if on the high mountain or steep cliff, she would imitate the five warriors of the Langyashan

Mountains. Upon looking back at the 38 wounded soldiers, however, she suddenly realized the simplicity of her thinking: "They are my wounded soldiers. I shouldn't just think of death. We must try to get out of the fix." Liu Ruobing resumed her former liveliness and started to sing Song of the Youth League Members. It was getting dark. They couldn't identify clearly the road signs trodden by troops coming and going. "I mustn't take the wounded soldiers to the enemy," Liu Ruobing warned herself. Whenever they got to a crossing, she herself would go forward to explore the way while the wounded settled down to take a rest. Fully convinced that she had found the right way, she would turn back to lead the wounded. To avoid the attack by the enemy's artillery fire, she disguised all the wounded soldiers and had the 38 of them spaced out for as long as 100 meters. She now ordered them to "liedown," now ran back and forth to take care of the physically weak brothers. When it was time for meals she would untie the bags and canteens and mix the parched flour for them. Three days passed. When Liu Ruobing led the 38 wounded soldiers to the hospital in the rear, she could hardly utter a word. One of her friends held her in the arms and said: "We were almost worried to death about you. It was even rumoured that you had been captured!"

Almost each of the women volunteers was like a "goddess" on the battlefield. Wang Liansheng, a seriously wounded soldier, was so injured in the abdomen that he couldn't urinate himself . He would die without being catheterized in time. Unfortunately, there were no catheters in the hospital at the front. Tian Jing, a woman doctor in the hospital, catheterized him with her mouth instead four times in succession without hesitation, thus helping Wang Liansheng tide over the period of danger.

On her way of carrying meals to the wounded, Li Benxiang, a woman nurse, encountered enemy planes. She had enough time to run and hide herself in the air raid shelter where the wounded stayed. Fearing that the position would be given away, she just lay down on the spot, caring nothing about the wanton and indiscriminate bombing by the enemy planes all around her. All the wounded soldiers were safe and sound while Li Benxiang was seriously wounded, suffering a fracture in her right arm and receiving bullets in the left.

After performing for the soldiers in the tunnel at the front, Xie Xiumei, one of the art troupe members, helped the medical workers carry stretchers. It happened to be severe winter when the temperature was 30 degrees below zero. By the time they escorted the wounded to the destination after traveling across mountains and rivers, they found that the leather shoes on the wounded soldiers'feet couldn't be put off because they were frozen together. It was Xie Xiumei who unbuttoned her cottonpadded jacket and held their feet to her own breast, thus

melting the frozen feet of the wounded soldiers with her own body temperature....

With what they had done, the servicewomen not only won the right to continue to stay in Korea but also gained the love and esteem of the officers and men at the front and people in the motherland, In 1952, Liu Ruobing and 20 other servicewomen were received by the leaders of the state as members of the Returned Volunteers' Delegation. Holding the hands of Liu Ruobing ,a little fellow villager, Zhu De, commander in chief of the PLA, asked:"Did you wear this cotton-padded jacket in korea?""Yes.""Weren't you cold?""No!"She was too excited to say anything more. Everything in front of her was just like a dream. On the scorched earth bombarded in turns by shells, she and her comrades-in-arms had time and again envisaged the beautiful landscape of the peaceful motherland. They missed their motherland and family members all the time. Now that they were back home and saw their family members, these servicewomen, despite all the tribulations they had gone through, had only one thing in mind: Let the people of the motherland rest assured: let the family members rest assured! No matter where they went, they would never mention the grievances and hardships they had experienced. rather they would focus on the volunteers' breadth of vision, on the heroism at the battlefield and on the close friendship between the Chinese volunteers and the Korean People's Army and the Korean people. So Liu Ruo-ging had told a "lie" in her talk with the commander in chief, a white lie. After returning home, Liu Ruobing and her comrades-in-arms changed into the new uniforms of the PLA. In the Korean War, our servicewomen, like all the other troops, had no chance to take a bath ,When the returned Volunteers' Delegation entered the gate of the motherland, no one recognized them--the most beloved. Their uniforms were all so stained with blood and smoke of gunpowder that it was hard to make out the colors. In the words of Liu Ruobing, "We were as dirty as a crowd of army cooks." One month later, Liu Rubing and her comrades-in-arms went back to the Korean front with the cordial greetings extended by the people of the motherland.

The homeland, like a strong mother, constituted a reliable backing to the servicemen and servicewomen.