E Dongchen was born on 15 July 1939 in Guangfeng, Jiangxi, Republic of China,[2] in the midst of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

When he was a child, his grandmother and father were killed by Japanese troops, and he worked as a cowherd to make a living.

[3] After graduating in 1965 with a degree in astronomical and geodetic survey, he taught at a military academy and his alma mater, which was later merged into Wuhan University to become its School of Geodesy and Geomatics.

His team surveyed more than 1,600 points, and the expedition constructed China's first Antarctic research base, the Great Wall Station, which was opened on 20 February 1985.

[4] E was an academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences, Honorary Director of the Chinese Antarctic Center of Surveying and Mapping.