The Dongfeng (simplified Chinese: 东风; traditional Chinese: 東風; lit. ‘East Wind’) series, typically abbreviated as “DF missiles”, are a family of short, medium, intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles operated by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (formerly the Second Artillery Corps).

History

In the early years of New China, the industrial development of China mainly depended upon capital investment and technical assistance. At that period, China exchanged through foreign trade at equal values for “156 types” of Soviet industrial project assistance, with building nuclear bombs and missile factories and corresponding technologies included.

Chinese missile production started from imitating Soviet missiles. At the end of 1957, Soviet provided China with two P-1 missile models, and in June, 1958, the first batch of drawings and technical documentation of P-2 missiles was transferred. Scientists and engineers formed the Fifth Institute of National Defense Ministry (hereinafter called “the Fifth Institute”) , translated and copied those documents and made preparation for imitating the “1059”model missile.

“1059” was named for paying homage to 10th anniversary of the founding of New China of October 1, 1959. Under the lead of Qian Xuesen, scientists and engineers gained a thorough grasp of design theories, overcame technical obstacles and managed to advance imitations of Soviet missiles.

While the whole Fifth Institute was quietly getting immersed in hard work, the Sino-Soviet relationship suddenly cooled down and the “honeymoon period” of the two nations came to end. In June, 1956, the Soviets began to tear up the “Sino-Soviet New National Defense Technology Agreement”, and withdrew all the Soviet experts in the next year and abolished all the joint projects.

Although that following serious and tough situation fell upon the shoulders of Qian Xuesen, his confidence, self-improvement and self-esteem once again showed their power. During several round-table meetings, Qian Xuesen called upon all the personnel in the Fifth Institute with great passion not to give up or hold back, and to carry on the imitation of missiles. Qian stated,

“All of us in the Fifth Institute would certainly get straight and upright under the pressure of the fact that Soviet experts were withdrawn. We are able to build our own missile mission with our best efforts, and the Soviets cannot overwhelm us!”

“We shall continue our work day and night; we shall burn the candles at both ends!”

“We will certainly catch up with progress!”

Just like that, inspired by Qian Xuesen’s passion and inspiration, all comrade fellows bent their efforts towards only one direction, held their breath and swore to launch the “1059”missile to the sky.

At 9:00 am, under the command of chief officer, “1059”missile rose to sky, and hit the target exactly within the proposed impact area at the distance of 554km from the launch site after flying for 7 minutes and 37 seconds.

This “missile of our own”- “1059”was named for “Dongfeng 1”, DF-1 for short. From then on, Qian Xuesen led the Fifth Institute to succeed in improving and designing the “Dongfeng 2 and Dongfeng 3” missiles by ourselves and Dongfeng missile family were expanded and gradually grew up to be the champion weapons of our national defense mission. “Dongfeng 31-A model” nuclear missile attending our 60th anniversary military parade of the New China on the 2009 National Day was the strong new member of the Dongfeng missile family.

On October 16, 1964, the first atomic bomb exploded in China and the rising mushroom cloud astonished the world.

However, this atomic bomb was detonated by fixing it upon an iron cradle in advance, which caused western media to state it was “only a bomb without a gun” to satirize China, faced with the reality that, although atomic bomb had been produced, it still could not be discharged.

How to change that situation?

Undoubtedly, missile is the best “gun”. Qian Xuesen proposed to develop nuclear missiles carrying nuclear warheads on the basis of successful test launches of mid-and-short-range missiles, and that is the well-known pioneering work of “combination of missile and atomic bomb” at the present time.

Nuclear missiles are very different from typical ones. A subtle mistake could incur irreparable losses. Qian Xuesen led the Fifth Institute to make improvements for the “Dongfeng 2”missile. All the comrades worked hard and took every detail quite seriously and carefully.

On October 26, 1966, Marhshal Nie Rongzhen and Qian Xuesen came to the site to personally monitor the docking process of the “DF-2A”missile body and atomic warhead.

On the site, a young technician named Tian Xiankun took charge of that docking task. Given that the distance between the warhead and missile body was just longer than one foot, only by moving their bodies sideways could they go there. However, despite the narrow space, Tian Xiankun finished more than a hundred movements with perfect accuracy through his highly skilled technologies and tools, and succeeded in docking warheads and missile bodies just like doing embroidery on cloth.

On October 27, 9:00 am, Tong Lianjie, one of the seven operators pressed the button of the principal machine of the control platform, and China’s first nuclear missile slowly rose and flew to the sky with a roaring boom.

However, the control room fell into quiet after the missile taking off, and no one could dare take a heavy breath. In their eyes, the nine minutes of estimated flight time seemed endless.

At last, Lop Nur testing ground delivered a report，stating: the nuclear missile hit the target exactly and the nuclear explosion smoothly took place!

That moment was so valuable and delightful! The seven operators in the underground control room could not help but shed tears of joy…

To celebrate that great and historic moment, and learning we were prepared to build the Qian Xuesen Library, the Second Artillery Force of the PLA donated to our library a missile with the same model as the “DF-2A”nuclear missile , and allowed us to use it as a large-scale physical subject exhibit in the Library. On March 27, 2011, under witness of the public, military officers and soldiers together with the construction company managed to unload the missile and then hoisted it to move from roof to rotunda, which took 45 minutes to complete the whole lift and set-up process.

The most glorious and most dangerous moments condensed into extraordinary, historic, and frozen time, which silently says, the peaceful time and life today we have derive from the endless efforts of Qian Xuesen and others in very tough environment.

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