In February 1943, the Japanese army in Jiangsu dispatched the main forces of the 15th, 17th, and 35th Divisions and the 12th Independent Mixed Brigade, and with the cooperation of the 22nd, 28th, and 36th Divisions of the puppet army, as well as the 72nd Brigade, they carried out a large-scale sweep of the Yanfu Anti-Japanese Base Area created by the 3rd Division of our New Fourth Army, in an attempt to destroy our base area in one fell swoop and annihilate the main force of our army.
The Japanese army's clearance of the countryside was more diversified and more vicious than the sweeping
After occupying the town of Dongkan, the Japanese army invaded Badan, an important market town located northeast of Funing, twice in February 1943, but both were repelled by our army. On March 29, the Japanese army again sent More than 100 men and more than 300 puppet troops to Yamamoto Taro's squadron to set up a stronghold at Wangqiao, the town of Badan. In order to prevent the Japanese from establishing a stronghold at Eight Beaches, Huang Kecheng, commander of the 3rd Division of the New Fourth Army, telegraphed that the 24th Regiment must take advantage of the enemy's foothold and destroy the Eight Beaches stronghold.
Many Japanese strongholds were often built using fortified compounds
The 24th Regiment first conducted reconnaissance of the Badan stronghold and found that the Japanese army was very cunning, and arranged more than 300 puppet troops in the market town that could not be defended, while the Japanese army was stationed in the three tall courtyards of the Wangjia Oil Mill, which was less than 1 mile away from the town of Batan, which was surrounded by open land, could not be hidden, easy to defend and difficult to attack, in view of this situation, the regiment headquarters made careful planning and arrangements for how to attack the eight beaches.
Because many of the strongholds are in residential areas, the terrain is complex and it is not easy to attack
At 9:30 p.m. on March 30, 1943, our 24th Regiment launched an attack on the Japanese puppet army in Batan, the 1st Battalion first broke into the town of Badan, launched an attack on the puppet army with lightning speed, and annihilated most of the puppet army in just over 20 minutes, and only a few escaped; the 2nd Battalion attacked the Japanese stronghold from south to north, first occupying the Japanese artillery tower that had not yet been completed, forcing all the Japanese troops to retreat into the compound to die, and then the commando team of the 2nd Battalion directly smashed the Japanese squadron headquarters and blew up the radio and radio equipment. Cut off its communication with foreign aid. At this time, after occupying the town of Badan, the 1st Battalion also quickly advanced to the core japanese stronghold.
The Japanese army engaged our army in close combat
The Japanese army saw that the communication was cut off, and successively released a number of military carrier pigeons to report to the Dongkan stronghold, the Japanese puppet army in Dongkan then sent reinforcements, but in the middle of the road was blocked by our 3rd battalion and local troops, the advance could not be advanced, in order to get in touch with the reinforcements, the Japanese squadron commander Yamamoto personally led a squad to attack to the south, but by the river was attacked by my 2 companies, Yamamoto was killed on the spot, the Japanese army was forced to return to the stronghold after more than 20 casualties, with a strong compound desperately resisted, the battle was extremely fierce.
The New Fourth Army took advantage of the terrain to approach the Japanese puppet army strongholds
At midnight, the Japanese army launched a breakthrough again, and after being severely hit by our army, it retracted back to the compound, and then our army launched a fierce attack on 3 compounds, and after 1 hour of fierce fighting, the remaining Japanese troops were forced into a compound. After taking a political offensive to no avail, our army launched an attack on the compound, but the Japanese army was on the verge of death, and the troops who broke into the compound suffered heavy casualties, and after repeated battles, our army finally pressed the Japanese army into the houses in the northwest corner of the compound. The soldiers immediately made incendiary bombs on the spot, tied cotton dipped in kerosene to grenades and threw them into the compound, tied the cotton dipped in oil to long bamboo poles and threw them to the roof of the compound, the Japanese houses were quickly lit, the fire began to burn, the Japanese army could not hold on under the smoke and flames, and rushed out of the house desperately, but was repelled by the crossfire of our army's machine guns, screaming and screaming.
After the victory of the battle, the units of the New Fourth Army took a group photo to commemorate the occasion
After dawn, several Japanese planes arrived over Hattan, but the smoke from the burning fire made it impossible to see the battle lines between the two sides, so they had to circle for a while and return home in mourning. At 8:00 a.m. on March 31, our army finally conquered the Japanese stronghold and Wastan was liberated. In this battle, more than 80 people below the commander of the Japanese Yamamoto Squadron and a brigade of the puppet army were annihilated, more than 40 Type 38 rifles were captured, 48 commanders and fighters were sacrificed by our army, and more than 30 people were sacrificed by our local armed forces and anti-Japanese masses.