In May 1952, Clark succeeded Ridgway as the third commander-in-chief of the United Nations Army. As soon as he took office, Van Vliet, commander of the U.S. Eighth Army, proposed to him many offensive plans, including "big sticks" and "homecomings," but they were all rejected by Clark.
Even so, Van Vliet was not dead hearted, and on October 6, 1952, he proposed to Clark a battle plan called "Operation Showdown", preparing to send two battalions to capture Shangganling, which was guarded by the Volunteer 45th Division. Clark, seeing that this was only a battalion-level battle and relatively small, approved VanVleet's battle plan.
On October 14, 1952, the Battle of Shangganling was officially launched, and in order to fight this battle, VanVleet made full preparations, investing hundreds of heavy artillery, more than 70 tanks and more than 100 aircraft. On the first day of the war, the US military fired more than 300,000 shells at the positions of our 45th Division, with a fire density of up to six shells per second.
Such ferocious artillery fire caused great difficulties to our garrison, and the newly repaired positions collapsed as soon as the enemy fired artillery fire, and the floating soil was so thick that even the machine guns could not be mounted. Even so, the warriors of the 45th Division still inflicted great damage on the enemy with their tenacious perseverance.
On the 6th day of the battle, in order to reduce the damage caused by the American artillery fire, our army took the initiative to retreat into the tunnel. Van Vliet was overjoyed to learn of this situation and said that the glory of Iwo Jima could be repeated. Unexpectedly, he was beaten in the face, and the wisdom of the volunteer army was far beyond his imagination.
The mountain road in Shangganling was already rugged and difficult to navigate, and after the 45th Division took over the defense, it modified the terrain, so that the US tanks and armored vehicles could not go up the mountain at all, and could only be used as a fixed fire point, and the power was greatly reduced. It should be known that in the Battle of Iwo Jima, the tanks of the US army were fired directly in front of the Japanese tunnels.
Secondly, the 45th Division also built its own pit openings on the reverse slope of the hillside, and although the American artillery fire was fierce, it could not blow up these tunnels. Van Vliet saw that the artillery fire was ineffective, so he sent ground troops to destroy the tunnels of our army.
Unexpectedly, Cui Jiangong, commander of the 45th Division, had already prepared for this, and he had thought of this when he was building the tunnel. To this end, he specially set up artillery positions on the Juting Yan and marked the shooting elements to prevent the enemy from destroying the tunnel entrance. Therefore, as soon as the ground troops sent by Van Vliet arrived at the mouth of the tunnel with flamethrowers, they were bombarded by our artillery, and they were immediately killed and wounded.
What caused VanVleet even more headaches was that our tunnel troops were not blindly and passively beaten like the Japanese troops on Iwo Jima, but used the cover of night to constantly launch night attacks on the US troops, they blew up bunkers and touched the sentry, and made the enemy tremble with fear. While destroying the enemy's living forces, it also caused great psychological panic to the enemy, and the US military suffered from night war phobia.
Van Vliet exhausted all his means, but there was no way to take the tunnel troops of our army, and he wanted to repeat the glory of Iwo Jima, but he was beaten to death by the volunteer army in the Battle of Shangganling. In this world-famous battle, the American casualties were 125 times higher than expected! VanVleet lost face and retired as a result.
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