The Battle of Chosin Lake in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was a pain in the heart of the Ninth Corps of the Volunteer Army, and the 1st Marine Division fled when it was divided and surrounded by the US 1st Marine Division with superior troops.
Opinions have always been divided about the battle, and people are also thinking about the reasons for the escape by the US 1st Marine Division.
Admittedly, the biggest factor was that the cold weather caused the Ninth Corps to suffer a large number of frostbite and quickly lose the ability to fight. However, in addition to objective reasons, subjective reasons are also worth exploring.
Judging from the course of the campaign, the Ninth Corps itself also had some problems. This article expands on just one aspect.
I. The Chairman pointed out: The 1st Marine Division is the most effective unit in the US army
On November 12, 1950, after reading the battle plan reported by the Ninth Corps of the Volunteer Army, an old man immediately felt that it was inappropriate and immediately sent a telegram to peng Dehuai, commander of the Volunteer Army, Deng Hua, and Park Yiyu, pointing out: It is necessary to carefully organize the annihilation of the FIRST Marine Division of the US Army.
This old man is the chairman.
The full text of the telegram is as follows:
The combat effectiveness of the FIRST MARINE Division of the US Army is said to be the strongest in the US Army, and it seems that it is not enough for our army to surround and annihilate two regiments of the US Army with four divisions, and there should be one or two divisions as reserves. The Twenty-sixth Army of the Ninth Corps should be close to the front line, the combat preparations must be sufficient, the campaign command must be carefully organized, and please constantly guide Song Tao (Song Shilun, Tao Yong) to complete the task.
Strategically defying the enemy and attaching importance to the enemy tactically are the military principles that the PLA has always had. The chairman held that although there are only two regiments in the forward unit of the US 1st Marine Division, namely the 5th Marine Regiment Combat Team and the 7th Marine Regiment Combat Team, considering that the us 1st Marine Division is extremely strong and the volunteers' firepower is weak, it is difficult to annihilate the enemy without concentrating its absolute superiority.
Therefore, the chairman demanded that Song Shilun should encircle at least four divisions and annihilate two regiments of the 1st Marine Division, and that in order to ensure the success of the encirclement, there should be at least one or two divisions of reserves. This was not enough, and the Chairman also demanded that the Twenty-sixth Army, the reserve of the Ninth Corps, must be close to the front line in order to be ready to enter the battle when the development of the battle was unfavourable.
It can be seen that the chairman's request is to encircle and annihilate the US 1st Marine Division, and the deployment of the Ninth Corps should be: four divisions for the first echelon, one or two divisions for the second echelon, and four divisions for the twenty-sixth army for the third echelon. Nine to ten divisions were deployed to ensure the success of the encirclement.
Second, the actual deployment of the Song Dynasty wheel
When the 1st Marine Division of the US Army entered the Chosin Lake area, Song Shi took turns to order the 79th Division of the 27th Army to attack and annihilate the enemy in Liutanli, the 80th Division of the 27th Army to attack and annihilate the enemy in Xinxingli, the 81st Division of the 27th Army as the reserve of the 80th Division, the 94th Division of the 27th Army as the reserve of the corps and the reserve of the 79th Division; the 58th Division of the 20th Army to attack and annihilate the enemy in Xiajieuli, the 59th Division of the 20th Army to divide the enemy in Liutanli and the enemy in Xiajieuli, and the 60th Division of the 20th Army to cut off the enemy's contact with the enemy in Gutuli. The 89th Division of the 20th Army attacked and annihilated the enemy in Shecangli, far away from the Chosin Lake Theater.
At that time, the information held by the Ninth Corps of the Volunteer Army was: Liutanli was a regiment of the 1st Marine Division of the US Army, Xinxingli was another regiment, Hagaru-ri was a battalion, Andori was another battalion; Shecangli was a company of the 3rd Division of the ROK Army.
The actual situation is: Liutanli is the two combat teams of the 5th Regiment and the 7th Regiment of the US 1st Marine Division, Xinxingli is the US 31st Regiment Combat Team, and Hagaru-ri is the headquarters of the US 1st Marine Division, with the strength equivalent to a regimental combat team; Shekura-ri is the 7th Regiment of the US 3rd Division.
The battlefield situation was: the units of the 20th Army and the 27th Army of the Volunteer Army had unconsciously entered the designated position and completed the division and encirclement of the 1st Marine Division and the 31st Regiment Combat Team. The U.S. 1st Marine Division and the 31st Regiment Combat Team have not yet been discovered.
Judging from the battlefield situation, although the intelligence mastered by Song Shilun was not completely accurate, which was very normal in the rapidly changing battlefield, the impact on the war situation did not seem to be large.
Unfortunately, this is only the appearance.
Although the Twenty-seventh Army and the Twenty-seventh Army of the Volunteer Army completed the division and encirclement of the American army, they also exposed a major problem of their own. That is, the troops of the eight divisions of the two armies were completely dispersed. Concentrating superior forces to annihilate the enemy is the basic principle of the Plaster. From the perspective of the overall situation of the battlefield, the volunteer army occupies a great advantage, but it is refined to each sub-battlefield, and it has not formed an absolute advantage.
This is because there are both the main offensive troops, the blocking troops, and the reserve troops, and in fact the main offensive force is weak.
On the other hand, the eight divisions are completely dispersed, and it is difficult to effectively coordinate with each other, so it is impossible to form a joint force.
In Liutan, the Volunteer Army dealt with about 8,000 combat teams of about 10,000 regiments of the 1st Marine Division of the US Army with about 10,000 men in one 79th Division, and about 10,000 people in the 94th Division.
In Xinxingli, the 80th Division (attached to the 242nd Regiment of the 81st Division, which was responsible for cutting off the connection between Xinxingli and Shimogasumi-ri) was about 13,000 men against the US 31st Regiment Combat Team of about 3,300 men, and the 81st Division was about 7,000 men in reserve.
In Lower Jiesumuli, the 58th Division was armed with about 10,000 men from the 58th Division against the headquarters of the 1st Marine Division, with no reserves, but about 10,000 men of the 59th Division were responsible for blocking the reinforcement of the enemy in Lower Jiesumi-ri and preventing the enemy in Liutanli from escaping.
In Gutuli, about 10,000 people of the 60th Division were responsible for guarding and blocking about 2,000 enemies in Gutuli.
In Shecang, about 10,000 men of the 89th Division were used against about 3,700 men of the 7th Regiment of the 3rd Division.
The 26th Corps Of the Corps Reserve was far away in Jiangjin, 3 to 5 days away from Chosin Lake.
The chairman's request was to attack with four divisions, one or two divisions to follow, the Twenty-sixth Army close to the front, and about 90,000 to 100,000 troops to encircle and annihilate the two regiments of the US 1st Marine Division and 8,000 combat teams.
Therefore, the deployment of Song Shilun, the commander of the Ninth Corps, and the requirements made by the chairman were completely inconsistent.
Third, why is Song Shilun so deployed?
In the early days of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, there were two kinds of thinking in the volunteer army that were very common. One is fear. Afraid of American planes, tanks, especially aircraft. The second is a light enemy. Thinking that the old Chiang Kai-shek's 8 million troops have been defeated by us, what is the US military?
The second idea was still relatively common in the Ninth Corps, when the Ninth Corps had a saying that from north to south, it was finished with one push. It means defeating the U.S. army easily.
It can be seen from the campaign deployment of the Song Shilun that his intention is to fight a war of annihilation, eat a fat man, and annihilate the entire 1st Marine Division of the US Army. Therefore, eight divisions of the two armies surrounded Hagaru-ri, Xinxing-ri, and Liutan-ri in groups, and the eight divisions also arranged for troops to cut off the links between the key points of the 1st Marine Division. This posture is that neither side wants to miss it, and a US military does not want to let go.
He even sent a division to fight the troops of the US 3rd Division, which was far away in shecang.
The mood was good, and the plan was good, but Song Shilun ignored the huge gap in strength between the volunteer army and the American army. When he finally found that his two corps were not enough to eat the 1st Marine Division, he hurriedly transferred to the Twenty-sixth Army, but the Twenty-sixth Army was too far away, and by the time they arrived, the 1st Marine Division had already begun to break through. Instead of capturing the enemy, the Twenty-sixth Army dragged itself down because of long-distance raids, air raids by American troops, and fatigue and hunger.
Although we, as hindsight Zhuge Liang, were well aware that it would be very difficult for the volunteers in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea to reorganize and eliminate the US army, the chairman had already considered this issue at that time. The chairman also wanted to annihilate the US 1st Marine Division, but the chairman believed that the 1st Marine Division was very powerful and should fight a small annihilation war, first going all out to destroy its main combat units, and then eating the remaining US troops one bite at a time.
The eventual escape of the 1st Marine Division had proved the mistake of the Song Dynasty Wheel, but it was not enough to prove the chairman's correctness. To prove the chairman's correctness, it was necessary to see whether the Volunteers were capable of taking out the two regimental combat teams of the 1st Marine Division.
4. Will the Ninth Corps be able to eat the 1st Marine Division?
In fact, you only need to look at the actual combat situation to know this.
1. Emerging aspect. At first, the volunteer army was put into battle as a division of the 80th Division, and later Tao Yong, deputy commander of the Ninth Corps, personally commanded the 81st Division to join the battle, and the combat team of the US 31st Regiment collapsed and was basically completely annihilated. This battle proved that the Volunteer Army was able to eat one regiment of the American army with 2 divisions and a regiment under the favorable circumstances of the Battle of Chosin Lake, which had divided and surrounded the American army.
2. Direction of Liutanli. The Volunteer 79th Division took the outer positions of the two regimental combat teams of the US 1st Marine Division in the first night's attack, but the 79th Division was too fierce to attack and was unable to attack again. The U.S. military did not dare to attack, so the two armies formed a confrontation.
The 59th Division, which was responsible for blocking the attack, had no fighting to fight because of the cold weather and no fighting, and had been lurking in the position for a long time, with serious frostbite and a sharp decrease in combat effectiveness.
Subsequently, the U.S. 1st Marine Division began to break through, but was pursued by the 79th Division and blocked by the 59th Division, which had seriously reduced its combat effectiveness. When the U.S. troops escaped to Hagaru-ri after many hardships, they said that their casualties were more than 1,500 and there were more than 1,000 wounded. At that time, the U.S. army in Hagaru-ri itself had about 1,000 wounded. However, the proud airborne wounded of the US 1st Marine Division claimed to have transported 5,000 people. This actually shows that the real casualties of the two regimental combat teams of the US 1st Marine Division are more than 4,000, that is to say, the two divisions of the Volunteer Army fought, and the two regimental combat teams of the 1st Marine Division lost more than half of their strength.
Compared with the battle in Xinxing, it is basically the same.
3. The direction of The Lower Jieyu. The Volunteer 58th Division was tied with the U.S. 1st Marine Division, and the 58th Division occupied Higashiyama, the commanding heights of Hagaru-ri, and had the upper hand.
4. Direction of the society warehouse. The 89th Division of the Volunteer Army and the 7th Regiment of the US 3rd Division also reached a draw, and the two sides formed a confrontation.
It was thus made abundantly clear that under the favorable battlefield situation at that time, two divisions of the Volunteer Army had the ability to eat one regiment of the American army. If Song Shilun, in accordance with the chairman's request, used four divisions and the reserves of 1 to 2 divisions to attack the two regimental combat teams of the 1st Marine Division of the US Army with all his might, the probability of victory would be very great. Even if the battle is unfavorable, the reserve team enters the battle and basically ensures victory. In this way, the Twenty-sixth Army, which was close to the front line, could enter the battle at this time and surround and annihilate the remaining American troops. The outcome and outcome of the battle will be completely different.
The actual situation of the battle fully proves that the Chairman is right.
According to the request of the chairman, how should this battle be fought?
From the perspective of Zhuge Liang in hindsight, as long as we strictly follow the chairman's requirements and put our appetites to a smaller point, the US 1st Marine Division will not be able to escape the doom.
1. The 60th Division should not take care of the enemy in Gutuli, and use a regiment of the 60th Division to block the reinforcements of the enemy north of Gutuli, a regiment to monitor the enemy in Xiayuli south of Xiajieli, and a regiment to block the enemy in Xiayuli west of Xiayuli.
2. The 89th Division should not go to the enemy in the community warehouse, but should monitor and contain the enemy with a regiment, because it is still far from the war zone road.
3. The attack deployment of the enemy in the new li remains unchanged.
3. With the 89th Division (owed one regiment) from the southwest of Liutanli, the 79th Division from the north of Liutanli, the 58th Division from the south of Liutanli, and the 59th Division from southeast of Liutanli, the strength of four divisions (owing one regiment) launched a siege against the enemy in Liutanli; the 94th Division remained in reserve and put into battle at the right time.
4. The Twenty-sixth Army followed up to the 94th Division and entered the battle as appropriate.
With such a deployment of troops, the two regimental combat teams of the 1st Marine Division in Liutan could not rush out. After killing them, they then moved their forces to besiege the headquarters of the 1st Marine Division, which was monitored by the 60th Division, and there was also a good chance that they would not escape.
However, Song Shilun did not listen to the old man's words, and the deployment of too dispersed troops made the volunteer army unable to eat the enemy in Liutanli, and after the enemy broke through, he joined the enemy in Xiajieli to form a heavy army group, and the Ninth Corps of the Volunteer Army, which was affected by the severe cold, could no longer divide such a heavy army group.
This is the gap between a military man and a general.
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