CRI听力:Son of Late US Airman Rescued by Chinese Expresses Gratitude

In February 1944, Lt. Donald W. Kerr of the U.S. Air Force had his airplane shot down by Japanese troops during an Allies' operation to bombard the Kai Tak airport.

The airport in Hong Kong had been occupied by Japanese troops since 1941.

Lt. Kerr managed to parachute from the airplane and landed in the mountains in Hong Kong's Kowloon.

The Japanese, who were eager to catch a U.S. airman, had deployed thousands of soldiers to look for him.

A guerrilla force formed in south China's Guangdong Province later found and rescued him.

David Kerr, son of Lt. Kerr, talked about the historic moments that his parents had told about him many times.

"When he was in the burning airplane, he got burned. He got bad burns on his leg. His eye was burned. And when he jumped out of the airplane, his shoulder hit the tail of the airplane and he couldn't use his arm. So he had a lot of problems. And these kids, I mean, 12, 13, 14-year-old kids were getting him away from the Japanese."

The rescuers are with the Hong Kong-Kowloon brigade of the Chinese guerrilla force, called the Dongjiang Column, formed in 1942 to reinforce China's war efforts against Japanese Aggression in the region.

Kerr said his father told him that a small boy brought him up into the mountains. There he was cared for by the soldiers of the guerrilla and local villagers.

"...And although he was only 12, 13, maybe 14 years old, he had an important job of taking messages for this guerrilla organization from the city of Hong Kong, Kowloon around different islands. And that's why he knew that it was important to rescue my father."

Lt. Kerr was later escorted by the East River guerrilla to the U.S. air base in Guilin, south China's Guangxi.

He went on to record his experience with a memoir entitled "I bring you go home now".

After Lt. Kerr's death, his son David Kerr had come to Shenzhen, Guangdong to look for the old soldiers, especially the "small boy" who had been frequently talked about by his father.

The name of the small boy is Li Shi, said Kerr, who finally met him.

"He was in a retirement home. He had a stroke, so he couldn't talk to me. But through an interpreter, I was able to thank him on behalf of our family for the great risks that he took so many years ago. And, that was so important to our family as you might imagine."

Kerr said he also visited other soldiers who had escorted his father at different places along the way.

The memoir, with photos and cartoon drawn by Lt. Kerr have been compiled into a book by the Dongjiang Column history research association.

The book was first published in Hong Kong on Aug. 5.

For CRI, I'm Guo Yan.