Liu Yalou

Early Career

Liu Yalou, originally named Liu Zhendong, was born on 8 April 1910 into a poor peasant family in Xiangyang village, Xiangdian township, Wuping county, Fujian; his mother died shortly after his birth and he was raised by a fellow villager of the same surname, Liu Dexiang. He joined the Chinese Communist Party and the Red Army in 1929 and took part in the Long March. In 1939 he was sent to the Soviet Union to study at the Frunze Military Academy, serving in the Soviet war effort during his time there; on 1 May 1947 he married Zhai Yunying in Dalian. He returned to China at the end of the war against Japan in 1945 and was immediately assigned to the Northeast, serving successively as Chief of Staff of the Northeast Self-Defense Army and the Northeast Democratic Allied Army; when the Northeast Field Army was formed in 1948 he stayed on as its Chief of Staff, becoming one of Lin Biao's key staff officers.

The Liaoshen Campaign and the Assault on Jinzhou

On 14 October 1948, as Chief of Staff of the Northeast Field Army, Liu Yalou gave the order to launch the assault on Jinzhou from the Maoershan command post, triggering a simultaneous barrage from more than 900 artillery pieces — the largest concentrated bombardment in Chinese military history to that point. After 31 hours of fighting, the Northeast Field Army annihilated the Jinzhou garrison of more than 120,000 troops and captured 43 Nationalist generals, including Fan Hanjie, head of the Jinzhou command of the Nationalist "Bandit Suppression" headquarters for the Northeast. The fall of Jinzhou cut off the Nationalist forces' route of retreat into North China and marked the turning point of the Liaoshen Campaign.

Tianjin Assault and the Pingjin Campaign

During the Pingjin Campaign, Liu Yalou commanded the assault on Tianjin. On 14 January 1949 his forces — approximately 340,000 troops — launched a coordinated attack on the city from multiple directions. Tianjin fell after 29 hours of urban combat on 15 January; over 130,000 Nationalist defenders were killed or captured, including garrison commander Chen Changjie. The swift capture of Tianjin eliminated Fu Zuoyi's last military option and made the subsequent peaceful transfer of Beiping possible.

Commander of the PLAAF

After the founding of the PRC, Liu Yalou was appointed the PLA Air Force's first Commander-in-Chief on 25 October 1949, and the Air Force headquarters was formally established on 11 November; he oversaw the building of the service almost from scratch. By late 1950, the air force — barely a year old — was committed to combat in the Korean War, and he set the guiding principle of "training through air combat, growing through battle" as he directed its rapid expansion and modernisation. He was promoted to the rank of General (上将) in 1955 and later concurrently served as Deputy Minister of National Defense. Diagnosed with liver cancer after returning from an official trip abroad in September 1964, he died at East China Hospital in Shanghai at 3:45 p.m. on 7 May 1965, aged 55. His memorial service was held at Zhongshan Hall in Beijing, attended by every member of the Politburo Standing Committee except Mao Zedong and Chen Yun; his hearse was escorted to the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery by Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao, and roughly 100,000 soldiers and civilians turned out spontaneously across Beijing to mourn him — an extraordinarily high honor among the PRC's founding generals.