American soldiers who have just arrived on the battlefield
The American soldiers, who were initially transferred from the Japanese garrison, confidently thought that they could crush the Korean People's Army with one shot, but they were defeated all the way and were surrounded in the defense circle of Busan, and their mood was terrible; soon, MacArthur came out of Inchon and landed, and suddenly turned the situation around, and the American soldiers began to run after the Korean People's Army again, and their mood was beautiful again; they wanted to kill the Yalu River with great interest, and suddenly encountered the volunteer army...
Today we will talk about the US military recalling the first encounter with the volunteer army.
On the morning of October 25, 1950, a battalion of the ROK 6th Division advanced northwest from Onjeong. Because it was beaten to the extreme by the Korean People's Army in the early stage, the Korean army at this time desperately pursued it in order to regain its face. But on this day, they encountered an unexpected situation.
After several hours of successful advances, the Roks in this battalion encountered enemy attacks. Naturally, they consider it to be a small unit of the Korean People's Army, and it is not worth mentioning. But I never expected that in a very short period of time, this Korean army was defeated and suffered heavy casualties.
The next day, the remnants of The Korean army in Onjeong suffered another fatal blow, and a regiment that came to reinforcements suffered heavy losses. On October 28, the unbelieving South Korean army threw in another regiment, but it suffered a disastrous defeat, and if it were not for the desperate support of American aircraft, it would not have been able to run.
The ROK 1st Division also encountered a mysterious army on October 25, and after a fierce battle captured a prisoner. The man was wearing a Korean People's Army uniform, but after interrogation, the South Korean army learned that it was a Chinese soldier and that a larger Chinese army was hidden nearby.
A steady stream of interrogation records and battlefield reports circulated behind, and U.S. commanders realized that a whole new adversary had entered the war. But MacArthur's command argued that the reports "have not been substantiated and cannot be accepted." ”
Intelligence agents around MacArthur believed that if Chinese wanted to intervene in the Korean War, it should come as soon as the war began. Now that the Korean People's Army has completely collapsed, what is the point of Chinese coming again? Moreover, the Chinese military "does not have significant experience in actual combat with a major military power ... They are also trained like the original North Korean army... Lack of uniform equipment and ammunition supplies..."
So, the U.S. military command means: impossible, Chinese impossible to come.
U.S. troops captured Korean People's Army soldiers
On October 29, an entire army of the ROK army was crushed, which was obviously not something that the defeated Korean People's Army could do, so the U.S. military had to admit that Chinese coming. MacArthur's intelligence chief, Willoughby, finally admitted: "It seems possible that an unknown number of Chinese joined... North Korean troops to assist in the defense of the border area. However, with only a few captives captured and contradictory claims, no further conclusions can be drawn at this point. ”
The First Koreans to engage the Volunteers were very convinced that they had encountered a formidable enemy. Bai Shanye, commander of the ROK 1st Division, did not dare to take it lightly and personally inspected the position. He made it very clear that at least ten thousand Chinese came.
These sudden appearances of Chinese soldiers, whether a thousand or 10,000, made the U.S. military very confused. Because according to the intelligence at the time, the combat effectiveness of the Chinese should not be very strong: most of the soldiers used Japanese-made rifles, which were obviously captured from the Japanese army that year. Mortars and light machine guns were American-made, which were supposed to have been captured from nationalist forces. There were few other heavy weapons, not to mention airplanes.
Can such an adversary be stronger than the Korean People's Army? However, the officers and men of the US military also found that the South Korean army, which had chased and fought the Korean People's Army, looked completely defeated, which seemed to prove that the Chinese army was very strong in combat effectiveness. Major John Millikin Jr., a battalion commander of the 5th Cavalry Regiment, had seen the South Korean army demoralized and defeated all the way, while the Chinese army quickly interspersed between the South Korean troops, as if into no man's land. "As Chinese troops swarmed along the ridge leading to South Korean troops, the whole hillside seemed to be moving," he recalled. ”
The rout of the Rok army proved that Chinese, whose weapons and equipment were inferior, must be very capable of fighting. The American soldiers on the front line were deeply worried.
The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division landed
More and more strange signs appeared, dozens of fires were lit in the forest extending south from the Yalu River, and the smoke was billowing in the sky, and the US reconnaissance planes could not see the ground at all. By 1 November, civilians reported that thousands of soldiers were moving rapidly southwest of Yun Shan, Chinese appeared to be trying to block the road south of Yun Shan.
Hobart Guy, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, was sitting in the command post when he heard a reconnaissance pilot over the radio say that he had seen two long columns advancing along the path, and had not stopped even after being bombarded by shells.
By the time the U.S. 8th Cavalry Regiment knew it was surrounded, it was too late.
The 1st and 2nd Battalions broke through with all their might and suffered heavy losses, but the 3rd Battalion was the worst and was completely under siege. One American GIS recalled that the commander decided to break through, and exhausted soldiers sat in trucks, waiting for orders to retreat. At this moment, a company of Chinese troops suddenly killed, and the sound of military trumpets was particularly loud in the night, he recalled: "Someone woke me up and asked me if I could hear a herd of horses running... Then came the sound of military trumpets, but far away. Then someone blew a whistle, and after a few minutes, there was a sea of fire here. ”
Lieutenant Hill of the 3rd Battalion, who also thought he was dreaming, recalled: "I heard a military trumpet, and then a group of vague figures seemed to fall from the sky, and immediately shot and bayoneted at anyone they found." ”
The whole battlefield was in chaos, and Captain Fillmore McCaby felt that there were enemies all around. His helmet was hit by a bullet and fell to his feet. Before he could pick it up, another bullet hit McCaby's shoulder blade, and he escaped with his wounds in his pocket and hid behind a jeep. The Chinese soldiers chased after him, and he tried desperately to resist, but because of the excessive blood loss, he eventually fell into a ditch.
McCaby recalled that three Chinese soldiers came and stabbed him with bayonets, as if to verify that he was still alive. McCaby saw that the three Chinese soldiers had not killed him, and as soon as he used his finger to point to the road below, they left. Throughout the process, McCaby was holding his carbine.
Soon, McCaby got up and continued to run, but encountered more Chinese soldiers, and seeing that McCaby was wounded, they did not shoot and left. Like a dream, McCaby returned to headquarters with a gun, wounded but still alive.
Wounded U.S. soldiers
The command post of the 3rd Battalion was set up in an air raid shelter on the side of the hillside, full of wounded, who were struggling for a final defense. It was clear that without reinforcements, they would surely die.
However, during the day on 2 November, the remnants of the 5th Cavalry Regiment prepared to come to the rescue, only to be met with a head-on attack, giving up after losing 350 men. On the evening of the 2nd, the commander of the regiment, General Milburn, met with the commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, Guy, and the two exchanged views according to the current situation, and finally they both realized that sending troops to rescue the 3rd Battalion would only cause more casualties, so it was better to abandon the 3rd Battalion.
"It was the most heartbreaking decision I've ever made in my entire military career, and I don't expect you to like it, but now the decision has been made," Milburn said. "When the remnants of the besieged 3rd Battalion got the news, they understood that if they wanted to go back, they could only fight to the death.
On November 4, the remnants of the 3rd Battalion were starved of ammunition and wounded, and those who could still move decided to abandon more than 200 wounded and try to break out. A few people ran out at night, it was pitch black outside, and it was raining all night and blowing a biting cold wind. These American soldiers, who had luckily escaped, climbed and ran for a while, and did not dare to stop at all.
On several occasions, they thought they had run out of the encirclement of the Chinese army. But always when they were relieved, the gunshots rang out again. In this way, the vast majority of the people were either killed or captured, and the 3rd Battalion of the 8th Cavalry Regiment did not exist.
In the fighting of the next few days, the U.S. military fully realized that they underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army. Chinese can pass through uninhabited, seemingly impassable mountains again and again, appearing unexpectedly behind U.S. and Rok. forces. Once the terrible trumpet sounded, it usually meant that it was surrounded by Chinese on all sides.
Especially at night, it became a nightmare for the US military. An example can illustrate everything: on the night of November 5, the Chinese army followed the telephone line to a position in the C Company of the 19th Infantry Regiment and quietly surrounded it. Although the American soldiers had been warned that they must remain vigilant at night, they had no idea how they were surrounded. Many of the soldiers were killed before they could crawl out of their sleeping bags.
American troops in the night battle
U.S. field commanders later recalled that MacArthur looked down on the Chinese army, but in the real battlefield, Chinese soldiers had no heavy weapons other than mortars, but they could exert strong combat capabilities at night and capture the strongest positions of the American army.
Not only that, but in the initial engagement between the two sides, Chinese had "amazing compassion" for the prisoners and wounded. The Chinese soldiers would put the American wounded on stretchers, carry them to the side of the road, then retreat and stop shooting, leaving the U.S. military to take the wounded away. The U.S. military commander said the purpose of the Chinese soldiers was to promote the Americans that prisoners of war and wounded could be treated humanely, hoping that the American soldiers would "turn the muzzle of the gun to the officer."
I don't know if american soldiers will be moved by this, but after the first battle with the Chinese army, most people's later memories are full of fear. The sound of military trumpets, grenades, and falling from the sky in the darkness left an indelible impression on them.