Submarine Raiders

1965

8# In October, the instructor of the Naval Submarine Soldiers School went to my hometown to recruit troops. Because of their high cultural quality and excellent physical quality, my father and eight other young people stood out from the numerous applicants in the county and became glorious naval soldiers. The Submarine Soldiers School in Qingdao was the first stop for my father to join the army. They trained and studied here for a year. My father majored in radio communication. To put it bluntly, he was sending and receiving telegrams, just like Li Xia in the movie "The Electric Wave That Never Disappears. The code needs to be used for sending newspapers. The code book has been thickened and thinned by my father, and the code is memorized thoroughly. In addition to studying radio expertise hard, my father, like ordinary navy soldiers, also had to stand in military posture and practice queue, learn swimming and diving every day. A year later, his father, who had developed his skills, was assigned to Unit

4041

, Unit 34 , and began an unforgettable career as a submarine. is trained for war, and when you arrive in the army, you will be trained more strictly and assiduously. Business training is divided into four subjects, and his father ranks first in every assessment, because he firmly believes that only after training can he perform tasks better. My father's submarine was equipped with

48

people. They were divided into several combat teams according to different work items. My father later became the monitor of the radio class and joined the Communist Party of China with honor. Training at sea and performing tasks became a daily routine for him and his comrades. Before each sea mission, the captain and political commissar will go to the war room to accept the mission and determine the route. Everyone on the boat is a versatile person. When the submarine dives, everyone has a diving operation post to operate different machinery and equipment according to the prescribed process. In order to make the submarine descend smoothly, the heavier soldiers will be assigned to the front cabin of the boat to "contribute" their own weight. After diving to the designated position, everyone will return to their respective positions and stick to their sailing posts. The space in the

submarine is narrow. It has to work, rest in shifts and carry torpedoes. In order to save space, the soldiers' beds are hammocks or bunks. They climb to get out of bed and their waists are not straight. The water tank in the boat is small, and the water is very precious. When carrying out the mission on a long voyage, each soldier has only one cup of domestic water every day except drinking water, and the "war rice" can only be tin cans and quantitative compressed biscuits. Of course, the air quality in the confined space is not high. If the dive exceeds the expected duration, the regenerative medicine board needs to release oxygen for breathing through biological reaction. Therefore, everyone attaches great importance to maintaining the purity of the air in the boat. There are many precision instruments in the submarine. In order to protect them from pollution, the boat is required to keep absolutely clean. Even military rubber shoes cannot be worn, and special work shoes must be worn. Even the garbage generated during the voyage must be sealed and concentrated after the task is completed. It is absolutely not allowed to throw it away, because it is likely to expose one's whereabouts. Life in the

cabin is very monotonous and boring. Sailing on the bottom of the sea, you can't dance with the fish on the bottom of the sea like a diver, let alone see the beautiful coral reefs, and some are always busy at their respective posts. The water is particularly quiet, sometimes so quiet that you can hear the sound of the propeller paddling. In the dark seabed, the submarine mainly relies on sonar information to "observe" the surrounding environment. If there are ships in front of it or encounter complex terrain, the sonar wave will change, and the submarine will correct its course according to this information. My father's job on the boat was to receive wireless telegrams, which were handed over to his comrades who were specially responsible for translation. Like dragons, they patrol and control the sea floor, silently guarding the vast sea border of the motherland.

When not sailing, the soldiers all live in the army dormitory and have to take turns to stand guard on duty. The sentry post is divided into "armed guard" and "dormitory guard". The "dormitory guard" is responsible for answering the phone and being responsible for security guard when everyone is resting. "Armed guard" is different. It is to protect the safety of ships with live ammunition on the dock. In addition to loading and unloading things, submarines usually dock at floating docks, which are floating on the sea. On one occasion, a new recruit was "armed more" at the station. He was catching up with the high tide at night. The waves shook and shook, and the floating wharf also fluctuated with the tide, driving the cable piles of the large cable to move. The peg was thick, and from a distance it looked like a figure was about to climb up from the sea. The recruit immediately lay down on the ground, the bullet loaded and aimed at the shadow, thinking: no matter who you are, as long as you dare to come up, I will shoot. He kept this fighting position for two hours. When his father went to the dock to change posts, he also lowered his voice very alertly and said, "Don't make any noise, someone is coming up over there." His father looked along his eyes and couldn't help laughing: "Ha ha, comrade recruit, that shadow is a cable pile, not a human being." In the days to come, every time my father mentioned this past with his comrades-in-arms, he would praise the recruit for his absolute high vigilance and loyalty to his duties.

In 1971

, the state decided to carry out international ocean shipping business and established Tianjin Ocean Shipping Company, which needs talents with ocean sailing experience. My father and many navy comrades transferred to Tianjin from different troops. Although he left the army, his father still strictly demanded himself in accordance with the style of the army, still inseparable from the ocean, still lived a collective life, still engaged in radio business, and still contributed to the country. When I was born, my mother wanted to call it Ying Ah Yan, but my father said, "I am a soldier in the navy, and now I am a sailor. I feel very honored. Let's call it Hai Rong." So, I have such a masculine name. Later, it was discovered that many friends named "Hai ×" had fathers who were mostly navy and seafarers. Their love for the sea was deeply imprinted on our children.

In addition to loneliness and loneliness, danger is always lying in ambush beside their fathers. In that era, all contact and communication with the outside world, including navigation instructions and weather reports, had to be through the transmitter. In case of a typhoon, my father should be ready to receive the typhoon warning at any time, and then translate the message as quickly as possible to the captain so as to adjust the course to avoid the eye of the wind. The most time was in the South China Sea. They got rid of three typhoons and arrived at their destination. There was another time when I was resting in a foreign anchorage. My father and another colleague found pirates when they were patrolling. Some of the colleagues on the ship were holding bottles, some were holding sticks and steel pipes, and they caught up with the deck together. The momentum made the pirates run away despondently.

The training of the navy and the beating of the ocean have forged my father's strong character and optimism. Since ancient times, loyalty and filial piety have not been able to achieve both. When his grandparents died, his father was sailing in a foreign country; his perennial life at sea, unable to eat fresh vegetables and fruits, caused his heart to be not very good, and he also suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. But his father's love for the party and the army has never changed. He always taught my brother and me to put the interests of the collective first. No matter how big the individual is, it is a small matter, and no matter how small the interests of the collective are, it is also a big matter.

In 2008

, my mother had heart surgery, and my father stayed in the hospital for a month to prevent my brother and I from affecting our work. The long recuperation process after the mother was discharged from the hospital was also the father himself running around. My brother and I were very embarrassed, but my father said, "it's all right. You are all busy with your work. My father was a soldier, and nothing can defeat me." This is my dear dad: young soldiers leave home and dive underwater. Dangerous reefs are not afraid of being muddy, and we are defending splendid China. (Liu Hairong)