Twice Wounded in Battle
Searing hot shrapnel from a Chinese Nationalist bomb lodged itself deep in my back next to my spine. The blast killed our battalion commander, who was standing next to me. I was 17 years old.
I was the commander’s personal radioman and communicator in a battalion of about 500 men as part the 4th New Army of the People’s Liberization Army (PLA). We were engaged in ground combat with Guomindang (Kuomintang) ground forces fighting for the high ground on a ridge line to our front when Nationalist airplanes bombed our position killing and wounding soldiers around me.
Fortunately for me the commander was killed in the blast, otherwise the evacuating soldiers would have taken him instead and left me for dead as we were getting overrun by the advancing enemy forces.
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