The following is a translation of an article published by Enorth, an official online news portal for Tianjin municipality. Explanatory notes put into [square brackets]. Links within blockquotes inserted during translation. Mistakes during translation likely.
Main Link: National Memorial Day: Tianjin’s only Chinese Expeditionary Force Veteran tells Story of Japanese War
Enorth — He was fifteen at the time of the Nanjing massacre, and witnessed the panic and helplessness of the refugees who had escaped from there, and the bloody images of Japanese soldiers hunting the common people of Nanjing. He gave up the pen for the sword, and as a member of the Whampoa / Huangpu Branch Seventeen, joined the Chinese Expeditionary Force and fought in the battle of Taungoo, the fiercest in the defense war of Myanmar, he’s the only Tianjiner still living and in good health who was part of the Chinese Expeditionary Force – the War of resistance against Japan veteran Yang Cenfeng. On December 13, 2014, the first day of commemoration [of the Nanjing massacre] held in China, 93-year-old Yang Cenfeng told us this dark period in history 77 years ago, which no Chinese people can ever forget.
天津北方网讯：南京大屠杀发生之时，他15岁，目睹了南京城逃出难民的惊恐无助，目睹了日本军人追杀南京百姓的血腥画面。他投笔从戎，以黄埔十七期的身份，加入了中国远征军，参加了缅甸防御战最惨烈的同古战役，他就是天津现今唯一健在的中国远征军军官、抗日老兵杨岑峰。在2014年12月13日，中国首个国家公祭日之时，93岁的杨岑峰向我们讲述了77年前，那段黑暗、但每个中国人绝不能忘却的历史。
Nanjing falls, Blood colors the Yangtze River
南京失守 血染长江
Seventy-seven years ago, Yang Cenfeng was in senior high school and living in a family of seven, in Wuhu, next to the Yangtze River. This was a gateway to Nanjing, with only some ninety kilometers between there and Nanjing. After the Japanese had occupied Nanjing, the burning, killing and looting started, and some lucky Nanjingers fled in panic to Wuhu, which, although peaceful, saw the Japanese soldiers coming nearer with each passing day.
77年前，杨岑峰正在读高三，一家7口住在长江边的芜湖，那里是南京的门户，距离南京仅有90多公里，日本人占领南京后，烧杀抢掠，有些幸存的南京人惊恐地向芜湖逃难，而芜湖也非太平之所，日渐被日本兵逼近。
At the time, everyone had heard about the disaster of Nanjing, and hated and feared the Japanese. And in fear, the people of Wuhu spent the Spring Festival days of 1938.
那个时候，人们都听说了南京城的惨剧，对日本人又恨又怕。而在恐惧中，芜湖迎来了1938年的春节。
“I remember the day of Spring Festival, we were just having a somewhat gloomy family reunion dinner. Just when the meal came onto the table, the air-raid sirens went off, and Japanese airplanes passed through, dropping bombs. At the time, the planes flew at particularly low heights, and I could clearly see the Japanese flag underneath the wings. They bombed unscrupulously, strafing here and there, and whereever they went, they left ruins, and seas of fire”, Yang Cenfeng said.
“我记得春节那天，马马虎虎地吃着团圆饭。刚把饭端上桌的时间，放空警报响了，日本的飞机过来轰炸了。当时飞机飞得特别低，我可以清楚地看见机翼之下的日本国旗。他们素无忌惮地投炸弹、扫射，所到之处一片废墟、一片火海。”杨岑峰说。
When the Japanese army approached Wuhu, many common people of Wuhu also fled into all directions, placing their hopes on the New Fourth Army on the northern side of the Yangtze River.
随着日军逼近芜湖，大批的芜湖百姓也是四散逃窜，在他们的心里，江北的新四军是希望所在。因此，大批的百姓都聚集在长江边，等着轮渡，过江逃命。
Yang Cenfeng’s recollections continue with a description of how people fleeing Wuhu and waiting for the ferry to the northern banks of the Yangtze – the place densely crowded – were bombed by Japanese warplanes, with countless numbers of people dying on the riverside, or dying in the river. How many people actually died, Yang Cenfeng doesn’t know, but he remembers how the water of the river turned red from the blood, from people who had come there to seek survival.
Yang Cenfeng’s family leapt from death back into life, finding survival in a small village in Jiangbei [here, geographically and literally: north of the Yangze River] under the protection of the New Fourth Army. At the time, a political instructor named Huang left an unforgettable impression on Yang Cenfeng.
死里逃生的杨岑峰一家来到了江北新四军保护下的一个小村子避难。当时，一位姓黄的指导员，给杨岑峰留下了难忘的印象。
“He put us into groups of, say, forty to fifty students, he told us that ‘young students should protect and defend China’, put us into a few groups so that we would stand guard, and taught us many songs to boost our morale.
“他把我们青年学生召集在一起，大约四五十人吧，告诉我们‘青年学生应该保家卫国’，把我们分成几组，站岗放哨，还教了我们很多歌，鼓舞我们的士气。”
Instructor Huang’s lessons turned Yang Cenfeng to the idea of giving up the pen for the sword, and after a stay of four or five months in the village, he enrolled at the Huangpu Military Academy’s Southern Anhui [皖南 stands for Anhui-south]. Together with fourteen classmates, all eye witnesses of the Japanese invaders’ atrocities, walked more than 150 kilometers in four days, and reached the administrative office in Tunxi in southern Anhui, and joined the army to join the resistance against Japan.
黄指导的教诲，让杨岑峰萌生了投笔从戎的念头，在小村子呆了四五个月之后，黄埔军校在皖南招生。目睹了日本侵略者暴行的杨岑峰和14个同学步行4天150多公里路，来到了当时皖南行署所在屯溪市，投笔从戎，参加抗日。
“My family wouldn’t let me go, so I secretly took three silver dollars from home and went to Tunxi with my classmates.”
“当时家里人也担心不让去，我就偷偷地拿了家里的3块大洋，和同学们走到了屯溪。”
But an application for [entrance] exams required graduation from senior high school. Lacking qualification, Yang Cenfeng and his classmates, with their own determination and willpower to resist Japan, impressed the school and were finally admitted to the exams. Going through layers of selection with subjects of literature, math, English, politics etc., Yang Cenfeng and ten of the classmates who had traveled with him entered Huangpu Military Academy.
但是，按照报考要求高中毕业，杨岑峰和同学们不够资格，他们就用自己抗日的决心和毅力打动着校方，最后终于感动了校方参加了考试。在经历了文学、数学、英语、政治等五六门功课的层层选拔，杨岑峰和其他同来的10位同学，加入了黄埔军校。
Having become a student of the Huangpu Branch Seventeen, and because of the Japanese closing in, southern Anhui became into imminent danger, and to protect the young seed of resistance against Japan and national salvation, the Branch Seventeen had to be transferred to Chengdu in Sichuan. After a four-months walk, Yang Cenfeng and his classmates arrived in Chengdu, and began their life of learning there.
成为了黄埔17期学员之后，由于日本人的步步紧逼，皖南岌岌可危，为了保住这些抗日救国的种子，黄埔17期学员需要转移到四川成都，杨岑峰和同学们步行4个多月，来到了成都，在那里开始了黄埔军校的学习生活。
The article / its rendition of Yang Cenfeng’s memories describes the year of 1941 as the peak of the Japanese war, with Academy students becoming replaces for soldiers who lost their lives or their fitness to fight. After two years at the academy, Huang joined the 96th Division of the Fifth Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Force as a platoon leader and a second lieutenant (少尉排长).
The Chinese Expeditionary Force is described as a model of China cooperating directly with military allies, and also claims that this had been the first time ever that Chinese troops had left the country to fight in a war (这是中国与盟国直接进行军事合作的典范，也是甲午战争以来中国军队首次出国作战 …). In the three years and three months of Chinese involvement in the China Burma India Theater, China deployed some 400,000 soldiers, 200,000 of who became casualties, the article says, and describes the battles in which Yang Cenfeng took part as the fiercest in the defense of Burma / Myanmar. The battle of Taungoo is described as Yang Cenfeng’s most agonizing and most deeply-felt experience of Japanese troops’ brutality (他一生中最惨痛的经历，也是最深刻感受到日本军队残忍的一幕).
Withdrawal to Savage Mountain, Supporting the Flying Tigers
撤退野人山 支援飞虎队
But because of a Japanese breakthrough at the British flank, the 200th and 96th divisions of the Chinese Expeditionary Force were surrounded, and after defending to the last for eight days and eight nights, Tonggu could still not be held. In the end, after breaking through the encirclement into the endless virgin forests of Savage Mountain, the 96th Division went through Putao in northernmost Myanmar and entered Yunnan province, returning home.
然而，由于英军侧翼被突破，中国远征军200师和96师被包围，在死守了8天8夜之后，同古最终还是没有守住。最终，96师从茫茫的原始森林野人山突围后，从缅甸北端的葡萄进入云南福贡回国。
Looking back at the breakthrough at Savage Mountain, Yang Cenfeng says that rather than a way out, it was another dead end. Behind them, the enemy forces pursuing them, in front of them, the virgin forests as a no man’s land with all kinds of venomous serpents, wild animals, and disease awaiting them.
回忆起野人山突围，杨岑峰说，那与其说是生路，其实也是另一条死路。后面有敌军追，前面原始森林无人区又有各种毒蛇猛兽、瘟疫疾病等着他们。
“You won’t believe it, but there were ants as long as your fingers,” Yang Cenfeng says. “Diseases claimed many lives, and it was even worse for the few women soldiers. They became unable to walk and had to lie on the naked ground to wait for death to come.”
“说起来你们不信，蚂蚁都有手指那么长。”杨岑峰说，“瘟疫疾病夺走了很多人的生命，那些女兵们更惨，走不动了，最后只能在原地等死。”
There are people who have recorded this kind of miserable story: 1,500 wounded and ill soldiers were unable to go with the troops’ withdrawal, but didn’t want to be captured and humiliated. They set themselves on fire and became martyrs …..
曾经有人记录过这样一个极为悲惨的故事：1500名伤病员无法跟随部队徒步撤退，又不愿意被俘受辱，最后点火自焚，壮烈殉国……
In the end, with astonishing willpower, the 96th Division completed its roundabout route in 35 days, through the northern Myanmar Savage Mountain, across more than 300 kilometers, with less than half of them making their way home.
最终96师以惊人的毅力，用了35天，跨越了整个缅北野人山，绕道300多公里，人员损失大半终于撤回了国内。
After returning to Kunming, Yang Cenfeng’s troops were deployed to protect Kunming airport, working with the famous “Flying Tigers”. Finally, after completing the northern Burma counter attack, thus reopening the international traffic line, safeguarding a stream of international support into China and driving the Japanese army out of southwestern China, after clamping down on and inflicting heavy losses on the Japanese troops in northern Myanmar and Yunnan province, creating favorable conditions for the allied forces, to open the battleground for the counter-attack on Japan.
撤回昆明之后，杨岑峰所在的部队被安排守卫昆明机场，配合大名鼎鼎的“飞虎队”作战。最终，完成了缅北反攻，重新打通了国际交通线，保障了国际援华物资源源不断地运入中国，并把日军赶出了中国西南大门，钳制和重创了缅北、滇西日军，为盟军收复全缅甸创造了有利条件，揭开了正面战场对日反攻的序幕。
In remarks at the end of the article, the Enorth reporter describes Yang Cenfeng as looking younger than his age (92 or 93), as saying that the party and the state were showing great concern and care for him, and that he was very satisfied. His hobbies are also mentioned, as shown in the pictures within the article. But he would never forget his painful war experiences, the brothers in arms he lost, and he would always utterly detest the atrocities committed by the Japanese invaders.
He says that his survival was luck. He therefore cherishes the era of peace, and he can’t forgive people who distort history.
他说，自己能侥幸活下来，是幸运的，因此，他也更珍惜和平年代的生活，对于歪曲历史的人绝对不能原谅。
As a veteran of the war of resistance against Japan, he feels encouraged by the establishment of a national day of commemoration and warns coming generations that history must not be forgotten, to be vigilant about the stirring between the dry bones of Japanese militarism, to use history as a guide, to strengthen our motherland, and to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
作为抗日老兵，他很欣慰国家从今年开始设立了公祭日，他告诫后人们，绝对不能忘记历史，警惕日本军国主义死灰复燃，以史为鉴、强大我们的祖国，实现中华民族的伟大复兴。
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