In the first half of the 20th century, the Chinese army, the Japanese army and the American army all fought each other, so who is more skilled between the three? The book "Korean War" published in Japan gives an intriguing contrast.
Less than 6 years after Japan's surrender, the Korean War broke out.
What began as a "civil war" between North and South Korea, china could not stand idly by after the U.S.-led so-called "United Nations Forces" intervened.
The Chinese Volunteer Army entered North Korea at the end of 1950, and the first battle between the Chinese army and the American army took place in Yunshan on the border between China and North Korea. According to the us military history, the Chinese army could hardly see the formation, and the attack flow suddenly appeared from all directions, and rushed to the front of the US army in an instant.
In addition, the artillery of the Chinese is not weak, and the US military continues to bombard the US positions, and the US military examines the wreckage of the shells and finds that the weapons Chinese contain both 82 mm mortars and 132 mm rockets.
The latter type of rocket was the ammunition used in the Katyusha rocket that brought the Collapse of the Germans in World War II, and the U.S. Military once thought that the enemy they faced might be Soviets.
However, the U.S. military soon discovered that only Chinese attacked them.
When Chinese soldiers are blocked by the US machine gun battlefield, they will go around to the rear of the machine gun position, abandon the weapon and not use it, but roll down the cliff with the US machine gunner.
Similar crazy scenes continue to appear in the first confrontation between the Chinese and American armies, the American soldiers suffered heavy casualties, morale plummeted, and they were more inclined to flee than to fight.
The encounter in Yunshan was described by Western military historians as "an example of an undeclared war," and Chinese war history called it a campaign.
According to Mao Zedong's plan and Peng Dehuai's design, the results of a campaign should have been more brilliant, the volunteer army seized on the enemy's adventurous advance and did not know that the Chinese army had participated in the battle, caught the enemy by surprise, and annihilated a division of the US army and a whole division of the ROK army, but because the battlefield situation was changing rapidly, such as the 38th Army did not complete the interspersion, the 40th Army was blocked, and other reasons, the campaign objectives were ultimately not achieved.
In fact, not only one campaign, but also the next four battles, the US military, with its strong combat effectiveness, can often open a gap in the situation of being surrounded and quickly break away from the encirclement of the Chinese army.
During the battle, the Chinese army found that the US army was different from the Japanese and Kuomintang troops, and the US army also found that the Chinese army was different from the Japanese army and the North Korean People's Army.
Before the first battle was completed, Peng Dehuai had already planned a second battle, and he said at the operational meeting:
"MacArthur isn't very arrogant, he doesn't look down on us, he doesn't believe that our large army has crossed the river."
"We will take advantage of this error of judgment of his to show weakness to him, and then lure the enemy deeper and seek an opportunity to annihilate him!"
MacArthur fought in Asia for half a lifetime, considering himself an "invincible hand" in East Asia, not knowing Chinese set a trap, and in order to avenge a battle, he issued an order to the American army to attack on all fronts.
The vanguard of the volunteer army, the 38th Army, which failed to complete the task last time, sent a unit back behind the ROK army, blew up a road bridge, cut off the ROK army's retreat, and enabled the 38th Army to surround and annihilate the ROK 7th Division, while another unit, the 42nd Army, eliminated the ROK 8th Division.
As a result, the right wing of MacArthur's forces was broken.
The situation was not much better for the Americans on the left, as they encountered one of the strangest armies in the world, Chinese liked to use grenades and would throw countless grenades at the same time.
Chinese the intensity of grenades thrown made the American soldiers miserable, in the narrow battlefield, the crowded American soldiers had nowhere to hide, only to hard-pick up grenades from all directions, A 17-year-old ordnancer Crawford recalled: The grenades fell like rain, and I kicked out more than 40 of them myself.
Although the Americans were severely damaged, they were not a ragtag group and were never wiped out in an entire system. In the second campaign, the 2nd, 24th, and 25th Infantry Divisions of the Us Army and the British 27th Brigade were all surrounded by Chinese troops. If these hundreds of thousands of people want to escape, they must pass through a place called Pine Bone Peak.
In order to take SongkuoFeng, the US army killed the red eye, they continued to organize death squads to attack, and finally, there were 7 chinese soldiers left on the Songkuofeng position, and the US army also escaped from the encirclement from here.
In the second campaign, the 1st Marine Division, which the U.S. Army was proud of, was also under siege, and they were surrounded by the 9th Corps led by Song Shilun on the cold Gaima Plateau.
After receiving the news from the Marine Corps headquarters in the United States, they were not in a hurry, but thought that the Chinese was going to suffer losses, and they were very confident in the combat effectiveness of the First Marine Division.
The combat effectiveness of the First Marine Division was indeed very strong, and at the end of World War II, when it fought with the Japanese army in the Pacific, even in the face of various unfavorable situations, it never showed timidity and fear.
Although Oliver Smith, commander of the First Marine Division, despised the Chinese army, as a veteran who had been on the battlefield for many years, he made every preparation, especially in the face of MacArthur's criticism, and built an airstrip on the front line.
Even though the Chinese soldiers had rushed to the runway to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Americans, he still ordered that the work should not be stopped, and the American soldiers fought while driving bulldozers to work, and the airfield did play a decisive role in the retreat of the First Marine Division, saving the lives of thousands of American troops.
There was a high ground called Dedong Ridge that was very important, and it could be said that it was one of the life gates for the retreat of the First Marine Division, and Smith sent a company that had fought a bloody battle with the Japanese on Iwo Jima to guard it.
The battle was unprecedentedly fierce, with more than half of the Americans killed and wounded, but still did not surrender, and they fought with the Chinese soldiers who rushed over. Both sides used everything they could, sapper shovels, iron pickaxes, butt stocks, bayonets, and fists.
Soldiers of the two armies wrestled together in the darkness, strangling throats, piercing eyes, biting ears... The battlefield has changed hands several times, and neither side wants to retreat.
At 6 a.m., the sharp whistle suddenly broke through the silence and resounded through the battlefield, and the Chinese soldiers quickly withdrew from the battle. In the end, the heights were not occupied by the volunteers, and the 1st Marine Division took advantage of the geographical advantage here to successfully retreat in part.
The book "Korean War" published by Japan commented: The 1st Marine Division of the United States Marine Corps is very special, and it is indeed incomparable to the Rok army and other American soldiers, who gave up their firepower superiority and dared to fight hand-to-hand and night battles with the Chinese army.
The First Marine Division did not win the battle, they suffered heavy losses, and were deeply shocked by the courage of the Chinese soldiers, and an American soldier said: "The Chinese soldiers suddenly appeared in the snow, and some people did not even have shoes on their feet, which looked like a dream in the battlefield of minus 40 degrees." ”
The Japanese author commented: "[The volunteers] didn't seem to care about the American firepower network, and after the first stormtroopers fell, the second group of soldiers stepped over the corpses and continued to advance, followed by the third and fourth groups." Their spirit of not being afraid of death was like martyrdom, which made the officers and men of the US army very afraid. ”
"In World War II, the U.S. army won the Japanese army, but in the Korean battlefield, they did not win the Chinese."