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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" >1</h1>
After the volunteers withdrew from the battle of Tongpingli at dawn on February 16, 1951, on February 17, Peng Dehuai and Park Yiyu jointly issued an order for the volunteer army and the people's army to move all of the line into the movement defense.
At this time, the Central Military Commission had determined the policy and deployment of rotational operations in Korea, and the 19th Corps, as the second combat unit, had begun to cross the river and advance to the Korean front from February 16, and could not reach the front line until mid-March. The other second combat units are still being mobilized domestically, and it will not be as early April as possible to reach the front line.
The 6 corps of the Volunteer Army fighting on the front line have carried out four consecutive battles, the troops have been greatly reduced, due to transportation difficulties, the new recruits and veterans who have completed training and prepared to replenish in the country have not yet been sent to the front line, and the front-line troops are already in a state of "green and yellow". Peng Dehuai and Park Yiyu judged that before the second combat unit of the Volunteer Army and the supplementary soldiers arrived at the front line, the "United Nations Army" relied on its superior equipment and quickly replenished, and with the support of the Air Force, it was still possible to attack and try to enter and exit the 38th Line.
Based on this, Peng Dehuai and Park Yiyu decided that the Volunteer Army and the People's Army should adopt the principle of exchanging space for time, deploy three defensive positions in areas stretching from the north bank of the Han River to the hengcheng line in the south and the first line of the 38th line in the north, adopt the method of moving and defending step by step, insist on defending each line for 20 to 30 days, and win a total of two months to cover the advance and assembly of the second combat troops, improve transportation conditions, hoard combat materials, and then counterattack.
In their orders, Peng Dehuai and Park Yiyu demanded:
"In the interception of the attack, the front and rear should be taken lightly, and the mobile forces should be controlled as much as possible; in the interception battle, the enemy should be harassed by small troops, the enemy's offensive plan should be delayed, the enemy's charge should be repelled by counter-charge, or a counterattack should be organized at dusk to retake the position lost during the day. In short, under the superior firepower of the enemy, it is the principle to avoid excessive and premature consumption of one's own living forces. Each unit may be divided into several echelons according to the situation, take turns to block the attack, and change shifts to make up for it. The order stressed: "As long as we can win two months, the follow-up corps can rush to the scheduled battlefield, the new and old replenishment troops can be replenished, the combat materials can also be hoarded, and the second corps can take over the first corps, and strive to fight continuously in turn, without giving the enemy a chance to breathe." ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="73" >2, the first round of "UN Army" crazy counterattack - "Operation Butcher"</h1>
After the withdrawal of the volunteers from the Battle of Tongpingli, Li Qihui's deployment of the strength of the volunteer army and the people's army and the deployment south of the 38th line was still clear, and his deployment of the volunteer army and the people's army on the front line was not clear, believing that the intention of the volunteer army and the people's army to move northwards may be a trap to lure the United Nations army.
At the same time, since the United Nations launched a full-line attack on January 25, although the South Korean army suffered heavy losses in the Hengcheng area, the US army has not lost 1 division of the attack capability, and the defense of Tongpingli has become the first successful defense of the US army after the appearance of the Chinese Volunteer Army in the Korean battlefield.
Since then, since the end of November 1950, when it was severely cracked down by the Chinese Volunteers, the sense of fear and mystery of the Chinese Volunteers began to change. In addition, a part of the field artillery battalion that had completed training in the United States was incorporated into the U.S. army in Korea in February 1951, which enhanced the attack firepower of the U.S. army. In this context, Ridgway decided on 18 February to launch an offensive code-named Operation Butcher.
On February 19, Ridgway held an operational meeting with the commander of the US 9th Army, the commander of the US 10th Army, and the commander of the US 1st Marine Division at the command post of the US 9th Army in Lizhou, and specifically studied and deployed the "Butcher Operation". The purpose of Operation Butcher was not to give the Volunteers and KPA time to redeploy in order to launch another offensive. Its immediate objective was to occupy the first line on the south bank of the Han River on the western front, to advance the front line north of the line of Tongpingli, Hengcheng, and Fanglinli on the central front, to occupy the line north of Gangneung on the eastern front, to level the concave front in Wonju, Pyeongchang, and Jeongsan, and to eliminate the volunteer troops on the line east of the South Han River to Ha Hing An-ri, so as to take Seoul and advance to the 38th Line in the next step.
The official U.S. Army War History says:
Ridgway gave a strict order that the operation must not proceed unchecked northward, pointing out that there should be a coordinated advance between and within the attacking armies of the 9th and 10th. He stressed that his goal was to eliminate enemy forces. ”
Ridgway himself said in his memoirs that the approach taken in this attack was:
"To exchange the greatest casualties of the enemy at a small price; to avoid all reckless and unplanned advances, which threaten to leave us surrounded by a numerically superior enemy. ...... There was close coordination between the troops, especially the infantry, artillery and air force, which adopted the old-fashioned approach to coordination. ”
According to Ridgway's plan, the "United Nations Army" launched a full-scale northward attack from February 21.
Ridgway did not know that the volunteer and people's army units on the western front had all withdrawn to the north bank of the Han River on the 18th, so after he launched his attack, he still used the fierce fire of artillery and tanks to shell both sides of the Han River, and on the 21st alone, he shelled more than 10,000 rounds at the positions on the north bank of the Han River of the 50th Army of the Volunteer Army, and sent reconnaissance troops to the bridgehead positions on the south bank of the Han River.
The central line was the main direction of Ridgway's attack, with the US 1st Cavalry Division and the 1st Marine Division as the mainstay, the US 24th Division, the US 2nd Division, the British 27th Brigade and the South Korean 6th Division as a support, fiercely attacking the area north of Tongpyeong-ri and Hengcheng, with regiments or battalions as units, supported by artillery, tanks and aircraft, attacking the positions of the Volunteer 42nd and 66th Army defending the above areas, sometimes concentrating hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, cars, and so on in one direction.
But on February 21-23, 1951, a spring rain rarely seen in North Korean history affected the outposes of its air force and muddy roads on the ground, making it more difficult for its ground forces to operate. On the Eastern Front, divisions commanded by the U.S. 10th Army, the South Korean 3rd Army, and the 1st Army also put more pressure on KPA positions to complement the attack on the Central Front.
The 42nd and 66th Armies of the Volunteer Army, in the case of fatigue in continuous combat, extreme difficulties in supplying food and ammunition, and attrition and lack of replenishment of troops, in order to gain more time, relying on the field fortifications to stubbornly delay the attack of the "United Nations Army", each company and platoon position on the front line repelled several charges of the "United Nations Army", and after the daytime positions were occupied by the "United Nations Army", they organized counterattacks to retake them at night and repeatedly competed with the "United Nations Army".
Some positions changed hands many times, fighting until the ammunition ran out and only three or two people were left, and only then did they withdraw from the positions, effectively delaying the attack of the "United Nations Army". The "United Nations Army" attacked for 15 consecutive days, and it was not until March 6 that it occupied the target line of its attack, advancing the front from west to east to the Gangneung-line on the south bank of the Han River, Yangpyeong, Hengcheng, Azhidong and the east coast, flattening its recesses on the eastern front. On the Western Front, the Volunteers and the People's Army had withdrawn to the north bank of the Han River before the "United Nations Army" attacked, so the US 1st Army only advanced to the south bank of the Han River without combat. On the central front, the volunteer positions were on the yangpyeong, Hengcheng, and Azhidong lines, and the "United Nations Army" attacked for 15 days before occupying this line, and the actual battle advanced no more than 5 kilometers, and did not achieve its goal of eliminating the volunteer army and the KPA troops. U.S. 9th Army Commander Bryant Moore was killed in a plane crash on February 24 while commanding the attack.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="77" >3, the second round of "UN Army" crazy counterattack - "Operation Tearer"</h1>
Ridgway's "Operation Ripper" was an offensive based on his "Butcher's Operation", with the goal of capturing Seoul and advancing towards the 38th Parallel. He believed that the united nations army ground forces would simultaneously launch an all-round offensive and lack of strength, especially the recapture of Seoul would be a fierce battle, so he decided to first advance north from the central and eastern fronts with the US 9th and 10th armies and the South Korean army on the eastern front, capture and eliminate the living forces of the volunteer army and the people's army, and "tear" the connection between the main forces of the volunteer army and the people's army, form a siege of Seoul from the flank, and then capture Seoul.
On the morning of March 7, Operation Ripper began. From 5:50 a.m. to 6:10 p.m., the artillery preparations of the U.S. 25th Division alone used 10 field artillery battalions, 148 guns, 100 tanks, 48 heavy mortars, and 25 self-propelled anti-aircraft machine guns and 100 guns.
The units of the volunteer army resisted heroically and tenaciously, and on only 7 days, several companies held their positions, and finally all of them died heroically. At dawn on March 9, Peng Dehuai returned to the headquarters of the Volunteer Army. At this time, in view of the fact that the volunteer army and the first-line troops of the People's Army had already carried out 20 days of blockade operations, and achieved the purpose of exchanging space for time in the first-line positions, coupled with the fatigue of the troops after a long period of war, the commander of the joint division issued the next step of the blockade deployment order in the name of Peng Dehuai, Deng Hua, and Park Yiyu at 11 o'clock on the same day, and decided to use the second-line troops to take over the first-line troops to continue to adopt the form of mobile defense to block the attack.
After making the above-mentioned defensive deployment of the movement, the head of the Joint Division, in response to the fierce artillery fire and the heavy use of tank attacks by the "United Nations Army", immediately after issuing tactical instructions for defensive operations on March 10, emphasized the importance of building positions, especially anti-artillery and anti-tank positions, and the principle of the principle of light front and rear weight of troops and the allocation of firearms to the front echelon as much as possible (later summarized as follows: the principle of defensive deployment of the troops with light front and rear weight, and the firearms with heavy front and rear light).
At the critical moment of the mobile defensive operation, the chief of the joint division continuously issued tactical instructions and gave timely and effective guidance to the mobile defensive operation. All departments conscientiously carried out the implementation and creatively applied and implemented it in light of their respective situations, and carried out mobile and flexible movement defense operations. Sport defense operations are very well fought.
Since 10 March, the troops on the front line have been carrying out stubborn resistance battles as planned, while gradually moving northward. When the main force of the 42nd Army moved north of the Hongchuan River, 3 companies of the 125th Division remained in Jiangnan, and on the 14th, they stubbornly blocked the American troops advancing toward Hongchuan for one day, and when the main force of the 66th Army moved north, 1 regiment was also left to block the southeast of Hongchuan.
From the 12th, the vanguard of the second line had begun to make contact with the attacking enemy, and the outposts of the 118th Division of the 40th Army were engaged in fierce battles with the attacking enemy at Hongchuan and one regiment of the 116th Division of the 39th Army at Wuyin Mountain.
At this time, the vanguard of the 19th Corps of the Second Combat Force had reached the city border and the Rabbit Mountain area, and the main force was advancing towards Nanchuandian and Xinxi. The main force of the 9th Corps, the 3rd Corps and the tank troops and the newly entered Artillery could not reach the Tieyuan, Pingkang, Jinhua areas and the Yichuan, Gushan, Xinxi, and Sui'an areas to complete the assembly in mid-April, so the next campaign could be launched in late April.
On the basis of the main geographical situation north of the 38th Line, the Joint Division decided to attack the positions for the next battle, which was Changyuanli on the west coast and eastward through the xinyuan-ri, Qingshi-ri, Shirakawa-ri, Leaky River-ri, Shuoning-daguang-ri, Shibaura-ri, Huachuan, Yangkou, Linjiao, and Xiangyang lines.
In order to control the above-mentioned offensive departure areas and to give the newly entered Korean regiments time to prepare for battle, at 17:00 on March 14, the Joint Division requested the second-line troops, which had taken over the defensive tasks, to resist from the current position for 7 to 8 days, and then retreat to the west from Wenshan, east through Dongdouchuan, Baochuan, Kaping, Chunchuan, and from Yinli to the county line; and then resist for 7 to 8 days, and withdraw to the first line of the 38th Line at the end of March or early April. It took 20 to 25 days from the 38th Line onwards to the starting point of the next campaign, and the defenses of the various units after the withdrawal to the 38th Line were deployed.
On the same day, the US 25th and 24th Divisions, which were advancing north along the banks of the North Han River, had entered Jiuyanli, south of the Cheongpyeong River, cutting off the road from Chuncheon to Seoul; the US 1st Cavalry Division, the 1st Marine Division, and the British 27th Brigade, which were advancing toward Hongcheon, had crossed the Hongcheon River and occupied Hongcheon; the 3rd and 1st South Korean Armies of the 5th and 2nd Year Regiments of the Eastern Front also advanced to the east-west line of Lower Zhenfuli.
On the evening of the 13th, the Volunteer Army and the People's Army took the initiative to withdraw from Seoul, and by the morning of the 14th, all of them withdrew. The U.S. 3rd Division and the South Korean 1st Division entered Seoul on the 15th.
Ridgway wrote in his memoirs:
Although Seoul was recaptured or new areas were occupied, operation Ripper was aimed not only at recovering the capital or occupying new areas, but also at capturing and destroying the enemy's living forces and capturing and destroying their weapons and equipment. In this sense, the operation was not entirely successful, since only a blockade was carried out when the enemy rapidly retreated northward. The weather and terrain have caused us greater difficulties than enemy movements, especially in the central region, where the peaks of the mountains plunge into the sky and the steep slopes fall straight into the canyons through which even large carts cannot pass. We had to encircle and charge at the fortifications of the enemy high on the desolate hills. ”
After the "Un Forces" occupied Seoul on March 15, Ridgway decided to expand the scale of Operation Tearer. On the central front, the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division and the 1st Marine Division, commanded by the U.S. 9th Army, advanced from the Hongchuan-Chuncheon line to the 38th line. In view of the increasingly fierce resistance encountered by the US advance toward Hongchuan, MacArthur planned to use the US 187th Airborne Regiment to carry out the second AIRborne landing of the US Army in the Korean War in Chuncheon on March 22, in order to cooperate with the two divisions to annihilate the volunteer forces in Chuncheon and capture Chuncheon. Because Chuncheon is close to the 38th Line, and in the middle of the front, the capture of Chuncheon is a sign of the 38th Line in the middle.
On 18 and 19 March, KPA 2nd Corps units annihilated more than 500 South Korean death squads east of Rinho. On the 19th, the vanguard tank unit of the US 1st Cavalry Division entered Chuncheon, and on the 21st, the 8th Regiment of the US Division occupied Chuncheon, and the US 187th Regiment originally planned to parachute in Chuncheon on the 22nd lost its significance. Ridgway then changed the airborne mission of the 187th Regiment to Wenshan in an attempt to cooperate with the South Korean 1st Division in annihilating the KPA troops at Wenshan.
On the morning of 23 March, the US 5th Air Force first dispatched 56 B-26 light bombers to pre-bomb the Wenshan airborne landing field, and then, with 72 C-119 and 48 C-46 transport aircraft, a total of more than 3,400 people of the US 187th Regiment were airdropped, including 220 tons of jeeps, light tanks, 105-mm howitzers and other equipment, ammunition, and supplies. However, at this time, the main force of the 19th Division of the People's Army in the Wenshan area had withdrawn from Wenshan, and 2 of the 1 regiments in Wenshan had been scattered to the northeast of Wenshan before dawn, and the other battalion had engaged in a fierce battle with the airborne troops of the US 187th Regiment, with heavy casualties on both sides. The second airborne landing of the US military in the Korean battlefield, like its first airborne landing, failed to achieve the purpose of intercepting and annihilating the KPA troops.
On March 28, the US 25th Division and the 187th Airborne Regiment, with the cooperation of more than 70 tanks and a large number of artillery and aircraft, launched a fierce attack on the xianyanli, Qifengshan, Hailongshan, Baochuan, and Yunyueshan line positions defended by the 26th Army of the Volunteer Army. Two companies of the 234th Regiment of the 26th Army of the Volunteer Army were surrounded at Qifeng Mountain, and in order to cooperate with the ground forces in competing for the commanding heights, the American Army landed behind the side of the Wangfangshan position controlled by 2 squads of the 233rd Regiment of the 26th Army of the Volunteer Army under the cover of more than 10 fighters. The 234th and 233rd Regiments of the Volunteer Army fought fiercely with the American troops at the qifengshan and Hailongshan positions all day long, repelled 10 american charges, annihilated more than 1,500 American troops, and created a model example of 1 squad destroying 9 American tanks with anti-tank grenades.
Two squads of the 233rd Regiment fought with the airborne Americans, but due to the outnumbered, most of the squads were killed or wounded, and the position was lost. On March 29 and 30, the U.S. 187th Regiment, the U.S. 25th Division, the U.S. 24th Division, and the British 27th Brigade attacked north of Qifeng Mountain, Hailong Mountain, Dongdou River, and Baochuan, and the 26th Volunteer Army blocked the attack mountain by mountain.
By 31 March, the Volunteer Army and the KPA had been holding off the second defensive position for 20 days (counting from 12 March), completed the scheduled task of blocking the enemy, and the main force withdrew to the 38th Line and the area north of it. The "United Nations Army" marched from west to east to Wenshan, Dongdouchuan, Baochuan, Jishanli (north-east of Baochuan), Beipeishan (north of Chuncheon) to Xiangyang on the east coast and the area north of it. Except for the South Korean army on the east coast, which crossed the 28th Line and occupied Xiangyang, the rest were all in the area south of the 38th Line and close to the 38th Line.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="79" >4, the third round of "UN Army" crazy counterattack - "Rampage"</h1>
After the "United Nations Army" reached the 38th Line at the end of March, it once again faced the question of whether to cross the 38th Line. In this regard, the highest military and political authorities in the United States are very hesitant, and the military and political circles blame each other, and no one is willing to come up with a clear opinion. However, Ridgway on the battlefield believed that the 38th Line could not be defended and did not have strategic value, and at the same time judged that the Volunteer Army and the People's Army were gathering troops to prepare for the offensive, and in order to sabotage the upcoming offensive of the Volunteer Army and the People's Army, decided to launch a "violent operation", with the goal of advancing to the "Kansas Line" he had determined -- starting from the south bank of the Linjin River Estuary in the west, going up the river, passing through Jicheng, Daocheng Pointe, the south bank of Huachuan Lake, yangkou to the east coast of Xiangyang, and believed that Tieyuan, Jinhua, The Binh Kang area was the center of command and supply for the Volunteers and KPA, so the focus should be on the capture of the area. Full action began in early April.
The Volunteers also judged this. At 7 o'clock on April 5, the headquarters of the Volunteer Army called the armies and pointed out:
"Judging that the enemy continues to cross the line, the focus will be on attacking the Areas of Tieyuan, Pingkang, Jinhua, Jincheng, and Tushan, and possibly landing at Wonsan and Tongchuan with one ... Under my active defense for more than two months, the enemy has been greatly depleted and fatigued, creating a favorable opportunity for the next battle. It is hoped that the armies will quickly assemble in the predetermined areas for victory in the next battle. "
On April 6, the 60th Army of the 3rd Corps of the Second Combat Force of the Volunteer Army had reached the area of Yichuan and Xinxi. Therefore, on April 7, the Joint Division made another adjustment to the defensive deployment of the 38th Line and north of the 38th Line, that is, the 63rd Army of the 19th Corps of the Volunteer Army was responsible for the defense of the licheng river to the Linjin River, the defense of the Area of Shuoning and Lianchuan east of the Linjin River was the responsibility of the 60th Army, and the deployment of the other armies and corps remained unchanged.
The Volunteer Army and the People's Army adopted a combination of blockade and counterattack tactics deployed along the 38th Line in accordance with the above-mentioned deployments, and attacked the "United Nations Army" advancing northward, so that the "United Nations Army" in the central and western parts only crossed the 38th Line and advanced on the western front, and the US 3rd and 25th Divisions advanced on the western front were stubbornly blocked by the 26th Army of the Volunteer Army. On April 9, when the 1st Marine Division and the 1st Cavalry Division advanced toward Huachuan and 90,000 miles east, four battalions of the 115th Division of the 39th Army of the Volunteer Army opened the gates of the Huachuan Reservoir, effectively stopping the advance of the American army. In early to mid-April, the 40th Army of the Volunteer Army resisted the attack of the "United Nations Army" north of Chuncheon and south of Jinhua, and fought more than 90 battles. More than 5,000 enemy personnel were annihilated.
At 23:00 on April 12, the headquarters of the Volunteer Army called the various departments and determined that the final line of resistance was the line of launching the next campaign attack, and from west to east were jinchuan, Weichuanli, Shuoning, Changjuli, Wenhuili, and Shanyangli. At this time, the "United Nations Army" had been attacking for more than 70 consecutive days, the troops had suffered serious losses and were extremely tired, and its entire offensive had slowed down, except for the tieyuan and Jinhua areas, which were still relatively active.
In view of this, the headquarters of the Volunteer Army called the ministries at 12 o'clock on 15 April, stating:
"At present the enemy is not replenished and extremely tired, and it is advantageous to fight for a counterattack in the campaign in late April. In order to make the enemy attack one step deeper, it was decided that from the night of the seventeenth day, the main forces of our thirty-ninth, forty, and twenty-sixth armies would all withdraw to the final line of resistance designated at twenty-three o'clock on the twelfth day... The fortifications of the withdrawing positions will be destroyed, leaving only a small number of troops in front to monitor the enemy and reconnoiter the situation, and the enemy will retreat when advancing, and there is no need to block the attack. ”
According to this, the main forces of the various units of the Volunteer Army took the initiative to move backwards on the evening of the 17th, and changed from the original blocking and blocking to the gradual enticing of the enemy.
The "United Nations Army" is moving northward and becoming more active. By April 21, the "United Nations Army" had been contained by the Volunteer Army and the People's Army in the kaesong, Gaolangpuli, Sankuri, Wenhuili, Huachuan, Yangkou, Yuantongli, and Gancheng lines, failing to achieve its goal of occupying the Tieyuan and Jinhua areas. The second combat unit of the Volunteer Army has completed the campaign, and the fourth campaign has ended.
The entire fourth campaign was conducted under extremely difficult conditions, but the volunteer army carried forward the spirit of being particularly able to endure hardships and fight, fought continuously with the People's Army, flexibly applied various combat styles such as defensive defense, campaign counterattack, and mobile defense in the course of campaign guidance, closely integrated mobile warfare with position warfare, won the initiative from passivity, and annihilated more than 78,000 enemy personnel, annihilating more than the number of enemies in the previous three campaigns combined.
The Volunteer Army and the People's Army suffered more than 53,000 casualties (including more than 42,000 casualties of the Volunteer Army and more than 10,500 casualties of the People's Army). Relying on a powerful air force and superior weapons and equipment, the "United Nations Army" implemented the "fire and sea tactics" to carry out fierce attacks. Although the Volunteers and KPA adopted a movement defense, the advance of the "United Nations Army" was also very difficult, starting from January 25 and ending on April 21, which lasted 87 days from the area north of the 37th Line to the 38th Line, with an average of 900 casualties per day before advancing 1.3 kilometers.
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