During the Period of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the five battles fought by the Volunteer Army and the United Nations Army all occurred within half a year of entering the DPRK. Originally, no one was optimistic about the confrontation between the "backward" Chinese soldiers and the US military, which had world-class military strength, but the volunteer army fell like a divine soldier in the Korean battlefield, and in less than two months, the UN army was returned to the south of the 38th Line.
After the death of Walker, commander of the U.S. Eighth Army, U.S. President Harry Truman brought in a new five-star General, Ridgway, to fight against the Volunteers. Under Ridgway's direction, the United Nations army and the volunteer army launched the fourth campaign, but at the beginning they suffered an unprecedented rout, creating the highest number of casualties during the entire war, which Made Ridgway regret it.
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Korean War
On October 19, 1950, the Chinese Volunteers entered Korea from the northeastern border and engaged in an encounter with U.S. and South Korean forces six days later. The surprise volunteers caught the enemy by surprise, and in just 10 days they retreated the highly mechanized United Nations army with air superiority to the area south of the Cheongcheon River.
Over the next two months, the Volunteers took the initiative and engaged in three large-scale battles with the Un Army, running for thousands of miles in the snow nest deep in the legs, relying on their legs and rifles and grenades far behind the U.S. army to repel the UN army from the 38th line to near the 37th line, and capturing the south Korean capital Seoul.
At this time, the cold winter month had just entered, coupled with the extreme cold and blizzard weather that North Korea had not encountered in a hundred years, and the non-combat attrition within the Volunteer Army was very serious. Two-thirds of the soldiers of the Ninth Corps did not have thick cotton coats, and the soldiers of one squad could only squeeze into a quilt at night, and up to 22% of the people were frostbitten.
Volunteers ambushed in heavy snow
The commander-in-chief of the Volunteer Army, Peng Dehuai, was distraught and insisted on letting the Volunteer Army rest in spite of the korean People's Army Commander's strong request to take advantage of the victory to pursue.
After the commander of the US Eighth Army, Walker, was killed by a truck by South Korean troops, Ridgway arrived in the Korean battlefield after Christmas 1950 to take over as commander-in-chief of the US Eighth Group and the United Nations Army's ground forces. Unlike the unruly MacArthur, Ridgway liked to go to the front line to observe, with a grenade hanging from his shoulder, showing his ambition to sacrifice at any time.
After consulting the UN army's battle diaries, Ridgway found that volunteers without air superiority equipment and air superiority liked to fight at night, and summed up the law of "the sun belongs to us, and the moon belongs to the Chinese army". In addition, the Volunteers were accustomed to being ready for battle and fighting back at any time in difficult conditions, while the Americans would rest every Sunday, resulting in the United Nations army often being successfully attacked by the Volunteers.
American
However, the volunteer army's each attack did not last long, and Ridgway quickly analyzed the rapid battle and quick decision based on the problem of air supremacy, reflecting that their logistics supply line was particularly long, and decided to use "magnetic tactics" to counterattack. He ordered the UN forces to strategically retreat 30 kilometers a day, voluntarily abandon Seoul, and retreat to the vicinity of the 37th Line.
When the logistics of the volunteer army had not yet arrived, the front line was exhausted from the long battle, and the ammunition and food and grass were all exhausted. This move is a bit of a feeling of the volunteers in the second battle to lure the enemy deeper, but unfortunately Peng is not a good MacArthur, and he will not foolishly enter Ridgway's trap.
Knowing that the front-line volunteers were having difficulty in supplying, General Peng voluntarily abandoned Seoul, withdrew his troops to the north bank of the Han River and the area around Hengcheng, and built three lines of defense in the area, including the 38th Line, and treated his body in the way of others.
Seoul
After Ridgway discovered that the withdrawal of the volunteer army was due to logistical problems and insufficient troops on the front line, he immediately formulated a "butcher operation" to prepare to launch an attack on the volunteer army and the Korean People's Army east of Seoul, and strive to cross the Han River and penetrate deep into the rear of our army. At the same time, the UN army would cut off the supply lines of the volunteers and use their strong firepower superiority to suppress the opportunities for the regrouping and counterattack of the volunteers, thus annihilating the army in the western region.
On 25 January 1951, unincorporated forces launched an offensive in accordance with Ridgway's deployment, and the Volunteers quickly ended their recuperation and moved into defensive operations. At this time, the deployment of the volunteer army can be summarized as "westward and eastward", that is, the commander-in-chief of the western front, Han Xianchu, commanded the 38th and 50th armies to resist the pace of the UN army's march to Seoul in the area of Gimpo and Inchon, and the main combat purpose was defense.
Han Xianchu
The commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front, Deng Hua, led the 39th, 40th, 42nd, and 66th Armies of the Volunteer Army in a total of 4 corps, and the commander of the Korean People's Army, Kim Woong, led 3 armies to assist and counterattack the Hengcheng area of the Eastern Front.
The United Nations army on the western front insisted on repeatedly attacking the volunteer positions with aircraft, tanks and artillery every day, while the AMERICAN Second Division on the eastern front and the South Korean Eighth Division, which was guarding the flank, took the lead, threw off the large troops behind them, and quickly advanced northward towards the Hengcheng and Tongpingli areas, forming two prominent parts of the United Nations army front.
The volunteer command captured the fighter, but was troubled by whether to attack Hengcheng or Pingli first. Han Xianchu, commander-in-chief of the Western Front, suggested taking the lead in attacking Pingli, because Pingli was a very important strategic location on the Eastern Front, and once the volunteer army took it, the follow-up counterattack of the United Nations army could achieve more with less.
Volunteers
Deng Hua held the opposite opinion with him, because the US military in Tongpingli was extremely mechanized and had repaired the fortifications, which was a hard bone to gnaw. If the Volunteers could not capture Tongpingli before enemy reinforcements arrived, they would be caught in the encirclement of the United Nations army.
The South Korean army stationed at Hoengseong was relatively weak, and if the volunteer army carried out a surprise attack on it, it could achieve the plan of quickly disrupting the enemy's deployment and winning the war in one day and night.
After determining the main target for attacking Hengcheng, Deng Hua asked the 42nd Army and the 198th Division of the 66th Army to once again use the tactic of luring the enemy to go deeper, attracting the enemy to gather at Hengcheng, the intended combat site of the volunteer army. On February 9, parts of the 8th, 5th, and 2nd Divisions of the South Korean Army arrived north of Hoengseong, and the South Korean army was all distributed on the flank of the American army as a defensive position.
United Nations Army
Deng Hua ordered the 40th Army to attack the South Korean army from the front, while the 42nd Army and the 66th Army split into four routes and quickly circled to the rear of the South Korean army, cutting off the enemy's retreat and containing the American troops in Pingli. The 118th Division of the 40th Army, once the ace unit in the North China Field Army, went on a rampage and wedged directly into the depths of the South Korean army, disrupting their combat formations and operational deployments.
On the night of February 11, the three regiments of the 118th Division attacked the South Korean army from the left, center, and right, and the 352nd Regiment, which was responsible for penetrating directly behind the enemy from the middle and blocking the retreat, abandoned the main road and crossed the mountains in the thick snow, as long as there was no enemy resistance, it ran forward desperately.
Volunteer in the snow
The 352nd Regiment, which did not have a car, was mistaken by the South Korean army as a friendly army that had been defeated by the South Korean army, and some South Korean soldiers for unknown reasons even ran to the rear of the large army and were disarmed because they could not speak Chinese.
The 352nd Regiment had just completed the encirclement of the South Korean army, and the vanguard of the US Second Division, two howitzer battalions, swarmed in cars. Before the Americans could react, the 352nd Regiment had rushed to their cars and engaged in a fight. The artillery battalion was unable to play an advantage in close combat, and could only rely on the anti-aircraft machine guns on the vehicle to counterattack, and soon fell into the downwind.
The 352nd Regiment eventually destroyed more than 140 American vehicles, captured 20 howitzers and 10 anti-aircraft machine guns, and survived only three of the 500-strong U.S. artillery battalion, the worst American loss in the entire Korean War.
The volunteers marched through the snow
The main task of the 117th Division of the 39th Army was to penetrate into the middle of the enemy's front and attack the follow-up Un forces. In order to prevent the United Nations forces from detecting the radio signals, the 117th Division cut off the radio all the way, and in order to rush ahead of the United Nations car unit, the volunteers running on two legs discarded some heavy weapons and ammunition.
Abandoning their original plan to run, they crossed the mountains along the way, cut a trail and set off in the direction of Hengcheng, almost getting lost in the snow. Finally, through the guidance of South Korean prisoners, it arrived at the Hakgu-ri area at 6:30 a.m., cutting off the retreat of the 8th Division of the South Korean Army.
Unexpectedly, the 117th Division had just arrived in Heguli and encountered Dutch soldiers in the United Nations army. The Dutch, who thought they were meeting the South Korean army, ran to the front and danced to the volunteers, explaining that they were friendly, and the commander became the first to see God.
The Dutch in the United Nations army
The remaining Dutch soldiers rushed to flee, and the Un troops who fled to Hoengseong by car thought they were safe and could breathe a sigh of relief, but they did not expect to meet the volunteers who had set up an ambush at the "doorstep".
The 117th Division abandoned its heavy weapons and ammunition and stubbornly resisted the well-equipped American troops from retreating into Hengcheng. The U.S. army was well-equipped, fully armed with weapons and ammunition, and frantically poured into the volunteer army, causing heavy casualties to the volunteer troops at the forefront of the position.
After the company commander, battalion commander, platoon leader and squad leader were killed one after another, the soldiers even beheaded hundreds of americans with bayonets, stones and American troops, and the corpses of both sides were scattered on the small mountain ridge. A company of the 351st Regiment ended up with only three instructors, messengers, and cooks, still holding its position to resist the American attack.
Scenes of volunteer fighting
The U.S. military, which controlled the air superiority, even brought in aircraft to bomb the highlands where the volunteers were located, but the volunteers still held the position firmly in their hands until the night.
As more and more UN troops retreated from the north, the advantages of high mechanization at this time hindered them, and tanks and cars were jammed on the roads to prevent them from advancing. Fortunately, the 120th Division of the 40th Army and the 124th Division of the 42nd Army rushed to Heguli to support the 117th Division.
For a moment, artillery fire from both sides illuminated the positions in The Crane Valley as if it were daylight. The Volunteers rushed directly in front of the UN forces to fight closely, and under the American flares, there were burning cars and tanks everywhere, and the Volunteers' fear of death frightened the tall American soldiers. The volunteers eventually annihilated more than 3,300 enemy troops and captured hundreds of artillery of various types, and many volunteer soldiers happily rode on the cannons and did not want to come down.
Volunteer artillery
By the morning of February 13, the Hengcheng counterattack was finally over. The Volunteer Army and the Korean People's Army annihilated all the strength of the South Korean Eighth Division, and the Third, Fifth and U.S. Second Divisions also suffered heavy casualties, annihilating more than 12,000 enemy troops, of which 5,000 were American troops, and achieved a stage victory in the fourth battle, causing the United Nations army to retreat 26 kilometers.
Later, when recalling the Battle of Hengcheng, Ridgway said that the US Second Division suffered heavy losses in front of the Chinese communist troops and was forced to abandon some areas, and the culprit was the South Korean Eighth Division. They regarded the Chinese army as a natural soldier, and once they encountered Chinese soldiers with rubber-soled shoes, these South Korean troops would be frightened and flee for their lives.
Captured Unisseen forces
In general, the Volunteers adopted a nested tactic of multi-layered roundabout encirclement and internal division encirclement against the United Nations army. Divide the enemy into small pieces in the encirclement, and then annihilate them one by one, while destroying the enemy's artillery equipment, and the isolated infantry is like a turtle in an urn. Even if the volunteers did not have the advantage in firepower, they made up for the shortcomings in this regard tactically.
When the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan in World War II, Chairman Mao said that Both China and the United States are tigers, but the United States, which relies on advanced weapons, is paper paste, and victory in the war must ultimately be achieved by people. The arrogant United Nations army was also the same on the Korean battlefield, always possessing the most advanced weapons in the world, and when faced with soldiers like the Chinese Volunteers, who were highly morale and were not afraid of death or bloodshed, only to defend their homeland, they waited for defeat.