In the 1970s, South Korea published a history of the Korean War as a textbook for the Korean Army Officer School.
This is a book with a very strong subjective stance, and in writing examples of South Korea's wars with other countries, it always tries to exaggerate the losses of the other side and its own gains.
However, there is a chapter in the book that seems quite unusual, that is, in the fifth campaign against the United States and Aid Korea, the Twentieth Army of the Volunteer Army completely defeated the two main divisions of the Third Army of the Roksmen Army, which eventually led to the dissolution of the entire army.
The book does not cover up the fiasco with a casualty rate of 92%, but is truthfully written into this history of the war.
This incident began on May 16, 1951, when the 20th Army of the Volunteer Army, led by its commander Zhang Yixiang, broke through the Zhaoyang River in one fell swoop and immediately plunged into the Five Horse Ridges, thus successfully severing the connection between the Rok army's Seventh Division and its third and ninth divisions.
Zhang Yixiang waved the battle flag, and with the coordination of the Fifth Army of the People's Army, prepared to surround the Han Third Division and the Han Ninth Division to "wrap dumplings."
When Liu Zaixing, the commander of the Rok Army's Third Army, saw that two of his main divisions were surrounded, he was greatly alarmed by the situation and decided to quickly retreat south.
However, the invincible US military, which was above the ROK army, rejected the proposal of the ROK headquarters for the withdrawal of the three corps to the south, demanding that they absolutely not allow the southward withdrawal no matter what happened.
Just a short day later, the volunteer army successively conquered Gary Peak and Wuma Ridge, which meant that the main resistance line of the Rok army was completely broken.
Seeing that the situation was critical, the commanders of the Han Third Division and the Han Ninth Division no longer asked the US side for instructions, and successively issued orders for the troops to withdraw to the south.
Liu Zaixing was horrified, he did not expect that the situation would be so uncontrollable. What was particularly unbelievable to him was that the volunteer army had conquered the strategic position of Wuma Ridge in only three or four hours at night when the terrain was unfamiliar!
However, until this time, Liu Zaixing still had illusions, believing that the han third division and the han ninth division were still in place, and that the support of two artillery battalions should be able to break through.
To this end, Liu Zaixing personally flew to meet the two division commanders, agreed on a breakthrough route, returned to the regimental headquarters, and then sent planes to airdrop a batch of supplies and shells at them.
Han Third Division and Han Ninth Division began to break through as planned that night, but the result was so bad that it was far beyond their imagination.
Originally, it was the 30th Regiment of the Han Ninth Division that arranged for the first to break through, but unexpectedly, the 3rd Battalion of the 29th Regiment rushed to preemptive action, which attracted fierce shelling from the volunteers and disrupted their entire plan.
Under the intensive artillery fire, the regiments and battalions of the ROK army were completely disrupted and scattered, and they each took the road and fled, and the scene was extremely chaotic.
The Thirty Regiment of the Ninth Han Division did not know these circumstances and was still foolishly waiting for the division headquarters to issue an attack order. But until a long time after the original time, they still did not receive any instructions and could only hold their ground.
Seeing that the situation was so chaotic, Han Sanjiu's division realized that it was no longer possible to break through according to the original plan, so it accepted the advice of the US advisers and withdrew to the front line of Fangtai Mountain with the remnants.
Unexpectedly, they ran to Fangtai Mountain to take a look, only to find that the terrain there was not suitable for stationing at all, but it was easy to be trapped by the volunteer army.
This remnant of the army was in a state of chaos and completely fell into a bad state of no command and no order, most of the officers of the ROK army ripped off their ranks and other symbols, and the soldiers all acted in pairs of threes and threes, becoming a mess.
At dusk on May 18, the Rok army retreated to the vicinity of Sanjuli and Guangyuanli, still at a loss.
By the 19th, these defeated troops were even more chaotic, no officers stood up to command, no soldiers were willing to obey the command, and they all turned around like headless flies.
By this time they had run out of food, the soldiers were very hungry but had nothing to eat, and many starved to death on the mountain. Some people couldn't stand it and dug wild vegetables and picked wild fruits on the mountain to eat.
Unexpectedly, they are not good at digging wild vegetables, and some people have died by eating poisonous wild vegetables by mistake. After this small probability event occurred, the defeated army fell into an even more desperate mood.
Before the start of the war, the Han Third Division and the Han Ninth Division, as the two main divisions of the Third Army of the Rok Army, originally had a strength of more than 23,000 people. So, how many men were left in these two divisions after this rout?
These figures are clearly recorded in the "History of the Korean War" compiled by the Rok Military itself, and can be said to be unabashed:
Only 727 men remained in the Han 3rd Division, including: 149 men from the division headquarters, 40 men from the 18th Regiment, 94 men from the 22nd Regiment, 69 men from the 23rd Regiment, and 15 men from the 11th Artillery Battalion;
There were only 1323 men left in the Han Ninth Division, including 236 men from the division headquarters, 181 men from the 28th Regiment, 426 men from the 29th Regiment, 500 men from the 30th Regiment, and 80 men from the 30th Artillery Battalion.
By this time only 2,050 men remained in these two main divisions, in other words, their casualty rate had reached a staggering 92%!
In fact, the Han army itself was no longer entangled in accurate figures, so the Han Third Division and the Han Ninth Division had been completely destroyed, and the arrangements they made subsequently could only be described as desperate.
Kim Jong-woo, commander of the Han Third Division, who was originally regarded as the "star of hope" of the Rok army, was dismissed from his post because of this rout.
Although the Han Ninth Division retained its structure, it was assigned to the US Third Division and became the most unpopular vassal army.
The Third Army was originally a corps that the US military focused on "training", not only carefully trained by the US army, but also fully equipped with American equipment, but did not expect to be so vulnerable to the battlefield.
Such a disastrous defeat by the ROK army was unacceptable to the US army, and they simply announced the disbandment of the ROK Third Army and revoked its name.
As a war history written by The Koreans themselves, the "History of the Korean War" has a tone when talking about the Korean (fresh) war, that is, to highlight the achievements of the Rok army as much as possible and exaggerate the losses of the Chinese and DPRK armies, but for the fact that the Han Third Division and the Han Ninth Division were completely crushed by the volunteer army and the casualty rate was as high as 92%, it was still written into its war history.
Why? Because the defeat of Han Third Division and Han Ninth Division was so miserable that even the entire legion was disbanded, how could they fool others? They also figured it out, simply no longer engaged in any "Spring and Autumn Brushwork", honestly written in the history of the war, otherwise how to explain the disbandment of the Third Army?