The handling of the seriously injured has always been very troublesome. If the front line is relatively stable, it can also be sent to the field hospital in the rear for treatment, but if it is encountered with the enemy in a sudden march, or is defeated by the opponent, there will often be a situation where the wounded are evacuated in a hurry before it is too late, and these seriously wounded will become prisoners of the opponent, or be directly killed by the enemy.
For example, in the Battle of Songhu, when the initial appearance was relatively stable, basically the seriously wounded could be sent to the field hospital for treatment, but at that time, the field hospital of the Nationalist army had limited treatment level, so most of the seriously injured finally died. Only more senior officers could survive if they were wounded and sent to a better hospital in the rear for treatment as soon as possible. The senior officers injured in the Battle of Songhu were mainly treated in hospitals run by foreign churches in Shanghai.
From the Soviet zone to the period of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, if our army fought against the enemy under the condition of having a solid rear base area, most of the seriously wounded could be sent to the rear for treatment in time, especially important cadres, who could be treated as much as possible. This is also an important reason why soldiers are generally reluctant to leave the base areas to carry out operations without rear, because there is no rear, so once they are wounded, especially after being seriously injured, they can often only be placed in the homes of the masses, which means that they have since left the revolutionary ranks, and after the enemy has called, they are easily hunted down and killed.
In 1948, su Yu calculated the account when he was "bold and straight" to the order of the central government to cross the river to the south, and an important aspect was that because after the leap to Jiangnan, there was no rear combat, so every time the light and seriously wounded in the battle could only be placed on the spot, and could not be taken away, it would cause the absolute attrition of the troops, and this kind of attrition was a pity. Su Yu had experienced this situation before when he led his troops to fight in the Moganshan area in the late stage of the War of Resistance. Therefore, Su Yu believed that instead of separating from the liberated areas and conducting a rearless operation, it would be better to fight in Jiangbei, because in a big battle in Jiangbei, our army can kill at least three enemy casualties.
This situation was particularly serious during the Long March, because it was a strategic shift away from the Central Soviet Region, so there was no rear combat at all, and the light and heavy casualties in each battle were reduced by themselves, and if they could not act on their own, they could only be resettled on the spot, resulting in a large number of combat attritions. Therefore, almost all the places where the Red Army experienced combat along the way were placed with some wounded. I once had a colleague whose grandfather was an old Red Army soldier and a native of Hunan, but he lived in Zunyi, Guizhou, that is, he followed the long march team to Zunyi, was wounded during the battle, and then left the team after being resettled on the spot, and after recovering from his injuries, he lived in the local area and did not return to Hunan.
During the Long March, a unit of the First Army served as a rear guard in the rear, and was also responsible for accommodating the wounded and sick who had fallen behind in the front. But because the conditions were very difficult when crossing the meadows, there was no food or clothing, food was particularly strained, and medicine was lacking, and a seriously wounded person needed at least two soldiers to carry, which seriously affected the speed of the march. As a result, several cadres of the First Army took matters into their own hands and killed several seriously wounded. This incident was also an important reason for the tension between the cadres of the First Army and the cadres of the Three Corps.
In most cases during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, as long as the time was still in time, the Japanese army would take away the wounded and sick as much as possible and then send them to the rear field hospital for treatment. Not only that, but the Japanese army will cut off the ears and fingers of the fallen officers and soldiers as much as possible, and gather the bodies to burn or bury them, and then retreat. However, in the case of defeat, when the emperor retreats, it is also too late to take away the seriously injured, and can only be dealt with on the spot, in fact, it is directly burned or killed. For example, after the Battle of Changde, when the Nationalist army pursued, it was found that a small Japanese army gathered dozens of seriously wounded people in a house, ready to burn to death, just when the Nationalist army came, the Japanese army retreated in a hurry, and the Nationalist army saved these Japanese wounded.
In the later period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, because of the shortage of Japanese soldiers, a large number of ordinary people were recruited to participate in the war, so the war-weariness of the common people was relatively heavy, and their combat effectiveness and combat quality were not as good as those of the old devils in the early days of the War of Resistance. Similarly, in the early stage of the war, because the Japanese army fought relatively smoothly, there were not too many cases of abandoning the seriously wounded, and in the later period, the combat effectiveness and combat quality of the Japanese army were seriously reduced, the discipline when retreating was relatively poor, and the abandonment of the seriously wounded was also relatively large, at least much more than in the early days of the war. This is also the reason why some japanese veterans later opposed the war.
On the Korean battlefield, the U.S. military soon discovered that the volunteers were well disciplined and indeed gave preferential treatment to prisoners. Therefore, when the US army was repelled by the volunteer army and forced to retreat, if it was too late to take away the wounded, it would take the initiative to carry the wounded out of the original hidden place, put them in a more conspicuous place on the side of the road, and take the initiative to send them to the volunteers for treatment. Ridgway's memoirs also acknowledge that the Volunteers did very well in dealing with prisoners of war and american wounded, and that the Volunteers often conserve their own rations to feed prisoners and captured wounded.