Rita Wong, a Chinese nurse who cared for injured members of a United States Air Force squadron known as the "Flying Tigers" during the Second World War, died at the age of 95 on Tuesday in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province.

 

Wong, also known by her Chinese name as Huang Huanxiao, was born in Guangdong in 1912, and obtained a degree in nursing at the University of Hong Kong in 1941.

 

Rita Wong at the age of 23

She voluntarily went to the headquarters of Allied Forces with her nursing certificate and applied for a job from where she was sent to Yunnan, which was badly in need of English-speaking nurses. She joined the hospital of the US 14th Air Force, which was then stationed in Kunming.

 

The airmen, whose planes were painted with shark teeth, were known in China as "Fei Hu", or "Flying Tigers", for their courage in battle. They flew with members of the Chinese Air Force on the air supply route over the Himalayas known as the "Hump". From this, derived Wong's nickname of "Hump Angel".

 

"The flights were very dangerous and planes crashed almost every day. Often the airmen were never found," Wong wrote in her diary.

 

China and the United States lost more than 500 airplanes and more than 1,500 airmen during that time.

 

"She died with a smile, just like her Chinese name suggests - it translates into joy and smile," said Gao Demin, Wong's eldest son.

 

During Wong's final years, she was visited by some former Flying Tigers and their descendants from the United States, and descendants of Chinese pilots.

 

"I've always worried that the memories about that special time will fade as people who lived through that part of history die, and we all hope the next generations will not forget history," said Antonucci Dario, who was then a telecommunications operator in the American Air Force, two years ago.

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2007)