With the outbreak of the War of Resistance-World War II following the &lt;a href="Marco%20Polo%20Bridge%20Incident"&gt;7/7 Incident&lt;/a&gt; in 1937, Liangshan Airfield, as it became known as, was integrated along with the warlord aircraft assets and personnel into the centralized command of the nominally "Nationalist Air Force of China"; Liangshan Airfield served in defense of Sichuan as well as launching fighters on escort missions for bombing runs against Japanese positions in Hubei. Liangshan Airfield served as a forward air force base stationing the 24th PS, 4th PG which regularly engaged attacks by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force and Army Air Force in the Battle of Chongqing and Chengdu; one such major aerial combat engagement occurring over Liangshan on 20 May 1940 when 24 bombers raided Liangshan and was met with eight Polikarpov I-16 Type 17 fighters of the 24th PS led by Capt. Li Wenxu (all having to launch in single-file as bombing damage to the runways on night before of 19 May weren't completely fixed) and claimed seven Japanese aircraft shot down (three bombers and a reconnaissance-attack plane among confirmed kills).