On September 15, 1950, MacArthur led the multinational "United Nations Army" to land at Inchon, and with the arrival of the United Nations army, the Korean People's Army, which had been marching all the way, was cut off and the war situation took a sharp turn.
The Korean People's Army, which had been going all the way south, did not get a timely rest due to the long-term fighting, and under the attack of the South Korean army and the "United Nations Army" from the north to the south, the morale of the army was instantly destroyed, and it retreated all the way north. MacArthur saw that the Combat Strength of the Korean People's Army was no more than that, relying on sophisticated weapons and equipment, great superiority in the navy and air force, and fast and efficient troop carrying capacity, and quickly advanced the troops to the thirty-eighth parallel north.
On October 24, 1950, MacArthur ordered the "United Nations Army" to cross the "38th Line" in the east and west to advance toward the Yalu River, eliminating the Korean People's Army, occupying the entire Korean Peninsula, and boasting that Haikou would end the war before Thanksgiving. That is, to eliminate North Korea within 1 month, the last time it was Japan who said so, when they said that they would destroy China in three months, and the United States in six months, and the end was to be punched in the face. Judging from the results of the future battle, this time the United States' face is also crackling.
After receiving MacArthur's orders, the "United Nations Army" and the South Korean army rushed northward with a desperate effort, and everyone wanted to be the first to reach the Yalu River, so that in front of MacArthur, a five-star general, he could show the excellence of his troops, and it was also a capital to brag to his family and friends on his return home in the future.
Except for the sporadic defeat of the Korean People's Army, this road did not encounter large-scale and organized blockades, and the "United Nations Army" marched northward rapidly in a car and singing songs.
And was MacArthur's marching so rushed really a rush? Of course not. According to MacArthur's ideas, the troops quickly marched to the Yalu River, using heavy weapons to block all passages into Korea, preventing the Soviet Union, and even more to prevent China from sending troops to reinforce North Korea.
Then he turned around and swung his division south, attacking the Korean People's Army from north to south. But macArthur still did not know that the People's Volunteers had secretly entered North Korea on October 19 and were ambushing in the mountains of northern Korea, waiting for the arrival of the "United Nations Army" at any time.
Sure enough, the first unlucky egg appeared, and on October 25, the 7th Regiment of the 6th South Korean Division used its familiarity with the terrain to punctuate the ancient field 15 kilometers from the Yalu River. Although the Seventh Regiment was a South Korean force, the commander of this force was an American.
After the landings at Inchon, MacArthur also found that the combat effectiveness of the South Korean army was low, and most of the officers were not in use in the "flower pillow". MacArthur assigned some of the officers in the U.S. army to serve as military advisers in the South Korean army, and the so-called ministers of the upper state could be the lords of the current state.
The military advisers who came to the South Korean army basically became the actual commanders of the South Korean troops, and the military advisers of the 7th Regiment were Army Major Fleming, who graduated from the West Point Military Academy.
After graduating from military school in 1942, Fleming was sent to Pearl Harbor, and after the end of World War II, Fleming returned to the United States, married and had children, and inherited a 180-acre manor. With the outbreak of the Korean War, Fleming was transferred to Korea thousands of miles away by a military order.
When the troops arrived at the ancient field, Fleming sent forward troops to the town of Chushan on the yalu River for reconnaissance, and after learning that there were no Korean troops stationed around the town of Chushan, the next day Fleming led a reinforced platoon and drove to the town of Chushan, Fleming looked at the frozen Yalu River, and thought that he was the first American to come here, and he couldn't help but be excited.
People will be so excited that they will not know that the sky is high and the ground is thick, and when Fleming stepped on the ice surface of the Yalu River and faced the territory of new China on the other side of the river, he actually ordered the artillery troops in the rear to shell the north bank of the border line. This blatant provocation soon reached the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, and just as the so-called ten thousand years were too long to fight for the day, the Counterattack of the Volunteer Army came at once.
Just as Fleming was leaving some of his forces behind on the Yalu River and returning to Guchang with the rest of his troops, he received a call from the headquarters of the 6th Division informing him to quickly retreat south, and that the troops behind the 7th Regiment had been defeated by the volunteers.
Hearing this news, Fleming instantly woke up from the excitement he had just experienced, and if the army behind him was defeated, wouldn't the 7th Regiment be almost surrounded?
Fleming immediately ordered the 7th Regiment to move south, but he received a ridiculous answer, "The car is out of gas!!! "Because the whole regiment rushed to the Yalu River, the battle line was stretched too long, the logistics supply unit did not keep up, and let the remnants of the troops behind the troops retreat south, plus all the way to the front of the refueling, the fuel tanks all bottomed out.
Fleming immediately called the U.S. military to request the airdrop of gasoline and other necessary strategic supplies, and the U.S. troops, who had been living for a long time, knew that they were in danger, preferred to wait for the supplies in situ rather than move south quickly on two legs.
Looking at the side of the volunteer army, when Commander Peng Dehuai heard that the 7th Regiment actually shelled the north bank of the border line, it was intolerable, and Peng Dehuai ordered the 118th Division to surround the 7th Regiment and annihilate them all, and the order had only four words: "One does not stay."
The 118th Division, which received the order, traveled lightly and briefly, and rushed 300 miles in the mountains for two days and nights, forming a complete encirclement of the 7th Regiment. The 7th Regiment, which could have escaped, waited for two days in the ancient field for the supplies they needed, and finally the Next Day the U.S. Army airdropped 45 barrels of gasoline, more than 200 shells and other strategic materials for them.
But it was too late, the 7th Regiment was already surrounded by regiments, and the Americans wanted to use air superiority to open a path for the 7th Regiment, but they overestimated the combat capabilities of the South Korean army. A large part of the soldiers of these South Korean armies were captured by Zhuang Ding, and they had not undergone any kind of training at all, let alone the will to fight.
At the end of the battle, the artillery, tanks and other heavy weapons of the 7th Division were all captured, and less than 800 people escaped from a regiment of more than 3,000 people, and all the officers and military advisers were either killed or captured alive. This Major Fleming was truly a strange man, and Fleming was shot 15 times in the breakout, but he still survived, and was sent to the field hospital of the 118th Division by the volunteer soldiers who cleaned the battlefield.
The conditions of the volunteer hospital were very simple, and when the field doctor saw Fleming, who was full of holes, he only said, "No rescue, take it away." At this moment Fleming suddenly grabbed the doctor's wrist and spoke bird language like gossamer.
Later, after the translation, I realized that Fleming had been repeating: "Save me, I don't want to die, I have a wife at home, and a manor, save me." ”
This sentence is similar to the Chinese sentence "Good man spares his life, I have an 80-year-old mother on my side and a 3-year-old child below".
In accordance with the Geneva Conventions and a policy of preferential treatment of prisoners by our army, the volunteer medics operated on Fleming in a humble operating room, and Fleming, who was shot 15 times, miraculously survived.
When Fleming, who had recovered from his wounds, was transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp, and because the volunteers had rescued him from the brink of death, Fleming became the most cooperative prisoner of war in the camp, asking what to say, even if he did not ask, he gave all the information he knew about the American army and the South Korean army, and there was no concealment.
Fleming returned to the United States in 1953 in exchange for prisoners of war, and we can see from Fleming that we can still win this war when the weapons and equipment are far inferior to those of our opponents, that is, the will to fight of our volunteers is far superior to that of our opponents, and the volunteer soldiers can put their personal lives and deaths aside at a critical moment, and in their hearts there is only the interests of the country and the people.
We can block the enemy's gun hole with our flesh and blood, we can burn the body in flames and tattoos without moving, and we can hold the position with one person's strength for a day and a night and finally die with the enemy. No wonder General Ridgway once said in his later years: "If anyone wants to fight Chinese, it is a disease." ”