At the start of the war, Lo Ying-Teh served as a flight leader in the 24th PS of the 5th PG, stationed at Yangchou. This unit was equipped with Curtiss Hawk IIIs.

On 26 September he surprised Lieutenant Shichiro Buntaicho Yamashita (57th Class), division officer of the 13th Kokutai on a recon mission, shot him up and forced him to crash land over Central China.
Yamashita survived to be taken POW but later died.
This was the first intact A5M captured by the Chinese. This aircraft was later sent to the Soviet Union for testing.

On 12 October the Japanese attacked Nanking with nine G3Ms escorted by eleven A5Ms from the 13th Kokutai led by Lieutenant Commander Nakano. Colonel Kao Chi-Hang led six Hawk IIIs, two Boeing 281s and one Fiat CR.32 to intercept. Wong Pan-Yang, in Boeing No. 1706, spotted the Japanese planes first. Diving on the tail end Shotai led by Warrant Officer Torakuma's A5M, Wong attacked the No. 3 plane flown by PO1c Mazazumi Ino (Pilot 30) and shot it down. Ino was on his first mission and may have mistaken the Boeings for friendly A5Ms.
The Japanese formation broke down immediately into a melee as the Chinese fighters mixed it up with them for the first time in over a month. So surprised and confused were they that the Japanese later reported that Chinese "Breda 27s" surrounded them when in actual fact there were only two Boeings involved. Actually, Wong dived away right after his successful firing pass. He had pulled up to rejoin the battle when he saw another Japanese plane below. Diving into the attack, his map case broke loose and struck him in the face with such violence that completely disoriented him. Realising that a sky full of angry Japanese fighters was no place to be he dived out of the fight.
Meanwhile, Kao was busy tangling with the A5Ms to give his comrades a chance to get at the bombers. However, the A5Ms were able to divert most of the attacks and even downed one of the Hawks killing the inexperienced sub-lieutenant Chao Fang-Chen of the 24th PS. Captain Liu Chui-Kang in Hawk III No. 2407 (or no. 2401) was hit and lost a bracing wire as he made a pass at the G3Ms. The A5M clung to his tail like a leech. However, next to Kao and Wong, Liu was probably the most experienced Chinese pilot. He led the A5M in a dive towards Nanking and then pulled up in a series of tight loops. On the 3rd loop, the A5M overshot, ending up squarely in Liu’s sights. A quick burst sent the A5M crashing into a Mr. Yang's residence in the southern part of Nanking.
Back at altitude, Kao spotted an A5M closely pursuing Lieutenant Lo Ying-Teh, flight leader in the 24th PS. This was shotai leader Warrant Officer Torakuma trying to avenge his wingman. Not spotting Kao in time, Torakuma's A5M was riddled with gunfire and had to crash land on the banks of the Yangtze. The hapless pilot survived and was saved by the Japanese Navy. Lieutenant Lo also made good his escape but three A5Ms almost cornered Kao. Handling the Hawk III masterfully, using tight turns and even the outside loop, he was able to keep out of the gun sights of the Japanese pilots. Every so often, Kao was able to get in snap shot at the Japanese planes. Finally, two of the A5Ms broke off, probably for the lack of fuel. One continued to fly in a series of loops, seemingly oblivious to the Chinese plane. Kao finally managed to pull alongside the A5M and look into the cockpit where he saw the Japanese pilot staring straight ahead and clutching the stick to his stomach. His chest had been ripped open by bullets. Somewhere during the dogfight, one of Kao's snap shots had scored and the A5M was flying with a dead man at the controls. Eventually, the A5M crash-landed after it ran out of fuel. Kao went to examine the largely intact A5M and marvelled at its modern design. (This was actually the second A5M to be captured intact by the Chinese. On 26 September Lieutenant Lo Ying-Teh forced down the first A5M. Eventually, both A5Ms were turned over to the Russians and sent to the Soviet Union for testing).
Japanese records showed that three pilots from 13th Kokutai were killed - PO3c Nagaharu Umeda (Pilot 32), PO3c Torata Takiguchi (Pilot 25) and Ino while four A5Ms were lost in this action, while claiming 5 shot down (all these claims seems to have been made by the Torakuma shotai) and 2 destroyed on the ground. Only Kao, Liu and Wong made claims so there was no debate from the Chinese side as to who scored (except there were not enough details in the reports of both sides to match up the victims of Kao and Liu). It was the first time the A5M were trounced so convincingly and all the more remarkable as the Chinese were outnumbered as usual. The critical factor here was the experience of the Chinese pilots, particularly Kao, first Chinese pilot to single-handedly score a double-kill against the formidable A5Ms.

From May 1938 and during 1939 Lo Ying-The served as commander of the 21st PG of the 4th PG.

On 31 May, the Japanese executed a new attack on the aerodromes of fighters defending the Chinese capital. The Chinese had received advance information and were ready for them, having been able to concentrate aircraft at the Hankou aerodrome already the day before. In all, there were concentrated more than a hundred fighters.
At 10:15, 18 enemy bombers were spotted over Tung Chin by Chinese air defence lookouts followed by a reported 36 enemy aircraft over Lu-Jiang at 10:45. 46 enemy aircraft were spotted over the Camel Pass at 11:45 followed by a report of 39 enemy fighters near Qing-Shan at 12:00.
Thus, at midday a reported 39 enemy fighters and 18 enemy bombers approached Wuhan. At 11:50 49 Chinese interceptors successively began taking off from Wuhan. The Chinese fighters were four I-15bis from the 3rd PG, eight I-15bis and six I-16s (of the 21st PS) from the 4th PG, 21 I-15bis and ten I-16s from the Soviet volunteers. The 31 Soviet volunteers become the main attack force according to a previously devised plan while the 18 Chinese fighters climbed higher to provide an echeloned covering detachment. The fighters patrolled between Hankou and Qing-Shan.
Even before the appearance of the bombers, one of the groups of fighters flown by the Soviet volunteers was attacked at 12:07 by 18 A5Ms at 4500 meters. The Japanese fighter formation was reported to be 39 aircraft flying in a ‘V’ formation with 18 fighters at 4500 meters, 12 at 5000 meters and the high-cover of 9 fighters at 6000 meters. Six I-15bis flown by Soviet volunteers arrived to reinforce but at the same time 18 A5Ms joined the fight, leaving only 3 A5Ms as high-cover. At this them the I-16s from the 21st PS also joined the combat while the rest of the slower I-15bis gradually also did this. The formation led by Captain Cheng Hsiao-Yu, consisting of four I-15bis from the 3rd PG and eight I-15bis from the 4th PG didn’t manage to join combat since they were farthest away when the combat started and when they arrived north-east of the airport the enemy evaded east.
After the bombers appeared, A. Zingaev’s group threw themselves upon them, and with the first attack shot down two. The remaining bombers of the first group and the two remaining groups were not able to force their way through to the aerodrome and they turned back.
According to the recollections of N. G. Kozlov, the encounter with a large group of A5Ms occurred about 15 to 20 km east of the aerodrome. The Japanese attacked leaving one flight at altitude. Following the manoeuvres of his leader, Kozlov in a banking turn gave a burst at a Japanese fighter, which was following K. Opasov. In the turning carousel, this Japanese finally flew directly into the gun sights of Kozlov’s I-15bis, but the burst went into an already burning aircraft. A second Japanese began an attack on Kozlov. For their part, the I-16s conducted a battle in the vertical, diving at a steep angle and hitting the Japanese and then soaring upwards, and opening fire at the moment when the Japanese was dependent on his motor, climbing through a half loop. Mainly attacking out of the sun, the Japanese quickly lost the initiative, which gradually passed to the Chinese, as the battle dissolved into a sharp dogfight and gradually dissipated. While departing Kozlov let off a burst at long range at a Japanese under attack by two I-15bis, and the A5M limply began turning wing over wing and tumbled out of control to the ground.
In this combat Anton Gubenko returned in his damaged aircraft and reported that he had shot down one Japanese and rammed another. Aleksey Blagoveshchenskiy also claimed an enemy aircraft in this combat while Grigoriy Kravchenko claimed two.
Totally the Chinese fighters claimed 14 enemy aircraft shot down after a battle that lasted for 30 minutes. The 21st PS Squadron Leader, Captain Lo Ying-Teh, claimed one enemy aircraft shot down, which crashed south of Hou Lake. Lieutenant Liu Chi-Sheng of the 21st PS returned claiming an A5M, which crashed 20 kilometres north of the airfield. The pilot was seen to bale out. Han Sen teamed up with Huang Yan-Po and jointly they attacked one enemy aircraft five times before it crashed near Tian-Xin Shoal. The Soviet volunteers claimed six enemy aircraft shot down; one crashed at She-Kou, killing the pilot while another crashed 30 kilometres from She-Kou with the pilot parachuting.
The Chinese and the Soviet pilots each lost one pilot and one aircraft and several aircraft were seriously damaged. The 21st PS flight leader, Zhang Xiao-Xian, in I-16 no. 2107 was shot down and crashed in the Dai-Jia Mountain killing Zhang. I-15bis no. 90, flown by a Soviet volunteer, crashed near Hang-Dian but the pilot managed to parachute safely.
The Japanese record that 35 A5Ms (eleven from the 12th and 24 from the 13th Kokutais) escorted 18 G3M2 bombers. Poor visibility in the region of the target led to the fighters of the 13th Kokutai failing to discover the enemy, and the A5Ms of the 12th Kokutai became engaged in a battle against a reported 50 fighters. Nine aircraft of the Yoshitomi chutai of the 12th Kokutai reported tangling with about 50 enemy fighters and during the combat PO3c Yoshimi Minami claimed one enemy aircraft (9 victories in China and a total of 15) and Momoto Matsumura clamed three. He then received a hit in his A5M’s fuel tank; moreover, he found himself surrounded by twelve enemy aircraft. Since he had run out of ammunition, he employed a ramming tactic. Then, despite the fact that the left wing of his aircraft had been sheared off from the red ball of the rising sun outward, Minami started on his way back to base. He made an emergency landing on the banks of the Yangtze River and set his aircraft on fire. Fortunately for Minami, friendly search aircraft were able to spot him; he was rescued by a patrol boat and returned safely to base. One Japanese fighter (Sea1c Hiromitsu Takahara (Pilot 36) of the 12th Kokutai was killed) was lost in the combat. The Japanese fighters totally claimed 18 victories (alternatively 12 and 6 probables) including an old, unarmed Bellanca 28/90 biplane (evidently a reconnaissance aircraft).

In 1941 Lo Ying-The served as commander of the 3rd PG.

By the beginning of June 1941 Lo with parts of the command and flying staff of the 3rd PG were sent to Rangoon, Burma, to take delivery of the Hawk 81A (P-40C) which had been purchased in America. After trying the combat capabilities of these aircraft however, they determined that they would not be able to stand up against the Zero. Therefore the transfer was declined and the aircraft were delivered to Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers.

Lo Ying-Teh ended the war with 1 biplane victory and a total of 2.

He rose to the rank of full general in the 1960’s and served as deputy C-in-C of the ROCAF and deputy minister of defence in Taiwan.

When he retired, he was appointed ambassador to the Republic of Korea.

Claims:

Kill no.	Date	Time	Number	Type	Result	Plane type	Serial no.	Locality	Unit
	1937
1	26/09/37		1	A5M (a)	Destroyed	Curtiss Hawk III			24th PS
	1938
2	31/05/38	11:50-	1	Enemy aircraft (a)	Destroyed	I-16		S Hou Lake	21th PS

Biplane victories: 1 destroyed.
TOTAL: 2 destroyed.
(a) Lieutenant Yamashita Shichiro Buntaicho of the 13th Kokutai forced down to crash land. The aircraft was captured intact.
(b) 14 Japanese aircraft claimed in combat for the loss of one I-15bis and one I-16. Japanese fighters from 12th and 13th Kokutais claimed 12 victories (and 6 probables?) for the loss of one A5M.

Sources:
Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in World War II - Ikuhiko Hata and Yasuho Izawa, translated by Don Cyril Gorham, 1989 United States Naval Institute, Annapolis, ISBN 0-87021-315-6
Soviet Fighters in the sky of China, Part II - Anatolii Demin, 2000 Aviatsiia Kosmonavtika 10 (translated by George M. Mellinger)
Soviet Fighters in the sky of China, Part V - Anatolii Demin, 2001 Aviatsiia Kosmonavtika 1 (translated by George M. Mellinger)
Additional information kindly provided by Raymond Cheung, Tom Chan and Erich Wang.