On July 13, 1953, the silent night sky of the Korean Peninsula was suddenly lit up by a blinding light, and then, the continuous artillery fire broke the silence of the summer night, and the 1,094 guns of the Chinese Volunteer Army fired in unison, and the shells fell on the west bank of the North Han River to Yashenli. Here, important units such as the Rokkaku Capital Division, the 3rd Division, the 6th Division, and the 8th Division were stationed. More than nineteen hundred shells almost ignited this small station, doomed to be an unpeaceful night.
This was the prelude to the final battle in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the Battle of Jincheng.
In June 1953, china and North Korea and the United Nations forces had already reached an armistice agreement, who would have thought that Syngman Rhee wanted to provoke war again with the "prisoner of war" issue, which caused public outrage around the world. In order to end the war as soon as possible and promote the signing of the armistice agreement, Mao Zedong believed that "we must suppress the enemy in action to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents." ”
Therefore, at the behest of Mao Zedong, Peng Dehuai decided to launch a third counterattack on the entire front, fiercely attacking the South Korean army, and the main position of this campaign was Jincheng.
This was the first time that the Chinese volunteers had the superiority of ground firepower in the Korean War, and a large amount of artillery fire raged on the Korean defense line, and in just one hour, the 20th Corps bombarded the South Korean army positions in the Kimseong area to pieces.
In the interval between artillery attacks, groups of volunteer soldiers rushed to fight the enemy. The South Korean soldiers, who had not returned to their senses during the artillery attack, saw groups of volunteers pouring in from all directions, completely confused and overwhelmed. In this way, the entire Korean army front has basically been comprehensively broken through by the Chinese volunteer army.
In this bloody battle, the First Ace Of the South Korean Army, the Capital Division, suffered the most losses. Among them, the First Regiment of the Capital Division, the oldest regiment in South Korea's history, the White Tiger Regiment, bore the brunt of it. Long before the first artillery of the Battle of Jincheng was fired, the front-line units of the Volunteer Army had already drawn up a special "battle plan" for the White Tiger Regiment.
In order to deal with the White Tiger Regiment, our army set up a special detachment, which was led by Yang Yucai, an experienced reconnaissance team member. Twelve outstanding Scouts were selected as members of the team. The superiors stressed many times that the task of the special detachment was not to destroy all enemies, but to destroy the regimental headquarters of the White Tiger Regiment, and as long as the strongest wing of the Rokkaku Capital Division was broken, their collapse would be sooner or later.
After receiving the task, Yang Yucai and others began to prepare for the reconnaissance of the White Tiger Regiment, and all the members of the team carefully studied the use of maps and compasses in order to blend into the rear of the enemy; in addition, they were also familiar with the use of the five weapons of the US army, in order to know each other and never lose a battle.
On the night of July 13, the squads were dressed in North Korean military uniforms, and in addition to pistols, submachine guns, grenades, and incendiary grenades that ordinary soldiers were equipped with, each team was equipped with special tools such as radios, sabotage scissors, and ropes. Under the guidance of a North Korean soldier, Han Tannian, the special detachment attacked the White Tiger Regiment headquarters. They were like a sword in the night, piercing straight into the heart of the White Tiger Regiment.
That night, the members of the squad stepped on the moonlight and marched towards the Erqing Cave on the south side of Jincheng.
Suddenly, the team found that there was an extra South Korean soldier behind the team. It turned out that this soldier had just escaped from the main camp of the Golden City, and seeing Yang Yucai's army, one of whom was his own, he took the opportunity to mix in. When he heard Yang Yucai, dressed in a South Korean military uniform, speaking pure Chinese, he realized that he had mistakenly entered the enemy camp. For Yang Yucai, this is really a big bargain, and he easily asked for tonight's slogan from the mouth of the South Korean soldier.
The unexpected gain made the squad doubly confident, and everyone stepped up their pace to advance towards the regimental headquarters. Suddenly, a bunch of South Korean patrols appeared in front of them, and the leader of the group asked in Korean, "What are you here for?" Yang Yucai did not understand Korean, Han Dannian whispered in his ear to remind the other party to come to one, Yang Yucai quickly calmed down, with a fluent English to explain his intentions, he said that he was a U.S. military adviser, the Battle of Jincheng was urgent, came to discuss with vice mayor Lin Yiol to discuss countermeasures.
Hearing Yang Yucai's answer, the patrol leader immediately performed a military salute and then respectfully let them go. In this way, the special squad escaped another disaster.
At two o'clock in the morning, the squad finally reached the outside of the White Tiger Regiment headquarters. The sentry on the bridge saw them and asked very vigilantly, "Password." Han Tannian replied, "Gurum," and the sentry shouted, "Oba." The sentry saw that they had no problem and was trying to let them pass. At this point, another sentry asked, "What is your number?" Yang Yucai and the others did not answer for a long time, the sentry found them suspicious, and was preparing to go forward to check, but did not expect that the members of the squad took a step ahead of him, and quickly stepped forward to solve the two sentries with their personal knives.
After successfully entering the regimental headquarters, Yang Yucai quickly made combat arrangements, and the squad was divided into a group of four, Li Peilu attacked first, and then Yang Yucai responded, and Han Danian and others took cover in the rear. "Snap", Li Peilu launched an attack on the guard platoon first, and the unprepared guard was immediately eliminated.
Immediately after, Yang Yucai shouted, "Give me a hard beating." As soon as the words fell, grenades and bullets flew in unison toward the sentry, the conference room, and the convoy. Suddenly, the entire White Tiger Regiment was suddenly thrown into chaos, and dozens of officers and men of the White Tiger Regiment were killed, including Lu Genzhu, the leader of the ROK Mech Regiment, and Lin Yiol, deputy commander of the Capital Division, who was the most senior South Korean officer captured alive by the volunteers in the Korean War.
The effect of "catching the thief before capturing the king" is remarkable, and the regimental headquarters that have lost their command are chaotic, and they cannot figure out which are the volunteers and which are their own people, and they can only hold their heads and scurry, which is very embarrassing. In this operation, the squad also blew up the oil depots and ammunition depots near the regimental headquarters, and the explosion sounded through the clouds, and the roaring fire seemed to awaken the dawn, and at this time, for the South Korean army, the real darkness had just begun.
The White Tiger Regiment's troops were basically completely destroyed, the Second Battalion was engulfed in artillery fire at the beginning of the Battle of Jincheng, and the 9th and 11th companies of the reserve team that rushed to the rescue were also defeated in the fury of the volunteer army. The 26th Regiment on the left flank was also teetering on the brink of collapse, and the tanks were shelled as soon as they reached the battlefield, the leading tanks were burned down, and the other two had to flee in a hurry.
Soon, all the territory of the 26th Regiment was occupied by the volunteers. The regimental commander Cui Xiyin tried to send troops to come to support, but the local communication network was all destroyed, and there was no way to notify the other battalions in time, so naturally he did not know everything that happened to the White Tiger Regiment at midnight.
The capital division that lost the White Tiger Regiment was like an "angel with broken wings" and could only wait for death. Within four days, the 20th Regiment of the Volunteer Army successfully completed all the offensive tasks issued by Peng Dehuai, and Jincheng, as a strategic place, became the treasure of the Volunteer Army.
In the Battle of Kimseong, the volunteers completely destroyed the positions of the South Korean army, and in this case, Rhee had to agree to an armistice, and this battle became the final battle in the Korean War.
There is no doubt that the outstanding combat operations of the special squad played a huge role in the Battle of Jincheng.
According to statistics, this special detachment led by Yang Yucai killed two hundred and twenty-three enemy people in this operation in only one hour, including ninety-seven members of the White Tiger Regiment, and none of the squad suffered casualties, which is simply a miracle in the history of special forces operations. Since then, the squad's record of attacking the White Tiger Regiment has been made into a movie and a model drama in China, and this battle with few victories and zero casualties has become a heroic deed that has been passed down for a long time in the history of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
Text/Genki Girl QMQ
Resources:
1. "The Final Contest to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea", Hu Haibo
2. The Battle of Jincheng in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Qi Dexue