preface?
Sending a basket of apples to the position can get a second-class merit, for a soldier, is a good opportunity to make meritorious service. But this merit is not easy to take, in the Battle of Shangganling, Qin Jiwei issued an order: which warrior can send a basket of apples into the tunnel, and record a second-class merit.
Under normal circumstances, second-class merit is not easy to get on the battlefield, and what can be obtained is basically a combat hero. Under the heavy reward of the army, many soldiers of the volunteer army carried a basket of apples to the Shangganling position, and the result was very tearful, the enemy's artillery fire was too fierce, and our army could not send a basket of apples into the tunnel.
Before and after the Battle of Shangganling, the logistics of the Fifteenth Army bought apples in Pyongyang with all the funds it could take out, a total of more than 20,000, and the number was quite large, if all sent to the tunnel, a person could eat one or two, supplement some nutritional vitamins.
But the reality is that many warriors have paid for their lives, and no one can send a basket of apples into the tunnel, and this second-class skill is definitely not easy to get. What happened in the Battle of Shangganling, even our army sent an apple so hard, the main reason for all this is that the enemy's artillery fire is too fierce, the air superiority is available, and the weak logistics line of the volunteer army is powerless.
Stand your ground and overcome difficulties?
By October 1952, the Volunteers had taken the initiative in ground operations on the Korean battlefield. VanVleet, then commander of the "United Nations Forces" in South Korea, wanted to change that and planned a small campaign with the so-called "apportionment operation."
Van Vleet was a man who was obsessed with artillery fire, and he was a typical artillery winner. Therefore, before the battle began, VanVleet prepared a large amount of artillery fire, and in the 43-day Battle of Shangganling, on a position of less than 4 kilometers, the American artillery fire poured more than 1.9 million rounds into the position as if it did not cost money, and more than 5,000 aerial bombs.
In order to win this small-scale battle, the U.S. army used a large amount of artillery fire, and the intensity of artillery fire on the Shangganling position was far more intense than that of World War II. Nearly two million rounds of shells flattened the hill above the position by 2 meters, and the tunnel was also shortened by several meters.
But no matter how the U.S. army bombarded, as long as the artillery fire stopped, the volunteer soldiers would still appear on the position. In the words of the American army, artillery fire can kill all the creatures on this position, why can the volunteer soldiers withstand round after round of artillery bombardment? The main reason was that the tunnel tactics were successful.
Tunnel tactics were already able to be flexibly applied by our army during the Red Army period, and founding Major General Wang Yaonan was an expert in this regard. During the period of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, in order to cope with the fierce artillery fire of the enemy and reduce the casualties of our army, Chen Geng proposed the use of tunnel tactics, and Wang Yaonan came to the front line of the battlefield to be responsible for the excavation of the tunnels.
During the Battle of Shangganling, the enemy bombarded the two highlands of 537.7 and 597.9 indiscriminately, and if the volunteers did not have tunnels, the consequences would be very serious. The Volunteers, like the Americans, were flesh-and-blood creatures who faced death if they were hit by artillery fire.
Compared with the U.S. military, the volunteers had a belief in them that they would stick to when they died. Although the Americans temporarily occupied a large area of the surface positions in Shangganling under the cover of strong artillery fire, at night, the volunteer soldiers would walk out of the tunnels and launch a counterattack, and the positions were retaken.
Throughout the Shangganling Campaign, the surface positions changed hands repeatedly, the volunteer soldiers always occupied the initiative, and the US army could not take the volunteer soldiers who were ambushed in the tunnels, and once they launched a surprise attack on the surface positions, they would inevitably suffer a head-on attack from the volunteer soldiers.
In the whole Battle of Shangganling, the biggest difficulty faced by the volunteer army was the problem of supply, as the saying goes, people are iron, rice is steel, and a meal is not hungry and panicked. During the Battle of Shangganling, the volunteers could not eat rice, a rare food, and could not even eat calorie food.
Under the blockade of the enemy's powerful artillery fire, the logistics supply and battlefield environment of the volunteer army became a major problem in the entire campaign. Although the strong tunnel can withstand the enemy's artillery fire, the enemy's bombardment of the surface positions is bound to cause some collapse inside the tunnel, and the dust particles inside the tunnel are inhaled into the nasal cavity and it is difficult to breathe, and the body is uncomfortable.
In order to occupy the position, the enemy adopted many despicable means against the volunteer soldiers in the tunnel, using poison gas bombs, smoke, cutting off water sources, bombing and blasting, etc., so that the volunteer soldiers in the tunnel were in a difficult situation.
There was no sunlight in the tunnel, the air was filled with dust, coupled with the fact that the remains of the sacrificed soldiers would rot after a few days if they could not be effectively transferred, the smell of the soldiers after defecation, a variety of smells could not be dispersed in the tunnel for a long time, and the combat environment of the volunteer army was extremely difficult. Despite the difficulties, our volunteer soldiers overcame the difficulties and stood firm on the position, and they had an iron will, which was the main reason for the final victory of our army in the whole battle.
The supply line is cut off, and a basket of apples cannot be sent into the tunnel?
The harsh environment of the battlefield is not the most deadly, and the volunteer soldiers can still hold on with their tenacious will, but the lack of food in the tunnels, especially the water source, is a difficulty that needs to be solved. As we all know, water is the source of life, no creature can leave the water, many soldiers who insist on the tunnel can not drink a drop of water a day, and can only eat a small piece of biscuits that are difficult to swallow every day.
Under great difficulties, in order to survive, the volunteer soldiers even had the phenomenon of drinking urine, which was called "drinking glorious tea" at that time. Special treatment in special periods, volunteer soldiers have the belief in victory in their hearts, and no matter how big the difficulties are, they can overcome them.
Of course, faith alone cannot defeat the enemy, and the volunteers are not machines, but also have to eat and drink. Because of the lack of water in the tunnels, the lack of sun for many days, and the lack of food, many volunteer soldiers had a dry throat and smoke, and the biscuits in the hard state could not be swallowed. The volunteer soldiers, who lack vitamins and are unable to replenish their physical strength, have developed various diseases and are in a very critical condition.
As we all know, during the period of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, because our army's logistical support capabilities were weak and there was no air superiority, the volunteer army's food was mainly fried noodles and potatoes, which were not easy to spoil. In addition, the logistics department also prepared a lot of apples for the frontline soldiers.
The reason for choosing apples is mainly that it can solve the two problems of "eating and drinking" of volunteer soldiers, which can fill hunger and replenish water, as well as certain nutrition, which can provide vitamins needed by the human body. Coupled with the fact that the North Korean region is rich in apples and does not need to be transported from home, it reduces logistical pressure.
The soldiers in the Shangganling Tunnel were short of water, and the headquarters of the Third Corps tried all kinds of methods, but the effect was not very satisfactory. The volunteer army's transportation capacity was backward, and the ammunition and grain could only pass through the backs of people, but because the enemy's firepower was too fierce, the periphery of the position was completely blocked, and the fighters who went to deliver ammunition and food were basically all killed.
The commander of Shangganling, Qin Jiwei, was very anxious, and his heart was not a taste when he saw the soldiers who sent apples sacrificed one class after another. Qin Jiwei's guard Wang Yu applied to send the apple, and even Wang Yu, who was physically fit and physically strong, was sacrificed on the way to the tunnel.
During the Battle of Shangganling, the volunteers had no way to deliver a basket of apples to the tunnel. In the movie "Shangganling", a soldier fell a few steps away from the tunnel, and a basket of apples on his back was scattered on the ground, and an apple fell into the tunnel and was picked up by volunteer soldiers.
In fact, the distance from the entrance to the tunnel to the rear supply position is not very far, about a kilometer. However, this road of about a kilometer was indiscriminately bombarded by the aircraft and artillery of the US army, and as long as the volunteers stepped forward, all kinds of bombs would immediately fly. Until the end of the battle, the road was sprinkled with buns, apples, and the remains of sacrificial volunteer soldiers.
Recently, many TV dramas and movies on the theme of resisting US aggression and aiding Korea have been filmed, such as "King Kong Chuan" and "Chosin Lake", which show us the difficulties faced by the volunteer army. But in reality, the difficulties faced by the volunteer army are even greater than those shown in the film.
After watching the movie "Shangganling", Wang Jinshan, the commander of the Shangganling Campaign, burst into tears, and people around him asked him: Is this the real situation? Wang Jinshan replied: It's too cruel, the movie only shows one-tenth of the cruelty of war, you only know one Huang Jiguang, when the hero blocked the enemy's gun hole, he is not the only one.