The Hsinchu City Bureau of Cultural Affairs is seeking artifacts for a museum opening at the end of November to honor the Black Bats Squadron (黑蝙蝠中隊), a group that flew surveillance missions over China decades ago.
To enrich its collection, the bureau held a news conference on Tuesday to appeal to former Black Bats crew members to donate memorabilia to the museum.
Nine former Black Bats were at the news conference, with some promising to donate their collections.
Former pilot Lu Wei-heng (盧維恆), 81, who recently returned to Taiwan from Canada, recalls that at that time, everyone in the squadron shared common ideals.
“It is a great honor to die for the country” and “I will be a martyr if I die, or a hero if I live,” were typical mottos at the time, Lu said.
The Black Bats Squadron, or the 34th Squadron of the Republic of China Air Force, refers to a corps of CIA reconnaissance pilots based in Hsinchu in the 1950s.
The squadron was created in 1953 to help the CIA gatherer intelligence about China’s secretive military program.
The operation was made possible through collaboration between the Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) government and Western Enterprises Inc in Taipei, which was set up by the CIA. Under the program, the CIA provided aircraft and necessary equipment, while Taiwan provided the pilots.
The squadron became known as the Black Bats Squadron because it always entered Chinese airspace at night to conduct reconnaissance and surveillance missions.
When the squadron was dismantled in December 1967, it had conducted 838 reconnaissance flights over China, losing 15 aircraft and 148 crew members, or two-thirds of the total.
Of these, only 14 bodies were recovered.
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