On February 13, 1951, after nearly 20 hours of fierce fighting, the 15th Field Artillery Battalion of the US Army was completely annihilated by the 352nd Regiment of the Volunteer Army, and 527 of the 530 people were annihilated, leaving only three wounded. At the same time, the 15th Field Artillery Battalion also lost all its artillery and vehicles, and was annihilated so cleanly and completely that it was still relatively rare in the entire Korean battlefield. The reason for this situation is because of the pig teammate of the pseudo-8th Division.
Just two days ago, the four corps of the Volunteer Army and the two corps of friendly forces had gathered in the Hengcheng area of the Eastern Front, and General Peng lao judged the situation and decided to annihilate the defenders around Hengcheng first. At this time, there were 3 puppet divisions and 5 regiments of the US army near Hengcheng, and the first target of attack was the weakest of the 3 puppet army divisions, the pseudo-8th division.
At this time, the pseudo-8th Division was still ignorant of the movements of the volunteers, and was still preparing to attack Hengcheng, and by dawn on the 11th, they were only 12 kilometers away from Hengcheng. The 3 regiments of the pseudo-8th Division formed an attack front 18 kilometers wide, with 10 regiments in the middle, 16 regiments on the left, 21 regiments on the right, and a cover detachment of an American infantry company and a tank platoon on each of the outermost flanks. Behind the 21st Regiment on the right was a support detachment composed of the 15th Field Artillery Battalion, the 1st Battalion of the 38th Regiment, and the A Company of the 503rd Battalion.
At exactly 17:00 p.m., the artillery of the Hengcheng counterattack began, and the pseudo-8th Division, which was eager to move, was hit head-on. In just 30 minutes, the entire pseudo-8th Division's defensive line collapsed completely. The commander of the 10th Regiment in the middle was killed, the regimental headquarters was ended, and all the officers were captured; the 16th Regiment on the left was completely annihilated, and the 21st Regiment on the right was a little farther away, and after the position was breached, the whole regiment fled to the rear like a wind. The US cover detachments on both flanks also turned around and ran, but their escape speed was still not as fast as the puppet army, and it took 5 hours to run 3 kilometers, and most of them were annihilated.
By about 11 p.m., the 21st Regiment's rout swept through the positions of the 15th Field Artillery Battalion like a tidal wave, and they ran backwards without turning their heads. The battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Keys, did not react until the rout was gone, and he rushed to his superior, Brigadier General Haynes, for instructions: the front line must have lost the battle, and the 15th Field Artillery Battalion requested a retreat. Haynes did not dare to take the initiative and asked his superior, Major General Rafner, for instructions; Rafner did not dare to take the initiative, but to ask his superior, Almond, by the time Lieutenant Colonel Case received the order to allow retreat, it was already 3 a.m.
【15th Field Artillery Battalion in Combat】
Lieutenant Colonel Case hastily joined the 1st Battalion of the 38th Regiment, led by two tanks, and led the support detachment to retreat along the road to Hengcheng. However, as he approached the summer, Lieutenant Colonel Keith suddenly noticed an ambush on the hills on both sides of the road, for he heard the harsh and familiar sound of horns, followed by grenades and mortars slamming into the highway. One tank was hit and set on fire, and the other tumbled into a ditch on the side of the road while reversing, half blocking the entire road.
Lieutenant Colonel Keith has not reacted until now, why did the volunteers come so quickly? If he had known that the prisoners of the 10th Regiment of the pseudo-8th Division had "volunteered" to take the volunteers on a short path and quickly penetrate into the summer, he would have been so angry that he would have vomited blood. Now, his men and equipment were all trapped on this road, and short contact was not their strong point, and he could only rely on the 1st Battalion of the 38th Regiment to rush out desperately. The fierce battle lasted for 6 hours, the US support detachment only advanced 6 kilometers, the number of casualties has exceeded 600, the 38th Regiment 1st Battalion A Company only 12 people remained, and more than 200 American troops were captured.
[Volunteers blowing small trumpets to attack the U.S. army]
Just when Lieutenant Colonel Keith was about to despair, he received a call from Colonel Colin, the leader of the 38th Regiment, telling them not to come to Hengcheng, the road had been cut off, and please rush to the nearest Crane Valley to defend it. At the same time, Colonel Colin also said that he would organize troops to rescue them as soon as possible. In fact, Colin had no one to send, he first asked the 17th Regiment of the US 7th Division for help, asking them to throw at least one battalion to the rescue support detachment, but the 17th Regiment refused, on the grounds that the 17th Regiment had just fought a vicious battle and now needed to rest. In desperation, Colin had to send the gendarme platoon of the regiment out to rescue the support detachment.
Look at Lieutenant Colonel Keith again, now the whole highway is full of burning vehicles, and mountains of corpses, and the road is so jammed that you don't want to remove the cannon from the road. The casualties of the volunteers on the heights were also very large, the 4th Company was almost exhausted, and even the cooking class was in the most dangerous moment with kitchen knives, but fortunately, the follow-up troops arrived in time to close the gap again. Keith they held out for another 4 hours, with fewer and fewer men, and it was at this time that the First Support Army finally arrived, and they were the G Company of the 187th Airborne Regiment.
[A month after the end of the battle, the wreckage of cars and artillery still piled up on the road]
Company G rushed in like a whirlwind and shouted at the besieged American troops: "Leave the cannons alone, the people will rush out with us first." After saying that, he rushed out like a gust of wind. Some of the quick-reacting soldiers followed, but Keith missed the opportunity in a daze, and the 5th Company of the 352nd Regiment of the Volunteer Army rushed down the hill, instantly knocking down more than 30 people around Keith and taking Keith prisoner.
The rest of the people ran desperately after Captain Sully, all as if they were running a marathon, and everyone ran out of breath, because the 352nd Regiment of the Volunteer Army was in hot pursuit. After they ran through the Dutch battalion's position, the Dutch battalion became their shield, but after a fierce battle, the battalion commander De Auden was killed by a grenade, and the remaining Dutch battalion soldiers joined the fleeing army. All the people were in disarray, and Captain Sully could not run, hiding in a valley with dozens of people, and finally all of them were taken prisoner.
By the end of the battle on the night of February 13, the volunteer army had annihilated a total of more than 12,000 people in 3 divisions of the puppet army and a regiment of the US army, of which only 3 people were left in the 15th field artillery battalion, and all the equipment including artillery was lost, becoming the battalion-level unit that was most completely annihilated by the US army. Li Qiwei was furious after hearing the news, believing that all this was caused by the vulnerability of the pseudo-8th Division. If he knew that the volunteer army was also the road led by the pseudo-8th Division in the summer, he did not know how he would feel?