On July 12, 1953, the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion, 137th Regiment, 46th Division, 16th Army of the Volunteer Army, was ordered by its superiors to launch a counterattack against the enemy stationed at Hill 552.8.
The enemy stationed on this high ground had not only a reinforced company of more than 200 people in the Rokmen's "Guards Division" and more than 50 well-equipped American soldiers.
The enemy had anticipated that the volunteers would launch a counterattack in the area. Therefore, in addition to building large and small bunkers, they also set up one barbed wire fence after another on the position in a vain attempt to block the attack of the volunteer army.
The soldier Zhou Peijia was the leader of the combat team of the main attack company at that time, and the fourth squad he was in was the sharp knife squad of the whole company, and their task was to open a way forward for the whole company.
At 10 o'clock in the night, the battle began. The artillery of the Volunteer Army launched a fire attack on the 552.8 heights in front, and in an instant, the enemy's position was already in flames.
Shortly after our shells reached the enemy, the enemy's artillery also blocked the way forward for the Volunteers. The string of shells blew up the whole hill like a sea of fire.
In the face of enemy artillery blockade, the soldiers were not afraid, and one by one they attacked the enemy position like a tiger.
The four squads, which had rushed to the front, had just broken through the enemy's first trench and were about to occupy a commanding height when they suddenly fired a string of machine gun bullets from the left front.
Lan Qinghua, the leader of the fourth squad, just shouted "Lie down", followed by two strings of fireballs shooting straight through.
It turned out that this was a bunker set up by the enemy in advance, which was built on the mountainside, and with only two machine guns, it was possible to make the attacking troops of the volunteer army not advance one step.
Seeing that the enemy's machine guns were getting stronger and fiercer, and the fighters could not lift their heads, everyone eagerly asked Lan Qinghua: "Squad leader, what should I do?" ”
Lan Qinghua gritted his teeth and shouted, "Go up and blow it up!" ”
As soon as his voice dropped, he heard a loud voice behind him—"Let me come!" ”
At first glance, the person who spoke was none other than Zhou Peijia, the leader of the combat team. With his eyes wide open, he grabbed a blaster and rushed to the enemy's bunker under the cover of the whole class's fire.
At this time, the two machine guns of the enemy bunker were still firing frantically in the direction of the volunteer advance, and in this case, it was quite difficult to take a step forward.
And Zhou Peijia simply ignored all this, and in the midst of a fire, he was seen sometimes creeping and sometimes jumping in the direction of the enemy bunker.
40 meters, 20 meters, 10 meters... Seeing that they were about to approach the enemy's bunker, at this critical moment, Zhou Peijia was hit by a bullet fired from the enemy's bunker and fell into a trench next to the bunker.
The four squads of fighters were anxious when they saw this scene: "Hey, how did it happen?" ”
However, it was not long before a huge ball of fire burst out of the enemy's bunker, followed by a loud "bang", and the enemy's machine gun did not sound.
It turned out that after Zhou Pei's family bullet fell into the trench, he found that the injury was not serious, and he immediately touched the enemy's bunker from the side, threw the explosive canister into it, and blew up the bunker.
However, Zhou Peijia was also stunned by the air waves caused by the explosion and fell to the ground again.
"Rush!" The commanders and fighters of the whole company roared angrily and rushed up the mountain.
After eliminating the remnants of the enemy near the bunker, the warriors found that the Zhou Peijia who had shown great skill was not dead, but had just fainted, and they were overjoyed.
Zhou Peijia woke up to the cheers of his comrades-in-arms, immediately stood up, patted the dirt on his body, and asked the company commander to fight, to lead the group to continue to charge the enemy's main peak position.
The company commander said happily, "You guys, it's really hard to fight a war!" ”
Just as the commanders and fighters of the whole company were rushing toward the enemy's main peak position, new difficulties arose.
This is because compared with the previous few small hill packs, the enemy's main peak position is more tightly defended, which can be said to be easy to defend and difficult to attack.
It not only had a powerful fire blockade, but also set up one obstacle after another, not to mention how many mines were buried in the ground, and there were three wire nets in front of the positions alone.
In fact, the sharp knife class was prepared early, and each soldier had pliers that cut the barbed wire.
However, just after the warriors cut the first and second barbed wires, facing the third barbed wire, the warriors were stunned one by one.
This third barbed wire was different from the first two, it was a cylindrical barbed wire mesh, and there was no way to cut it with pliers, and the only way was to blow it up with a grenade.
At this time, the whole company had rushed to the barbed wire, and the enemy fired several flares in front of the main peak position, and it was impossible to blow it up with grenades.
You know, at the front of the enemy's main peak position, a delay of even a second may cost our army a lot of casualties.
What is particularly serious is that once the enemy's reinforcements arrive, this counterattack will be abandoned!
At this extremely critical moment, it was the Zhou Pei family who stepped forward again.
Only to see him jump up, lie his entire body on the cylindrical barbed wire, and shout to his comrades: "Step on me!" ”
Everyone is anxious when they see it, why is this okay? Because they all knew very well that the iron thorns in the barbed wire like nails could be pierced through the wood.
It was summer, and the Zhou Pei family was wearing only a single coat, and the flesh of a person was lying on it, and he had to let his comrades-in-arms step on him.
Seeing that the comrades-in-arms hesitated, Zhou Peijia became angry and shouted, "What are they grinding?" Rush over! ”
Lan Qinghua, the head of the class, couldn't think much about it, and shouted with tears in his eyes: "Rush! He was the first to step on Zhou Peijia's body.
Immediately after, the warriors behind them also stepped on Zhou Peijia's body one by one and rushed through the barbed wire.
Although the enemy's machine guns and grenades rained down on the front of the position, the soldiers in front fell, and the soldiers in the back rushed forward.
The enemies on the main peak position were stunned by this unimaginable move, and they lost their souls, throwing down their positions one by one and running backwards.
In this way, the 552.8 heights were finally occupied by the volunteer soldiers, and the Zhou Pei family was seriously injured and dying at this time.
The soldiers could not celebrate the victory and scrambled to send Zhou Pei's family to the battalion headquarters bandage office for first aid. Fortunately, after timely rescue, the Zhou Pei family was finally out of danger of life. After a period of recuperation, he returned to the company.
Yin Xianbing, commander of the Sixteenth Army, personally visited Zhou Pei's family in the hospital, gave him a high evaluation of his heroic performance in the first two major displays of his skills in a critical moment, and gave him a four-character nickname: Desperate Sanlang. From then on, as long as the Sixteenth Army mentioned "Desperate Sanlang", it knew that it was the Zhou Pei family.
In September of that year, with the approval of the Volunteer Army Headquarters, Zhou Peijia was named a second-class combat hero and awarded the "Order of Honor for Soldiers of the Republic" by North Korea.