On December 15, 1950, nearly two months after the Chinese Volunteers entered Korea, the Volunteers achieved impressive results in the early stages of the war, and after two major battles, the Volunteers had retaken Pyongyang on December 5.
But on this very day, a telegram was placed in an office in the Kremlin of the Soviet Union, which belonged to Stalin, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the name of the telegram was "Report on the Combat Situation of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army", which was a report to Stalin by Colonel Gorachev, the military adviser of the Soviet Union in the People's Army.
This telegram was not a report on the successive victories of the volunteers, but a complaint was specifically filed against Stalin, and the person who complained was Marshal Peng Dehuai, commander-in-chief of the People's Volunteers. What did Peng Dehuai do on the battlefield, and Stalin actually began to compliment Peng Dehuai after careful study?
Colonel Gorachev's confusion -- why did Peng Dehuai show such a big flaw?
The volunteer army is facing a U.S. command system and its own never clashed with the U.S. army, although the initial stage has achieved certain achievements, but these victories also have the factor of American pride and arrogance, if the trade goes south, then it will certainly fall into an extremely difficult logistical supply, which has experienced Peng Zong's careful consideration, and Peng Zong also after a series of considerations, before arranging the troops step by step.
However, Colonel Gorachev, the Soviet adviser at the time, said to Stalin in a telegram: First, the volunteers did not organize a powerful assault in the weak points of the enemy, nor did they organize assault groups, in fact, the various armies attacked in their own independent directions, and even the strength and weapons were evenly distributed on the entire front.
Secondly, because there is no follow-up of the follow-up troops, that is, the "second echelon", the results achieved by the first echelon have not been further developed. Third, the frontal attack was also very unflinching, causing the U.S. military to retreat without the slightest resistance, and the U.S. military was able to redeploy. The last point is particularly noteworthy that the Volunteers halted their offensive at the most critical moment for the Americans.
This Soviet adviser was not an embroidered pillow on paper, he personally saw the defeat of the Un United Nations army by the volunteer army in the first battle, the battle of Cheongcheon River in the second battle and the ambush of the first marine division in Chosin Lake, the bravery of the volunteer army also left a deep impression on the Soviet colonel, Colonel Gorbachev actually clearly saw Peng Dehuai's "flaw", the most important flaw was that he wrote in the telegram that "all the armies are attacking in their own independent direction, the strength of the troops, Weapons are evenly distributed over the entire front. ”
He observed very carefully, but why was Marshal Peng Dehuai able to achieve a series of successes since there were so many "flaws" in the strategic arrangement? This is because although the Soviet colonel found this obvious flaw, the command must have known its deployment, and the map was hanging on the war room, and the Soviet colonel did not understand what Peng Dehuai wanted to do, this was Peng Dehuai's tactics, the tactics on the surface.
This is how Peng Dehuai played in the second campaign to resist the United States and aid Korea, there was no reserve, but it was necessary to use all its strength on the front line of the battlefield, because the formation of the US army at that time was like this, the reserve was very insufficient, and the rear was also empty, as long as the volunteer army could form a breakthrough, then victory was a matter of time.
However, there is another problem, that is, the problems faced by the volunteer army are the same as those faced by the US army, if the US army starts to counterattack, then the volunteer army also has no support troops, as long as the US army has formed a breakthrough, then the consequences are unimaginable, why should Marshal Peng Dehuai make a dangerous move?
These analyses by the Soviet colonel show that Peng Zong intends to fight hard with the US army and take great risks to fight the US army like a tightrope, which shows that Peng Zong already has a certain grasp in his heart, and that, with the situation of the volunteer army at that time, this battle can only be fought like this, and Peng Dehuai must make a perfect arrangement.
Second, the confrontation between the People's Volunteers and the US troops - the macro battlefield
The Soviet colonels saw Peng Dehuai's strategic intentions, and the then Lieutenant General of the American Army, then the commander of the Eighth Army, Walker, naturally saw it, so on November 25, 1950, the Volunteer Army launched a magnificent campaign under the leadership of Marshal Peng Dehuai, which was the "second battle" mentioned above.
Under the attack of the 50th Army, 66th Army, 39th Army, and 40th Army under the command of Peng Dehuai, the troops of the United Nations Army retreated one after another, including the US 24th Division, the British 27th Brigade, the ROK 1st Division, the US 25th Division, and the US 2nd Division.
According to the memories of the American military that later survived, what happened that night was really too strange, because just when the Chinese launched the attack, the South Korean army suddenly collapsed, it could not form a combat force at all, "there were Chinese everywhere" The US military was also panicked at that time, and the microphone and radio came not from a person's voice, but the sound of the soldiers who were calling was hit, and one soldier after another took the phone.
There was only one reason for all this, and that was that the Volunteers had beaten these American soldiers to pieces, could not even control the situation, and suffered heavy casualties, in which case the domino effect was triggered, and the barracks of one United Nations force after another were defeated.
Moreover, the American troops obviously did not have the experience of the Chinese troops, because at that time, in the process of fleeing, they needed to cross the Cheongcheon River, the water of the Cheongcheon River was not deep, at most only to the waist, daring them to make a fatal mistake: because the water was cold and bone-chilling at that time, they actually crossed the river directly in shorts.
Chinese volunteers have accumulated valuable experience in so many years of war, and during the Long March we knew that we needed to take off our clothes before crossing the river, so that the river water would not get wet and the body temperature could slowly dry the clothes. Moreover, the sapper pits dug by the volunteers made these American soldiers feel even more frightened, because the depth of these pits was almost exactly the same, and the size and specifications were all the same, which was a perfect square, like the work left by the landscape architect.
The Americans thought they could never do this, because they were often very casual when they dug their own pits, and they usually thought they had fire support that surpassed the enemy, and they became lazy, and the Korean People's Army could not do this.
At that time, the 38th Army of the Chinese Volunteer Army on the flank and the 42nd Army of the second roundabout force launched a strategic offensive at Tokugawa and Ningyuan. The Volunteer Army successfully defeated the 7th and 8th Divisions of the ROK Army, opening a breakthrough in this campaign. Then the 38th Army headed towardSokawa and Junyu-ri, while the 42nd Army marched toward Shunchuan, rapidly interspersed, and broke through toward the rear of the US Eighth Army, ready to deliver a fatal blow to the enemy.
What did Walker, commander of the U.S. Eighth Army, do at the time? He issued the following orders at that time: First, let the US First Army quickly retreat to the vicinity of Xin'an State, and the 25th Division of the former US Ninth Army was assigned to the US First Army. The Rokso Second Army was then placed under the command of the U.S. Ninth Army, and quickly adjusted its forces to secure the area from Sungcheon to the north of Yangdeok and cover the retreat of the group army to the area from Anju to Junyu-ri in order to seek a rear end. In addition, the 1st Cavalry Division of the Us Army Group was assigned to the 9th Army of the US Army, and the 1st Cavalry Division was assigned to the 29th Brigade of the British Army, and later the 27th Brigade of the British Army was added to ensure the safety of the area from Shunchuan to Kitakura-ri and cover the right side of the Army Group.
The last order, like a pure sacrifice of the Roks and the creation of some time for the troops, walker actually ordered the ROK Third Army to go north and join the battle. Why? Because throughout the Korean War, the volunteer army was basically ravaged by the early and late Korean troops, and even around 1952, the Rok army had a little combat effectiveness, but it was still not a substantial threat to the Chinese volunteer army.
We actually know the final result, we now look at the effect of Walker's order, originally the offensive formation of the US army was the 24th Division, the ROK 1st Division and the British 27th Brigade as the left wing, the US 25th Division and the 2nd Division as the center wing, and then, with the ROK 2nd Army as the right flank.
When the volunteers attacked, Walker merged the left, center, and right roads into two groups, of which the left group was handed over to the 24th and 25th Divisions of the US Army, as well as the Rok army's 1st Division, which were formed to block the attack of the 50th, 66th, and 39th units on the left side of the Volunteer Army.
At that time, the ROK First Division was responsible for blocking the volunteer attack in the south of Yongsan-dong, and they covered the retreat of the American troops.
The right group was composed of the U.S. 2nd Division, the Turkish Brigade, the 1st Cavalry Division, the British 29th and 27th Brigades, and the U.S. Airborne 187th Regiment Combat Team, which was specifically responsible for preventing the volunteers from attacking the flank rear.
Then, the U.S. Second Division was in the upper right corner, dealing with the large army of the Volunteer Army 40, and the Turkish brigade was responsible for blocking a very strong opponent, which was later known as the "Viva Army" of the Chinese Volunteer Army 38.
The remaining troops were all arranged in the area of Shunchuan, Xincangli and Beicangli, that is, to let all the remaining troops return to reinforce the Forty-second Army of the People's Liberation Army, which was all the strength that the Eighth Army could use.
On all the other fronts, Walker used the fewest troops to do the most, and they used the strength of a division, that is, about ten thousand people, to fight thirty or forty thousand people in an army of the volunteer army, but the last move was to annihilate the 42nd Army of the volunteer army with more than 80,000 troops.
Why did he use so many troops against these troops of General Peng Dehuai? This was because at that time, Shunchuan was just below the area of Junyu-ri, and if the US Second Division could not resist the fierce attack of the volunteer army, it could always call for help and respond flexibly, so that everyone was caught off guard.
Similarly, because General Walker knew that Peng Dehuai had deployed his troops on the front line and had no useful reserves in his hands, as long as these troops defeated the 42nd Army, the troops of the American army in the lower right could quickly carry out reinforcements, counter-encircle the volunteers, and put the volunteers in danger.
These strategies of the US military can indeed be called good, but their opponent is the Chinese Volunteer Army commanded by Marshal Peng Dehuai. Just like a chess player, the master duel is between the differences in the milliseconds, Peng Dehuai directly changed his moves and changed his strategy!
Peng Dehuai directly ordered the 113th Division to directly attack Sansholi, which meant that a steel nail was embedded in the US army, so that the two groups of the US army could not bridge the communication, which also meant that the connection between the two groups was directly cut off, and this change of tactic caught the US army by surprise, which directly led to the retreat of the US army to the vicinity of the 38th line, which was later called "the biggest fiasco in the history of the US Army" by the Americans.
This is also the reason why Stalin reprimanded Colonel Gorlachev, after seeing the telegram, Stalin vigorously praised Peng Dehuai's art of command, and also ordered the telegram Gorrachev to return home, Stalin complimented Peng Dehuai as a modern military genius, this is really deserved, Stalin's words are recorded in the Declassified documents of the Russian Archives during the Korean War, absolutely true.
3. Epilogue
Their defeat seems to have been traced long ago, and according to later historical data, it was on this day, within the defensive zone of the 8th Army, that The famous Major General Lawrence Kaiser, then commander of the Second Infantry Division, summoned all the generals to a very special military meeting, at which Kaiser said with great vigour: "We are going home, we can go home before Christmas!" ”
The commander of the division was obviously mistaken, and that night the whole Eighth Army was in a state of confusion, and the entire army group was retreating in the darkness, but the voice of the volunteer attack was getting closer and closer, and by November 29, the general, who had been complacent two days earlier, told the 9th Army headquarters by radio that he was in danger, because the volunteer army had beaten them to the north, the attack was very fierce, and he had suffered heavy losses.
Peng Dehuai is a battle-hardened general of our army, never fights a battle that is not certain, this time it is the same as before, there is no difference, in fact, the volunteer army has long been patiently waiting for the enemy to enter the encirclement, we know every move of the United Nations army, which unit is deployed in what position, which Rok troop is undertaking their flanking cover task, and so on.
In just one month, the volunteers unknowingly marched 300,000 troops into North Korea, and the ambushes were so seamless that even the enemy did not know they existed, and the American military historian Slam Marshall later described them as "like ghosts without a figure." ”
Lieutenant General Walker's end was also very tragic, just in this second battle, the US army in the east and west of the two fronts of the breakthrough attack, in the middle handed over to the ROK Seventh Division, the Eighth Division of the defense, the result was later annihilated by the Chinese Volunteer Army South Korean army, and then the two lines of the US army were basically divided and surrounded, routed and fled.
When the South Korean army and the U.S. military fled, the Vehicle of the South Korean Army crashed into the car of Lieutenant General Walker of the US Army, Lieutenant General Walker was sitting inside, this car accident made him die, looking at the entire Korean War, Walker is the highest level of officer killed by the US army in this war, and he is also the highest level officer killed by the RoK army in the war, and the day his body is transported back to the United States is the Christmas of the Americans, which makes people sigh.
It is worth mentioning our specific enemies, who faced the largest ambush in The history of the United States, because "everything was in chaos" at that time, and the Americans had never seen this army without heavy weapons fight so well, because the volunteer army only had mortars and machine guns, but we had used the role of mortars to the extreme.
The Americans themselves said that this light machine gun was very advantageous in combat, and was the most practical and basic infantry weapon in the entire Korean War, although their (volunteer army) weapons were not as accurate as the M1 rifle and carbine, but they could form a fierce fire network in a short period of time.
Captain Hal Moore, who was later promoted to lieutenant general, recalled: "The sound was like shaking an iron can containing stones, in a fully automatic state, it was able to fire a large number of bullets, and the greatest casualties in the Korean War were actually close combat, the time was very short, but the casualties were very heavy, who survived, in fact, it all depends on who reacts faster, in this case, the enemy's combat effectiveness and weapons make us ashamed of ourselves, these encounters ended quickly, but, The final loser is often ourselves. ”
Yes, in addition to the general galloping on the battlefield, the combat effectiveness of these specific soldiers is also the key to really determining the direction of the battlefield, our volunteers eat and wear better than the US army, and the equipment is much worse, but they can defeat them.
Many of the soldiers of the United Nations army have always doubted the significance of this war, they do not have the confidence to defeat their opponents, and they doubt the justice of the war, but the volunteer army is different, the idea of "defending the family and defending the country" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, behind them is their own motherland, from the beginning they have lost.
Therefore, under the command of Peng Dehuai, the soldiers fought bravely, so that the soldiers of these American, British, and Turkic countries were defeated, their ranks became more and more sparse, the speed of escape became faster and faster, and when many troops began to scatter and flee, they had collapsed, and as the situation gradually deteriorated, the word "command" lost its original meaning.
Because of this, they lost the war, in every way.
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