For the United Nations army, the Watergate Bridge can pass is rebirth, and if it can't pass, it will die! This time they crossed the Pratunam Bridge not forward, but backwards, and were beaten back by the volunteers.
Originally, they wanted to go to the west coast of North Korea and mix with the large united nations troops on the west coast, with the purpose of pushing the army to the Yalu River on the border between China and North Korea.
Pushing this here is equivalent to their victory in the Korean War.
When the volunteers learned of their move, they sent a corps of 120,000 men to the east coast in advance to block the westward march of the American army and prevent them from mixing.
Whatever the method, it's to beat them back. Where did it come from, and where did the UN army go back!
In this way, the United Nations army encountered the volunteers on the Eastern Front, and they could not advance at all. Only to retreat, if not retreat, the entire army will be destroyed, retreat across the Watergate Bridge, they retreat to the shore of the east coast of Korea, that is, where they started.
Here are all their modern equipment and weapons and various supplies supplemented, their weapons, personnel and materials are all from Japan across the sea.
Therefore, when they get to the sea, they don't have to be afraid, all kinds of warships and aircraft are available. At that time, the volunteer army only had the army, and the American army went to the sea, and we had no way to fight with them.
The Battle of Shuimun Bridge was also the last battle of the entire Chosin Lake Campaign.
If you look at the above map, there are marked this place of Chosin Lake, and there are liutan-ri, Dedongling, Xinxing-li, Hagaru-ri, and Gutuli nearby, and these places have been blocked by heavy volunteer troops.
In other words, after crossing the Watergate Bridge, they are reborn.
However, the Ninth Corps of the Volunteer Army was here, and the strength of the 3 corps was biting them at various passes, and how easy would it be for them to retreat?
1
Of the two most important places on the way back for the UN forces, one was Hagaru-ri (see location above), because there was their small airfield, which could be replenished by plane and pulled away the wounded.
The other is the Watergate Bridge, which is the last pass for the U.S. military, and only one bridge can pass. If the bridge is blown up, the American troops will not be able to cross it, and what they are waiting for is to be annihilated by the volunteers!
The plan of the commander of the Ninth Corps, Song Shilun, was to attack jieyuli (see location above) by December 5 at the latest, when there were only two infantry platoons of the Us army in this place, and if the retreat of the Un Army in Xiajieli, Liutanli, Dedongling, xinxingli was taken, it would be cut off.
And now they were retreating down into the corner.
Of course, they were also followed by the volunteers of the Twenty-seventh Army, such as the Twenty-seventh Army, which chased the American army in the direction of Liutanli.
However, on December 5, the latest time of the attack, there was no gunfire in Hagaru. It turned out that the Main Offensive Army,26th Army was still 50-70 kilometers away from Hagaru-ri at this moment.
It will take another day for them to get here.
Because they did not arrive in time, they lost the best time to attack.
On December 5, tens of thousands of American troops retreated to Shimogaru-ri, where they were massed, with tanks and artillery, and it would be difficult to stop them again.
2
Whether it is Hagaru-ri, Liutan-ri, Dedongling, and other places, at the beginning there were AMERICAN occupations, and the task of our volunteers was to take down the places they occupied, and then drive them away, step by step, to drive them back. In the process of retreating, block them and annihilate them!
Therefore, it takes time to attack every pass, this US army has aircraft, artillery cover, our most powerful weapon is the mortar, and they are not an order of magnitude.
When to attack down the time, it is not easy to control, this or remove the weather reasons did not say. Therefore, errors are inevitable.
After the UN forces retreated to Hagaru-ri, commander of the US First Marine Division, Smith Division, made a decision to transport all the more than 5,000 casualties since the fighting in the past few days to Japan for medical treatment.
The biggest role played by the airport here is to transport the wounded. In fact, this airfield was just repaired by them, the volunteer army came to blow up several times, and the US army resisted while repairing.
However, their firepower was strong, and the large troops of our army did not arrive, so in the end they used this airfield to transport the wounded away.
More than 5,000 U.S. casualties were transported, which means that they have no baggage, and if they are on the way back, taking care of 5,000 wounded, it will take a lot of energy, manpower and material resources.
Therefore, for them, the transport of the wounded has made them more handy.
3
Commander Smith of the First Marine Division, after transporting the wounded away, they were about to leave Hagaru-ri, take the troops of 10,000 people, drive tanks and artillery, various cars, under the cover of aircraft, and pour into the next location, Gutuli (see above).
This station is also the last stop on the Watergate Bridge.
Before leaving, they blew up everything left here, leaving nothing behind for the coming volunteers. However, they did not retreat quickly, only a few kilometers a day, and the firepower of the volunteers was too fierce.
On the evening of December 6, the 26th Volunteer Army finally arrived at the battlefield.
Song Shilun gave them the task of fully blocking the retreating Uniss, and Commander Smith sent a regiment, the Seventh Regiment of the First Marine Division, to face the Twenty-sixth Army head-on.
At the same time, a five-regiment regiment was sent to assist the seventh regiment in attacking the Twenty-sixth Army of the Volunteer Army. After the two regimental halls of the American army, the other large forces retreated to Gutuli.
The remaining American troops and the Volunteer Twenty-sixth Army fought repeatedly, and none of them flinched, because this was a life-and-death battle between the two sides, and later the American soldiers called the valley where they fought "Fire Purgatory Valley"!
The casualties of all kinds of people are too cruel, so we will not say more. The battle lasted until the afternoon of the seventh, and the main forces of the US First Marine Division were gradually withdrawn to Gutuli.
The tasks of the Seventh and Fifth Regiments of the US Army were also completed, in fact, to let them go to the palace, it was to sacrifice them and let the large troops of the United Nations army be reborn.
4
From Hagaru-ri to Koto-ri, a total of eighteen kilometers, these eighteen kilometers of road, so that the mechanized troops of the U.S. army walked for 38 hours, an average of five hundred meters per hour.
On this eighteen-kilometer road, the U.S. army lost 661 officers and men, with an average of 34 casualties per kilometer.
There were still more than 10,000 U.S. troops in this stronghold, which meant that every time the U.S. troops retreated to a location, their strength increased somewhat. The same was true of the corresponding volunteers, after all, the volunteers were all rushing to their stronghold.
Came from all directions.
That is to say, there are shadows of volunteers along the entire route.
It was just that the Twenty-sixth Army was directly engaged in them, chasing them to fight, and the other volunteers had long been ambushed in various highlands on the side of the road where the American army was retreating, but the number of volunteers on each high ground was not large, and they were united in companies, and the purpose was to delay their advance.
This is why the U.S. military retreated slowly.
But, in any case, the volunteers did not cut off the American troops in Hakata, and the only remaining hope was placed on the Watergate Bridge. At that time, in the eyes of the volunteers, the American army would undoubtedly die here.
Because we blew up the bridge for him, they had nowhere to go back. There is no way back, there is no material replenishment, they do not have as many personnel as us, in this case, should not they undoubtedly die?
5
Commander Smith went to the ancient soil, waited for the other American troops to gather here, and then, together, they advanced backwards, crossed the Watergate Bridge, and they were safe, and they no longer had to worry about the total annihilation of the army.
Can this Watergate Bridge be crossed?
Obviously, it was not easy to pass, because the Watergate Bridge had been blown up by the volunteers by the time Smith's large army arrived in the ancient soil.
On December 1, the Watergate Bridge was blown up by our army for the first time!
There are also American troops here, who are also paying attention to this last stronghold, the bridge has been blown up by the volunteers, and they have to repair it to ensure the smooth passage of the coming large troops.
The volunteers did not think of the strong repair ability of the American army, and in less than three days, they repaired the blown bridge, this time repairing a wooden bridge.
The volunteers could only blow up the bridge a second time.
On 4 December, the volunteers again braved a hail of bullets and bullets to approach their repaired wooden bridge under the cover of night, this time blowing up the Pratunam Bridge again.
The U.S. army continued to repair, seeing that the wooden bridge was easy to blow up, this time they used steel to build the bridge.
In their view, the bridge built this time will certainly not be easy to be blown up, plus they will send additional personnel to guard it. A tank team of reinforced companies was also deliberately sent here.
It was even harder for the volunteers to blow up the bridge again.
The volunteers saw that the bridge that had been destroyed by the bombing was repaired again, and they could only carry out a third bombing of the bridge. However, now that they have no explosives, is it really providential for the U.S. military to cross the bridge?
6
The first two bombings of the bridge were not so badly damaged, also because of a lack of explosives. Now that there are no explosives, they can only report the situation to their superiors.
After that, they were supported by the 7th Company of the 3rd Battalion, 240th Regiment of the 80th Division
This 7th Company is the Steel Seventh Company that has fought countless hard battles, and the company commander is called Jiang Qingyun! It should be noted that when they arrived at the Watergate Bridge, they had not eaten for two days and two nights.
Now we still can't care about eating, we must blow up the Watergate Bridge as soon as possible, otherwise, there are more and more US troops, and the longer it drags on, the smaller the probability of blowing up the bridge.
On December 6th, the Seventh Steel Company, taking advantage of the night to brave the enemy's artillery fire, approached the Watergate Bridge, knowing that the enemy's artillery fire was very dense, and they could only approach the Watergate Bridge in all directions.
It is to attract artillery fire in many ways!
This is equivalent to the fact that most people are sacrificed, as long as one or two lucky people approach the bridge and blow it up, their mission is completed.
At this time, all the people have no concept of life and death, their only goal is to blow up the bridge, only by blowing up the bridge can they annihilate the enemy, and only by annihilating the enemy can they better defend the newly established new China.
Under the attack of 7 consecutive lives and deaths, the Watergate Bridge was blown up by us for the third time.
This time, the blow-up was much more serious than the previous two times, and the entire bridge was destroyed even the foundation. And the U.S. army is not able to repair it, after all, the entire bridge has been almost destroyed, in the eyes of the volunteer army, this time the U.S. army will undoubtedly die.
7
In fact, when the bridge was blown up for the third time, Smith also arrived here, and he saw that the only bridge had been blown up, and he fell into despair.
He sent a telegram to MacArthur, the commander-in-chief of the United Nations Army, saying that the FIRST Marine Division was ready to die, and he did not expect that this ace army would end up with such a fate.
MacArthur was also defeated on the Western Front and couldn't take care of him at all. Still, Smith saw hope in despair as they thought of a brilliant solution.
It is to use modern technology to build a bridge in Japan. All of them were built of steel, and after they were built, the parts were airlifted from Japan to the Watergate Bridge, where they could be installed directly.
In order to transport the main body of the bridge built in Japan, they deliberately transferred two overweight transport aircraft and two overweight transport aircraft in the United States to send the final bridge parts.
At the same time, there are dozens of small planes transporting other parts.
The volunteers saw this scene, but they did not know what they were doing, nor did they expect that their manufacturing ability was so powerful, and after the US army assembled the bridge, it was impossible for the volunteers to blow up the bridge.
This bridge is impregnable, it is already difficult to blow up, and then it is basically impossible to get close. Most importantly, the Volunteers were no longer able to organize a powerful attack.
8
It should be known that the US military relies on aircraft to replenish supplies, our army has no air force at all, and at that time it was fighting on the Gaima Plateau, the coldest in Korea, and the food and drink, especially the bullets and guns, could not be replenished at all.
All kinds of supplies are in short supply, and frozen potatoes are in short supply!
Having just gone through so many battles, the personnel were exhausted to the extreme, and most importantly, there were not enough guns and ammunition, so they simply did not have the ability to organize a strong attack.
In this case, only the U.S. military can be watched passing through the Watergate Bridge.
From Gutuli over the Watergate Bridge to Zhenxingli, the US First Marine Division took seventy-seven hours, an average of one kilometer forward, requiring two hours, on this road, the American army died eighty-one deaths, sixteen people were missing, and two hundred and fifty wounded.
At thirteen o'clock on December 11, the main force of the First Marine Division passed through Zhenxingli!
This means that they are completely safe!
In fact, there is another reason why the US military retreated so smoothly, everyone knows the ice sculpture company, why did they become the ice sculpture company? And there are several such ice sculptures, one even about 200 people.
It was because they arrived at a place early to ambush them, in order to avoid the enemy's aircraft reconnaissance, they did not dare to move at all, plus the weather was cold, their clothes were thin, so they were frozen in place!
Originally, there were volunteers on this high ground, but they were all frozen into ice sculptures, so they could not stop the US troops, and their resistance was reduced.
9
In any case, however, the UN forces' objectives were not achieved, and failure to achieve them meant that they had lost strategically, and they had wanted to push from the Eastern Front of Korea to the mix of the Western and Western Fronts.
However, because of the emergence of the Ninth Corps of the Volunteer Army, this wish made it impossible for them to do so. Even, they set off from there and retreated somewhere.
Therefore, the Ninth Corps still completed their blockade task.