Norman Bethune (1890-1939)

Dr Bethune, a thoracic surgeon and member of the Canadian Communist Party, led a medical team to save injured soldiers in China during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45). In the nearly two years he spent in China, he operated on soldiers and civilians in war zones and saved many of them. In October 1939, Bethune died of erysipelas, a skin infection he contracted from a wounded soldier he was trying to save in Tangxian county, Baoding, Hebei province. To commemorate him as a great international fighter, a wartime local hospital was named Bethune International Peace Hospital, and it still operates, in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei. Bethune is buried at the North China Military Martyrs Cemetery in Shijiazhuang.

Dwarkanath Shantaram Kotnis (1910-42)