In the spring of 1943, the Japanese army mobilized the 12th independent mixed brigade of the 17th Division, and the 15th Division and the 35th Division each carried out a large sweep of the Yanfu base area of our New Fourth Army. At that time, the Central China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the New Fourth Army Headquarters were stationed near ChenJi, and this "nail" posed a huge threat to our base area. The 3rd Division of the New Fourth Army, determined to take the lead in attacking the 23rd Regiment of the 8th Brigade, pulled out this position.
Soldiers of the New Fourth Army
At 9:00 p.m. on March 25, the main force of our 23rd Regiment attacked Chen Ji at night. Our army advanced at a rapid pace, surrounded the enemy's stronghold on all sides without the enemy's awareness, and at about 10 o'clock in the evening, the troops arrived at the starting position of the attack on schedule, and then the battle began, and the 1st battalion and the 2nd battalion of the 23rd Regiment respectively killed the rear post at the entrance of the enemy's stronghold, and at the same time blocked the north gate and the south gate, and the 2nd battalion also sneaked into the enemy's camp at the south gate at the same time, killing more than 20 enemy people. Subsequently, our army and the Japanese army began to fight street by street, step by step tightening the encirclement circle, pushing the Japanese army back to the core stronghold, the Japanese army concentrated 2 squads to launch 4 desperate counterattacks, but they were all repelled by me.
The Japanese army engaged in a white-knife battle with our army
In the fierce battle, our army took advantage of the light of the fire to see clearly the location of the Japanese army's ammunition depot, and the 1st Battalion and 3 companies immediately organized demolitionists to blast it, and 20 commandos bravely took the lead, broke into the Japanese defensive position, threw grenades into the window of the ammunition depot, and the huge explosion shook the entire market town, and the Japanese army lost the courage to continue to compete with our army for the peripheral position, and retreated to the stronghold one after another. In the early hours of the morning, more than 40 Japanese troops were dying in the core stronghold, in order to reverse the defeat, the Japanese army repeated the same trick to cast poison gas, but the wind direction suddenly changed to the east wind, the Japanese poison gas was blown back to its stronghold, and the smoked and tearful Japanese army was forced to abandon the artillery tower and retreat into a compound to continue to resist, while desperately firing signal bombs into the air to ask for help from nearby strongholds, and through the radio to their superiors to plead for reinforcements.
The New Fourth Army is attacking the Japanese
Zhang Aiping, commander of the 8th Brigade of the New Fourth Army, who personally came to the front to direct the battle, saw that the enemy and us were forming a confrontation, and for a while no one could help anyone, but the east wind at this time was very favorable to me, so he ordered the troops to organize a fire attack and step up the attack from the southeast and west sides of Chen Ji, forcing the enemy to break through to the northwest and eliminate the enemy in motion. At about 9:00 a.m., our army took advantage of the enemy's shooting dead end to ignite the main house of the enemy's garrison, and then the strong east wind quickly expanded the fire, and the Japanese army was soon unable to stay in the house and was forced to break through, but the breakthrough was continuously repelled by our machine gun fire, and it was forced back to the compound again. Desperate, the Japanese army raised a white flag, trying to delay time and wait for an opportunity to break through. After repeated shouting, the Japanese army dragged and dragged out some bullets, but then the Japanese army launched a death attack on a machine gun position of our army under the cover of smoke screen shells, trying to break through the gap, and the soldiers of our machine gun squad did not retreat and all sacrificed, which won time for the main force to encircle the enemy. At this time, the main force of our army had entered the courtyard with the fire attack, captured the heavy machine guns of the Japanese army, and launched a pursuit of the enemy.
Weapons captured by our army from Japanese bunkers
The Japanese fled in panic in the wilderness
In the end, more than 10 remnants of the enemy fled to Daizhuang, northeast of ChenJi, and were confronted by the 6th Company of the 22nd Battalion of the 22nd Regiment that was lurking for reinforcements, and the fierce battle lasted for 30 minutes, except for 2 Japanese soldiers who surrendered on their knees and were captured, the rest were killed. In 12 hours, the Chen Ji annihilation battle killed 78 Japanese troops led by squadron leader Yaye, took 4 prisoners, and none of them escaped the net; 1 heavy machine gun, 3 light machine guns, more than 40 rifles and other materials were captured, 1 enemy radio station was burned, more than 40 boxes of ammunition were burned, and 45 people of our army were killed and 117 people were wounded. This battle was the first glorious example of our army's annihilation of the plains behind enemy lines
Our New Fourth Army unit displays the Japanese trophies captured in the battle of Chen Ji