'I am luckier than my fallen comrades'

'I am almost 90, but I don't think of myself as elderly - I always just see myself as an old solider," Zhang Ruiling said.

Zhang was just 15 when he joined the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army at Toudaogou, a village in the Changbai Mountains in Northeast China's Jilin province.

"The Japanese occupied almost all of the mountain range at the time. Their weapons were much better than ours, and they carried out mopping-up operations almost every day," the 88-year-old recalled.