Ridgway's background
On October 19, 1950, hundreds of thousands of volunteer troops crossed the Yalu River into the Korean War, and under the command of Commander-in-Chief Peng Dehuai, they launched a fierce counterattack against the invincible 17-nation United Nations army. At that time, the commander-in-chief of the United Nations Army, MacArthur, looked down on China at all, firmly believed that China would not send troops to Korea, and he was not prepared for the Chinese army to enter the war.
When the Chinese Volunteers launched their first campaign, the United Nations was caught off guard by the Chinese army, and the entire army withdrew south of the Cheongcheon River.
At the end of November, when the Chinese Volunteers launched a second offensive, MacArthur knew that China had sent troops, but he was blindly confident that China had sent up to 70,000 people to support North Korea. Therefore, he ignored the combat effectiveness of the volunteer army and ordered the United Nations army to launch a "Christmas Offensive".
In the following month, the Volunteers again inflicted heavy damage on the UN forces, driving them directly beyond the 38th Parallel and annihilating more than 36,000 enemy troops (more than 24,000 U.S. troops).
At this point, the volunteers completely shattered MacArthur's dream of ending the war on Christmas Eve, and the situation on both sides was completely reversed. MacArthur, who had made great achievements during World War II, was no longer on his toes and began to become depressed. And in the second battle of the Volunteer Army, the commander of the 8th Army, Walton M. While driving to direct the retreat of his troops, Walker accidentally crashed into a truck, resulting in his death, and MacArthur could not see the hope of defeating the volunteers.
Walton. Walker
It was in this situation that U.S. Army General Ridgway was "ducked" to the Korean Peninsula to take over as commander of the Eighth Army.
Ridgway, who was in danger
When ridgway arrived at the battlefield, he was not received by song and dance, and he was greeted only by a pair of empty eyes. Because of successive defeats by the UN forces and Walker's death, the soldiers have fallen into deep doubts, including the elite forces of World War II. At this time, they just want to leave this place of fear as soon as possible.
Ridgway wrote to his chief of staff after taking over, describing the state of the UN forces at the time:
There was an atmosphere of tension, fear, and great trouble, and the soldiers were so frightened that they could not see the vigilance of the soldiers at all, and I knew very well that they had lost faith in the battle.
At this time, Ridgway knew that there must be a complete victory in battle to sweep away the previous pessimism.
And what he needed to do before the counter-offensive was to mobilize the soldiers, and he spent a few days talking to the generals of the division level and above, and the result was that he was saying:
No matter what method is used, it will fail and will pay huge losses.
In order to prove that they were justified, they also gave many examples to prove that the volunteer army was invincible.
Subsequently, he called up cadres above the regimental level for a meeting. At the meeting, he scolded:
"If your ancestors saw you as you were now, you would surely be rolling in the coffin in anger."
Ridgway
After the reprimand, he replaced 5 division commanders in one go, and his teacher MacArthur was surprised to see it. He also "painstakingly" did ideological work for the soldiers, and finally told the soldiers to pick up the fighting spirit again. Moreover, he also went to the front line many times to explore the terrain, understand the combat style of the volunteer army, and formulate corresponding countermeasures.
After learning about the volunteers' combat habits, Ridgway began a counter-offensive, but the volunteers continued not to give them face.
In the third campaign, the volunteers penetrated nearly 20 kilometers deep, disrupting all the PLANS of the UN army and driving them to the 37th line. Later, the fourth battle was forced to withdraw to the north of the 38th Line because the volunteer army could not keep up with the logistical supply and the lack of air superiority, which made it difficult to fight on the front line.
Subsequently, MacArthur told President Truman:
"The only way to defeat the Volunteers was to use the atomic bomb"
But the United States did not use atomic bombs at that time, not because of how benevolent they were, but because the Soviet Union also had nuclear weapons, and Truman was afraid of direct conflict with China and the Soviet Union, leading to World War III. MacArthur, on the other hand, was able to do anything for the sake of victory, and he disobeyed Washington's orders many times during this period, and it was for these reasons that MacArthur was replaced by Truman, and Ridgway became the new supreme commander of the United Nations Army.
The Volunteers encountered Waterloo
The fifth battle of the Korean War broke out at this time. It is also the largest battle in the Korean War, the largest number of elite Sino-US belligerents, behind which is the game of two commanders, Peng Dehuai and Ridgway, both sides have stumbled to the end in this battle, so that each side understands the strength of the other side, and only then stopped the war and began negotiations.
In April 1951, before the start of the Fifth Campaign, the volunteers who had entered korea in the early days had gradually retreated and went to northern Korea and the country to rest. A large number of new forces have entered the DPRK, and the Korean People's Army has reached as many as 1.3 million, of which about 950,000 are volunteers. In addition, 4 new artillery divisions, 3 anti-aircraft artillery divisions and a large number of special forces were added, and many troops were replaced with Soviet-style equipment at that time, and all the artillery pieces reached more than 6,000, which was also the equipment that the Chinese army had never had before.
At this time, the Soviet Air Force also entered korea in large numbers, and in order to avoid direct participation in the war and expand the war, Stalin ordered all the soviet troops to change into the clothes of the Chinese Volunteers and to operate only on a limited scale. The United States, fearing a direct conflict with the Soviet Union, could only pretend not to see.
At that time, US Defense Secretary Vandenberg explained at the press conference: "China became an air force power almost overnight. ”
Soviet weapons support gave the Volunteers much confidence, and an optimism spread among the Volunteers, and some even thought that the U.S. Army was about to collapse, thus overestimating the strength of the U.S. Army.
At this time, due to the previous defeat, the US army increased from the previous 1,000 aircraft to 3,000 aircraft, and began to focus on bombing the transport vehicles of the volunteer army, the rear supply line, etc., causing a lot of losses to the volunteer army.
At this time, the top brass of the Volunteer Army also had a disagreement.
Peng Dehuai insisted on taking the initiative to attack, hoping to eliminate the US military once in a systematic manner, so as to smash the US plan for the second "Inchon landing" instead. However, other high-level Hong Xuezhi, Deng Hua, and others hoped that they could lure the enemy to go deep and then encircle and annihilate, and directly attack For the volunteer army marching on two legs, one was that it could not catch up with the enemy's car, and the other was that the supply in the rear was difficult to keep up. In the end, Peng Dehuai still insisted on his own ideas.
As a result, what Hong Xuezhi feared happened. At the end of the fourth campaign, the full-line attack of the Volunteer Army was very smooth, and the American troops gradually retreated, but always kept a certain distance from the Volunteer Army. At that time, the volunteer army did not find out that this was not a rout of the US army, but a newly adjusted strategic deployment of Ridgway.
After the third campaign and the volunteer army's combat, Ridgway found that the volunteer army's time for each offensive was about 8 days, and most of them were attacked at night, which meant that the logistics supply and physical strength of the volunteer army could only be maintained for 8 days.
Therefore, Ridgway invented the "magnetic" tactic based on these two points. Whenever the volunteers attacked at night, the American troops took the initiative to withdraw 20-30 kilometers (which was the upper limit of the volunteers' one-night foot strength), and then took advantage of the high mobility to carry out a closed counterattack after dawn.
The terrible thing is that Ridgway also humbly learned the in-depth interspersed tactics of the volunteer army
Taking advantage of the high mobility of its aircraft and tanks, the penetration depth was much higher than that of the Volunteer Army, causing huge casualties to the Volunteer Army. As a result, the volunteers were forced to retreat 100 kilometers, abandoning Seoul and Inchon.
The Iron Plains Blockade War forced the United States to the negotiating table
On April 22, 1951, the fifth campaign of the Korean War began, and due to Ridgway's "magnetic tactics", the volunteer army was unable to carry out an effective offensive and had to retreat continuously. Ridgway, who had a great appetite, also tried to cut off the encirclement on the retreat road of the volunteer army, and Peng Dehuai was also afraid of being cut off on the retreat road, so both sides stared at a place called Tieyuan.
As a must-see in Seoul and Pyongyang, Cheongwon was the intersection of several highways and a transit point for the Volunteer Army. If the United States occupied the area, the volunteers were in danger of being wiped out.
Fu Chongbi
As a result, Ridgway sent a cavalry division of the Us army to carry out a rapid attack on Iron Plains, in an attempt to defeat the Volunteer Army in one fell swoop with the cooperation of the United Nations Army. Peng Dehuai also gave the task of defending Tieyuan to Fu Chongbi, commander of the 63rd Army, early on, and told him to stay in Tieyuan for 20 days, which was related to the life and death of all volunteers.
After that, more than 24,000 men of the 3 divisions of the 63rd Army and more than 47,000 of the United Nations Army fought to the death in Tieyuan, and the ratio of artillery between the Volunteers and the United Nations Army was 1:5, and the Volunteers at that time had no aircraft support near The Iron Plains.
In order to block the attack of the United Nations Army, the 63rd Army dug a lot of trenches, air raid shelters and protective nets, and scattered the personnel of the 189th Division in hundreds of strongholds, and when the people in one stronghold were dead, the front moved back a little, and exchanged their lives for the time of the main retreat of the volunteer army, and the remaining two divisions were used as reserves.
By the time the 187th Division, a third division, took over its position, the Volunteers had retreated 40 kilometers, leaving Only a small portion of the chekuhara position to defend. The 187th Division simply attacked and defended, concentrated the shells of the whole army, and launched a fierce counterattack against the United Nations army, causing it great damage.
During the battle, the commander Fu Chongbi was also seriously wounded and almost died. Finally, on June 11, Ridgway gave up attacking Tieyuan, and the two sides entered the confrontation stage. The 63rd Army traded 22,000 casualties for valuable time for the large retreat of the Volunteer Army, and killed and wounded about 15,000 UN troops. On July 10, 1951, the two sides finally agreed to a ceasefire and sat down at the negotiating table.