Since The Second World War, the Japanese army launched a war of aggression against China, making China the main battlefield in the East, and the large-scale battles organized by the Early Chinese army did not delay the momentum of the Japanese army, and the Japanese army was especially in no man's land. However, the Japanese army never expected that the poor and weak agricultural countries burst out of huge combat effectiveness under the circumstances of such a huge gap in equipment, and a large number of casualties made the Japanese army deeply trapped in the Chinese battlefield unable to extricate itself. After destroying a large number of airfields of the Sino-US Joint Air Force in Nanning, Guangxi, it set its sights on the only forward airfield of the US Air Force in China, which caused a large number of casualties of the Japanese army and also threatened the Military facilities of the Japanese army in Taiwan. Since the Battle of Xuefeng Mountain, the Japanese army began to withdraw from Guangxi, Guangzhou, and western Hunan Province! This campaign raised the morale of the Chinese army in the counteroffensive and was a major turning point in the kuomintang army's battlefield from defense to offense.
The Battle of Xuefeng Mountain was the last battle of the War of Resistance Against Japan, so why did the Desperate Japanese Army still want to attack Zhijiang Airport? Like friends can click to follow, click the link below to learn more detailed content!
Campaign background
Beginning in 1945, the fascist countries of the world had lost their original arrogance, especially the Japanese aggressors, who were trying to open up the situation on the Asian battlefield. Because the balance of victory in the Pacific theater has tilted towards the US military, the US military is approaching the Japanese mainland day by day, seriously threatening the security of the Japanese mainland, resulting in the almost total destruction of the Japanese navy, and the supply of the Japanese army hanging alone in the Indochina Peninsula has also been completely interrupted.
However, in order to save the defeated situation, the Japanese aggressors intended to make a desperate bet, announced the so-called "decisive battle on the mainland" plan, and expanded their armies four times in an attempt to reverse the situation in China and tighten control over China's territory.
The Japanese army's so-called "home-based decisive battle" plan
The large-scale battles organized by the Kuomintang in the early days basically ended in failure, and the "No. 1 Operation" launched by the Japanese army in 1944 caused the Nationalist government to lose the northern, southern, and eastern parts of Hunan province and most of Guangxi Province for eight months.
However, the situation has been reversed, the Kuomintang army has been greatly replenished with personnel, weapons and equipment, and with the cooperation of the Sino-US joint air force, the Japanese side has lost its air superiority.
Due to the loss of most of Hunan and Guangxi, the strategic significance of the land of western Hunan is particularly important. Holding western Hunan prevented the enemy from penetrating deeper and defended the great southwest region and the wartime capital Chongqing area.
So the Chinese army mobilized heavy troops, the Japanese army also invested elite troops, and the big war was about to break out!
U.S.-China Joint Air Force
Pre-war situation
Japanese positions and airfields were often bombed by the U.S.-China Combined Air Force.
The Sino-US Joint Air Force became the "nail in the flesh" and "thorn in the eye" of the Japanese army, and after the Japanese army surveyed and found that Zhijiang Airport was the base of the Sino-US Joint Air Force, and the airport was also responsible for the transportation of the Japanese railway along the line and the supply transportation of the Chinese army, becoming the second largest military airfield in the Eastern Theater. In order to defuse the crisis and further open the gateway to the Greater Southwest,
Therefore, in April 1945, the Japanese army sent five divisions and three brigades and regiments totaling about 80,000 people to assemble in the Hunan region in an attempt to take the western Hunan region in one fell swoop.
Famous anti-Japanese general in the Battle of Xiangxi
Before the war, the Chinese army deduced that the Japanese army would launch a large-scale attack on the Zhijiang airfield in the western Hunan region, so a large number of defensive fortresses and fortifications were built in the western Hunan region. In addition, the Kuomintang government issued a deadly order: "This time we absolutely cannot lose our national territory as in the past, and we must not give up any land this time" and determined the tactics of "defensive counterattack" in the early stages of the war.
The first level of Xuefeng Mountain
In the first stage of the war, the use of terrain advantages and advanced equipment to stop and delay the speed of the enemy's assembly, comprehensive defense, in coordination with the Sino-US joint air force bombing the Japanese army, thwarted the momentum of the Japanese offensive, stubbornly held the position, and in the case of last resort, a fierce counterattack could be carried out. In the second stage, when the main battlefield was expected to thwart the Japanese offensive and the Japanese army's supplies were exhausted, it occupied favorable terrain and took a fierce attack to annihilate the Japanese army in the deep valley of xuefeng mountain
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Strategically defended south of the road
On the night of April 9, 1945, 80,000 Japanese troops began to advance covertly in three ways and launched an attack on the western Hunan region. There was little resistance along the way, and in just a few days it had already advanced hundreds of miles, the Japanese middle road had reached the Longtan area, while the other two roads had occupied the Xinhua area and the Wawutang area. With little resistance from the Japanese advance and attack, everything seemed to go very well.
Japanese officers once thought that they could quickly take the Western Hunan region smoothly and quickly.
Responsible for defending the area was the Chinese army led by Wang Yaowu.
According to the plan formulated before the war, it was necessary to lure the enemy deeper, and after the three-way Japanese invaders began to reach the Xuefeng Mountain area, they would concentrate their superior forces to attack the Japanese troops on the north and south roads first, so as to encircle the main Japanese troops in the middle road.
The Chinese army crossed the river covertly
After the Japanese detachment of the South Road occupied the Wawutang area, it began to attack Wugang Castle in three ways, and the general who defended the city was the Fifty-eighth Division of the Seventy-fourth Army of the Chinese Army. Division commander Cai Renjie and his soldiers built a total of three defensive lines, because Wugang City itself was relatively strong, coupled with repairs and reinforcements in the early stages of the war, making Wugang City impregnable.
The Japanese South Road Detachment, with the cooperation of tanks, continued to attack for three days and did not take Wugang City, under the pressure of the main force of the Japanese army in the middle road, the Japanese South Road Detachment took a human bomb attack and set up a so-called "death squad", these "daredevils" body bundle bombs frantically rushed to Wugang City. Under the concentrated fire attack of the Japanese army, some of the "daredevils" blew up the city wall, and the Japanese South Road detachment saw victory in sight, but what they did not expect was that the Chinese army used a large number of sandbags to block the exploded city wall.
The Battle of Western Hunan was bombed by the Japanese
Sekine, the commander of the Japanese South Road Detachment, immediately ordered all the soldiers to attack forward, and the Japanese army used strong fire as a cover and began to attack wildly. They used the extended escalator to climb up the city wall, but the Chinese army used flamethrowers to burn the escalator to stop the Japanese attack.
The two sides came and went, fighting fiercely for a whole day, but due to excessive casualties, they still could not take Wugang Castle.
The Chinese defender Cai Renjie's troops suffered heavy casualties under the strong fire of the Japanese army, so they asked Wang Yaowu for help, so Wang Yaowu immediately sent reinforcements from the forty-fourth division, and the reinforcements came out from the flank of the Japanese South Road detachment, and the Japanese South Road detachment was suddenly confused, and the detachment leader thought that the main force of the Chinese army was coming to attack, and began to order the troops to flee south.
The Chinese army was full of momentum and began to pursue the enemy and kill the enemy bravely! The South Road Detachment of the Japanese Army was forced to retreat to the Suining area.
Strategically defended North Road
The Japanese North Road was the Shigehiro Detachment, which numbered more than 4,000 men, and since the South Road Detachment needed to masse its own forces on a large scale, the detachment decided to attack Lantian on April 9, 1945. But it is not much different from the situation of the South Road Detachment, which is particularly in the no-man's land.
During the Japanese army gathering, the Chinese defender Han Jun concluded that the Japanese north road had not completed the army strength assembly and decided to preemptively attack.
Before the Chongguang detachment launched a general offensive, the Chinese defender Han Jun sent two regiments of troops to attack the Japanese army that had not yet been assembled, forcing the detachment to increase its troops twice in a row to be able to resist Han Jun's attack, but several consecutive increases allowed Han Jun to understand the composition of the Chongguang detachment and the military quality of the soldiers, laying the foundation for the subsequent complete defeat of the Chongguang detachment.
The Japanese army crossed the waters
After September 14, the Japanese invaders began a general offensive. The Japanese army was ready to forcibly cross the Water, but to the surprise of the Japanese Army, it did not encounter a fierce attack from the Chinese army, and Han Jun only ordered the troops to carry out only a superficial attack, and the main force of the Japanese Army successfully crossed the Water.
Before the Japanese could repair, Han Jun ordered his troops to begin bombarding the Japanese troops who had crossed the river with heavy artillery, and at the same time cooperated with the Sino-US joint air force to strafe the Japanese troops who were still crossing the river, and the Japanese army suffered heavy losses, and most of the rafts crossing the river had been sunk. The Japanese army began to scatter and flee.
Japanese bombers
Because the Japanese army was scattered after being bombed indiscriminately, the front-line commander did not return to the troops in time, causing the Japanese army to go into the mountains and forests to "go their own way" to seek self-protection, until the next day the Japanese army took advantage of the night to regroup the troops.
The Japanese immediately launched an attack on Han Jun's army after gathering their forces. The Han Jun's army occupied favorable terrain and concentrated fire defense, and the Chinese army also dispatched the air force to strafe and bomb the Japanese army, and the main force of the Japanese north road could not launch an offensive offensive, coupled with continuous combat, the soldiers' supplies could not be provided normally, resulting in the war situation once in a state of stalemate.
After the Japanese army on the north road urgently asked for help, the eighty-sixth mixed brigade was rushed to support, the mixed brigade encountered a high tide in the river when it forcibly crossed the river, and when the main force arrived at the middle of the river by raft, it was strafed and bombed by the Chinese air force, which made the main force that came to support lose, forcing the Japanese north road army to not get effective assistance, and finally the Japanese north road attack failed.
Strategic defensive middle way
Ichiro Sakanishi, who served as the main offensive task of the Japanese army, still believed that this was just a deathly counterattack of the Chinese army when the northern and southern offensives were defused, and there was no need to worry, so he continued to lead the main force all the way west.
The Japanese army in the middle road has a greater advantage over the north and south roads in terms of numbers and firearms equipment, the Japanese army wants to break through the defensive line of the middle road, the first to break through the Furong Mountain, the Japanese army will concentrate three thousand troops to cooperate with the artillery troops to frantically attack Furong Mountain, and the Chinese army located in Furong Mountain is dead in the case of defending Furong Mountain and learning that the Japanese army's north-south offensive has been defused, and the Chinese army is equipped with the latest American equipment, automated rifles and ammunition are very sufficient, Relying on the positions built in advance to frantically block the Japanese army.
The Chinese army shelled the Japanese army
After ten days of fierce fighting between the two sides, the Japanese army did not break through the outer positions of Furong Mountain, and although our army paid a positive and heavy price, the Furong Mountain position was not lost.
Furong Mountain is of great strategic importance, and the Xiangqian Highway built on Furong Mountain is an important traffic artery. The inability of the Japanese to occupy Furong Mountain meant that they could not use the Xiangqian Highway to replenish supplies and troops on a large scale, which made the Japanese army need to spend more energy to replenish the rear, and the front line was constantly lengthened. Thus hastening the demise of the Japanese army.
Although the Japanese army put a large number of troops on Furong Mountain, it was still unable to conquer Furong Mountain. Some of the Japanese troops had no choice but to bypass Furong Mountain and attack Dongkou Town.
Dongkou Town is a must-pass place to reach Zhijiang Airport, but the terrain around Dongkou Town is very dangerous. The 19th Division of the 100th Army of the Chinese defenders located there took advantage of the harsh terrain to construct alternating positions, and hidden sentries were set up at heavy fire points. In front of these positions were flat rice paddies, the field of view was very wide, and many firepowers were fired alternately, and the Japanese paid a heavy price.
Japanese "death squads"
Under these circumstances, the Japanese commander once again formed a "death squad" and concentrated on attacking Dongkou Town, but the defenders were caught off guard and the soldiers were not replenished in time, and Dongkou Town fell under the fierce attack of the Japanese army.
Just after the Japanese occupied Dongkou Town, the Chinese defenders who came to reinforce had already assembled around Dongkou Town, and the Japanese army had been surrounded in Dongkou Town!
In the unsuccessful attack on Furong Mountain, some Japanese troops turned to attack the town of Dongkou, and the rest of the Japanese army, the 109th Wing, turned to attack the Longhuisi area, but this area was the area where the Chinese defenders were the most abundant, and the defenders were the famous 56th Regiment of the 19th Division.
White Blade Battle
The Japanese occupied a continuous mountain, the Chinese artillery fire could not accurately hit the Japanese target, the fifty-sixth regiment commander Liu Guangyu believed that if he wanted to defeat the 109th Wing and seize their positions, he must use white-knife warfare and eat them at close range.
From April 22 to April 23, after bombarding the Japanese positions with heavy artillery, the regimental commander Liu Guangyu began to charge with bayonets, the Japanese soldiers did not show weakness, and the Fifty-sixth Regiment fought fiercely, and for a whole day and night, the Japanese army finally collapsed, and a small number of Japanese troops fled to the mountains.
The war is glued
In mid-to-late April, the Japanese army gathered the strength of the previous battlefields and regrouped the main forces of the middle road, intending to make a desperate bet. The Japanese continued to attack the high ground on both sides of Jiangkou Town, the gateway to the Zhi River, to the west. The highlands on both sides are located in the area of the Qingshan Boundary.
The town of Jiangkou and the highlands on both sides were the bottom of the pocket array that Wang Yaowu had planned before the war, and if he wanted to complete the encirclement, he must be able to keep the bottom of the pocket, otherwise his previous efforts would be in vain. For the Japanese army, as long as the two regional highlands of Jiangkou Town are taken, Zhijiang and even the victory of this meeting is in sight.
Position scramble
The two sides launched a brutal battle in this area of QingshanJie, fiercely fighting for twenty days and nights, the two sides repeatedly attacked and defended, the Japanese army invested a large number of troops and even occupied the Qingshanjie area on April 16, but the Chinese defenders organized more than 200 soldiers to fight to the death, and recaptured the two highlands of Jiangkou Town on April 29. Under this fierce offensive, the Japanese army only advanced thirty kilometers, the Japanese army killed and wounded more than 700 people, and the Chinese defenders lost more than 400 people.
The Japanese are on the move
The situation gradually became clear in mid-May, because the Japanese army front was pulled by the Chinese army for a long time, and its main force, the 109th Division, was still surrounded in Dongkou Town, and the Japanese companies suffered heavy losses, making the Japanese army unable to fight again.
Therefore, under such circumstances, the Chinese army believed that the main force of the Japanese army had collapsed, the Japanese army was no longer able to advance westward again, the task of the first stage was basically completed, and the troops could start the second stage of the counter-offensive.
Tactical counter-offensive
After the Chinese army issued a general offensive mission on May 6, the Japanese intercepted the information that the Chinese army was about to attack, but before that, Ichiro Sakanishi, who was the commander-in-chief of the mission, sent a report to Okamura Ninji, who was in Nanjing, asking for the suspension of the Battle of Xiangxi. Ichiro Sakanishi said that our army was violently attacked by the Chinese army, which had never been the case before, at this moment all the Japanese troops had no desire to attack, could only rely on small roads to supply, from time to time by the air force strafing and attacking, the army had no fighting spirit, and requested that the battle be ended immediately.
After 10 May, Ichiro Sakanishi ordered his troops to retreat in full, and the Japanese retreated to the vicinity of the cave entrance in an attempt to cooperate with the 109th Wing, which was surrounded by the cave entrance. When Wang Yaowu's troops learned of this, they immediately sent the Eighteenth Army and the 100th Army to aid the Seventy-fourth Army in an attempt to first eliminate the 109th Wing that was surrounded at the mouth of the cave.
Brutal trench fighting
The 109th Wing, which was surrounded at the mouth of the cave, had been shelled continuously for more than ten days at this time, leaving only more than a thousand people on the position, this time the Chinese army adopted the American way of playing, using heavy artillery to suppress fire, using mortars to accurately strike the Japanese positions, resulting in the Japanese positions being divided, and after three days, the 109th Wing completely gave up resistance and scattered and fled. Wing leader Hosaburo Takitaji was killed on the spot.
The rest of the Japanese corps could only continue to retreat, retreating to the area of Furong Mountain, because Furong Mountain was not breached at the beginning of the battle, the Japanese detachments that launched the middle road offensive had to send the detachments of the South Road and north road to gather more than 2,000 troops to attack Furong Mountain again.
U.S. military pilot in front of Zhijiang Airport
At dawn on May 21, the Guangen Detachment of South Road began to attack the Lion Mountain position of the Furong Mountain position with all its strength, and the Chinese defenders defending the Lion Mountain position took advantage of the terrain to fight back, and the Ten Fighters of the Chinese Air Force frantically strafed the Japanese army, and the Japanese army paid an extremely heavy price.
With the Japanese army unable to retreat, they mobilized heavy artillery to bomb the Lion Mountain position, and after a few hours, all the fortifications of the Lion Mountain position were destroyed, and the Chinese defenders could only retreat to the main position of Furong Mountain.
Soldiers on the front lines of the Battle of Western Hunan Province
The Japanese continued to attack the main position of Furong Mountain, and they took advantage of the night to transport heavy artillery and mortars to the Lion Mountain position, integrated the remaining 1,000 soldiers, and dropped more than 2,000 bombs on the Furong Mountain position overnight, opening a passage in the minefield in front of the Furong Mountain position.
At this moment, there were only more than two hundred Chinese defenders left on the Furong Mountain position, and the enemy launched an attack after blasting away the minefield, and the only barrier for the Chinese defenders at this time was the minefield that had not been blasted open and two barbed wires. The Japanese launched ten consecutive charges, but still failed to take the main position of Furong Mountain.
A scene of victory for the Chinese army at the Battle of Xiangxi
The warriors on Furong Mountain were only about a hundred under the fierce charge of the enemy. They sacrificed their young lives for the final victory, only for the Japanese army not to be able to move forward.
The Japanese army fled in full
After the Japanese army took advantage of the night and the sharp decrease in the number of defenders of our army, after capturing some positions on Furong Mountain, the Reinforcements of the Chinese defenders had arrived, and after a day and night of fierce fighting, the Chinese defenders recaptured all the positions that the Japanese had previously occupied, and the Japanese army began to flee from the path.
Some of the Japanese troops were unable to cross the Chenshui River on the way to being pursued by the Chinese defenders, and could only take the risk with their own lives, but due to the rapid flow of the water and the sniper attacks of the Chinese defenders, there were one or two hundred enemy troops who were annihilated in the water. But by the time the Chinese defenders arrived for reinforcements, they had already fled through the night on the mountain road.
The Japanese army was surrendered at Zhijiang Airfield
After the Battle of Furong Mountain, the Chinese defenders' divisions began to attack the relatively complete Chongguang detachment as a regiment, and the Sino-US joint air force taking off from Zhijiang Airport continued to bombard the Chongguang detachment, and under the continuous attack, the Chongguang detachment was almost completely destroyed after May 13.
From June 1, all the remnants of the Japanese fleeing army returned to the area before the Battle of Xuefeng mountain and withdrew from western Hunan Province, a battle of up to fifty-five days and nights that was won by the heroic resistance of the Chinese defenders.
The Battle of Xuefeng Mountain is final
The number of Japanese casualties at the Battle of Xuefeng Mountain reached 2.7 million, of which more than 12,000 were annihilated, and more than 1,000 Japanese troops were forced to commit suicide. The Japanese three-way attacking companies and brigades were all defeated by the Chinese defenders. The Chinese army captured a large amount of weapons, ammunition and supplies from the Japanese army in this battle.
After the Battle of Xuefeng Mountain, the Japanese army could no longer launch another attack on the western Hunan region, and after May, the Japanese army withdrew from the Hunan and Guangxi regions that had been occupied before. In the entire Chinese battlefield, the Japanese army was no longer able to launch a campaign as large as the Battle of Xuefeng Mountain again.
The situation in the civil war had been clearly reversed, the Japanese army had entered a strategic defensive stage, concentrating its forces on the city, and two months later, the Japanese army accepted the surrender at Zhijiang Airport.
Chinese troops blocked Japanese aircraft
Although the Chinese army also paid a painful price in order to resist the attack of the Japanese army, every soldier who sacrificed in order to defend the motherland embodied the feelings of home and country of "the rise and fall of the world, and the responsibility of the husband", in the face of the Japanese army's burning and looting, occupation of the homeland, in order to maintain the dignity of the nation, they were able to abandon their lives, stand up, and go to the country together. In particular, the more than 200 officers and men guarding the Furong Mountain position were still able to face dozens of enemy attacks for the final victory, and still could not lose their positions until the last moment of their lives.
They all have a belief: no matter how difficult the conditions are, no matter whether they have advanced weapons and equipment, no matter how many soldiers' lives will be sacrificed, defend China and drive out the Japanese invaders! In the new era, we should cherish the prosperity of the motherland even more, establish correct, healthy, positive and upward values, take the anti-Japanese heroes as models, and jointly defend and build our motherland.
Group photo of famous anti-Japanese generals
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The last battle of the Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese casualties of 27,000 people, the Battle of Xuefeng Mountain