At 20:00 on March 23, 1953, the 1st Battalion of the 423rd Regiment of the 47th Army of the Volunteer Army launched an attack on Lao Bald Mountain, and the Colombian battalion defending Lao Bald Mountain immediately panicked, and did not think of asking the American army for help until more than 20 minutes later, but the American army rejected them. Sure enough, the US military has never been soft on pitting its own people.
The Colombian battalion was the only army in South America to participate in the war, and Colombia was able to send troops to the war completely unexpectedly by the United States. In order to curry favor with the United States, Colombian President Gomez announced in September 1950 that he would send troops to the war, but as the war progressed, Gomez regretted it. Didn't you say you could go home before Christmas? How come home are all corpses? It was just that international jokes could not be casually played, and it was too late to regret it, so Colombia adopted the word "drag" and dragged it out until June 1951, when it slowly reached the battlefield.
By this time the fifth campaign was over, and the two sides had moved to defensive positions. The Colombian battalion that reached the battlefield was incorporated into the U.S. 24th Division for the summer-autumn offensive. After the 24th Division withdrew from the battlefield due to heavy casualties, the Colombian battalion was transferred to the 31st Regiment of the 7th Division of the US Army, and participated in the Battle of Shangganling with the 31st Regiment. Fernando, a military doctor, recalled: "It didn't take long for one of our reinforced companies to go up and be knocked down, and the wounded lay all over the ambulance station. One wounded man told me that we simply could not get close to their position.
【Colombian battalion just arrived in North Korea】
After the Battle of Shangganling, the American army found that the Colombian battalion was not effective, so they turned to defense, and the location was Old Bald Mountain. Located west of Kaesong, Old Bald Mountain is a small hill with an altitude of only 266 meters, which was originally defended by the 1st Battalion of the 31st Regiment of the US 7th Division, and is now replaced by the Colombian Battalion. The U.S. military placed all four companies of the Colombian battalion on the front line of The Old Bald Mountain, and the intention of using them as cannon fodder was very obvious.
On the night of March 23, the 1st Battalion of the 423rd Regiment of the 47th Army of the Volunteer Army launched an attack on Lao Bald Mountain under the cover of 66 artillery pieces and 7 tanks. In order to paralyze the enemy, the volunteers had been shelling the old bald mountain intermittently since 3 days ago, so when the cannons on the night sounded, the Colombian battalion on the hill did not take it seriously. But soon they realized that something was wrong, and that tonight's artillery fire was so fierce that it seemed as if it were going to blow up the whole hill. In the shelling, all the telephone lines on the hill were blown off, a shell hit the command bunker on the hill, and the entire bunker was thrown into the sky along with the people inside, and the four companies of the Colombian battalion were suddenly leaderless and had to fight on their own.
【Volunteer artillery fires at night】
The shelling lasted for 10 minutes, and the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion began to attack the hill, and it took only 10 minutes to completely annihilate the 2nd Platoon of the forward B Company. It was only then that the Colombian battalion remembered to call for help from the Americans, only to pick up the phone and find that the telephone line had been blown up. Captain Diaz, who took over the command, ordered someone to repair the telephone line while letting people run to the 31st Regiment Headquarters for help. After 40 minutes, the telephone line was rushed through, but the person who asked for help had not yet arrived, and it was estimated that he had died in the middle of the road.
At this time, it had been a full hour since the volunteers had launched their attack, and the three small highlands around the old bald mountain had all been occupied by the volunteers and were attacking the main peak position. The commander of the 31st Regiment refused after receiving a call for help from the Colombian battalion, saying: "Pork Chop Mountain is their main direction of attack, Old Bald Mountain is only a feint attack, I must first ensure that Pork Chop Mountain is not lost." It turned out that at the same time as the attack on Lao Bald Mountain, a company of the 67th Division of the 23rd Army of the Volunteer Army also launched an attack on Pig Chop Mountain, so the American Army threw all its artillery fire and reserves into the defense of Pig Chop Mountain.
[Volunteer soldiers are throwing grenades at the enemy]
By about 22:30 p.m., Old Bald Hill was completely occupied by the volunteers, and the Colombian battalion suffered heavy losses, with 114 killed, 167 wounded, and 38 missing, leaving only 14 of the A Company with the greatest casualties. The Colombian soldiers who evacuated the old bald mountain were still in a state of shock, and the veteran Viacott recalled: the mountain was full of corpses, not even a place to stay, and had to pass through the corpses when retreating down the mountain, and those who experienced that night of fighting will never forget that scene for the rest of their lives. The medic Fernando also recalled in his later years that they were too fierce, and the fiercest enemies on the Andes were no better than them.
[The one wearing the blue shirt in the middle is the military doctor Fernando]
In just a few hours of the Battle of Old Bald Mountain, the Colombian battalion contributed one-third of the total casualties and one-half of the total number of casualties killed in the entire Korean war, and all this was also credited to the American army. In the spirit of "dead friends do not die poor", from the previous change of defense, to the later refusal to rescue, the Colombian battalion was choked by the US army, bent on holding the US thigh is not this the end?