During the Fifth Campaign to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, due to command errors and other reasons, the 180th Division of the 60th Army of the Volunteer Army was almost completely destroyed, and thousands of officers and men, including the political commissar, were captured by the US army. This incident had a great impact at that time, and Wei Jie, commander of the 60th Army, was scolded by Mr. Peng at the combat meeting and did not dare to sit down until the end of the operation meeting. Wang Jinshan, deputy commander of the Third Corps, was urgently recalled to China by Chairman Mao to inquire about the situation.
After this incident, the various units of the Volunteer Army began to be more cautious in combat, but in the 1979 self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, a similar thing happened, this time it happened to the 150th Division of the 50th Army.
The 50th Army is a relatively special unit in the People's Liberation Army, the predecessor of this unit is the famous 60th Army of the Dian Army, and it was also the first Kuomintang army unit to revolt during the Liberation War, which severely damaged the Japanese army at the tragic cost of 20,000 people at the Battle of Taierzhuang in 1938. After the uprising, this unit participated in the Battle of Chengdu and the Battle of Western Hubei.
In October 1950, with the change of the situation in the Korean War, this unit urgently ended its task of suppressing bandits in Hubei, and in the third campaign to resist the United States and aid Korea, the 50th army used an infantry battalion to completely annihilate the British Royal Heavy Tank Battalion and captured more than 300 British troops, so that At that time, Mr. Peng did not dare to believe such a record. During the Fourth Campaign to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, this unit held out on the south bank of the Han River for more than 20 days, blocking the attack of the main force of the 50,000 American and British troops, and the 50th Army also joined the ranks of the main forces of the People's Liberation Army.
Logically speaking, this unit has made outstanding achievements in both the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, and such a foreign-war and introverted unit should not lose too much. However, during the counterattack against Vietnamese self-defense, the 150th Division of the 50th Army suffered a serious defeat.
In the 1960s, the 50th Army switched from the northeast to Sichuan, but of the three divisions under the 50th Army, only the 148th And 149th Divisions went to Sichuan, and the 150th Division remained in the northeast and was reorganized into the Liaoning Provincial Independent Division. In 1969, the 149th Division of the 50th Army and the 52nd Division of the 18th Army were exchanged, and it can be said that only the 148th Division was really related to the 50th Army.
After the 50th Army was assigned to the Chengdu Military Region, a new 150th Division was formed on the basis of several independent regiments, independent battalions and an anti-aircraft artillery battalion of the Chengdu Military Region. The predecessor of the 448th Regiment of the 150th Division was the Independent Regiment of the Chengdu Military Region, which was mainly responsible for production activities at that time, responsible for pig raising, vegetable cultivation, road construction and other tasks, rarely carried out training activities, and many soldiers were discharged without even touching their guns.
Before the counterattack against vietnamese self-defense, the 150th Division was urgently expanded from a B division with a district of 6,000 people to a first-type division, with 11,000 soldiers at one point, with squad leaders promoted to platoon leaders, platoon leaders promoted to company commanders, and some slightly older soldiers to squad leaders and deputy squad leaders. At that time, in order to increase the size of this unit, many new recruits were added to this unit, and the military quality of grass-roots cadres was also very average, and many newly promoted company platoon commanders did not even recognize their own soldiers when they went out on the expedition.
After the outbreak of the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, the 50th Army also sent two deputy commanders and a deputy military political commissar to form a divisional working group to guide the work in this unit. After March 5, the first phase of the operation ended, the troops who left the country retreated one after another, and the people from all over the border set up a triumphal arch to welcome the hero's return, which made the troops who did not leave the country feel disgraced. The 50th Army then engaged in several requests for battle, asking to go to the front.
The former commander of the Guangzhou Military Region also felt that the war was nearing its end, and it was estimated that there would be no more hard battles to fight, so it agreed to let the 150th Division go out to cover the retreat of friendly troops. A command group composed of a number of deputy military leaders also accompanied the 150th Division. After the 150th Division entered Vietnam, it was responsible for encircling and suppressing the Vietnamese troops along the highway and clearing the way for the main force to retreat.
However, during the retreat, the commander of the 150th Division and the 50th Army garrison division working group clashed, and the commander of the 150th Division believed that it was necessary to retreat the same way, and now as long as it is safe to retreat back to China, it will be a victory. However, several deputy military leaders of the 50th Army's garrison working group asked to take a dangerous road, because it would expand the results of the battle, and finally retreated according to the requirements of the garrison working group.
At noon on March 11, near Ban Anh, more than 40 kilometers south of The City of Koh Binh, Vietnam, the second battalion of the 448th Regiment of the 150th Division suddenly encountered elite Vietnamese troops who had rushed from Hanoi to participate in the battle. The two sides passed a little trick and scored high and low. The Vietnamese army is very familiar with the terrain and is good at jungle combat experience, while the 448th Regiment is panicked, the second battalion of the 448th Regiment asks the whole regiment to return to the reinforcement, and the 448th Regiment forward to the division headquarters to ask the whole regiment to return to the reinforcement, which is agreed by the division headquarters, but the division working group does not agree and asks the unit to fight alone.
At about eleven o'clock on the night of the 11th, the second battalion received an order to break through alone, and there were not many troops surrounded by the Vietnamese army, so they could only follow up. In the early morning of the 12th, the second battalion received orders from the regimental headquarters to rest on the spot, but the second battalion was in a valley at this time, and did not seize the highlands on both sides when resting.
The 448th Regiment again requested the other two regiments of the 150th Division to move closer to the unit and asked the whole regiment to return to help, but again the divisional working group refused. The 448th Regiment and the 8th Company took a small road to reinforce the Second Battalion, but the two companies could not escape after being entangled by the Vietnamese army. Finally, the second battalion also had a company, the eighth company and other units were divided and surrounded by the Vietnamese army, and before finally losing contact, the 448 regimental headquarters also irresponsibly made the decision to disperse the units to break through, resulting in more than 200 people, including the regimental chief of staff, the instructor of the second battalion, and more than a dozen company platoon commanders, being captured.
What is even more infuriating is that Feng Zengmin, the responsible cadre of the 8th Company, and Li Heping led the company to surrender en masse. At the beginning of May 1979, through the mediation of the International Red Cross Society, the warring sides exchanged lists of prisoners of war, and on the List of Vietnamese, there were 239 prisoners of war on our side, of which 202 were from the 448 regiment. Later, during the million-dollar disarmament, the 50th Army became the first unit of the Chengdu Military Region to be dismantled.