The Great Airfield

The Great Airfield is a novel by the Sichuan writer Zhou Mingsheng, following his long-form nonfiction work Operation Mata Point, set against the backdrop of the Xinjin airfield in Sichuan during World War II. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Xinjin airfield was an important airfield of the Allied air base in western China, from which American B-29 long-range bombers took off to bomb the Japanese mainland. The novel begins with the construction of this airfield and, centered on the Sun family compound beside it, unfolds a story interwoven with war, espionage, and love. An American bomber crashes over Taihu Lake, and two pilots parachute to safety, one of them wounded and near death; enemy, friendly, and bandit forces then engage in a contest of wits to find them. The Chinese girl Sun Jingshu meets and falls in love with the American Captain Andy, and to find her lover, whose fate is unknown, she braves hardships and travels far from home; meanwhile, the true identity of the Military Statistics Bureau agent Yang Guoxiong is that of a double agent in a Japanese intelligence unit, and the schemes of the Nazi female agent Hannah make the situation even more treacherous. The novel has a grand layout and a plot full of twists and turns, and critics have called it "a Chinese Waterloo Bridge." Within the framework of a legendary tale, the work restores the rural society of 1940s Sichuan and the social landscape of wartime China, portraying ordinary people's perseverance, sacrifice, and helplessness of fate in a great era.