Some people say that throughout the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the Battle of White Horse Mountain was a watershed in the combat effectiveness of the ROK army. In fact, this is a misunderstanding. The defeat of the volunteer army at Baima Mountain has a certain degree of accident, the combat effectiveness of the Rok Army does not have any watershed at all, from beginning to end is the same crotch, such as the Battle of Shangganling after the White Horse Mountain, the Spring Offensive in 1953, the Battle of Jincheng, etc., and the previous Pulling Crotch is only different in degree, and there is no essential change.
【Korean soldiers on White Horse Mountain before the war】
Hakuba Mountain is located in the northwest of Tieyuan, standing on the mountain can overlook the Tieyuan Plain in the east, and the road in the south leads to Seoul at one end and to Tieyuan at the other. If the White Horse Mountain is lost, the coalition forces will lose all the transportation network within a radius of ten kilometers, and the volunteer army can grasp the initiative of reconnaissance and attack on the coalition forces, and truly do what they want. The coalition forces were well aware of the importance of White Horse Mountain and built a large number of permanent fortifications on the mountain. There are three barbed wire fences on the periphery, the middle of the barbed wire is a minefield, and behind the minefield is a tunnel, trench, and a bunker made of reinforced concrete, and all the roads that can go up the mountain are marked by American aircraft, tanks and artillery, and can be accurately blocked as soon as needed.
From the beginning of September, the 38th Volunteer Army began to prepare for the capture of White Horse Mountain. For this battle, the 38th Army prepared a large amount of equipment and materials, including 182 guns, 17 tanks, 59 anti-aircraft guns, 122 anti-aircraft machine guns, except for not put into the aircraft, all other available equipment was concentrated and used. In addition, the 340th Regiment of the 38th Army, which was responsible for offensive tasks, also conducted more than 20 days of adaptive training, including the use of new equipment, infantry, artillery and tank coordination tactics, Soviet-style communication and liaison, large-scale latent training, and so on. The two battalions responsible for lurking practiced for nearly a thousand months, and they were able to lurk without a trace, not even calling nearby frogs. It can be said that everything is ready, just waiting for the general attack on October 6.
[The volunteer army is determined to win the White Horse Mountain, and made all the preparations before the war]
However, just then, an accident occurred. Four days before the general offensive (October 2), Tanaka Jiao, a cultural instructor of the 7th Company of the 340th Regiment, defected to the enemy and gave the news and information that the volunteer army would attack Baima Mountain, including the time, direction, strength, and firepower of the attack, all of which were known to the enemy. Kim Jong-woo, commander of the 9th Division of the ROK Army, who was a Japanese and pseudo-police officer, listened with half-belief, but in the end he decided to treat it as true or false. The Han 9th Division, stationed at White Horse Mountain, began to frantically increase its firepower and strength.
The enemy stationed at White Horse Mountain was originally only one battalion of Han's 9th Division, but after listening to Yan Zhongjiao's intelligence, Admiralty V immediately added a regiment plus a battalion. In addition to the original support artillery, Hakuba Mountain added fire support from a total of 9 artillery battalions of the US army and the ROK army, and the US army also sent a tank battalion and two tank companies from Tieyuan to rush to the aid of Hakuba Mountain. The U.S. Third Infantry Division advanced to assemble just 5 kilometers from Mount Hakuba, ready to support Hakuba Hill at any time.
[The 73rd Tank Battalion of the US Army dispatched 44 tanks to support Hakuba Mountain]
The enemy troops on The White Horse Hill worked day and night to repair the fortifications, increasing the original barbed wire from 3 to 7, and increasing the number of anti-infantry and anti-tank mines to three times the previous one. The enemy also rushed to build 150 fortifications and deepened trenches in less than two days, while burying all telephone lines deep in case they were blown up by shells. Ammunition and food were stored in large quantities during this period to ensure that they could hold out for more than a week. The most fatal thing was that the US Fifth Air Force concentrated on bombing the volunteer artillery positions according to the position provided by Tanaka Jiao, causing considerable losses to the volunteers.
From the moment Tanaka surrendered to the enemy, there were two different opinions in the volunteer army. One is to attack immediately before the enemy is too late to prepare, changing the surprise attack to a strong attack, and catching the enemy by surprise. The second is to postpone the attack for a month or two, and then launch a surprise attack when the enemy's mind is paralyzed. However, both options were rejected by Wang Jinshan, who demanded that the 114th Division of the 38th Army still launch an offensive on October 6 as originally planned. On the night of 5 October, about 800 men from six companies of the Volunteer Army sneaked to the front of the enemy position under the cover of night as planned.
At 6 p.m. on October 6, the battle to attack White Horse Mountain began, and since the enemy had already known in advance of our army's plan to strengthen the defense, the intensity of the battle far exceeded the expectations of the volunteer army. The two sides repeatedly competed around Highland 391, Highland 395 and Highland 281. Although the enemy had increased its defenses several times, The 391 and 395 Heights were repeatedly occupied by the Volunteers, but unfortunately were later retaken by the enemy. The tug-of-war lasted for 4 days, and the strength of the 38th Army,000 that had planned to put in two battalions had to be increased to 3 regiments, and the strength of the Han 9th Division was increased to 3 regiments.
Supposedly, the bottom card was known to the enemy, and such a battle could not be fought, but the heroic volunteer army still defeated the 28th and 30th regiments of the ROK army and withdrew from the position. Syngman Rhee attached great importance to the battle of Hakuba Mountain, and transferred a large number of training divisions from Busan and Chuncheon to replenish the strength and officers of the above two regiments and let them return to the battlefield. In the next few days, the three regiments of the Rok Army fought with the volunteers and showed the greatest resilience since the beginning of the war.
[The Han 9th Division later called itself the White Horse Unit]
On October 9, the Volunteers captured Hill 395 and were retaken by the enemy on the 10th. On the 11th, the volunteer army again occupied 395 Heights, and on the 12th, it was retaken by the enemy army. That night, the volunteers reoccupied Hill 395 and retaken it the next day by enemy forces. On the 14th, the Battle of Shangganling broke out, the volunteer army turned the focus of the battle to the Shangganling area, the 38th Army then gave up the battle for the 395 heights, and withdrew from the White Horse Mountain in the early morning of the 15th, the Battle of the White Horse Mountain was over, and the Volunteer Army finally failed to occupy the White Horse Mountain.
This result was enough for the Han 9th Division to blow for a lifetime, not only withstood the attack of the volunteer army, but also the 38th Army, which was known as the "Long Live Army". This is where the Han 9th Division later called itself the "White Horse Unit". In the Nine-Day Battle of White Horse Mountain, the Rok army invested a total of 4 infantry regiments and a reserve division, with a total strength of 18,000 troops. The 38th Army put in four infantry regiments, with a total strength of 14,000 troops, and finally 6,700 casualties (most of which were due to the firepower of the US Air Force). The ROK army claimed to have suffered 3,400 casualties, but in fact, there were more than 7,000 ROK corpses disposed of by the volunteer army, which shows that this number is seriously reduced. Knowing the opponent's battle plan, the defensive side was still hit higher than the casualty figure of the attacking side, and the crotch of the Rokskins' combat effectiveness was evident.
【Korean soldiers captured in the Battle of Jincheng】
The defeat of the 38th Army at Baima Mountain was a certain accident (the rebellion of Yanzhong Jiao), not that the combat effectiveness of the enemy and us had undergone a fundamental change, in fact, in the later Battle of Shangganling, the spring offensive in 1953, and the Battle of Jincheng with the participation of the "White Horse Troops", the combat effectiveness of the ROK army was still very tight, and there was no fundamental change because of the Battle of Baima Mountain, so there was no watershed in the combat effectiveness of the ROK army, but it was consistently not done.