Ge Zhenlin, a hero of China's Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945), died of kidney, lung and heart failure on Monday night in a hospital in central China's Hunan Province. He was 88.

Ge and four other people are widely known as "five warriors of the Langya mountain" during the Chinese people's war of resistance against Japan (1937-45). Their heroic stories, already collected in Chinese primary school textbooks, have inspired patriotism among generations of Chinese.

On Sept. 25, 1941, Ge and his four comrades, besieged by hundreds of Japanese soldiers, drew the enemy up to the Langya Mountain cliff in north China's Hebei Province, in order to help China's main force and civilians to retreat.

The five warriors, after running out of bullets, jumped into the deep valley. Three of them died in the fall. Ge and another comrade, Song Xueyi, were buttressed by a tree branch and survived.

Song died in 1971. Ge gave more than 400 patriotism lectures in 10 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities after his retirement in 1981.

Local civilians and officials paid respects to Ge.

(Peopledaily.com March 23, 2005)