Author: Hammer Jack
According to statistics, when the Korean War first broke out in 1950, nearly 100,000 Africans served in various branches of the US military, accounting for 8% of the total number of people participating in the war at that time. By the end of the war, that number had skyrocketed to more than 600,000, which showed that African American soldiers were still an indispensable part of the U.S. military.
However, the widespread discrimination in the U.S. military has not diminished as the war progresses. In the early days of the Korean War, the US military still adopted the method of separating whites and blacks into formations and supplies. At the most important command levels, black officers were in the minority, and the majority of black soldiers seemed to have no choice but to charge into the front and serve as cannon fodder for the "coalition forces." In terms of propaganda, the "coalition forces" continue to demonize the Chinese and North Korean armies, describing them as "devils" and "beasts", and once captured, they are more fierce and less auspicious. This made most black officers and men psychologically afraid of the volunteers, and they were more likely to collapse in battle.
【U.S. Army Black Machine Gunner】
In the second campaign, the 347th Regiment of the 116th Division of the 39th Volunteer Army had a record of capturing an entire black company in formation. However, the whole process of capturing the enemy is also full of twists and turns.
At that time, the officers and men of our 347th Regiment successfully surrounded a company of the US 24th Regiment in a depression. The enemy broke through several times, but they were all driven by our army with intensive firepower and could not move. After several hours of fierce fighting, seeing that the enemy in the encirclement circle had stopped moving, Zhou Fengming, the instructor of the 4th Company, resolutely seized the fighter and summoned Xie Benzhi, the leader of the translation team, to call out to the enemy.
Xie Benzhi led zeng Xinqin, a soldier who could speak English, and shouted aloud his loudspeaker toward the encirclement for a while, and sure enough, two black soldiers, waving white flags, walked out of the depression trembling and walked toward our army's position
At the sight of the enemy surrendering, the warriors were overjoyed, and naturally they relaxed their vigilance. Dong Youhe, the leader of the 4th squad, was ordered to walk out of the position and go to be surrendered. But before he and his comrades could take a few steps, the enemy opened fire. Captain Dong was unfortunately killed, and several soldiers who followed behind him were also wounded. It turned out that the enemy was cheating. Taking advantage of the slack moments of the 4th Company,1 Platoon's troops were detoured to the left flank of the 4th Company, causing the 4th Company to suffer losses.
The officers and men of the 4th Company set up machine guns and swept them violently, while gathering grenades and constantly throwing them at the enemy positions. Our 1st Battalion also mobilized mortars in time and fired several rounds of continuous bombardment at enemy positions. The black soldiers trapped in the hollow shouted loudly, and some of them desperately pulled out toilet paper, spelled out the word "HELP", and asked for air support. However, the positions of the two armies were too close, and the US planes circling in mid-air were afraid of hurting friendly troops, and finally had to leave the scene.
Schematic Diagram of the Second Campaign to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea
[With the support of mortars, volunteer officers and men launched a charge to the American positions]
Zhou Fengming saw the situation and asked his superiors for instructions in time. Division Commander Wang Yang immediately gave instructions: Stop the attack on the black company and turn to offensive operations. He not only transferred more translators from the division headquarters, but also asked the political workers to write several slogans in English and bring them to the position.
Under the propaganda of the volunteer army to "surrender guns and not kill, preferential treatment of prisoners", the black company once again sent people with white flags. This time, they sent a tall man. Waving a white flag, he handed the volunteer translator a stick figure depicting the surrender of American soldiers, scrawled with a number: 148.
Through the translation, Zhou Fengming learned that this tall black soldier was the company commander Stanley.
Zhou Fengming asked, "What do you mean by this number?" ”
The other party replied: "It is the number of our whole company, a total of 148 people." ”
"What's your nickname?"
"Company C, 24th Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, U.S. Army."
"What does C Lian mean?"
"C is the 3rd company."
Zhou Fengming listened and was happy. Then he asked, "Then why did you just surrender?" ”
"My black soldiers don't want to fight anymore, but there are still white people who oppose surrender, and I can't stop them, I can only continue to fight." Now that all the supplies have been cut off and surrounded by you, they can only surrender. ”
Subsequently, Zhou Fengming waved his hand and asked Stanley to shout to his men and surrender.
[Logo of the U.S. 25th Infantry Division.] The division was founded in 1941 and nicknamed the "Tropical Lightning" and is still an important unit of the U.S. Military in the Pacific Theater. The division was a light division unit, mobile and flexible, good at "firefighting", but was not good at mountain warfare, so it was continuously attacked by the volunteer army during the second battle, and suffered heavy losses.
[Black soldiers captured by volunteers.] Most of them had relaxed expressions, as if relieved, and had no feeling of being prisoners at all.
Stanley was stunned, then handed over his gun and kept urging his subordinates out of the depression in English.
Moments later, under the leadership of deputy company commander Alcoeus Dülf, a group of black soldiers emerged from the depression with their hands clasped in their heads. Some of them were dressed in military uniforms, some were on crutches, and some did not even have shoes and socks, and walked barefoot on the ground. Among the blacks, a few white officials were particularly eye-catching. They deliberately walked with their heads bowed, as if afraid of being recognized. The senseless counterattack just now was led by them. After being named, our army captured a total of 115 enemy soldiers and killed 33 enemy soldiers in this battle.
Li Gang, the commander of the 347th Regiment, immediately reported the news of the captured black company to the division headquarters, and then ordered: "Let the division headquarters send someone to receive these prisoners, and the whole regiment will immediately transfer to the south of Yongbyon to continue the mission." ”
When Wang Yang, commander of the 116th Division, learned of this news, he happily analyzed that the results achieved by the 347th Regiment were the greatest achievements of the whole army in the second campaign. On the surface, our army only captured one company of the enemy, but this was also the first time that the volunteer army had formed an organization to capture one company of the enemy. Its value and impact far exceed the significance of victory in battle.
When the news of the 347th Regiment's capture of the black company reached the United States, public opinion was in an uproar. With this lesson learned, the US military began to change the invading troops from black and white to mixed formations, and the commander of the 24th Regiment was also demoted and punished. The captured black soldiers were not discriminated against as they were in the U.S. army, and the standard of food was not only the same as that of volunteer officers and men, but even free to move around in prisoner-of-war camps, and many people also said that it was better to be a prisoner in the volunteer army than to serve in the U.S. army.
Many volunteer soldiers had never seen black people before, and some people thought that black people's skin was coated with black paint, and they kept rubbing them with cloth, and wondered why they couldn't wipe clean. Despite curiosity, not a single soldier in the volunteer army looked down on these black prisoners of war.
Most of these captured black officers and men were repatriated like other "Allied" prisoners of war.