On August 15, 1945, when Japan had already surrendered, the Japanese army in Gaoyou refused to surrender to our army, waiting to receive the large number of officers. Finally, in December, our army launched an offensive to capture Gaoyou, completing the final battle of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Gaoyou is an easy to defend and difficult to attack city, surrounded by moats, towering walls, and a large number of fire points and pillbox turrets, basically the city wall is 9 meters high and 7 meters thick, there are multiple machine gun bunkers on the city wall, and there are 8 two or three large blockhouses, and there are shooting bunkers between the battlements. More than 1,000 Japanese troops from the Independent Mixed 90th Brigade regiment of the Japanese army, as well as 4,000 people from 7 regiments of the 2nd Front of the puppet army, were stationed here.
In December 1945, our army gathered 3 columns and 15 regiments to launch the Battle of Gaoyou Shaobo, annihilating the enemy who refused to surrender in the area, and also organized 3,000 militia and 15,000 civilian workers to support the operation. The tactics of our army are to encircle the enemy and eliminate one, lure the enemy to break through, and annihilate the enemy in the field. Beginning on the 19th, our army began to conduct extensive psychological warfare against the Japanese puppet army, and members of the Japanese Anti-War Alliance also entered the front line for propaganda.
By the night of December 25, our army began a general attack. The 3 regiments of the 8th Column attacked first, and our army took advantage of the opportunity of the dark rain at night to quickly approach the city wall. Under the cover of grenades, quickly climb the city. After a fierce white-knife battle, our army seized control of the city wall, and the main force began to enter the city.
Yao Shihu, a 19-year-old reporter who was only 19 years old at the time, recorded that the battle had begun. I followed the main attack of the 64th Regiment to climb the ladder over the city and enter the alley war zone. In the white-bladed fight, I witnessed a company spelled into a platoon, a platoon spelled into a squad, and saw the bayonets on the warrior's gun break and fall into a pool of blood.
Rushing at the first qiangui, a grenade was thrown out, and he fell down with the fire of the enemy grenade. Then, Chen Banshun, Wang Renqing, Li Hanqing, and Liu Renzhu were all injured. Liu Qixian died here honorably. Finally, Wang Youcai, the leader of the sixth class, also wore flowers. Ren Shanfa, the leader of the fourth squad, still pounced forward, and he threw out a grenade. A fatal bullet hit him in the waist..."
After 7 hours of fierce fighting, the puppet army was first eliminated, and in the early morning of the 26th, it attacked the Japanese brigade headquarters, and the Japanese commander Iwaki Daisaku finally surrendered his weapons. At the cost of 600 casualties, our army captured Gaoyou City in 7 hours, annihilated more than 5,000 enemy troops, including 1,100 Japanese troops, captured 4,308 rifle guns, and 61 artillery pieces of various kinds.
From December 25 every year, we should also commemorate the last battle of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Battle of Gaoyou by our army. In another interview with Yao Shihu, a reporter who accompanied the army in 2015, he said: "Today, 70 years later, I still can't sleep at night when I think of the names of these victims."