The 180th Division was forced to fight separately after the failure of the Eagle Peak breakthrough. Some people did not continue to break through, but went into the mountains to fight guerrillas. At least three groups of people who later successfully broke through fought behind enemy lines for more than 100 days: Liang Baoan, commander of the 180th Division's organization unit, and others fought for more than 320 days; Xu Dianying, instructor of the second battalion of the 538th Regiment, and others fought for 5 months; and An Jingrong, the division's propaganda section, and others fought for more than 3 months. Although Wu Chengde was eventually captured, he spent the longest time "fighting guerrillas", for 420 days.
The long period of time meant that the soldiers had to solve the problem of spending the winter in the wild, and there was a big difficulty: the Japanese.
1. Food: Each person only drinks two meals of thin porridge per day and risks death to collect grain
Food is the first problem to be solved if you want to survive behind enemy lines, but it is not easy on the Korean battlefield. Most of the soldiers of the 180th Division were divided and surrounded in the area south of the 38th Line (Mapingli crossed the 38th Line), most of which was controlled by South Korea, and the mass base was not good, and the soldiers could only use the first means of supply in the face of the captured combat.
Cadres above the 180th Division battalion basically participated in the War of Resistance Against Japan and were no strangers to how to carry out guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. They often target groups of people with slightly less combat effectiveness, such as transport teams and artillery units, and suddenly launch sneak attacks after stepping on a good point, especially to make full use of the enemy's sleep at night. Liang Baoan, the commander of the organization unit of the 180th Division, once led 17 people to fight two ambush battles, but they did not fire a single shot, and all of them solved the battle with their bare hands.
Objectively speaking, the capture alone is not enough to support daily life, and the sweeping of the US military is increasing. In order to make long-term plans, the soldiers strictly managed the food. Everyone only drank two meals of porridge a day, and everyone tried to look for weeds, leaves and other foods in the ravines. Some people are poisoned and die, and some people are excreted as they are because the food is not digested, which not only cannot replenish physical strength, but also destroys the stomach and intestines.
The 180th Division also had a favorable factor, that is, September and October were in the autumn harvest season.
The people fled because of the war, and many crops were not harvested in time. The soldiers risked their lives to collect some grain to store before the Americans snatched it, which is one reason why most people can persist in fighting behind enemy lines.
Another food source for the 180th Division was support from the Workers' Party of Korea.
When the soldiers entered the mountain, they secretly sent people to contact the local Workers' Party of Korea. They not only provided some food, but also sent a lot of information. The repeated failure of the US military to encircle and suppress it has a lot to do with this. So they adopted a more vicious approach, which is the "masterpiece" of the Japanese.
II. Counter-Sweeping: The US Military Moves South to the People, and the Volunteer Army "Advances the Enemy Into Us"
The U.S. sweeping forces were often advisers to Japanese officers, who and the 180th Division were old rivals in the North China Theater. Divisional staff officer Fan Rihua followed An Jingrong's squad to break through, after he had been divided near Jilongdong, south of Tieyuan. Because Tieyuan was relatively close to the 38th Line and had been in the area controlled by North Korea for a long time, the masses provided food and intelligence to the volunteers.
In order to prevent the Korean people from continuing to support the volunteers, the Japanese suggested that all the residents near the 38th Line should be moved south.
The move of the people south did make the living environment of the 180th Division behind enemy lines more and more difficult, and the fighters could only play the characteristics of being good at guerrilla warfare. In the theory of guerrilla warfare, in addition to the "sixteen-character policy," there is also an experience summed up by commanders in actual combat, that is, "the enemy advances and we advance."
When the U.S. army began to search the mountain, the soldiers of the 180th Division would immediately begin to move and "go in the opposite direction" with the enemy. Taking advantage of the cover of mountains and dense forests, and the short time before the encirclement was formed, it quickly rushed out of the blockade line. Although there are losses in every battle, most people can get out of danger. Fan Rihua and Liang Security Detachment all used the method of "enemy entering and advancing" to jump out of the encirclement circle and continue to circumvent the enemy.
With the onset of winter, the number of U.S. military raids on the mountains became less and less, and the food stored by the 180th Division was barely able to support daily life. However, they also have to solve a difficult problem: shelter from the cold.
Third, cold winter: dig a hole to avoid the cold, solve the problem of cooking smoke
Winter in North Korea comes early, with heavy snowfall at the end of September, and temperatures reaching minus 20 to 30 degrees Celsius (at night) in October. The soldiers of the 180th Division had no cotton clothes, and they lacked shelter from the cold. Many of North Korea's large mountains are made up of half-mountains and half-earth, and although this objectively provides the possibility for the volunteers to dig holes to avoid the cold, it is still difficult.
The hiding places were placed on different hillsides, allowing each other to be used to avoid being discovered by the enemy at the same time. The soldiers replaced the pickaxe with the gun, the shovel with the bayonet, and the man without the gun used his hands and the branch of the tree. The most dangerous thing is what to do with the excavated soil?
If the enemy is allowed to discover a large number of "new soils" appear, it is bound to produce vigilance.
So the soldiers were divided into two groups, one digging during the day, and the other transporting the soil to various places three or four hundred meters away at night, and covering it without leaving a trace.
The soldiers of the 180th Division also dug three exits for each cave, two of which were prepared for the exit, which were not usually used and camouflaged. Once spotted by the enemy, it is transferred from the reserve exit. In addition to that, they also solved the problem of cooking tobacco. The U.S. military often lamented the volunteers' excellent earthwork skills, whether it was the fire ditch dug by the 39th Army in the Battle of Yunshan, or the later tunnel battle, which made them marvel.
For the Volunteer Army, "soil work" is a single combat skill that is just as important as shooting, stabbing, bomb dropping and blasting.
In the battlefield behind enemy lines in Korea, where there was a shortage of food and clothing, a poor mass base, and japanese people who offered advice and suggestions, it had to be said that it was a "miracle" that the soldiers of the 180th Division could persist for 3 months and 5 months and finally successfully break through. On the one hand, the occurrence of this "miracle" represents the excellent combat skills of the volunteer army, and on the other hand, it also shows the firm belief of the soldiers not to yield and not to give up.