世界上没有一所军校或一支部队，会在大门口竖上这样一块牌子，写着这样一些文字——我们的身体、飞机和炸弹，当与敌人兵舰阵地同归于尽！

这个牌子曾经出现在中国杭州的笕桥，出现在中央航空学校的门口，它书写的是这所学校的校训。

浙江省档案馆珍藏着一本黑皮封面的《中央航空学校通讯录》，那里面有一张张发黄的老照片，有一个个近年来已经渐渐为人熟悉的名字：高志航、刘粹刚、李桂丹、沈崇诲、阎海文、乐以琴、陈怀民……那是一个个把名字写在天空和大地的壮士，那是中华民族抗击外寇的千古英雄。

20世纪30年代初的中国，内忧外患，九一八事变之后，东北沦陷，日本发动全面侵华战争的野心已经昭然若揭。

就在这个时候，一所全新的航空学校在杭州笕桥诞生了，这就是中央航空学校。它是国民政府贯彻孙中山先生“航空救国”的思想，落实“无空防即无国防”的具体措施之一，因为后面还相继办起了防空学校等。中央航校在很长一段时间里由蒋介石亲任校长，正如他之前亲任黄埔军校校长一样。与此同时，宋美龄担任航空委员会的秘书长。让一个毫无军方背景的人担此重任，就是希望通过她的影响力，能让中国的航空事业能迅速发展，特别是希望能够得到美国的大力支持。

为什么选中杭州笕桥为址

笕桥地处杭州的东北郊。这里自古繁华，名人贤士辈出，文化底蕴深厚。

据《杭州地方志》所载，民国二十六年前，即1937年抗战全面爆发之前，笕桥就已是一个商业集市，民居密集，街市兴旺，商业街从当时的笕桥火车站起至迎宾桥，长达两千米，街上有“九车十八当”，仅油车铺就有9家，当铺18家，酒馆、茶店、米铺和饭庄林立。

更为重要的是，笕桥在清朝末年时就有屯兵的兵营，即一些书上所称的“大营笕桥”。同时笕桥还是中国第一个植物园——国立第三中山大学（即民国时期的国立浙江大学）农学院的诞生地。1927年，中国著名植物学家钟观光教授受聘为国立浙江大学教授，奉命筹建植物园。而比这更早的是，1911年建立的浙江农事试验场，场址也在笕桥。所以简单地说，笕桥有两个特点，一是管天空的，那主要是为了国防建设；二是管土地的，那是跟吃饭穿衣有关系的。

中国之大，为什么要将培养飞行员的航空学校办在杭州笕桥呢？这是当时国民政府多方考虑的结果。

杭州之外，当时还分别有两个备选地：洛阳和南昌。有人可能也会问，为什么不是北上广呢？比如北京就有南苑航校之基础，上海在当时就已经是国际大都市，广州也有航空学校的基础，但因为那里的地方势力太强，所以中央政府办的航空学校必须另辟阵地。南京当时是首都，上海是海港，离日本太近，因此当时只有三个备选地：杭州、洛阳和南昌。

洛阳后来办过航校的分校，但秋天风沙遍地，会给飞行训练带来诸多困难，而南昌当时办校的政治、气候并不理想，所以最后由蒋介石亲自选定了杭州。

杭州城市生活条件较好，交通便利，离上海也近，沪杭铁路及浙赣线都在笕桥设有车站。而蒋介石本人又多少有点家乡观念，他是希望能有更多的浙江学子来报考航校。再加上笕桥本来就有兵营驻扎，边上又有乔司机场可作备用。

1932年至1937年期间，笕校的中央航校培养了一大批飞行员，这期间一共招了十二期学员。其中，第十二期招进来不久，他们就往大西南撤退了，后来在印度继续办学，也有成批送往美国训练的。抗战胜利之后，航校又迁回笕桥。美国驻华大使司徒雷登到杭州给父母扫墓时曾去访问过航校。

“醒村”里的一腔爱国热血

2006年，航校旧址被列为全国文保单位。今天的笕桥航校旧址内，有几幢保存完好的西式建筑，这些建筑群被叫作“醒村”。醒含有“觉醒”“东方醒狮”之意。

走在醒村，可以看见建筑外墙呈奶黄色，高耸的壁炉烟囱，人字形的坡屋顶，阳台的花饰铸铁栏杆在绿树丛中时隐时现。醒村39号楼位于醒村的中间，为二层四开间西式别墅，最早被称为“校长楼”，如今改称“总统楼”，蒋介石在建设笕桥机场期间，经常住在此楼办公。醒村36号楼被称“美龄楼”，是因为宋美龄在此住过。

据台湾地区空军司令、笕桥航校二期生赖名汤回忆：“当时全国高等学府的环境与建设，北方算清华最好，南方就算航校最好。我们教职员宿舍也全部是西式洋房，分甲乙丙三种：甲村住的是美国顾问，其中包括飞行主任教官、组长等；乙村为一般教官；丙村为年轻单身教官，或初婚教官住所。”

众所周知，笕桥航校当时主要由美国教官来执行训练，整个训练体制也是借鉴美国的体系。它主要的特点是严进严出，淘汰率极高。这跟之前有的航校采用意大利的训练模式完全不一样。

意大利是开门办学，进来出去都比较宽松，你只要能飞到30个小时就算毕业了。而笕桥航校的报考者首先必须是高中毕业以上的学历，因此当时是有不少大学在校生或毕业生投笔从戎的，像电影《无问西东》中王力宏扮演的沈光耀的原型就是三期生沈崇诲，他是清华大学毕业之后再来投考航校的，这在当时的青年学子中不在少数。

但是光有一腔爱国热血不够，还得通过新生入伍训练的考试。这大约有一半的淘汰率，特别是进入飞行科。它分初、中、高三个阶段，每个阶段需飞满六十个小时，通过考核才能升入上一级，不合格则被淘汰，而且淘汰率在30%左右（这是指已经考入飞行科的），这是美国教官的训练方式。所以，最后能成为正式飞行员的，往往都是精英分子，而那些淘汰下来的，只能转岗做地勤。当然，有的也会再去投考陆军学校。每一届的学员中，都有在训练中牺牲的，在《中央航空学校通讯录》（包含一期到五期学员的信息）中有记载，比如那上面对陈嘉麟烈士的介绍——

“烈士字必达，浙江杭县人，性活泼好运动，幼时读岳飞戚继光书，相（想）见其为人，辄为之神往，年十四，入蕙兰中学，年十七入之江文理学院肄业，九·一八、一·二八事变，烈士联合校中同学组织抗日会，向外宣传，演剧，唤起国人，烈士尽力独多……本年七月五日烈士驾诺斯罗泊机由杭飞赣，抵南昌空军总站飞行机场时，因降落时触及洼处，致机覆着火，烈士右眼上骨折断，体又被烧灼，于是日下午三时四十五分毕命，年二十三。

家址：杭州忠孝巷浒街六号。”

这真是：出师未捷身先死，长使英雄泪满襟。

1937年8月14日，笕桥上空爆发了著名的八一四空战，这是中日空军第一次在空中正面交锋。

那一天是个台风天，第四航空大队队员高志航率数架飞机在空中狙击日本木更津航空队，他们是从新竹飞来的，共有两个编队共18架九六式轰炸机。这场空战最终由高志航首开纪录，在空中击落一架日本轰炸机。第二架日机被李桂丹击落，另外还有两架拖着重伤飞向台湾，一架迫降在澎湖海面，一架完全报废，由此中国空军获得了4比0的胜绩。不过，很长一段时间都被宣传为6比0。

次日8月15日，日本又对杭州实施了报复性轰炸，高志航率空中勇士又一次击落了数架日机。其中，他本人再击落一架，只不过他的手臂也被日本飞行员的手枪射伤。最后，高志航单手把飞机降落，他没有把伤情告诉任何人，而是自己单手开车到了梅腾更医院（即今天的浙江大学附属第二医院）进行治疗，后来他被接到庐山进行治疗和休养，这一情节在《笕桥英烈传》中有提及。

1939年9月，国民政府下令：8月14日为中国空军节。由此，笕桥写进了中国抗战史，笕桥航校也名副其实地成为中国空军的摇篮。

1949年10月1日的国庆大典，飞过天安门检阅台的21名飞行员中，有15名就是从笕桥航校飞出去的，他们或为中共地下党员，或为起义人员，他们为新中国的航空事业作出了不可磨灭的贡献。

Central Aviation School in Hangzhou

The Central Aviation School in Jianqiao, Hangzhou is a glorious chapter in the history of China’s national-defense modernization. In 1930, the national government decided to set up the school on the site of a sericulture academy in Jianqiao. In the spring of 1931, the school houses and the airport came into being. Airplanes were purchased and students were recruited. From 1932 to 1937, the school enrolled 12 groups of trainees. As the war broke out in 1937 on a full scale, the last trainee group was transferred to the southwest before the young pilots were fully trained. During this period, about 500 pilots graduated from the school in Hangzhou. For a long while Chiang Kai-shek was the principal of the school and his wife Madam Soong May-ling headed the Aviation Committee of the national government.

Many people of today may wonder why Jianqiao was chosen to be home to the school. Jianqiao is in the northeastern suburb of the city. Before China’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out on a total scale in 1937, Jianqiao had become a town of prosperity. Home to a railway station and an airport, Jianqiao had a 2,000-meter-long street which abounded with restaurants, wine shops, teahouses, rice shops, pawnshops, which constituted a whole chain of hospitality that catered to the railway and airport people there. In the last decades of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Jianqiao hosted a large military base. It was the most ideal place for an airport which needed vast open lands and space.

Back then, Luoyang in central China’s Henan Province and Nanchang in Jiangxi Province to the west of Zhejiang were also considered for hosting the Central Aviation School. They were shortlisted after Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou were ruled out for political reasons and national-defense precautions (Shanghai is too close to Japan). Luoyang was ruled out largely because of the inclement climate. Nanchang was eliminated largely because it was far away from anywhere. Jianqiao was picked for a number of reasons: a native of Zhejiang, Chiang Kai-shek hoped to train pilots from Zhejiang who shared the native roots with him. Hangzhou was part of the Yangtze River Delta where people were comparatively well-off and well educated and it was connected with big cities such as Shanghai, Suzhou and Nanjing through a railway system. As the city was close to relatively well off cities and vast countryside, provisions could be much better and easily handled and trainers from the United States could live more comfortably at Jianqiao.

Trainers from the United States played a central role in the school’s aviation education for young Chinese pilots. The adoption of the American training system meant that China ruled out the Italian system which had been used for a while and found ineffective. In the American training system, only 50% of the trainees could qualify for the pilot training course. The training course was divided in primary, intermediate and advanced levels. At each level, a trainee needed to fly for 60 hours and needed to pass a test to qualify for the next level. It was estimated that about 30% failed to pass the graduation examination. Those who graduated from the training course became elite pilots and those who failed to graduate attended other courses and became ground service people. Some left the aviation school and signed up with army military academies.

The most glorious and heroic moment of the school happened on August 14, 1937 when pilots in Jianqiao engaged in an air battle over Hangzhou and shot down four Japanese airplanes which invaded from Taiwan. In September 1939, the national government named August 14 as the Day of China Air Force to glorify the heroism. The address books of the school list names of the pilot heroes remembered in the history of China’s resistance war against Japanese aggression.

On October 1, 1949, which was the first national day of the People’s Republic of China, 21 PLA pilots flew over the Tian’anmen Square in Beijing. Of the 21 pilots, fifteen were graduates from the Central Aviation School in Hangzhou. Some of them had joined the Communist Party secretly and some had defected to the Communists. They made contributions to the aviation undertakings of the People’s Republic.

In 2006, the site of the aviation school was officially inscribed as a national cultural heritage for preservation. A number of the western-styled houses still stand on the site today. A two-story villa is now called President Residence, where Chiang Kai-shek took care of administrative affairs when the airport was under construction. Another house is called May-Ling Residence where Madam Chiang used to stay.

(Executive Editor: Xinyu Xie)