Playing is the trump card of the US military, US experts: if China has the same weapons, it is a massacre
On October 24, 1950, Peng Dehuai's 52nd birthday. However, Peng Dehuai obviously did not think of this - since he led the Pingjiang uprising troops to Jinggangshan to join the "Zhumao" Red Army at the age of 30, Peng Dehuai, who had been fighting all the way, could not remember what day his birthday was.
At this moment, Peng Dehuai, as commander and political commissar of the Volunteer Army, is lining up troops to fight the first battle abroad.
First Military Intelligence Authors: Jia Yong, Yuan Hao
The volunteer army successively inflicted heavy damage on the "trump card" of the US army, and annihilated 51,000 enemies in two battles
On the evening of October 19, 1950, on the same day that Peng Dehuai took the lead in the Korean battlefield, the capital of Korea, Pyongyang, fell.
The progress of the war has far exceeded expectations, and the original defensive plan has no possibility of implementation. Peng Dehuai immediately made a decision and changed the defensive war to a mobile war.
On October 25, 1950, the first snow fell in northern Korea, and the South Korean army entered the ambush circle of the volunteer army without warning.
The 118th Division of the 40th Volunteer Army, which was setting up an ambush, was the main force advancing into Hainan Island. Years of tempering in the flames of war have long sharpened this group of soldiers to the point of not being alarmed by the enemy, whether it is an attack war or an ambush war, it is their best play.
In the first battle of Liangshuidong, the volunteers annihilated 1 battalion and 1 artillery squadron in South Korea in less than two hours. This day also became the anniversary of the Chinese Volunteer Army going abroad to fight.
Six days later, the same misfortune fell on the U.S. military.
When the news of the encirclement and annihilation of the South Korean army came, Lieutenant General Walker, commander of the US Eighth Army, was taken aback and urgently ordered the US 1st Cavalry Division to quickly reinforce from Pyongyang to Unsan.
The First Cavalry Division, the "Founding Fathers Division" of the United States, still retains the name of "First Cavalry Division" after becoming a mechanized unit, and the badge of the "Horse Head" logo is particularly eye-catching. After World War II, the 1st Cavalry Division became the vanguard of the occupation of Tokyo, Japan, and after the outbreak of the Korean War, it became the first main division of the US Army to invade Korea, equipped with 149 tanks and more than 300 artillery pieces, and the firepower of one division far exceeded that of one army of the Volunteer Army.
The clarion call of the volunteers' attack sounded at the moment when the sun set. On November 1, 1950, the 39th Army of the Volunteer Army launched an attack on the enemy at Yunshan from three sides. After 3 days of fierce fighting, the 1st Us Cavalry Division lost 1800 soldiers, and all three battalions of the Seventh Regiment were annihilated. Six days later, the U.S. Army permanently revoked the battalion's designation.
The terrified American GIs describe the experience of survival this way: We are surrounded by enemies everywhere, sometimes in the front, sometimes in the back, and you don't know where to shoot bullets. We were surrounded by clusters...
At the end of the battle, the chief of staff of the Seventh Regiment of the US First Cavalry Division, who had been captured by the volunteers, said unconvincingly: "There is no aircraft bombing, artillery preparation, no tank impact, and the squads, platoons, and companies quietly lean over and fight. When he was told it was "Mao's tactic," the chief of staff of the U.S. major was stunned.
Mao Zedong's strategy and tactics were to use one's own strengths and strike at the enemy's weaknesses; as far as you hit the atomic bomb, I hit the grenade and seize your weakness to fight you; that is, to despise the enemy strategically and attach importance to the enemy tactically.
The first campaign, which lasted 11 days, volunteered to annihilate 15,000 enemies. On November 7, Xinhua News Agency broadcast such a cable -
The General Headquarters of the People's Army of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea issued a communiqué stating that the People's Army of the Republic of Korea has recently won an important victory in its operations in the northwestern part of Korea. During the period of this operation, there were Chinese members of the Volunteer Force for Resisting US Aggression and Aiding Korea to Defend the Motherland and Defend the Motherland... Participated in the fighting together with the KPA ...
Although the Xinhua news agency's news was released in the form of a relay of the Korean People's Army war report, it still attracted great attention from the world. On October 15, MacArthur, commander-in-chief of the United Nations Army, also vowed to U.S. President Harry S. Truman that the possibility of China sending troops was minimal. "If Chinese cross the Yalu River, they will suffer the greatest slaughter in human history."
Apparently, MacArthur misjudged. It was this misjudgment that made him immediately meet the strongest opponent in his life, and it directly overshadowed his original prominent military career.
In fact, MacArthur at this time also knew that being able to inflict heavy damage on the U.S. "ace" troops, which were in full swing, was naturally not something that the North Korean army, which had collapsed, could do so. Everything on the battlefield, however, did not seem to affect MacArthur's self-confidence. Strength is supreme, and this is the logic of the Americans. By that time, the number of "UN Army" ground troops had reached 220,000, an increase of 80,000 over the first campaign. MacArthur also gathered more than 1,100 various combat aircraft and more than 200 warships, including 3 aircraft carrier battle groups; at this time, the Volunteer Army did not have a single aircraft capable of combating and a single ship capable of combat. Without the permission of U.S. President Harry Truman, MacArthur mobilized 90 B-29 bombers to destroy all bridges over the Yalu River to stop China from adding troops to North Korea. Immediately afterward, he ordered the "United Nations Army" to continue its all-out northward advance.
MacArthur's attempt was: the U.S. Tenth Army advanced westward on the eastern front via Chosin Lake, and the U.S. Eighth Army marched north from the Cheongcheon River on the western front, rendezvoused at Wupingli south of the river boundary with a "pincer offensive," and then advanced north to seize all of Korea before the Yalu River was frozen. He will also deploy the U.S. Twenty-fifth Division in Seoul and the Turkish Brigade, which has just arrived in Korea, and the British Twenty-ninth Brigade, to strengthen the Western Front, and the U.S. Third Division to strengthen the Eastern Front. The commanders of the Eastern and Western Fronts were two of MacArthur's favorite generals: Major General Almond, the commander of the US Tenth Army who had served as MacArthur's chief of staff; and Lieutenant General Walker, the commander of the Eighth Army, nicknamed "Bulldog".
The disparity in power made MacArthur no longer want to and disdain to consider who his opponent was. He arrogantly declared that the Yalu River was not an insurmountable obstacle, and that Chinese was not an "indisputable force."
However, although MacArthur had not yet figured out his battlefield opponents, Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai already knew MacArthur and the American troops involved in the war.
In view of the fact that the strength of the volunteer army in the first battle had not yet been fully exposed and MacArthur's light enemy, Peng Dehuai ordered the volunteer army to take the initiative to retreat, lure the enemy deeper, and strive to surprise and fight a large-scale annihilation war.
Li Honggen, then chief of the operations section of the 117th Division of the 39th Army of the Volunteer Army, recalled: "At the beginning, we did not understand, how can we still retreat in a big stride after winning the battle? However, I heard that it was Chairman Mao and General Manager Peng's instructions, and they all resolutely obeyed, because everyone understood that by following Chairman Mao, they could win the battle. We also deliberately dropped some small shovels, backpacks and other items along the way to confuse the enemy..."
MacArthur was hooked. He determined that the poorly equipped Chinese army had "timidly lost the battle." In particular, after several days of aerial reconnaissance, there was no sign of large troop activity, and when intelligence officers judged that the Chinese was only 30,000 to 70,000 at most, MacArthur concluded that the Chinese army had previously been only a "symbolic attack."
Thanksgiving, an important holiday in the United States, is celebrated every year on the 4th Thursday of November. Thanksgiving in 1950 was November 23, which also happened to be a small snow in the Chinese lunar calendar.
"The snow has cleared and the leaves are dark, and the long waves are suddenly hoarse." The cold air that whistled from Siberia enveloped the snow and overwhelmed the earth. The coldest winter in northern North Korea in 50 years has arrived ahead of schedule. But that didn't stop American soldiers from enjoying a turkey meal on the front line for the first time ever.
On November 24, as soon as the vanguard of the U.S. army broke through to the small town of Huishan on the banks of the Yalu River, MacArthur's Bataan landplane flew above them to cheer them up.
Before boarding the plane, MacArthur boasted to many reporters: "You can tell my soldiers, rush to the Yalu River, I will let them go back, I have sent a package ticket to the lads' families, Christmas let them go home for the festival!" ”
The next day, the news published by major newspapers and periodicals in the United States almost had the word "Christmas" in the headlines, "Mai Shuai Promised to End the War Before Christmas" and "Victory is in Sight - Is Christmas Not Far Away"...
Maybe it was overconfidence, maybe it was to deter the Chinese military, maybe it was to comfort the parents of thousands of American soldiers waiting for their children to return home soon, MacArthur actually opened his plan of attack to the world.
"The coalition forces' massive operation of compression and envelopment of the new red army in North Korea is approaching a decisive moment. Over the past three weeks, as an independent part of this pincer offensive, the air forces of our services have succeeded in cutting off the enemy's supply lines with exemplary coordinated and efficient continuous attacks, and the reinforcements from the north of the enemy have been greatly reduced..."
It was also on this snowy night that the airwaves suddenly became dense in a remote mine called The Great Yu Cave in northern North Korea. The air raid shelter that has just been excavated is Peng Dehuai's headquarters.
Far away in The First Building in Tokyo, MacArthur, naturally could not imagine that the volunteer command was so simple, and it was impossible to imagine that in this ice and snow, the 300,000 volunteers had already completed their mobile concealment. Just as he could not imagine that this army would have an iron will and iron discipline.
At this time, on the battlefield 120 kilometers wide, the two huge pockets carefully arranged by the volunteers had opened their mouths.
Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai adopted a double internal and external detour strategy that is rare in the history of war, with 4 corps of the Volunteer Army on the western front launching a fierce attack from the front and the other 2 armies attacking from the flank. The key to the campaign is whether the flank forces can quickly open the gap in the campaign, directly insert themselves into the enemy's rear, and cut off the enemy's main force.
Han Xianchu, 37, deputy commander of the Volunteer Army, unified command of the roundabout combat operation.
MacArthur and many U.S. generals, the Chinese army in their minds, are still stuck in the impression of the Kuomintang army. I don't know that although the Communist Army is backward in weapons and equipment, it will be a fierce general and a crack soldier. Ding Wei, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences, said, "Like General Peng, like Han Xianchu, the platoon is not inferior to those famous generals in the world." ”
In less than a day and a night, a hole was instantly torn between the east and west "tongs" of the "United Nations Army" and the east and west. The four corps of the Volunteer Army, which were responsible for the frontal attack, pressed against the American troops in front of them.
Warren Widhan, a veteran of the American war, recalled: "Chinese's offensive strategy was very clever, what we call a large-scale attack, and they would use a large number of troops to directly attack the defensive line, open a gap in the defensive circle, and then advance into the rear of our army." ”
Seeing that it was impossible to stop the volunteer attack of the tide, Walker, the commander of the US Eighth Army who had fought with the volunteers in the first battle, was not as blindly optimistic as MacArthur, and when he realized that he was surrounded by volunteers, he quickly ordered the "United Nations Army" to break through and retreat. This was exactly what Peng Dehuai expected—the 113th Division of the 38th Army had already penetrated the place where the "United Nations Army" had to retreat: Sansholi and Longyuanli.
Chen Shengxiu, instructor of the machine gun company of the 3rd Battalion of the 338th Regiment of the 113th Division of the 38th Army of the Volunteer Army at the time, recalled: "After receiving the order, I kept running forward, and one comrade even ran and fell to the ground and died. With one thought, everyone inserted themselves behind the enemy and blocked the enemy. ”
A miracle in the history of the war was born: the 113th Division overtook the wheels of the "United Nations Army" with both legs - 5 minutes before the enemy blocked the retreat of the two US divisions.
An unprecedented fierce blockade and counterattack were launched in the valley along the Datong River, and the enemy who fought for the last line of survival to retreat to the south and the enemy who had been ordered to come to the north to help took turns to pounce on the volunteer positions that occupied the commanding heights, and the volunteers were always nailed to the positions like nails -- the two "United Nations troops" were separated by less than a kilometer, and finally they could only look at each other but did not converge.
The good news reached the Big Yu Cave, and Peng Dehuai, who had not closed his eyes for several days and nights, jumped up from his chair excitedly. He personally drew up a commendation telegram and handed it to the staff officer, and just as the telegram was about to be sent, he suddenly shouted: Slow! Then I took the telegram back and added another paragraph at the end. This is: Long live the Chinese People's Volunteer Army! Long live the 38th Army!
Songkuo Peak, the blocking position of the 335th Regiment of the 335th Regiment of the 112th Division of the Volunteer Army, and the only retreat of the Ninth Regiment of the 2nd Division of the US Army.
The U.S. army found that no matter how fierce the artillery fire, no matter how close the attacking infantry was to the top of the mountain, there was always Chinese launching a counterattack over and over again at the sound of military trumpets.
The three companies ended up with 8 men left, and hundreds of enemy bodies fell in front of the position. The US warplanes blew Up Pine Bone Peak into a sea of fire, but they still failed to cross this heroic highland.
The less than 11-kilometer-long trail under Pine Bone Peak was later called "Indian Flogging Ground" by the U.S. Military, meaning the experience of crossing this road as if it had been "whipped by death."
A few days later, the writer Wei Wei came to the front line. This position soaked in the blood of the volunteers seemed to tell the tragic story of the battle. The writer writes: "This fierce battle lasted for eight hours ... The petrol bombs dropped by the planes set them on fire. At this time, the warriors still will not retreat, they drop their guns, throw themselves at the enemy, and the flames on their hats are whirring, holding the enemy, so that the fire on their bodies will also burn the enemy who occupies the position to death..."
This newsletter, which has been included in secondary school Chinese textbooks, has touched generations. The volunteer soldiers who fought for the motherland, for justice, and for peace on the Korean battlefield have since had a kind and noble title: the most lovely person.
In 1990, the two "martyrs" mentioned in the article "Who is the Cutest Man", Jing Yuzhuo and Li Yu'an, magically entered people's sight.
It turned out that when cleaning up the remains of the martyrs on the Battlefield of Songbone Peak, it was unexpectedly found that some fighters still had weak breathing and were urgently sent to the rear for rescue.
A few months later, Jing Yuzhuo and Li Yu'an miraculously survived - Jing Yuzhuo's face was covered with scars burned by gasoline bombs, only a few teeth were burned, only a small piece of his left ear was left, and his left hand was seriously constricted; Li Yu'an was shot in the chest and was in a coma in the hospital for more than 5 months before he was out of danger... At that time, Wang Suqi, the commander of a battalion who introduced the battle to Wei Wei, did not expect that his comrades-in-arms would miraculously "come back from the dead" later.
After recovering from his injuries, Jing Yuzhuo gave up state care and became a farmer in Qitaihe, Heilongjiang. Li Yu'an worked as an ordinary worker at a rural grain station in Bayan County, Heilongjiang.
In the second battle, the 38th Army, at the cost of 415 killed and 5,005 wounded, severely damaged the 2nd Division of the US Ninth Army and the "Turkish Brigade", killing and wounding more than 11,000 enemy prisoners.
When the "United Nations Army" on the western front was almost collapsing, the Ninth Corps of the Volunteer Army, which had been ambushed for six days and six nights in the vast snowy field on the eastern front, began to launch a general offensive against the US Tenth Army, which had penetrated into the encirclement.
This is the famous Battle of Chosin Lake.
Like MacArthur, Almond, the commander of the U.S. Tenth Army, was an arrogant man who always referred to Chinese as a "washer." At that time, the Tenth Army had the most well-equipped and well-equipped Seventh Division and the First Marine Division in the US Army. Almond never dreamed that it was the Chinese he called "the washer" that left a page of shame for his two elite troops.
At the Battle of Chosin Lake, the Thirty-first Regiment of the US Seventh Division was completely annihilated, and Colonel McLean was wounded and captured and killed. The flag of the U.S. Army's "Ace Regiment," which was awarded the title of "Polar Bear Regiment" for its invasion of Siberia in World War I, became the trophy of the Volunteer Army. The US First Marine Division, which was lucky enough to escape from Chosin Lake, also paid a heavy price of attrition of 11,731 personnel, and the scene of fleeing Chosin Lake in a hurry became a lingering nightmare for the US Marines.
Chi Haotian, deputy instructor of the first battalion of the 235th Regiment of the 79th Division of the 27th Army of the Volunteer Army at the time of the Battle of Chosin Lake, became China's eighth minister of national defense 43 years later. In December 1996, Chi Haotian led a delegation to visit the United States, and the commander of the US Marine Corps, Admiral Charles Krulac, who received him, solemnly respected the veteran soldier who had participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. It turned out that Krulak's father was the deputy commander of the First Marine Division at that time. His father told him: "I have fought all my life, and I have never encountered such a powerful unit as the volunteer army." ”
In the second battle, the volunteers killed, wounded, and captured more than 36,000 enemy soldiers, including more than 24,000 American troops, turning the tide of the war in World War I. The "United Nations Army" retreated 300 km in 10 days.
Stalin praised the Chinese Volunteer Army as "a great army."
The fiasco shook the American government and opposition, and Truman threatened to use the atomic bomb!
The disastrous defeat in the Korean battlefield shook the US government and opposition. The world's number one power had to re-recognize the new China that it once despised.
U.S. President Harry S. Truman declared a "national emergency" to make "any necessary sacrifice" for the Korean War, asking Congress to approve the increase in U.S. troops from 2.5 million to 3.5 million, and to increase the production capacity of fighters and tanks by 5 and 4 times, respectively, within a year. He also threatened to use an "atomic bomb" at a press conference.
Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Warren Austin was ordered to send a signal of armistice negotiations to China through the United Nations on the condition that the Volunteers stop north of the "38th Parallel."
The conspiracy of the Americans naturally could not escape the eyes of Mao Zedong.
In the days when the New Year of 1951 came, the exchange of telegrams between Zhongnanhai and the Korean front was particularly frequent.
Mao Zedong's telegram of December 13, 1950: At present, Britain and the United States are asking our army to stop north of the 38th Line in order to facilitate the re-engagement of their entire army. Therefore, our army must cross the 38th Line. If it stops north of the 38th Line, it will be very disadvantageous to the political situation.
Mao Zedong's telegram of December 21, 1950: The United States and Britain are taking advantage of the old impression that the 38th Line has existed among the people to carry out their political propaganda and try to induce us to cease war, so it is necessary for our army to cross the 38th Line and then take a break.
Mao Zedong's telegram of December 29, 1950: If our army can fight a victorious battle in the first half of January, as you are currently deployed, strive to annihilate several divisions of the puppet army and a part of the US army, and then rest for two months to prepare for the spring offensive, it will have a very good impact on the Democratic Front and the masses of the people of the capitalist countries, and give a new blow to imperialism, aggravating its pessimistic defeat...
Three telegrams pointed directly to one goal: the "three-eighth line"!
Mao Zedong knew that with the victory of the Second Battle of the Volunteer Army, the United States' plan to make a quick decision had gone bankrupt, the contradictions between the United States and the servant countries it had gathered that did not want to participate in the war had begun to sharpen, and the anti-war sentiment in the United States was also increasingly high. In this context, it is necessary to give the enemy another fatal blow before it is possible to completely force the enemy to the negotiating table - otherwise, once the opponent can breathe, with the strong war mobilization ability of the United States and Britain, the volunteer army will inevitably face greater battlefield pressure. Although the volunteer army had been fighting in the snow and ice for a whole month and a half, Mao Zedong was full of confidence in the team that had followed him from the battlefields of the Long March, the War of Resistance, and the War of Liberation: this army had the spirit of indomitable progress, it would overwhelm all enemies and never be subjugated by them.
On December 26, 1950, the day after Christmas, 55-year-old Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway, the 55-year-old deputy chief of staff of the U.S. Army, arrived in the Korean battlefield in the bitter cold wind to replace Walker, commander of the Eighth Army, who had overturned and died. Truman also gave Ridgway greater powers, serving as commander of the United Nations Army's ground forces.
Ridgway is known for his unique vision. Although not as prominent as MacArthur's reputation, the war experience was equally extraordinary: in July 1943, Ridgway commanded the 82nd Airborne Division to carry out the first large-scale night airborne operation in U.S. history at the Landing Campaign in Sicily, Italy; after the Normandy landings, he was directly promoted to the commander of the U.S. Eighteenth Airborne Army. In his early years, he also served as a deputy company commander in the 15th Infantry Regiment of the US Army in Tianjin.
Walker was killed only three days later, and the US military high command hastily selected such a "China passer" to North Korea, no doubt to save the decline of the battlefield.
Ridgway originally wanted to immediately turn to the offensive to win the initiative on the battlefield, but when he inspected his troops, he found that the "United Nations Army", which had been severely damaged by the Chinese army, had been cast with a thick psychological shadow. He sadly admitted: "This is a panicked army, losing confidence in itself and in its commanders, and it is not clear what it is doing..."
In desperation, Ridgway had to quickly deploy defenses to prevent the volunteers from continuing southward. Ridgway played a mental eye, placing the 8 divisions of the South Korean Army on the first line and the American and British troops on the second line, so that they could attack and defend and retreat at any time.
What Ridgway did not expect was that his defensive line from the Jinjiang River in the west to the east coast had just been deployed, and the volunteer artillery attack began in the fluttering snowflakes.
On the last day of 1950, the Volunteers launched what the Americans called the "Chinese New Year's Eve Offensive." Three corps of the regrouped Korean People's Army threw themselves into battle, and the Chinese and North Korean armies achieved unified command.
In just one day and night, the South Korean First and Second Divisions of the first line collapsed completely, and the US First and Second Armies on the second line were in danger of being in a backwater operation.
Until many years later, Ridgway was "deeply shocked" by the rout of that year: "I tried to stop it, but the fleeing truck flashed past me without slowing down." I had never felt this way before, and I prayed to God not to witness such a plot again. ”
On January 3, 1951, Ridgway ordered the abandonment of Seoul. The Volunteer Army found such a sentence in a building: The commander of the Eighth Army would like to pay tribute to the commander-in-chief of the Chinese army!
The volunteer army hit the "37th Line" in one go, if we also have American weapons and battlefield support?
After another 4 days, the Chinese and DPRK troops reached the "37th Line" in their entirety. Here, it is 400 kilometers away from the Yalu River.
Peng Dehuai ordered the pursuit to be stopped and turned to rest. He knew very well that after more than three months of continuous combat, the combat effectiveness of the troops had reached its limit; the already fragile logistics supply line had long exceeded the limit.
Yang Feng'an, Peng Dehuai's military secretary at the time, once recalled: "After the third campaign liberated Seoul, the ideological burden of General Manager Peng was very heavy. Seoul should be liberated and something happy, in the country and celebrate the festival as if. Mr. Peng pouted, beat into Seoul and went backwards, what if he withdrew from Seoul? ”
Also aware of this "shortcoming" of the volunteer army was Ridgway, who had already stabilized his position. Unlike MacArthur,who commanded remotely thousands of miles away, Ridgway's style was to be meticulous and hands-on. While still in the Pentagon, Ridgway began to pay attention to the Chinese army that swept macArthur, the "god of war". He found that almost every volunteer offensive was a five- to seven-day "worship offensive." This is clearly related to the fragile battlefield support of the Chinese army.
Ridgway judged that the volunteer army, which had already driven south of Seoul, was at the most difficult time at this moment, and the time had come to counterattack to the north. He specially tailored a set of "magnetic" confrontation strategies for the US army: to maximize air superiority and firepower superiority, to keep as far a distance from the volunteers as possible after the battle began, to stick to the opponent, to delay time, and to wait until the volunteers ran out of ammunition and food, and then launch a fierce attack.
At this time, the Super Battlefield Supply Advantage of the United States was also fully demonstrated: a large number of World War II veterans drawn from the mainland and other regions were quickly replenished to the Korean battlefield, and various combat readiness materials were continuously transferred to the front line of the war. Each American soldier who participated in the war could also fly to Japan for a 5-day "indulgence + indulgence" type of rest in order to "restore morale" and return to the battlefield.
Ruan Jiaxin, then a staff officer of the Volunteer Army Headquarters, recalled: "The enemy came up and was bombarded by aircraft and artillery, and the fortifications we built overnight would be leveled in an hour. Flares turned night into day, and it was harder for us to fight night battles. ”
The "History of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea" records that at this time, even if the US army attacked the position of a company of the Volunteer Army, it would use dozens of tanks and aircraft support to fire as many as 2,000 to 3,000 shells, while the Volunteer Army only fired a total of 5,341 shells in the first three battles.
Learning the lesson of MacArthur's blind advances, Ridgway ordered all the armies to move closer to each other and advance hand in hand, so as not to become the "prey" of the Chinese again.
On January 25, 1951, Ridgway suddenly launched a fierce attack on the Volunteer Army, with 250,000 troops on the ground alone. The main attack force was placed on the western front, targeting the direction of Seoul; the other was assisted by a surprise attack on the eastern front, launching a full-line attack from west to east.
On this day, there are still 11 days before the Chinese New Year. Perhaps, the "United All-United National Army" wants to use such a Spring Festival offensive to complete the defeat of its "Christmas" snow.
Every good military scientist has a pair of sharp eyes that pass through the smoke of war. Almost at the same time that Ridgway discovered the "short board" of the volunteer army, Peng Dehuai also captured the omission in The layout of Ridgway's platoon: although the US First Army and the Ninth Army on the Western Front, which were attacking in the direction of Seoul, attacked side by side, there was no gap, but there was a weak link between the US Tenth Army and the ROK Third Army on the Eastern Front, which was undoubtedly an opportunity for the Volunteer Army.
In the face of the enemy's heavy counterattack, Peng Dehuai set the operational policy for the fourth campaign as "opposing from the west to the east," organizing the western front to hold on to the defense with one unit of troops and containing the main offensive group of the "United Nations Army." On the eastern front, it retreated in a planned way, and when the enemy's posture was prominent, concentrated the main force to seek opportunities to counterattack, threaten the enemy on the western front from the flank, shake its position, and stop its attack. Deng Hua and Han Xianchu, two generals who joined hands to liberate Hainan Island, commanded the eastern and western fronts of the campaign corps.
On the western front, the 38th And 50th Armies, which were firmly on the south bank of the Han River, stubbornly resisted, and the two "ace" units of the US First and Ninth Armies advanced only 18 kilometers in 14 days and nights; while the volunteers fighting on foot had previously attacked the same section of the road, but only half a day.
On February 11, the sixth day of the first lunar month, the Eastern Front Corps commanded by Deng Hua, deputy commander of the Volunteer Army, seized the fleeting fighter plane, and the Chinese and North Korean troops took advantage of the early night darkness to launch an attack on the enemy who was prominent. By the early morning of the 13th, the battle was over, and 12,000 enemy troops were annihilated.
This is the Hengcheng counterattack that has become a classic example.
Fight with strong enemies and temper a generation of soldiers who dare to fight, are good at fighting, can fight, and win wars. In this battle, a pair of young warriors emerged. The 33-year-old Deng Yue commanded the 118th Division of the 40th Army to boldly penetrate and cut off the enemy's rear road, killing and wounding 656 people under Kwon Tae-soon, the commander of the 16th Regiment of the Eighth Division of South Korea, and capturing 2,178 enemy; the 117th Division of the 39th Army led by the 34-year-old Zhang Zhicheng set a record for the most enemies annihilated by a division in a single battle on the Korean battlefield: 3,350 enemy were annihilated, 2,500 were captured, of which 800 were american troops. Later, the two served as commanders of the two ace units of the People's Liberation Army, the 38th Army and the 39th Army.
The fourth campaign lasted until April 21 of that year, when Ridgway's elaborate deployment was disrupted. After paying the price of 900 casualties per day to advance 1.3 kilometers, the "United Nations Army" was forced to stop near the "38th Line". Ridgway later wrote in his memoirs: "If we had not had great firepower, often received close air support, and firmly controlled the sea, the Chinese might have crushed us." ”
A week later, Deng Hua celebrated his 41st birthday. A year ago, in the same season, the 39-year-old young general, who had been the commander of the corps, was commanding the largest sea-crossing landing operation in the history of the People's Liberation Army: the Battle of Hainan Island, along with Han Xianchu, who was three years younger.
At about the same time, MacArthur, who had been removed from all of Truman's duties, quoted the following passage in his farewell speech to the U.S. Congress: "A veteran never dies, he just fades out of the stage." Indeed, the stage that belonged to MacArthur was a thing of the past. As Bradley, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Chiefs of Staff, commented: "MacArthur's mythical dignity was damaged. The red Chinese fooled the always correct military genius, and MacArthur's existing capabilities and strength could not compete with the Chinese commander Peng Dehuai in North Korea. ”
The year the Korean War began, Peng was 52 and MacArthur was 70.