From August 13 to November 12, 1937, the famous Battle of Songhu in the history of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out. This was a general battle in which the total investment of troops on both sides reached the level of one million, and the battlefield covered a vast area from Greater Shanghai to Hangzhou Bay, and the Baziqiao, Huishan Wharf, Jiangwan, Yangshupu, Hongkou, Lion Grove, Zhabei, Wusong, Chuanshakou, Liuxing, Yangxing, Miaoxing, Yuepu, Luodian, Baoshan, Zhanghuabin, Yunzaobin, Suzhou River, Nanxiang, Liuhe, and Sixing Warehouses were accompanied by the smoke of war in history.
In order to defend Greater Shanghai, the Chinese army invested 78 divisions, 7 independent brigades, 3 temporary brigades, 7 artillery regiments and most of the navy and air force, and the total strength of the army reached 750,000 people, more than 40 warships, and 200 aircraft. Among them, the Central Army with the Huangpu Department as the main force was all dispatched, including the 1st Army, the Teaching Corps, the 18th Army, the 74th Army, the Tax police regiment and other elite units, as well as the Gui Army, the Sichuan Army, the Northeast Army and other local armies, it can be said that most of the domestic combatable troops at that time were concentrated on the southeast coast. The casualties in the battle were also extremely large, basically more than half of the casualties of each division, with a total of about 300,000 casualties, including 1 dead commander, 2 deputy division commanders, 10 brigade commanders, 28 regimental commanders, and 44 battalion commanders.
The Japanese army also drank the blood, and invested nine divisions in the Songhu area, including the 3rd, 11th, 6th, 9th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 101st, and 114th divisions, as well as 2 detachments of Kunisaki and Shigeto, plus more than 30 naval ships and 390 combat aircraft. During the battle, several elite divisions of the Japanese army also suffered heavy casualties, with a total casualty of about 60,000 people, including more than 11,000 casualties of the 9th Division and more than 15,000 casualties of the 101st Division. This battle also left unforgettable memories for the Japanese side, half a century later, many Japanese veterans came to China to hang on the old battlefield, Luodian, Baoshan, Yangxing, Suzhou Creek, Dachang these are the places they must go.
The total number of troops invested by the Chinese side in the Battle of Songhu cannot be said to be superior, but due to strategic and tactical errors and the gap between the quality of the army and the Japanese army, especially the naval strength is too weak to compete for sea supremacy, and China's coastline is too long, relying solely on the army to defend it cannot be defended, which fundamentally determines that this battle cannot be won. For example, the turning point of the Battle of Songhu was the japanese landing in Hangzhou Bay, Jinshanwei, which exposed the flanks of the Shanghai defenders and was in danger of being surrounded and annihilated by the Japanese army, which had to retreat from Shanghai after 3 months of bloody fighting. It was also in order to block the landing of the Japanese army that a commander of the Chinese army was killed, becoming the second commander to die since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
On November 5, 1937, the Japanese naval fleet escorted the 6th and 18th Divisions and the Kunisaki Detachment to land in Hangzhou Bay, along the Jinshan Wei directly attacked Songjiang and Jiaxing, intended to encircle the Songhu area of the Chinese heavy army group. At this time, the Chinese army defending in the direction of Hangzhou Bay had less than one regiment, and the situation was very critical. Zhang Fakui, commander-in-chief of the Right Wing Front, was in a hurry to grasp and ordered the 67th Army, which had just arrived in Shanghai, to advance lightly and hold Songjiang for three days to cover the retreat of the main force in Shanghai.
The 67th Army was a member of the Northeast Army, with more than 20,000 troops from the 107th Division and the 108th Division, and its commander, Wu Keren, was 44 years old at the time, a native of Ning'an County, Jilin Province (now Heilongjiang Province). After receiving the order, Wu Keren immediately led his army to Songjiang to deploy. The Japanese army, supported by heavy artillery and air force, took turns to launch a fierce attack, and the 67th Army hastily occupied the front-line positions of Lee Ta Hui, Jin Hebang, and Deshenggang, desperately holding on to it and resisting the enemy with blood.
In the fierce battle until November 9, the 67th Army repeatedly fought with the enemy, and the positions were lost several times, and the casualties reached two-thirds. Wu Keren judged that his army was no longer able to fight anymore, and had completed the task of blocking the enemy for three days, so he issued a retreat order that night. At this time, Songjiang had fallen into the hands of the Japanese army, the remnants of the 67th Army broke through separately, and Wu Keren led the headquarters to lose contact with the main force.
On the morning of November 10, Wu Keren and the command personnel rushed to the Wusong River, because the bridge had been blown up by Japanese aircraft, there was no ferry, and there was an enemy pursuit, so all the personnel risked wading across the river. Just when he was in vain, he was strafed by the enemy machine guns on the shore, and Wu Keren's body was shot several times in the river, and his body was washed away by the water.
General Wu Keren was martyred heroically, becoming the second military commander to die after Hao Mengling, who was killed in the Battle of Xinkou, and he was the pride of the people of Ning'an! Regrettably, because the superiors received inaccurate information, they mistakenly believed that Wu Keren led the troops to surrender to the enemy, and they were punished without verification, and the deeds of the officers and men of the 67th Army in fighting a bloody and strong enemy were also annihilated. It was not until 45 years later that General Wu was cleared of the dirt and was posthumously recognized as a martyr of the War of Resistance.