On May 21, 1951, the Sino-North Korean Joint Command decided to stop the offensive and end the second phase of the Fifth Campaign. This battle was the largest battle launched by the Volunteer Army since it entered the DPRK, but the US army has mastered the tactics of our army, and has always used the South Korean army as cannon fodder in this battle, and the main forces of the US and British troops have not suffered too many casualties.
The Volunteer Army and the People's Army carried out two battles in one month, the troops who attacked the farthest had penetrated 100 kilometers behind the enemy's back, the troops were already quite tired at this time, and they ran out of food, some troops had already run out of food, coupled with the rainy season approaching, the rivers and lakes and swamps behind the front were dense, and once the flash flood broke out and the traffic was interrupted, the supply of troops would be more difficult. Under these circumstances, Peng Dehuai had to order the whole army to break through.
However, in the process of retreating from the fifth campaign, due to unfavorable organization, command errors and other factors, many units were surrounded, and many units of the Volunteer Army's 20th Army, 27th Army, 12th Army, 180th Division of the 60th Army were divided behind the enemy lines by the US Army, especially the 180th Division, and more than 3,000 officers and men, including Wu Chengde, acting political commissar and director of the Political Department, were captured.
However, the 27th Army, 20th Army, 12th Army and other units relied on their strong combat effectiveness and the commander's superb command art to withdraw from the encirclement of the US army. The battle was carried out until May 27, the mechanized troops of the US army were still in constant pursuit, and if the volunteers wanted to retreat safely to the north of the 38th Line, they must hold the Jinhua, Tieyuan, and Shuoning fronts, especially the Tieyuan, which was the focus of contention between the enemy and us.
Chewon is a railway hub and a famous rice producing area between north and south Korea, where three railways intersect, leading to Seoul in the south, Wonsan in the north, and Mount Kumgang in the east. It was also the rear supply base, transportation hub and material storage base of the volunteer army at that time, and all the troops ordered to withdraw from the front line also needed to withdraw from the iron plains to the rear. More importantly, north of the Iron Plains is the Ichima Hirakawa, and if the mechanized troops of the US Army break through the Iron Plains, the retreating volunteer troops will have no terrain to take advantage of and will certainly suffer heavy losses.
VanVleet personally led the US 1st Cavalry Division, the 1st Marine Division, the US 24th Infantry Division, the 25th Canadian Brigade, and the South Korean Capital Division to kill 50,000 or 60,000 people towards Tieyuan. However, at this time, Peng Dehuai killed Van Vleet with a rifle, and he ordered the Volunteer 63rd Army to immediately return to the defense of Tieyuan to block the Attack of the American Army.
The predecessor of the 63rd Army was the 3rd Column of the North China Military Region, and although this unit fought many hard battles during the Liberation War, it still had a certain gap compared with the ace units such as the 38th Army, the 39th Army, and the 27th Army. In the course of the retreat of the Fifth Campaign to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the 63rd Army had been fighting like this for more than two months, with a strength of 24,000 troops, but the front of the defensive line they had to defend was 25 kilometers wide, and VanVleet had four entire divisions of more than 50,000 people in his hands, in addition to more than 1,600 artillery, more than 300 tanks, and air support.
When Yang Dezhi, the commander of the 19th Corps, first received the order, he was not sure of completing the task, fearing that this task was too heavy for the 63rd Army, and once it could not be completed, it would bring unimaginable consequences. However, Peng Dehuai did not give Yang Dezhi any room for difficulties: "Even if the 63rd Army is wiped out, it is necessary to stick to the Iron Plains for 15 to 20 days!" ”
The Battle of Tieyuan was carried out in a hurry, and the troops had just entered the position, and before they could build the fortifications, they were attacked by the American army. Before the battle began, Yang Dezhi drew 500 veterans from the direct subordinate unit of the 19th Corps to the 63rd Army, and Fu Chongbi, a 35-year-old commander, said: "Even if the 63rd Army fights, there will be only one person left, and VanVleet will not be allowed to move forward." ”
On 1 June, the U.S. 1st Army, with 4 divisions, violently attacked the 187th Division's defensive front with 4 divisions, but after a day of fighting, they found that the 187th Division's position was as stable as Mount Tai, so they placed the main force on the defensive front of the 189th Division, hoping to open a breakthrough from the 189th Division.
In the early hours of June 2, VanVleet ordered a heavy shelling of the 189th Division's defensive positions, pouring 4,500 tons of shells in an hour. Cai Changyuan, commander of the 189th Division, still led the officers and men to dig trenches in order to reduce casualties in the face of the indiscriminate bombardment of the US army, and he ordered all the soldiers of the 189th Division to be divided into more than 200 combat groups, and they held on to more than 200 positions.
In order to deplete the effective strength of the US army as much as possible, Cai Changyuan constantly adjusted his position and re-established the troop establishment; the regiment was reduced to a battalion, the battalion was downsized into a company commander, and the company was downsized into a squad; several classes with serious attrition were also downsized into one squad, and finally the personnel of the division headquarters were also sent. At this time, Peng Dehuai's headquarters was only 100 kilometers away from the battlefield of the Tieyuan Blockade Battle, and he would stand alone on the hillside almost every night and look south, and when the guards approached, he found that Mr. Peng was often in tears.
The 189th Division and the Americans fought fiercely for three days, and by the evening of June 4, they had to withdraw, and the remaining 2,800 men were organized into a regiment as a reserve, constantly continuing to replenish the front. On the evening of 4 June, the 188th Division took over the position. The 188th Division braved the rain overnight to reach its position. Looking at the wretched position, Zhang Yinghui, commander of the 188th Division, thought of tunnel warfare during the War of Resistance.
Zhang Yinghui asked the troops to use the bomb craters blown up by the US army to build large-scale simple tunnel trenches and increase the depth of defense with dense tunnel fortifications like cobwebs. In the early morning of June 5, the U.S. army launched an attack on the position of the 188th Division under the cover of aircraft artillery, and the officers and men of the 188th Division relied on the fortifications to avoid the artillery fire, and then approached the enemy and engaged in close combat, making it difficult for the superior artillery fire of the U.S. Army to play a role.
The 188th Division also formed a number of sniper teams and anti-tank groups, focusing on attacking American tanks and commanders, becoming the division that destroyed the most enemy tanks among the three divisions, but the casualties of the 188th Division were not small, and by June 9, the 188th Division had reached the point of exhaustion, and the divisional organs and miscellaneous personnel had been replenished to the front line. At the most urgent time, Commander Fu Chongbi sent the guard company, miscellaneous personnel, and even the cultural and industrial regiment of the military department to the front line, and he almost became the commander of the light pole, and even the sentry of the military department could not be sent.
On 10 June, the 187th Division succeeded the 188th Division and entered the battle. Xu Xin, commander of the 187th Division, was only 30 years old at the time, the youngest division-level cadre in the 63rd Army, and two of the three regiments of the 187th Division were the main forces, and their combat effectiveness was very strong. However, by the time the 187th Division came up, the original defensive positions of more than 20 kilometers had been exhausted, and the American army had already hit the front of the eyes.
Xu Xin, commander of the 187th Division, was a very bold general, often doing things that others did not dare to do, and in the process of retreating from the fifth campaign, the 187th Division rushed to the North Han River and found it
A few hundred meters ahead, the U.S. troops were crossing the river and were already blocking their front. There was a blockade in the front and a pursuit of soldiers in the back, and the situation was very critical, in this case, Xu Xin gave the order
The troops unloaded their disguises and calmly crossed the river in front of the US troops, and the US troops thought it was the ROK troops, so they left with a big swing.
Tieyuan blocked Xu Xin during the war, and was forced into a desperate situation, at this time, he decided to attack instead of defend, and launched a comprehensive counterattack against the US army. After listening to his advice, The commander Fu Chongbi decided to gamble and assigned the artillery regiment and a rocket artillery battalion directly under the military headquarters to the 187th Division.
During the Tieyuan Blockade War, the artillery regiment of the 63rd Army and a rocket artillery battalion have not been used, mainly because the number of shells is too small to play a big effect, and there is no air defense force in the unit, and it is worried that it will be hit by the US Air Force, and the gain is not worth the loss, so the US army has always thought that the 63rd Army has no artillery, and the troops are stationed very densely.
At two o'clock in the morning of June 11, under the order of Xu Xin, all the artillery fire of the 63rd Army poured into the American camp. At that time, in order to prevent the volunteers from sneaking in, the US army surrounded all the armored vehicles and tanks in a circle before resting at night, what they did not expect was that these tanks and armored vehicles became an obstacle to escape the artillery fire, and the shelling also hit the AMmunition depot of the US army, causing an explosion that was more violent than the artillery fire of the volunteer army, Xu Xin immediately ordered the whole division to counterattack and rush to the US position. Many U.S. troops did not even have time to take their guns, retreated bare-buttocks, and withdrew for 30 kilometers before re-establishing the defensive line, waiting for the arrival of rear supplies.
The 187th Division's counterattack did work, and the Americans rested in the rear for two days before they could relax. On 12 June, the Volunteer Command ordered the entire 63rd Army to retreat, by which time the Volunteer units had been safely withdrawn and a strong defensive system was built in the rear. When the soldiers of the 63rd Division withdrew from the front line, their clothes became wisps of cloth, and many soldiers were left with a pair of blood-stained pants, Peng Dehuai just said "The motherland thanks you", the soldiers cried, they remembered those comrades who sacrificed.