The expeditionary force returned to Savage Mountain, dressed in American equipment, and used artillery fire to tell the Japanese soldiers to become men again in the next life
After the Chinese Expeditionary Force withdrew from Burma, the elite Japanese 18th Division captured Savage Mountain.
What the 18th Division regiment was, the Chinese army knew all too well. Its predecessor was the infamous Mikuliu Division, and in 1932, the "1.28" Songhu Campaign, they burned and plundered in the Shanghai area, and they were full of blood debts. After the "July 7" Incident in 1937, he invaded China again, and on November 5, he landed in Hangzhou Bay and participated in the Nanjing Massacre. In October 1938, it continued to move south, landing at Dapeng Bay in Guangzhou and capturing Guangzhou. In 1939, it landed in Qinzhou, Guangdong Province, crossed 100,000 mountains, and trapped Nanning. In 1940, he was transferred to the Philippine Islands to receive special training in jungle warfare and participated in operations in Vietnam, Malaya and Thailand. In February 1942, the Japanese 5th Division swept through Singapore, capturing 85,000 British troops on the island, setting a record for the number of Allied captives at one time during World War II. Only a month later, the 18th Division marched into Burma, attacking Tangji, Lashio, and Occupying Myitkyina, which devastated the Sino-British coalition forces. In March 1943, after the former division commander Mutaguchi was promoted to the commander of the 15th Army, Lieutenant General Shinichi Tanaka took over as the commander of the 18th Division. Shinichi Tanaka is not an idle person. Previously, he was the head of the Operations Department of the Japanese base camp and was a calculating tactician.
After the Battle of Burma the previous year, the Chinese Expeditionary Force had been training in Ramga for a year and a half, and the 18th Division was not idle. They ran fortifications in the Savage Mountains, prepared for the battlefield, and hoarded ammunition. Moreover, they are preconceived and occupy favorable terrain to spare. The X-Force and their high and low, victory and defeat are still undecided.
The 114th Regiment of the New 38th Division, the spearhead of the attack, set out from Ledo and advanced about 60 kilometers into Burma to the pass near Sin Binh Yang. The map drawn by the British is marked with "hell Gale". Translated as Chinese, it is called "Ghost Gate Pass".
It's a mountain of terror. On both sides of the pass, the mountains are towering and overlapping, and one mountain carries another mountain on its shoulders, and the clouds are connected to the sky, and the height is unpredictable. Inside the pass, the walls are broken, the trees are overgrown, and the thorns are everywhere. Even during the dry season, the water vapor is thick and the clouds are miserable.
The ghost door is closed, and indeed there are evil ghosts who hold the door. Half a year ago, it became the "Maginot Line" painstakingly operated by the Japanese army. Tanaka Shin must have made a brilliant plan: "If the enemy comes to attack, it should be required that the battlefield be placed near the intersection of the Indo-Burmese border and annihilated in one fell swoop after a rapid attack." ”
The battle against onimon pass was not fought first from the bottom of the valley according to the assumptions of the Japanese. After careful reconnaissance of the enemy's 12 hills, Li Hong, commander of the 114th Regiment, selected one of the hills and quietly attacked. This hill is not the most advanced, nor the lowest, but the fourth hill where the enemy is relatively backward and relatively "safe". Li Hong's number according to the 12 local branches is the "zi" position. The first place in the earth branch.
The first battle of the counterattack on Savage Mountain must achieve the greatest suddenness and give the enemy an unexpected blow. In this regard, the jungle of the dense turns can help.
There were two reinforced companies in the offensive "sub" positions. They brought three days' worth of dry food and quietly touched it from the mountainside on the right side of the Ghost Gate Pass.
The officers and men of the attacking company climbed over the cliffs and streams, climbed the vines and attached themselves to the ge, and one by one touched the bottom of the "zi" position, ambushed them in the dense forest, and concentrated more than 300 people under the nose of the enemy.
The distance between the two sides is only about 100 meters. During the day, you can see the quilts and pants drying on the enemy positions. At night, you can hear the command of the enemy sentry.
The Japanese soldiers did not know that death was imminent.
On the morning of the third day, after the fog cleared, the sun shone through the ghost door. A rare sunny day. The enemy troops on the "Zi" position seized the opportunity to dry their clothes, and the position was hung with flowers and greenery, and it was lively.
At 10 o'clock, suddenly the cannon was loud, and the ghost gate was shaken.
The Chinese Expeditionary Force is laying a battle book for the Japanese army.
The artillery fire under the command of Commander Li Hong concentrated on bombarding the highlands on the front of the pass. In this deep valley, the sound of mortars is particularly crisp and explosive, and with the addition of the mountain singing valley, one cannon has the shocking power of three guns.
The Japanese troops who closed the ghost door were all confused.
On the "Zi" position, the cannon sounded in a flash, and the Japanese soldiers all entered the fortification like rabbits.
After a while, I heard the cannon hitting the mountain pass in front of me, and then I climbed out of the hole. Standing high, he craned his neck and looked into the distance.
Our army's dense artillery bombarded the enemy's forward positions on both sides of the pass for 10 minutes, then suddenly turned the gun port, aimed at the "sub" position near the inside, split the head and covered the head, and slammed it into it.
The Japanese on the "zi" position did not guard against this hand, and thought that there was not much to do without them today. They took all the steel guns out, dragged out the heavy machine guns, and the telephone soldiers also called out "whoa-la-la-la-la Unexpectedly, it seemed that there was a strong wind blowing on the flat ground, and the shells that had just been smashed into the front were all rolled up on his head.
Commander Li Hong had a total of 34 light and heavy mortars under his command, aimed at the "zi" position with a radius of less than 100 meters, and a salvo could cover it all. As soon as the first row of artillery was finished, the enemy soldiers who were not killed by the explosion just jumped up, and the second row of guns fell down again.
After 15 minutes of heavy bombardment, the artillery fire extended, and the 300 commandos who were ambushed under the position jumped up and pounced on the enemy position.
The "zi" character position was successful, and the ghost gate was inserted into a sharp knife by our army. The 114th Regiment attacked inside and outside, and was invincible. When the eighth hill was obtained, the enemies of the last four hills, feeling that they were not opponents, fled overnight.
Within 10 days, the ghost gate was closed back into the hands of our army.
As soon as the rumbling artillery of the attacking troops sounded, the road-building machines of the sappers rolled into the Savage Mountains.
American General Pique commanded a colorful and vast army of road builders, including two Chinese engineer corps, a black American road construction team, and a large number of Indian migrant workers. General Stilwell's order to General Pique was simple and concise: "Wherever the troops hit, build the road!" ”
The Battle of Burma was actually a traffic war for China.
Since the fall of the Burma Road, although Chiang Kai-shek has repeatedly asked the United States to increase the volume of hump air transport, it is limited after all. Air transport is increasingly unable to quench the hunger and thirst of China's theaters. In order to respond urgently, the Sino-Indian highway must be opened to transport the US aid materials piled up in India to China.
After the enemy at Ghost Gate Was eliminated, the 10th and 12th Regiments of Engineers of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, armed with large knives, axes, cross pickaxes, and explosive packs, were the first to come to this battlefield that had just subsided. They were the pioneers under General Pique. The general told them to clean the mines first, then cut down the trees, remove the roots, and tear a hole in the dense forest.
It's the hardest, the most tiring, the most dangerous job. The ground is full of mines, and from time to time small groups of Japanese troops attack the forest, and bloodshed and sacrifice are inevitable. They had to hold a knife in one hand and a gun in the other. There is no machine, all by manpower, and the dense and towering ancient trees have to be cut down, sawn off, and moved away with one knife and one axe, how much sweat must be shed! How hard it took to cut the roots of the entangled, entangled stumps, pickaxes and pickaxes, and blow them up little by little! Dry until dark at dawn. Four or five meals a day. Half a pound of rice went down, cut down a big tree, sweated, and was all empty. Eat when you are full, and eat when you are hungry. A pair of gloves can be used for up to one day. Many people clutched a handful of blood blisters in both hands. Blood stained the knife handles red.
The soldiers cut down the wood, cut out the roots, and piled it into pieces, I am afraid that they can make a wooden road in the Savage Mountain.
As soon as the American sappers arrived, Savage Mountain was bustling!
They drive all kinds of machines, mountain drives, bulldozers, crushers, air compressors, pumps. The sound of the machine rumbled and the motor roared, frightening the rabbits and apes in the forest to run around.
Two years later, Savage Mountain seems to have forgotten everything. The road opened up by chinese officers and soldiers in the jungle with their lives is unrecognizable, the banana shed where they lived has collapsed under the fallen leaves, and the small bridge they have erected and the zipline they have pulled up have disappeared without a trace. The only thing exposed to the jungle was a pile of white bones.
On a large stone slab, several corpses lay side by side, with guns next to them. The barrel is rusty, but the gun number and troop code written in paint on the wooden butt are still fresh in our minds.
Savage Mountain destroys everything, but it cannot destroy the souls and bones of Chinese officers and soldiers.
The Chinese officers and soldiers who returned to kill Savage Mountain, witnessed the white bones and blood stains of the forest, and recalled the fiasco in 1942, and everyone's heart lit a fire: revenge and hatred!
Officers and soldiers recruited loyal souls, collected white bones, and rose one grave after another in the jungle.
White bones are the signposts of their way forward, and grave bags are the footprints they left behind. Have there been such tragic marches through the ages?