time from his mainland air expeditions for two years until his final trip on May 29, 1959. That day, two hours after returning from one reconnaissance mission, Min received an order to back up a sick pilot on the next trip. Hsiao-Po Meng, Hwa-Wei’s sister-in-law, recalled that it was a hazy day, which made her a bit worried.
Min comforted his wife by saying, “It is actually safer to fly through haze. This will be my last trip this month. And I shall be able to take a good break upon returning tomorrow.” Prior to the assignment, Min had taken out his military uniform with full medals from his suitcase and polished his leather shoes because May 31, just two days away, would be a big day to him as a professional airman. On that day Chiang Ching-Kuo was scheduled to pay a visit to the Hsinchu Air Base and offer his praise and encouragement in person to the squadron members.
On May 29, 1959, Taiwan’s Air Force Intelligence Agency sent off two RB-17 bombers—nos. 835 and 815, successively—to southern China. Min was the pilot on bomber no. 815, taking shifts with two other pilots, Yin-Kuei Hsu and Yan Han.
In addition to the three pilots, eleven other crewmen were on board including three electronics officers, three navigation officers, two mechanics, one communication officer, one airdrop officer, and one airdrop soldier. The mission’s final destination was the southwest region of China. But to get to the region, Min and his crew had to fly over southern Guangdong Province, a risky flight-path considering the strong air defense system in the region.
At about 11:10 p.m., bomber no. 815—returning from Guangxi to Guangdong—was about to fly over a mountain to the sea on the other side. At this moment the aircraft was detected by a radar station of the Guangzhou Military Zone and was shot down, crashing into the mountain in the border area between Enping and Yangjiang Counties. All fourteen crewmen were killed.
Min and Hsiao-Po Meng were married in 1949.
Hwa-Wei and his brothers in Taichung, 1950: (left to right) Hwa-Ming, Hwa-Wei, Min, and Hwa-Tsun.
In this last photograph of Min Lee, taken in 1959, he stands with his wife, Hsiao-Po (back row, second and third from right), and several of his siblings. His son, Hao-Sheng (front, far left) stands alongside his grandparents. By then, Hwa-Wei was in the United States.
As soon as the aircraft was hit, the crew was able to get in touch with the Hsinchu Air Force Base, reporting the fatal shot and pledging to die together with the aircraft. Back then, Taiwan’s air force had a stringent regulation for its airmen: no one should be allowed to become a captive of the Communist army, and every crewman should be willing to die for his country. Obeying the regulation, the entire crew rejected the use of parachutes to escape—their only opportunity for survival—and chose to crash into the mountain with their bomber.
The weather was slightly muggy in Hsinchu. The night of the tragedy, Min’s young wife, Hsiao-Po, felt worried and could hardly fall asleep. She had always been on tenterhooks every time her husband Min was out on duty, but never so much as on that night. The dawn finally arrived. Hsiao-Po opened the window and saw a round hole with a diameter of seven inches that had been dug by Lucky, the family dog. She was shocked. Believing that dogs have an incomprehensible capability of sensing a master’s misfortune, air force family members had always feared seeing a family dog crying or digging a hole. This foreboding sign left Hsiao-Po instantly breathless; she did not know what to do.
It did not take long for the tragic news to spread throughout the Hsinchu Air Force Base. Min’s colleagues and classmates showed up unexpectedly. Their grieving faces suggested something bad had happened. Among them was a friend of Min who had been on the same reconnaissance trip with Min just one day earlier on May 28. He started to cry as soon as he was seated. Seeing the seasoned air warrior fail to control his sorrow, Hsiao-Po came to realize that a family tragedy had happened.5
According to an official military announcement, bomber no. 815 was lost in the air space over Guangdong during its mission; it was then unknown whether the crew members were alive or dead. The Air Force Command covered up the truth to the families of the victims, allowing them to believe that their loved ones were missing while a full search was still going on. Family members clung to any small ray of hope: perhaps their loved ones had made a safe parachuting or had been captured.
Handsome and strong, Min was the idol of his siblings and the pillar of his family. When Lee’s family first moved to Taiwan, Min often helped his father, Kan-Chun Lee—who earned a meager salary as a college professor—with the family expenses by using a part of his monthly income from the air force service. A good husband and father in his own household, Min managed with limited resources to accompany his wife each weekend to dances at the Officer’s Club or to movies at a local theater. He would also take his son out for snacks and pastries. His son, Hao-Sheng Lee, recalled that many pieces of the family’s furniture, including tables, bookcases, benches, and chairs, had been homemade by Min. What most impressed Hao-Sheng was a motorcycle assembled by his late father using spare airplane parts.6
Hwa-Wei was finishing up his Master of Education degree at the University of Pittsburgh when the tragic news reached him. The news was a cruel blow; Hwa-Wei—in spite of limited time together with his brother—had shared a strong bond with Min. In desperation, Hwa-Wei searched every Chinese newspaper that he could find about the aircraft incident with his brother onboard.
Finally, a Hong Kong newspaper article was retrieved from the University of Pittsburgh Library. According to the news report, a Taiwan military aircraft was shot down by the Chinese air force and all its crewmen were found dead. The Communist officers who contributed to this successful attack were to receive awards from Mao Zedong in person. The photo of the airplane wreckage clearly identified bomber no. 815, his brother’s plane. At that point, Hwa-Wei believed that all the crew, including his brother, were dead; what he did not know was that bomber no. 815 had actually been attacked twice.
As the first attack imposed no immediate threats, the crew tried to flee toward the south at the lowest safe altitude. However, as the modified bomber had no defensive weapons, it was soon attacked by a MiG-17. Hit by an air-to-air missile, the plane exploded into pieces 2,625 feet above Enping, Guangdong Province. It was later learned that the air-to-air missiles had been recently acquired by the Communist Chinese air force from the Soviet Union.
Knowing his brother would never come back home alive, Hwa-Wei carefully saved the newspaper piece in his personal file hoping it would be useful someday in the future in locating the crash site. Meanwhile, he could not bear to tell the truth to his parents; they had, however, already learned the heartbreaking news with the assistance of a friend in a high position in the Nationalist Government. Learning of the disastrous loss of her oldest son, his mother aged rapidly. Her hair turned completely gray in just a few days, and she developed heart disease. She was deprived of joy and happiness during the later years of her life.
Min was just thirty-three years old at the time of his death; he was survived by his wife, Hsiao-Po Meng, and his son, Hao-Sheng Lee. The military uniform and leather shoes, which he had prepared for the occasion of Chiang Ching-Kuo’s visit, waited, neatly pressed and shined, in the closet on May 31, 1959, for their owner, who would never return.
On the other side of the Taiwan Strait the pilot Zhelun Jiang, who had shot down bomber no. 815 was celebrated as a hero. Jiang received a special medal from Mao Zedong, a high honor at that time. Having originally joined the air force to fight against Japanese invaders, Min ended his life in an aircraft crash while on a reconnaissance mission over Communist China.
2
In 1982, Hwa-Wei was invited by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada to join a team of library experts to conduct a special seminar: The Management of Scientific and Technical Information Centers in Kunming, China. The two-week seminar was jointly sponsored by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China and