"Our fathers came here with a spirit of cooperation and friendship; we came here, after about 60 years, with the same spirit," said Barbara McMurrrey Hyde, daughter of Major William C. McMurrey, an officer of the US army, who was killed in battles against the Japanese army in southwest China's Yunnan Province in 1944.
Barbara made the speech on Thursday at the opening ceremony of Heshun Museum to commemorate the joint efforts made by the Chinese soldiers and the Allied Forces in fighting against Japanese invaders at the border of China and Myanmar during the WW II.
The museum was set up at an ancient town of Heshun in Tengchong county and is the first non-governmental museum focusing on the wars at the WW II at the border of China and Myanmar.
Tengchong, located at southwestern parts of Yunnan bordering Myanmar, saw bloodiest battles from 1942 to 1944, during the war of China and the Allied Forces against the Japanese Army.
Among the collection of around 5,000 articles, about 3,000 were provided by Duan Shengkui, deputy head of Tengchong county branch of the Agricultural Bank of China.
He has spent about 20 years collecting miscellaneous relics andmaterials left by both sides of the war, including weapons, manuscripts, pictures, which serve as strong proofs to the Japanese invasion, and the hard struggle of the Chinese Expeditionary Force and the Allied Forces.
Duan was invited to be the curator of the museum funded by a tourist development company of Yunnan.
The museum site used to be the headquarters of the 20th army group of the Chinese Expeditionary Force during the war. Therefore the construction of the museum resumed the old appearance of the headquarters to the best.
The opening ceremony was held on July 7, the 68th anniversary of the full scale breaking out of the Chinese Anti-Japanese War, and also the 60th anniversary of Tengchong's Guoshang Cemetery for the soldiers killed in the war from both the Chinese army and the Allied Forces.
Ten veteran soldiers are still living at Tengchong, who have fought at the battlefields at the border between Myanmar and China about 60 years ago,
The veterans, most in their 80s, were invited to the ceremony.
"This is a big event both for Tengchong and for us veterans. I am so proud to see the real history revealed to the public, and our contribution accepted by the public," said Zhang Youtong, a 82-year-old veteran.
(Xinhua News Agency July 8, 2005)
