31st Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, U.S. Army, founded in 1917. In World War I, the invasion of Siberia in Russia was distinguished by the 28th President of the United States, Wilson, who personally awarded the title of "Polar Bear Regiment".
On the battlefield of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the 80th Division of the 27th Army of the Chinese Volunteer Army completely annihilated the most elite "ace regiment" of the US army, which was once famous, and the "Polar Bear Regiment" regimental flag was captured. Since then, the designation has disappeared forever from the U.S. Army's battle sequence.
Today, this "Polar Bear Regiment" regimental flag, as a national first-class protected cultural relic, lies quietly in the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution, and the faint traces of gun smoke on it show the world that the bloody fog war years were once there.
- Caption
In a still from the movie "Lake Chosin", a volunteer soldier is dragging down an American flag with a blue background and a colored pattern embroidered in the center, with an eagle in the center, two claws and an olive branch, a claw and a bunch of arrows, a yellow ribbon in his mouth, embroidered with the letters "PRO-patria" (for the motherland), above the eagle is a polar bear, and below the eagle is English (31st Infantry Regiment).
Speaking of this flag, there is also an interesting story.
Zhang Jiqing, commander of the communications squad of the 3rd Battalion of the 239th Regiment of the 80th Division of the 27th Army of the Chinese Volunteer Army, when cleaning the battlefield, picked up a piece of blue cloth of about one square meter, whose shape and decoration resembled a flag, and embroidered with unknown images and words. Because it was blue, unlike the red flag of our army, he did not care and used it as a bag. Later, this piece of cloth was seen by the cooking squad leader and prepared to use it as a steamer cloth to steam steamed buns. The cooking squad leader was about to spread this piece of cloth under the cage drawer, at this time, Bi Xuyang, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, walked into the gang room, he saw this strange pattern of cloth, stunned, and quickly said to the cooking squad leader: "This guy is not like a steamed bun cloth, so exquisitely embroidered!" Let's go, let's find an interpreter. ”
A few minutes later, the translator Liu Guangrui came to the gang room, looked at the "drawer cloth" with his face, and was overjoyed, "This is a good thing, it can't be used as a drawer, it has to be handed over, it has to be handed over, it can be handed over, that is an important booty!" ”
This cloth is the flag of the 31st Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division of the United States, which won the title of "Polar Bear Regiment". Later, it was collected in the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution and was listed as a national first-class protected cultural relic.
"Polar Bear Regiment" - the 31st Infantry Reinforcement Regiment of the 7th Division of the United States Army, formed in 1917, during the First World War, participated in the operations against the Siberian region of Russia from 1918 to 1920, and was awarded the honorary title of "Polar Bear Regiment" by the then 28th President Wilson of the United States.
The "Polar Bear" regimental flag is a symbol of glory and victory of the 31st regiment, more precious than life.
During World War II, the "Polar Bear Regiment" participated in the Battles of the Aleutian Islands, marshall Islands and Okinawa in the Pacific Theater, and was a highly effective unit in the US army, known as the Ace Regiment of the US Army.
In 1944, the Polar Bear Regiment became an established force in the U.S. Army. sent to the Italian battlefield,
Because most of the achievements of the 31st Regiment were built abroad, they enjoyed the reputation of "foreign legion".
The 7th Division of the 10th Army of the US Army is the elite of the army, the 31st Regiment is the elite of the elite, and the ace unit of the US Army is not only strong in soldiers, but also well-equipped.
The Polar Bear Regiment consisted of 3 infantry battalions and 1 tank company, with a total strength of 3,191 men. The regiment was equipped with 46 artillery pieces, 37 tanks, as well as a large number of light and heavy machine guns and 60 and 90 bazookas, 57 anti-tank guns, and 60 mortars. In addition, it can summon air fire support of 2 to 8 aircraft sorties at any time.
The "Polar Bear Regiment" also had the 57th Field Artillery Battalion, a tank company, and the 1st Battalion of the 32nd Regiment. The regimental headquarters is stationed in Xinxingli.
At 16:00 on November 27, 1950, 3 regiments of the 80th Division (238, 239 and 240 regiments) of the 27th Army of the Volunteer Army and the 242nd Regiment of the 81st Division marched toward Xinxingli.
The 238th Regiment of the Volunteer Army attacked along the ravine valley from the north side of Xinxingli, the 239th Regiment first captured a commanding height on the east side of Xinxingli, 1250 Heights, and then attacked Xinxingli, the 240th Regiment attacked the enemy of Neidongsi from the west side of Xinxingli, and the 242nd Regiment detoured to occupy the highlands on the south side of Xinxingli, controlling the southbound road and cutting off the retreat of the American troops in Xinxingli.
On the evening of 27 November, Colonel McLean, the leader of the Polar Bear Regiment, ordered the 3rd Battalion to camp at the bridge across the entrance to Fengliuli.
At midnight, Captain Officer Stamford was getting ready to fall asleep when he suddenly heard gunshots.
Lieutenant Colonel Feith, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 32nd Regiment of the U.S. Army, who had just fallen asleep, was awakened by the sound of gunfire and ordered the adjutant: "Go and see if the South Korean army is beating itself again!" ”
Just a few nights ago, the South Korean troops with the 31st Regiment became birds of alarm, often shooting at the sight of shadows, which made the U.S. army feel very uneasy.
The battle in Xinxingli began, and the officers and men of our volunteer army bravely marched forward. The headquarters of the 3rd Battalion of the "Polar Bear Regiment" stationed at the bridge was violently attacked by the volunteers, and the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Riley, was wounded in the melee. The position at the southern end of the 3rd Battalion was occupied by the Volunteers.
The 3rd Battalion of the 238th Regiment and the 4th Battalion of the 240th Regiment of the Volunteer Army encountered the American troops of the "Polar Bear Regiment" at Xinxingli Ergou and, after fierce fighting, annihilated more than 100 enemy soldiers and captured the highlands east of 1324.
Zhuang Yuandong, instructor of the 4th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 239th Regiment of the Volunteer Army, led a platoon to advance covertly to Xinxingli Dongshan, and at the mountainside, there were American tents, and the American troops inside were sleeping. Zhuang Yuandong decisively ordered the tent to be surrounded.
Everyone advanced to the vicinity of the tent, but unexpectedly, a volunteer soldier accidentally stepped on a pile of canned boxes of the US army, slipped in, and the sound of "whooshing" woke up the US army. Zhuang Yuandong ordered the firing, but the US military has not yet fully reacted, and more than 30 officers and men of the "Polar Bear Regiment" are all buried in tents.
Li Changyan, commander of the 4th Company, led two platoons to the "Polar Bear Regiment" garrison, and when they entered the other side of the mountain, they only listened to the American troops in the front house shouting to them with "whoa, whoa" vigorously. It turned out that the U.S. military regarded the volunteers as their own family. Li Changyan ordered fire, and light and heavy machine guns swept into the house in a burst, and the US troops fell one piece after another.
The "Polar Bear Regiment", which had just woken up from a dream, immediately organized a counterattack. Suddenly, all kinds of light and heavy weapons sounded. In the darkness, the artillery fire is continuous, the shrapnel is flying, and the bullets are shuttled. The first batch of volunteer officers and men who charged fell one after another, and the instructor Zhuang Yuandong and the two squad leaders also died heroically.
Company Commander Li Changyan realized that this style of play was not feasible, that he could not fight hard with the "Polar Bear Regiment", and that he had to change his tactics. Therefore, he ordered a small number of fighters to remain on the front to continue to contain the enemy, and the main force quickly encircled from both sides.
At nightfall, the various combat teams used the terrain to leap forward to approach the enemy's house, quickly threw grenades through the doors and windows, and with the sound of explosions, the volunteer soldiers swept into the house with machine guns, and the US troops were confused by the volunteers' close-fitting tactics.
When cleaning up the battlefield, company commander Li Changyan found that there were telephones and telephones in every room, the walls were full of combat maps, the combat documents were placed on the table, and there were unburned telegram documents on the ground. Inside a detached house, there was the body of an Officer of the U.S. Army Colonel (it was later confirmed that it was McLean, the leader of the Polar Bear Regiment).
Originally, this was the command post of the US "Polar Bear Regiment".
Bi Xuyang, commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 239th Regiment of the Volunteer Army, recalled: "When the attack was launched on the night of the 27th, the 4th Company was on the right flank of our battalion. I led the 3rd Battalion into the village from the south of Xinxingli and saw a dozen cars and a dozen tanks surrounding two tents. We rushed in and hit, and there was communication equipment and maps in the tent. Two tanks were blown up, and a corpse was found on the side of the tank, an official. ”
When withdrawing from the battle, company commander Li Changyan saw the "Polar Bear Regiment" under the mountain stop at a gun field, and he led the soldiers to break into the US army artillery depot with lightning speed and cover their ears, and destroyed the enemy artillery battalion command post. At this point, the whole company killed and wounded more than 300 enemy prisoners and captured 12 howitzers. After the war, the company was awarded the honorary title of "Xinxingli Combat Model Company" by the 27th Army of the Volunteer Army.
When the 4th Company destroyed the "Polar Bear Regiment" command post, the 3rd Battalion of the 238th Regiment broke through the enemy's defensive position, blew up two enemy tanks, and took control of the last commanding height in Xinxingli, Heights 1250. The 240th Regiment attacked the enemy at Neidong Temple, capturing 4 hills in a row, killing more than 50 enemy soldiers and capturing 30 pieces of artillery.
The 8th Company of the 3rd Battalion of the 238th Regiment of the Volunteer Army was blocked by the American fire point during the attack, and Kong Qingsan, the 5th Squad Leader of the 92nd Infantry Artillery Company of the Divisional Artillery Regiment who cooperated with the company, was ordered to destroy the enemy fire point. Unable to construct a firing position due to the cold and freezing weather, Kong Qingsan inserted a shovel into the right hoe of the artillery, held the handle of the shovel with both hands, pressed it to death with his shoulders, used his flesh and blood body as the base of the artillery, and loudly ordered the gunner to fire.
"Too dangerous!" The gunner hesitated.
Kong Qingsan roared, "Quick! Otherwise it's too late! Listen to my orders and fire! ”
Listening only to the sound of "bang", the enemy's fire point exploded into the sky, and Kong Qingsan was hit by the recoil of the artillery and hit by a piece of shrapnel that burst back, and died heroically.
After the war, Kong Qingsan was posthumously awarded the honorary title of "First Class Hero" by the Headquarters of the Volunteer Army.
After a night of fighting, most of the Polar Bear Regiment was enclosed in a small area of less than two square kilometers in Xinxingli.
On the morning of November 28, the remnants of the "Polar Bear Regiment" surrounded by Xinxing organized a counterattack. The Americans, with the cooperation of 12 tanks and multiple aircraft, attacked the 242nd Volunteer Regiment along the road.
In the face of US tanks, Ye Yong'an, deputy squad leader of the 9th Company of the 242nd Regiment, led the tank fighting group to ambush on the east side of the road, and when 4 US tanks approached the barricade and slowed down, they attacked the first tank with a bazooka, fired two shots in the company, and the tank drank ammunition and caught fire.
After the first tank was destroyed, Ye Yong'an led the soldiers Kan Litian and Xiong Ziyuan to take advantage of the great chaos of the US army and quickly rushed into the tank group, destroying the other 3 US tanks in succession as quickly as possible. After the war, Ye Yong'an's class was awarded the honorary title of "Collective Special Meritorious Service" and was awarded the honorary title of "Ye Yong'an Group"; Ye Yong'an was awarded the honorary title of "Anti-Tank Hero".
On the night of 28 November, the units of the 80th Volunteer Division were ordered to begin a second attack on the remaining Polar Bear Regiments at Xinxingli and Neidong. The U.S. military relied on strong fortifications and fire support to resist desperately.
After two days and two nights of tug-of-war, the "Polar Bear Regiment" suffered heavy losses. The 80th Division of the Volunteer Army also suffered more than half of the casualties due to fighting, freezing and starvation. However, the commanders and fighters of the volunteer army ate fried noodles and swallowed snow, and the morale of the army was very high, and everyone said one after another: They had to gnaw down this hard bone and slaughter this "polar bear."
At 23:00 on November 30, the volunteer army launched a siege and annihilation of the enemy in Xinxingli. The 238th Regiment launched a general offensive against the remnants of the "Polar Bear Regiment" from the southeast, the 239th Regiment from the east of the 1250th Heights, the 240th Regiment from the northeast, and the 241st Regiment from the west and southwest.
At dawn on December 1, the various units broke through the enemy's front, defeating the U.S. army and piling up corpses.
Song Xiesheng, deputy company commander of the 7th Company of the 238th Regiment of the Volunteer Army, recalled: "The battalion commander explained the task to me that day, and fell asleep before he finished speaking. The instructor led me up, company commander with 1 row, I took 2 rows and 3 rows. In the trenches of the village, we saw our warriors all the time, with guns in hand, staring ahead, covered in snow, motionless, and frozen to death, like statues! ”
At about 4 o'clock on December 2, the remnants of the enemy were completely annihilated, and the "polar bear" fell violently.
In this battle, our army captured more than 100 US artillery pieces, 127 bazookas, 2,445 guns, 11 tanks, and 199 cars.
This is the first and only glorious example in the history of our army in which a reinforced regiment of the US army was annihilated in an organized manner.
Today, the war is far away, but the flag of the "Polar Bear Regiment" tells us that the US military is not invincible!
Zhang Xueyong
A native of XiaoXian County, Anhui Province, he has been a military veteran for 26 years, and has served as a propaganda officer and division chief of regimental, division, and military-level units. He has published more than 1,000 works in newspapers and periodicals such as Xinhua Net, People's Daily, People's Liberation Army Daily, and China Youth Daily. He won the second prize of the All-China Journalists Association Essay Contest and the third prize of the People's Daily Essay Contest. His works have been selected into the national "A Brief Introduction to National Defense Administrative Law Enforcement", the "Speech Collection" of the General Political Department, and the "National Defense Everyone's Talk" of the Central People's Radio. Published the collection of essays "Scattered Records in the Curtain" and "Military Years". After changing to the local area, he was obsessed with code words and never quit working. On April 21, the reading experience "Identifying The Comings and Goings" was published by Xinhua News Agency. "Knowing the Mandate of Heaven" is more "knowing the inadequacy", writing for me, always on the road. duty
Editor| Jingjie