The headquarters of the Japanese ace division during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was captured by the Chinese army
In mid-October 1943, after the end of the rainy season, Stilwell, commander-in-chief of the US army in the Sino-Burmese-Indian Theater, began to counterattack his "lost Burma" and ordered the New 1st Army to advance in three ways to the new Pingyang and Yubang fronts and "attack fiercely".
The main opponent of the New 1st Army's counterattack on northern Burma this time was not an ordinary enemy, but the japanese army's strong 18th Division.
The 18th Division was not only the elite division of the Japanese army, but also used to fight in the subtropical forest, winning many battles in succession, and was said to be invincible, known as the "king of the subtropical jungle". Now it is stationed in northern Burma with Myitkyina and MengGong as its bases, in addition to building fortifications and arming, it also took the initiative to launch an offensive, and its 114th Wing once defeated the British army in Hukang and once entered the Savage Mountains. The New 1st Army has just learned to master the United States weapons and equipment, and is not very familiar with subtropical jungle combat, and it is a blessing or a curse to encounter such a fierce army in the first battle? No one can predict.
Just when no one was bottomless, the two sides fought a battle in the Hukang Valley, where the British army was defeated.
The Hukang Valley is full of primeval forests, and the rivers are longitudinal, and when it comes to the rainy season, the ground will be flooded, and it is known as the "Jedi". At the beginning of the attack, the general headquarters told the commander of the New 1st Army, Zheng Dongguo: "There are only a few Japanese troops stationed in this area, just fight. "As a result, as soon as the fight was made, the two sides were glued. Zheng Dongguo checked and realized that the frontal enemy was the 55th and 56th Regiments, the main force of the 18th Division. The Devils are elite troops, but the New 1st Army is also extremely fierce, and the fighting is extremely fierce. However, after many bloody battles, the New 1st Army actually captured Xinpingyang and attacked Yubang with victory.
The front is still a tough enemy.
The Japanese army in Yubang relied on strong fortifications and stubbornly held out. The attacks of the New 1st Army were repeatedly frustrated, with heavy casualties and falling into bitter fighting. At this time, if the artillery is bombarded, the devil's strong fortifications will be destroyed, and the stalemate will be broken, who knows that the chief of staff of the US army of the General Headquarters, Podno, will not be able to dispatch artillery to assist in the battle, and as a result, the main force of the Japanese army will counterattack and carry out a "tug-of-war" with the new 1st Army, and the battle situation will become more and more intense. In the fierce battle, Jeong Dongguo ordered the 1st Battalion of the 114th Regiment of the New 38th Division to support the 112th Regiment, and as a result, the 1st Battalion was surrounded by heavy enemy troops, and communication with friendly forces and supplies were completely cut off. After being surrounded, the officers and men fought a "long war" with the devils, and while fighting, they ate plantains, moso bamboo, and leaves, and struggled to hold on for more than a month, repelling and severely damaging the Japanese army's crazy attacks more than 10 times, and the position was not lost. The battalions of the 112th Regiment also stubbornly withstood the fierce counterattack of the enemy. The two regiments competed with the devils.
In mid-December, the new 38th Division reinforced Yubang, and two regiments suddenly launched a surprise attack, which was not as good as the coincidence, which knocked the Japanese army to the core position. The tide of battle began to be reversed.
Subsequently, the division of Sun Li and Stilwell personally went to the front line to command and supervise the battle, and the morale was high.
The new 38th Division launched a fierce attack, and after fierce trench warfare, it was finally conquered in The State. The remnants of the Japanese 18th Division were attacked by an ambush sent by Sun Liren on the way to escape, and the losses were heavy, and almost collapsed.
The Battle of Yubang was a small battle, but the battle between the enemy and us was extremely fierce, and both sides suffered heavy casualties, and finally ended with the victory of the new 38th Division and the defeat of the Japanese army. The battle shattered the myth of the invincibility of the Japanese 18th Division, known as the "King of the Subtropical Jungle".
After the Battle of Yubang, the New 1st Army had complete superiority. Subsequently, the new 22nd Division served as the right-way attack; the new 38th Division served as the left-road attack; and the two divisions, one left and one right, swept the "rabbit nest".
On January 9, 1944, when the new 22nd Division reached the north bank of the Hundred Thieves River, it suddenly found that the main Japanese army had gathered on the south bank of the river, preparing to occupy the position to the north. Division commander Liao Yaoxiang immediately took advantage of the darkness to surround them and launched a full-scale onslaught on the morning of the 2nd. After several hours of fierce fighting, the Japanese army could not resist the enemy and retreated to the core positions to fight the trapped beasts. The new 22nd Division narrowed the encirclement by pressing the enemy on three sides. When the encirclement circle shrank and became smaller and smaller, the enemy and we began to meet each other, the artillery did not dare to fight, and the fire around the devil's position soared into the sky, and the killing sound was tremendous, and the battle was unprecedentedly fierce. On the 5th of the fierce battle, most of the Japanese army was annihilated. A small number of remnants of the enemy fled southward, and were directly hit by the blocking troops of the new 22nd Division, and almost none of them survived.
In this battle, more than 300 ghosts of the Okada Brigade of the 55th Wing of the Japanese Army were all killed.
The new 22nd Division took advantage of the victory and swept through a small group of Japanese troops along the way, and finally occupied Da luo, and the remnants of the enemy crossed the river to the right bank of the Danai River to escape.
At this time, the main force of the new 38th Division on the left side began to take Taiboka directly. The main force of the devils fortified in the area from the Mengyang River to Taiboka. The two sides carried out a "tug-of-war". The 113th Regiment suddenly launched a fierce attack on the Japanese troops on the east bank of the Dalong River, and Lianke Dabanka, Choka, and Ningluka advanced towards Taiboka. The devils saw that the situation was not good, and took advantage of the darkness to send a reinforcement squadron to the rescue. But the dry road has long been blocked by the national army, had to take 4 large bamboo rafts to cross the river, only to be discovered by the new 22nd Division, a company used the darkness to quietly circle to the river, and when the devils crossed halfway, suddenly "dada", light and heavy fire together fiercely shot, the large bamboo raft was all sunk, and all the devils on the bamboo raft were killed.
At dawn the next day, the river was covered with corpses, which made the enemy frightened.
On 30 January, two battalions suddenly launched a fierce attack on Taiboka, catching the devils off guard. Despite the fortifications, the devils stubbornly resisted for two days and two nights, suffered heavy casualties, and finally could not hold back, and had to retreat to the southeast, and then Taiboka was completely occupied by the new 38th Division.
Soon, the left and right divisions of the New 1st Army controlled all important strongholds on the outskirts of Mengguan and completed the encirclement of the Japanese army at Mengguan.
At this point, Stilwell was pleased and said, "The soldier uses his life and commands flexibly." ”
It turned out that he had stipulated that the command of the new 22nd Division and the new 38th Division should be directly controlled by himself, but this time he saw the commanders of sun and Liao raiding the enemy with such great results that he finally "returned" the command to the two division commanders.
After the New 1st Army captured the outer stronghold of Mengguan, the main forces of the Japanese 18th Division gathered at Mengguan, and the division commander Tanaka Shinichi personally took command and prepared to launch a counterattack.
In order to gain the initiative, Stilwell ordered the new 22nd and 38th divisions of the new 1st Army to attack Mengguan immediately, and the two divisions split into left and right flanks and attacked south.
Mengguan is a deserted forest sky, and the Japanese army "holds out" by looking up and not seeing the sun. On March 4, the regiments of the New 22nd Division had completed the encirclement of Mengguan from the north, south, and east. On the 5th, the main force launched a full-line onslaught with a thunderous momentum, and the battle was unprecedentedly fierce. In the fierce battle, the officers and men of the 2nd Battalion of the 64th Regiment braved the enemy's heavy artillery fire and first broke into the Mengguan North Pass and engaged in street battles with the devils. The 3rd Battalion of the 66th Regiment immediately rushed to the southwest side of Mengguan, and was surrounded by the Japanese army on three sides, the situation was very critical, they dared to fight, launched hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, broke into the Mengguan Xiguan, and finally rendezvoused with the 2nd Battalion of the 64th Regiment in the city.
At night, mengguan's remnants of the enemy saw that the general trend had gone, so they had to abandon the city and flee south.
The New 1st Army completely occupied this important gateway to northern Burma.
In this battle, the new 22nd Division killed nearly a thousand enemy troops, and only the commander of the 18th Division, Shinichi Tanaka, escaped from the line of fire.
In order to cooperate with the new 22nd Division in capturing Mengguan, the left wing of the New 38th Division also launched a fierce offensive against the remnants of the 55th and 56th regiments of the Japanese 18th Division on the right bank of the Danai River and the Nambi River.
After The Restoration of Meng Guanke, the 1st Battalion of Independent Tanks of the New 1st Army marched south along the road and carried out a "super pursuit", when they reached the northwest side of Valuban and encountered the devils. The devils did not expect that the chariot troops of the New 1st Army would be able to pass through the forests and swamps and appear in front of them so quickly, and they were caught off guard for a while, and as soon as they were strafed by fierce fire, they suffered heavy casualties, and more than 450 officers and men under Ishikawa Nakasa, commander of the Operations Division of the 18th Division, and Yamazaki Daisaku, the commander of the 56th Wing, were either shot by gunshots or were run to death by the chariots, and only a few remnants of the enemy fled into the wilderness. The officers and men of the tank did not give up, and then rushed into the headquarters of the Japanese 18th Division with lightning speed, and in a chaotic and chaotic attack, not only destroyed the command system of the 18th Division, but also captured its headquarters.
The next day, the main forces of the New 22nd Division and the New 38th Division reached the vicinity of Valuban and encircled the Japanese forces here.
The remnants of the Japanese 18th Division were forced to retreat to the Gambu Mountain Pass.
Gyambu Mountain is the watershed between the valleys of Hukang and Menggong. From Dingao Shakan north of the pass to Shaduzha in the south, the total length is about 10 kilometers, and the mountain is more than 3,000 feet high, and only the sheep's intestine trail winds through the mountains to form a pass. The high mountains on both sides of the pass, the terrain is steep, the forest is dense, the Japanese army concentrated more than 30 artillery pieces to defend the danger, the new 1st Army attacked, so it was very difficult. However, Zheng Dongguo had his own clever plan, and sent the main force of the new 22nd Division to undertake a frontal attack with the support of the tank battalion; the 1st Company of Mountain Artillery of the 113th Regiment of the New 38th Division, in coordination with the US Gallahad detachment, cut wood in the forest and quietly detoured to the enemy's flank; the main force of the division advanced along the Danai River Valley, and after reaching Dakri, continued to advance towards Gaoli. On 18 March, the 66th Regiment of the New 22nd Division took on a frontal attack, and under the cover of two rows of tanks, launched a fierce attack along the mountain road towards Mount Gambu. Because the mountains are high and densely forested, it is not easy to exert firepower, and the enemy and we are short in contact with each other in the dense mountains and forests on both sides of the pass, and a mixed battle is a regiment. After more than 10 days of fierce fighting, the 66th Regiment finally defeated the enemy in front of it one by one, but it also suffered heavy casualties and it was difficult to attack forward. On the 26th, the 65th Regiment of the New 22nd Division took over from the 66th Regiment and continued to attack Gaoluyang. At the same time, the main force of the 64th Regiment crossed the mountainous terrain east of the pass and also began to raid the flank of the Japanese army. On the 28th, the two regiments joined forces to finally conquer Gao Luyang.
At this time, the 113th Regiment of the New 38th Division and the American troops advanced along the Kumang Mountain, and after nearly 10 days of arduous trekking, they also reached Laban south of Shaduzha and attacked the flank of the Japanese army on Mount Gambu to the north. The defending enemy of Mount Gambu fell into a passive position of being attacked by the north and the south. On the 29th, the new 22nd Division, under the strategy of the 113th Regiment of the New 38th Division, launched a fierce offensive and conquered Shaduzha in one fell swoop, and the corpses of the Japanese army were everywhere, and the whole line was defeated. Since then, the gateway to the Menggong Valley in northern Myanmar has also been opened, and the Battle of Hukang Valley has ended.
In this campaign, the New 1st Army advanced more than 150 kilometers south, severely damaged the Japanese 18th Division, killed and wounded 12,000 Japanese troops, captured 15 cannons, nearly 800 machine guns and rifles, and countless other ammunition and equipment. The enemy's 18th Division, the so-called "king of the subtropical jungle", which once dominated northern Burma, was devastated. But after eating a loss and learning to be obedient, they heard the name of the new 1st army later, just like having "Parkinson's disease" that can never be cured, their hands and feet trembled, and they turned around and fled.