On October 19, 1952, the fierce Battle of Shangganling had been carried out for the 6th day, and the situation was still the same as in previous days: during the day, the US army, supported by fierce artillery fire, captured our army's surface positions, and our army retreated into the tunnel defense; at night, our army carried out a tactical counterattack and recaptured the surface positions. In this alternation of black and white, the positions are constantly changing hands. When the volunteers cleared the battlefield after retaking the 597.9 heights in the early morning of the 19th, they saw a scene at a tunnel mouth that they will never forget.
Footage of the Battle of Shangganling taken by US military reporters
The Battle of Shangganling began on October 14, and van Vleet, commander of the US Eighth Army, had planned to send two battalions to occupy Shangganling for about five days. On the first day of the war, the US army fired 300,000 shells at Shangganling, a total area of only 3.7 square kilometers, and due to its small size, the 45th Division of the Volunteer Army only released two companies of troops to defend.
Five days passed quickly, but the U.S. plan to completely occupy Shangganling was not realized. During the day, the Americans could occupy the surface positions of Shangganling with overwhelming fire support, but the volunteers did not retreat, but turned to the tunnel to defend. At night, they used the cover of night to launch a counterattack against the Americans and retake the surface positions.
In the early morning of the 19th, the volunteers launched a counterattack again, retaking the 597.9 heights, and then they began to clean up the battlefield. In front of a tunnel entrance, they saw such a scene: it was a very small pit mouth, only one person could enter and exit, the pit mouth was pulled horizontally and vertically with barbed wire three times, three barbed wire fences like a protective net to seal the pit mouth firmly, on both sides of the pit mouth, there were two machine gun fortifications temporarily built with sandbags, and two machine guns controlled the pit opening from two diagonal angles.
Looking at this formation, as if there were some kind of flood beasts hidden in the tunnel, the US military made some arrangements, that is, it was afraid that the people inside would rush out. On the ground outside the tunnel entrance, more than 20 american corpses lay horizontally and vertically, and the machine guns in the fortifications were also left in place without taking them. There were no bodies taken away, no weapons taken away, it can be seen that the US troops were in a hurry, what was inside?
Young volunteer soldiers
The soldiers hurriedly stepped forward, dismantled the three barbed wires with seven hands and eight feet, and went into the tunnel to see that there was only one volunteer soldier inside. Lying on top of a heavy machine gun with the handle of his gun pointed at the mouth of the tunnel, he found that he had died when his comrades came forward to check it out, and he remained in a fighting posture until the time of his sacrifice.
The comrades laid his body flat, he was so young, and there was a hint of childishness on his face. But to the enemy, he was so terrifying that the enemy not only had to seal the opening with barbed wire, but after his sacrifice, the enemy did not dare to come forward and drag the corpses of his companions.
Van Vleet had planned to capture Shangganling with two battalions, but eventually had to increase to two divisions and seven regiments for a total of 20 battalions, of which 8 battalions of the American army were all replenished three times. The 12 battalions of the pseudo-2nd Division were more numerous, with 200 casualties planned, but by the end the casualties exceeded 25,000.
A company of the 17th Regiment of the US 7th Division was beaten to the point that only one person was left, and wilson, a reporter accompanying the US Army, said in the report: There is no one named in this company! In another withdrawn U.S. reinforced company, there were only more than 20 people left, all of them ragged and bloodied, and they didn't look like people. More than 20 people have a total of only 5 guns. One man also carried a corpse on his back, but when a shell landed near him, he was so frightened that he threw the body and ran.