On December 1, 1950, Mr. Peng personally drafted a telegram commending the 38th Army of the Volunteer Army as the "Long Live Army", but at the same time, the 59th Division of the 20th Army located in the Battlefield of Changjin Lake on the Eastern Front received a complaint, and the deputy division commander Su Ya called Gong Wanmin, deputy chief of the security section, and said: "Today the division commander criticized me, saying that the medical team amputated too many limbs of the wounded, and you went to check on our behalf, and we could not let them cut the saw at will. ”
[The feet of a wounded volunteer have been frozen into ice cubes]
After receiving the order, Gong Yimin immediately rushed to the medical team and first conveyed the orders of the division chiefs to the captain, and the captain did not say anything after listening to it, but remained silent. At this moment, 6 more wounded people were sent outside, all of whom had frostbitten feet and could not walk. The captain said to Gong Wanmin, "Come with me to see it." The two men went to the rescue station one after the other, which was a shed made of wood and surrounded by grass on all sides to block the wind, but it was of little use.
When the two men entered, a hygienist was helping the wounded take off their shoes. The shoes of the 20th Army were fur shoes issued when they set out in Shanghai, the shoes were frozen on the feet, the hygienists pulled hard, the shoes came down, but the feet were still inside the shoes, and they had frozen to black and purple. The wounded man didn't feel any pain, just looked at everyone with wide eyes. The other wounded man's shoes came off smoothly, but the toes were lightly touched like sweet potatoes, and he was also dazed. The captain asked Gong Wanmin, "Do you want feet or do you want to die?" ”
[Volunteer light wounded bandage wounds on the battlefield]
Gong Wanmin came down as soon as he heard the tears, he knew that the captain was right, and he could only go back to the head of the division to resume his life. Among the three armies, the 20th Army was the most frostbitten, with a total of 20,000 people fighting and frostbite losses. Two of the 3 ice sculpture companies are of the 20th Army. Shen Zhaoshou, an officer of the Organization Unit of the Political Department of the 180th Regiment of the 60th Division of the 20th Army, had gone up the 1081 Heights in the final stages of the battle, where he witnessed the last moments before the 1st Battalion and 2 companies of the 180th Regiment froze to death.
Highland 1081, located between Zhenxingli and Gutuli, is the southernmost point of the entire Huangcao Ridge, and is basically the last blockade line of the Volunteer Army against the American army on the Chosin Lake Battlefield. After Shen Zhaoshou arrived at the 1081 heights, he saw the soldiers all lying in the fortifications made of snow, their faces were frozen purple, and their bodies were like flowers, some covered their ears with cotton, useful tattered quilts wrapped around their heads, some put broken quilts around their necks, some wrapped their legs with quilts, some did not know where they found rags to wrap their feet into two large lumps.
[Volunteers on the mountain wrap quilts around their bodies]
Shen Zhaoshou met with company commander Zhao Mingsheng and instructor Li Ke, who said: "The gun basically can't be fired, and can only rely on grenades." But then he said: "The grenade does not have the strength to throw, and if it does not, it will lead the enemy up and destroy it." Shen Zhaoshou didn't know what to say after listening to it, and turned his head to look at Li Ke again, and found that his face had frozen out of blisters, and the whole person was purple. Li Ke said a few words to Shen Zhaoshou, but he was already vague and could not hear what he said. Shen Zhaoshou felt that the instructor was about to die, he forcibly suppressed tears and looked at Zhao Mingsheng, Zhao Mingsheng understood what he meant, almost with all his strength, said: "People, the position is there!" ”
When he stepped down from the position, he only remembered that there was a tight gust of wind on the position, there was no human voice, and his heart was straight and tight, and he felt extremely heavy. On the way back, he also met a wounded volunteer, his elbows and knees wrapped in torn quilts, crawling in the snow, dragging a wooden plank behind him, and two barrels of cans tied with rope on the wooden board, Shen Zhaoshou knew that this must have killed the enemy and captured. Two days later, he heard the news that all 72 people in 2 companies had frozen to death.
【Volunteers who set up an ambush in the snow】
This kind of language cannot describe the difficulty that people who have not experienced it cannot understand. But even in the face of such extreme difficulties, the volunteers were still organized, even if they were fighting separately, and they were sporadically engaged in combat, attacking the fleeing American troops with rifles and grenades. In the cold, the U.S. military occasionally saw barefoot Chinese soldiers rushing towards them, so that they had a dreamlike hallucination.