What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
From October 14 to November 25, 1952, the Chinese Volunteer Army and the "United Nations Army" fought a famous battle in and around Shangganling, known as the Battle of Shangganling.
What is less well known is that in this 3.7 square kilometer area, the intensity of artillery fire has exceeded the highest level of World War II, how did the volunteer army achieve the final victory when the weapons were completely backward?
I. Why did the US military hit Ganling? Whose cards will Operation Showdown berth?
By 1952, the belligerents in the Korean battlefield had entered a late stalemate, the United States-led coalition army suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, and the war-weariness in the United States was high, so there was a tendency to negotiate with the Chinese army.
The original idea of the United States was to take a military advantage in the Korean theater and to show its strength to the volunteers in order to maximize the benefits at the negotiating table.
Since entering October, the Americans have found that the situation on the Korean battlefield is getting wider and wider behind their expectations, and the volunteer army has gradually gained the initiative in ground operations.
At this moment, the Americans could not sit still, and the most anxious person was Van Vleet, the commander of the United Nations forces stationed in South Korea.
He hurriedly wrote to Clark, the commander of the U.S. Army in the Far East, in an attempt to persuade Clark to agree to the battle plan of the U.S. Ninth Army.
It turned out that In order to reverse the decline of the US army in the Korean battlefield, Van Vliet thought of a three-way trick, that is, to attack the volunteer army through a small group of troops, in a vain attempt to make the volunteer army fall into a situation of exhaustion of defense.
VanVleet named the military operation "Operation Showdown," which he envisioned would greatly ease the defensive pressure on the defensive line north of Jinhua.
In this way, the 598 heights and the 537.7 highlands have become the primary targets that the US military wants to conquer, and the US military hopes to solve the constraints through World War I, and then maximize its firepower superiority.
So would Commander Clark of the Far East agree to VanVleet's battle plan?
This brings us to Clark, who commanded the Allied Fifth Army at the Battle of Cassino, not how well Clark was, but what really made Clark famous was that his Fifth Army suffered more than 90 percent of allied casualties in this battle.
In addition to his few achievements in command, Clark was a popular man, and in order to be able to hold press conferences in Rome, Clark did not even pursue the retreating German army.
VanVleet's battle plan was undoubtedly one that, if successful, would put Clark in the limelight, and Clark was naturally reluctant to give up on such an opportunity, although he had always opposed the risky operation of taking the high ground.
On October 8, 1952, Clark approved VanVleet's "Showdown Plan", which only took 6 days in the US military's conception and only needed to pay 200 casualties to achieve strategic purposes.
Second, the US 7th Division kicked off the offensive, and the combat plan of the small unit unit was completely bankrupt
On the one hand, the US army, which claims to be the strongest army in the world after the baptism of World War II, and on the other hand, the new Chinese army, which only ended the domestic war shortly after coming from the War of Resistance, what will be the result of the collision between them?
Regardless of the final result, what the U.S. military never expected was that their so-called "showdown plan" had been leaked before it was implemented.
It turned out that before the war, a staff officer of the Han Second Division directly defected to the volunteer army and brought a complete "showdown plan" combat plan, and the volunteer army made full preparations after learning of the battle plan.
At 4 o'clock on October 14, 1952, the U.S. army under the cover of 320 large-caliber artillery, 47 tanks, and more than 50 aircraft began to attack the defensive positions of the Volunteer 15th Army, of which the 597.9 and 537.7 heights on the front of the Five Holy Mountains were "specially cared for" by the US army.
Shells landed on these two high ground at a rate of 6 rounds per second, and although our volunteer soldiers had anticipated the battle plan of the American army, such a dense shell attack still surprised the volunteer soldiers.
Because the artillery bombardment of the US army was too intensive, the soldiers guarding the Shangganling area were almost cut off from the military headquarters of the Fifteenth Army, and the battle lasted for one day, and Qin Jiwei, as the commander of the Fifteenth Army, only knew that several highlands such as 597.9 and 537.7 were covered by American artillery fire, but the specific situation was not yet known.
However, the U.S.-Rok coalition forces did not wait until the volunteers fully understood the situation before launching an attack, and the United States took advantage of the artillery fire to attack the volunteer positions.
The first to bear the brunt was the Volunteers at Outpost 11 on Hill 597.9, and after repelling four American charges, only one squad of the position was guarded, and the position fell.
After that, the Volunteers organized forces to retake Position 11, but because the American firepower was too strong, the Volunteers never succeeded.
With the further suppression of American fire, Positions 2 and 7 were captured one after another, leaving only the most important position, Position 9.
The Volunteers were like a nail firmly nailed to Position 9, and the Thirty-first and Thirty-second Regiments of the Seventh Division of the United States Army took turns to attack, and they could not capture Position 9 until dusk, and the second and third battalions of the Thirty-first Regiment had been crippled.
At the same time, a similar scene occurred on the 537.7 height, where the Rokse 2nd Division attacked the Volunteers with the advantage of American firepower.
After more than 7 hours of fierce fighting, our volunteer army was outnumbered, the main position of The 537.7 Heights was captured by the Roks, and more than half of the surface positions were also lost to the enemy.
On the 16th and 17th, the offensive of the US-ROK coalition army was unabated, and the officers and men of our volunteer army repeatedly competed with the positions of the US-ROK army, and passive beating was not the style of the volunteer army, and a counterattack war was brewing inside the volunteer army.
3. In the battle for the 597.9 heights, the Forty-fifth Division cast the soul of the army with blood
On October 19, 1952, the 15th Volunteer Corps concentrated 44 heavy artillery pieces and 1 Katyusha Rocket Artillery Regiment to counterattack the Roks on Hill 537.7, and it took only twenty minutes to retake all positions and inflict heavy damage on the ROK 32nd Regiment.
The next step was to counterattack the enemy at Heights 597.9, but this time the opponent became the American Army, and the volunteers could easily take the position?
The eighth company of the 134th Regiment of the 45th Division was the first to compete for positions, and the 134th Regiment's leading unit lived up to expectations and successively captured Positions 1 and 3.
The Eighth Company encountered great trouble when seizing position No. 9, and due to the terrain, the artillery of the Volunteer Army was difficult to effectively strike at the main bunker of the American army in position No. 9, and the attack was once forced to stop.
When everyone was at a loss, the Eighth Company Miao warrior Long Shichang volunteered to rush to the enemy army with a blasting canister, and before approaching the bunker, a shell directly broke his left leg, and Long Shichang approached the main bunker with severe pain, and with his chest against the blast canister, he died with the enemy in position No. 9.
The Eighth Company managed to retake Position 9 after Long Shichang paid the price of his life, while the Sixth Company of the 135th Regiment also attacked in the other direction.
In this battle, the six companies paid a huge price to capture positions 5 and 6, and the remaining personnel were not enough to continue the attack, so they had to hand over to the fifth company and the second platoon.
Will the fifth company and the second platoon be able to successfully capture position 4 that the sixth company did not capture?
After a fierce battle, the fifth company and the second platoon successfully captured position 4, and only position 0 was in front of them, which was also the most important position.
Position 0 must be taken before dawn", this is the death order given by Cui Jiangong, commander of the 45th Division, to the second platoon of the fifth company and the sixth company, otherwise the enemy will use the last position of No. 0 to counterattack after dawn.
After doing their best, the volunteers still failed to capture the most difficult position 0, and at this time, wan Fulai, the commander of the sixth company, had nothing to do, because there was not a single combatant around him to send.
At this moment, huang Jiguang, Wu Sanyang, and Xiao Dengliang, correspondents of the Sixth Company, asked the three of them to blow up the US bunker on position 0, and Zhang Guangsheng did not hesitate to agree to the request of the three after hearing about it.
The three men's operation went very smoothly at first, and the enemy's two sub-forts were quickly blown up, leaving only the last main fort.
Things did not go as smoothly as before, in front of this main fort, Wu Sanyang was sacrificed, Xiao Dengliang was seriously injured, and the rest of the burden completely fell on Huang Jiguang alone.
Time did not allow Huang Jiguang to think more, he continued to rush to the main fort with explosives, on the way to approach the main fort Huang Jiguang was already hit by bullets, he still stubbornly climbed to the main fort and threw explosives into it.
But the main fort was too strong, Huang Jiguang's explosives blew up one of the corners, and Huang Jiguang, who had no weapons, decided to block the enemy's machine gun hole with his own body, making a final contribution to the troops to capture Position 0.
The enemy's bullets continued to hit Huang Jiguang's body, and the comrades who saw this scene were blinded, and after a fierce charge, position 0 was taken back, which meant that the 597.9 and 537.7 highlands were all returned to our army.
The 45th Division, which had just retaken the 597.9 and 537.7 heights, did not have time to celebrate, and found that it was already dawn, and American aircraft and heavy artillery once again covered the two heights.
At dusk on the 20th, after a day and a night of fighting, the officers and men of our army were already exhausted, and the follow-up reinforcements were blocked, so they had no choice but to abandon their superficial positions and retreat into the underground tunnels to resist.
At this time, the casualties of the 45th Division had exceeded 3500, the 134th Regiment and the 135th Regiment only had a total of 200 or 300 people left, and the whole division no longer had a complete formed battalion, but the 45th Division fought the soul of the Chinese army in the first battle.
The fourth and 15th and 12th armies counterattacked, and the Battle of Shangganling ended in the victory of our army
After ten days of tunnel combat, the Volunteer Army successfully eliminated 2,000 enemy troops by using night attacks, and the Forty-fourth Division, which later joined the battlefield, also successfully annihilated more than 4,000 enemy troops.
In view of the ripeness of the counteroffensive, our volunteer army decided to carry out a comprehensive counteroffensive on the ground positions occupied by the US army on the 30th.
Previously, the US army had built a complete firepower system on the occupied high ground of 597.9, and then handed it over to the Han 2nd Division for guarding, and the Han 2nd Division deployed the strength of four divisions on the high ground where only two companies could be stationed to prevent the attack of our volunteer army.
At noon, our volunteers, under the cover of 133 large-caliber artillery pieces and 30 120 mm heavy mortars, launched an attack on the 597.9 heights where the ROK army was stationed, and the shelling lasted for four hours.
After successfully suppressing the artillery fire of the ROK army, our army took advantage of the situation to organize troops to compete for the 597.9 heights, and after several hours of fighting, the four companies guarding the 597.9 heights were completely destroyed, and the main peak and several key points were returned to the hands of our army.
On the 31st, the 32nd Regiment of the ROK Army and the US army gathered forces to counterattack the 597.9 heights, and the 45th Division of the 15th Army fought against it, and the battle lasted a total of 9 hours, and the US-ROK coalition army withdrew in a hurry after leaving more than 1500 corpses.
Our volunteers took advantage of the situation to retake the remaining positions on Hill 597.9, but the 45th Division itself paid a huge price, and the remaining troops could no longer fully defend all the positions.
It was then the turn of the 31st Division of the 12th Army to take the stage, and after taking over the 7 positions that the 45th Division was guarding weakly, the 31st Division quickly engaged the Americans.
At 4:00 p.m. on November 1, the ROK army captured position No. 10, but then our volunteer army was retaken by the 91st Regiment and the Eight Companies of the Company.
On November 4, Li Changsheng, commander of the Ninety-first Regiment of the Twelfth Army, after observing the offensive pattern of the US troops for several days, concluded that the US troops might be secretly assembling somewhere, and Li Changsheng wanted to take advantage of the gathering period to catch the US troops off guard.
After learning the exact location of the U.S. army, our artillery unit concentrated on attacking the U.S. troops, and under the First World War, the U.S. troops suffered heavy casualties and had to temporarily suspend the offensive.
On November 14, the 31st Division launched a comprehensive counterattack against the incoming enemy at The 537.7 Heights, and due to the strong offensive of the United States and South Korea, our army invested 5 battalions plus a company, but still did not hold all the positions.
The 106th Regiment of the 34th Division then urgently replaced the 93rd Regiment and defended the 537.7 highland position, and less than 3 hours after the arrival of the 106th Regiment, the US-ROK coalition once again launched an attack.
On the evening of the 19th, the 106th Regiment guarding Hill 537.7 suffered heavy losses, and Position 6 was captured by the United States and South Korea.
The next day, the 106th Regiment again fought for Position 6, and finally recaptured Position 6.
In the following days, the US-ROK coalition forces continued to attack the positions of our army, and the two positions on the front of The 537.7 Heights were finally captured by the US and ROK forces.
On November 25, 1952, the 106th Regiment successfully completed its mission to hand over The 537.7 Heights to the Twenty-ninth Division, and the Battle of Shangganling ended with the success of our volunteer army.
The two sides invested more than 100,000 troops in the Battle of Shangganling, of which the United States and South Korea suffered 15,000 casualties, and our army also paid the price of 11,500 people, and the victory in the Battle of Shangganling further accelerated the process of ending the Korean War, making the US military abandon its unrealistic illusions at the negotiating table.
UnJung Clarke said in frustration in his memoirs: "The Kinhua Offensive was a cruel gamble to save face, and I think the operation was a failure." The Battle of Shangganling completely lost the confidence of the US-ROK coalition, and the results of this campaign profoundly affected the fate of Korea, South Korea, China, and the United States, and were praised by later people as "the founding battle of New China."