Norman Bethune in China

Comrade Norman Bethune, a member of the Communist Party of Canada, was a world-famous chest surgeon. In 1937, when the War of Resistance Against Japan broke out, he was sent to China by the Communist Parties of Canada and the United States. He arrived early in 1938. In the spring of the same year he reached Yenan and was received by the great leader of the Chinese people, Chairman Mao. Soon afterwards, he went to the base area behind the enemy lines as Medical Advisor to the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei Military Area. In those hard war years he shared the joys and sorrows of the people and armymen in the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei Border Region. He adopted the cause of the Chinese people's liberation as his own. With selfless enthusiasm in his work, and imbued with the great spirit of internationalism and communism, he made a glorious contribution to the cause of the Chinese people's liberation. Unfortunately, he contracted blood poisoning while operating on wounded soldiers, and to our great sorrow, after all measures taken to cure him had proved futile, died on November 12, 1939 at Yellow Stone Village in Tanghsien County, Hopei Province. On December 21, 1939, Chairman Mao wrote the brilliant essay In Memory of Norman Bethune calling on the Chinese people to learn from Comrade Bethune. In 1940, to perpetuate his memory, the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei Military Area renamed the Model Hospital set up by him the "Bethune International Peace Hospital." The great internationalist fighter Comrade Bethune lives forever in the hearts of millions upon millions of the Chinese people.