The “Red Army Regiment” driving caterpillar infantry fighting vehicles was a troop created during the Pingjiang Uprising. There were also other hero groups including “the regiment being awarded great merit citation in the Huai-Hai Campaign”, “the company being awarded top-grade merit citation in the Battle of Triangle Hill”, “Huang Jiguang squad”, “Dong Cunrui squad”, “Wang Jie squad” and “Wang Hai Unit”; as well as merit troops like those with Zhang Side and Qiu Shaoyun as soldiers, “the hero battalion” which shot down US-made U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, and a bomber aviation division of the PLA air force which successfully completed the experiment of dropping an atomic bomb for the first time.
The grand trans-century military parade created multiple new records:
It had the most army branches of the 13 National Day military parades in the history of New China
The 25-soldier rows of the reviewed divisions set a world record
The armed forces line-up, comprising over 100 fighting vehicles from tank, infantry fighting vehicle and armored vehicle divisions, was the largest of all the military parades in the history of New China.
