The Battle of Shangganling, also known as the Battle of Triangle Mountain on the U.S. side.
On October 14, 1952, the battle broke out. Initially, only two companies of our volunteer army were stationed at the Shangganling position. They faced the indiscriminate bombardment of enemy aircraft, artillery, and tanks, and although they did not choose to retreat in the face of infinite suppression of this firepower, they put up stubborn resistance and waited for reinforcements to arrive.
As the intensity of the fire friction between the two sides continued to increase, the entire battle also entered a white-hot stage. Both sides fought back and forth, the losses were heavy, and the defenders of the positions were constantly exchanging between the two armies.
According to statistics, this battle, which lasted for 43 days, was repeatedly fought for by both sides as many as 59 times, and our volunteer army repelled more than 900 charges of the United Nations army, firmly held the position, and finally won the victory.
The intensity of the Shangganling Campaign was rare before, especially the density of artillery fire (more than 300 cannons, more than 170 tanks, and more than 3,000 aircraft dispatched) exceeded the highest level of The Second World War.
The U.S. military's plan
The battles fought before the Battle of Shangganling were basically defensive actions taken to counter the enemy's attack. Therefore, they have been in a passive beating situation. The supplies and equipment of the US army are superior to those of our volunteer army, but they are always at a disadvantage on the battlefield, and the top commander of the US army and Truman certainly do not want to see such a situation.
Therefore, in order to reverse this situation, they wanted to learn from the Chinese volunteer army and take the initiative to attack and fight several small-scale battles. The action should be fast, the firepower should be fierce, and the Chinese volunteer army should be caught off guard.
In the end, the U.S. military weighed in and chose the Five Holy Mountains as the target of this attack. As long as the Five Sacred Mountains are taken down, it will be much easier to expand the advantage in the future.
Initial attack
At that time, the Five Sacred Mountains were garrisoned by the 15th Army of the Chinese Volunteer Army, and if you wanted to take the Five Sacred Mountains, you had to pass through the two "bunkers" (highlands) in front of it.
Before the battle even began, the commanders of the American army were already victorious. Why was he so confident that he would win this battle?
We analyze the topography from Shangganling.
The two highlands of Shangganling are 597.9 Highland and 537.7 Highland, and there is a canyon between them that can pass people. Because the Shangganling Heights are not large, there will not be many troops that can be deployed, and the US military believes that the volunteers can only arrange the strength of two companies on this.
In this regard, the judgment of the US army was basically no problem, because the volunteer army deployed only one platoon more than the result of the US military's inference.
If you attack the high ground, the condescending defender is definitely more dominant. So the U.S. military used their usual tactic - firepower to win.
The commander of the U.S. army planned to devote 7 infantry battalions, 18 artillery battalions, and 200 aircraft to take the Shangganling Heights "with lightning speed" under absolute fire suppression, and his pre-war personnel attrition target was 200 people (15,000 U.S. and Rokyoke casualties at the end of the battle).
On October 14, the campaign, which lasted more than a month, began. The 18 artillery battalions prepared by the US military in advance near Shangganling suddenly opened fire, pouring 300,000 shells into our positions in one day, and dispatched 250 sorties of aircraft, dropping more than 500 aerial bombs, and the dense shells reached 6 rounds per second.
The number of shells was already frightening just to hear, not to mention the warriors who were experiencing it at the time. Presumably, this may be the most powerful battle they have ever experienced in their lives.
The entire Shangganling position is a narrow strip of land less than 3 kilometers long and more than 1 kilometer wide. The earth shook all the time, and the shock wave generated by the shell falling and exploding was like the ripples caused by countless stones thrown into the lake, constantly impacting the warriors' bodies.
charge
After this round of artillery fire, the hill of the highlands had been cut by two meters, and the American positions were piled up with shell casings.
Finally, the U.S. military began to attack our positions. At this moment, the Shangganling Highlands were already a mess, the warriors were dead and wounded, and there was no resistance at all, they only needed to rush to the high ground and capture our warriors one by one.
However, there will always be flaws in any plan, because a person cannot fully understand every aspect of the plan. The Americans who rushed to the heights encountered stubborn resistance from a squad of volunteers.
With the U.S. military superior in all respects, the volunteers of this squad did not retreat a single step. They resisted the fierce attack of the American army, and in the end, only one person retreated to the tunnel and did not give up the battle.
Although the will of the soldiers of our army is very tenacious, in the end, the flesh and blood of man cannot withstand the attack of bullets, and no matter how heroic and fearless he is, he cannot change the fact that there are heavy casualties. At this time, Qin Gengwu, the deputy instructor of the Ninth Company, stood up, observing the situation and methodically commanding the battle.
Since the enemy's firepower is thrown here as if it were no money, the more we put it up, the greater the losses. Qin Gengwu simply let the three men fight on the surface position, and the rest shrank in the tunnel first, and one casualty was then replenished from the tunnel. This is very effective in avoiding unnecessary sacrifices.
And this tunnel plays a role far more than that.
Later, the US troops rushed forward desperately, and there were shells in front of them, and the surface positions were quickly occupied by the US troops. But that's okay too. Because the tunnel is still firmly in the hands of our army.
Instead, the American troops, who had occupied the surface positions, were at a disadvantage again, and they were constantly worried that the volunteers in the tunnels would cooperate with the counterattacking troops outside. The U.S. military is equivalent to stepping on the mine every day, and the volunteer army under the tunnel is not a mine like a mine. As long as the tunnels are not removed for a day, the US military will not be able to live in peace for a day.
Therefore, after occupying the surface positions, the US military regarded the scramble for the tunnel as a top priority.
end
During the seven-day tug-of-war, our volunteers took advantage of the flexibility of the tunnels to often drill out from unexpected places in the U.S. military to attack and harass them. The result of this has caused many US troops to be afraid.
Fighting head-on may be fearless in your heart, because you know that your enemies and their firepower are ahead. And this kind of tunnel warfare, you can't know when and where your enemies will appear, but you know that they will appear. People are always afraid of the unknown, which is an instinct. And the volunteer army is to take advantage of the weakness of this kind of person to break the psychology of the American army.
On November 25, the enemy lost the ability to launch an attack, and the Battle of Shangganling ended.
The victory in the Battle of Shangganling had proved that the Volunteer Army had the initiative in fighting on the ground, so that we could get enough chips at the negotiating table to finally end the Korean War.
It can be said that the Battle of Shangganling was the most critical battle that led to the end of the Korean War. After the end of this battle, Chiang Kai-shek, who was far away in Taiwan, sighed deeply and said: "There is no one in the world who is runzhi's opponent. ”
Behind this sentence is admiration, unwillingness, and the loneliness of old Jiang for many years.
brief summary:
The Korean War was the first war since the founding of New China. At that time, the Western powers were waiting to see Chinese jokes, and the Soviet Union was also waiting for China to ask for help in exchange for the Ice-Free Port in the Far East. In general, no country at that time was optimistic about China. Isn't it just a new China? How capable it can be, a few decades ago, a little army was sent to touch it and it shattered.
Many years ago, the author did not understand why the fighters of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea were so admirable. Now the author knows that the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression brought China up from the ground, while the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea brought out China's dignity.