Source: Jun Zhengping Studio · Chinese Military Horn
At the end of 1950, on the Gaima Plateau on the Korean Peninsula, the US First Marine Division, trapped in the pocket line of the Volunteer Army, received orders from Shangfeng to withdraw at full speed. The Gaima Plateau is high and deep, and there are no detour roads around it, and if the First Marine Division wants to withdraw, it must pass through the Watergate Bridge. As long as you successfully cross this bridge and cross the Yellow Grass Ridge, it is the plain of the Pingchuan River. There, in the face of the US air superiority and firepower superiority, the pursuit of the volunteers will be difficult to sustain. Aircraft carriers and aircraft assembled in the harbor not far away could bless the U.S. military from escaping.
At this time, the situation was already very clear, and this humble bridge determined the situation of the battlefield. If the U.S. army wants to escape, it must defend the bridge; if the volunteers want to win, they must blow up the bridge.
So a white-hot struggle with no prelude and no warm-up began. On December 1, 1950, the Volunteer Bridge Bombing Squad preemptively attacked, interspersed with surprise attacks, and for the first time cut the throat of the First Marine Division. The next day, the instinct to survive prompted the U.S. army's engineers to quickly build a wooden bridge. However, the wooden bridge only existed for three days, and the volunteers destroyed it again, but the well-equipped American army was willing to give up easily. Soon the U.S. military once again erected a steel bridge and arranged for dozens of tanks to be deployed on both sides of the bridge.
On December 6, volunteer soldiers lurking in the snow stared at the black muzzles of the guns, and the third bombing of the bridge quietly unfolded in the dark and silent night. Three times, the volunteer death squads used their bodies to break through the enemy's machine gun fire network, and once again blew up the newly erected bridge base.
At this time, the commander of the U.S. First Marine Division was almost desperate, and the American officers and men who had retreated all the way to this point had to face a desperate situation that frightened them more than the howling wind and snow: "On the way to continue the retreat to the coast, there is an extremely steep pass, and the only bridge on the pass that can be passed has been blown up by the Chinese soldiers. ”
The story should have come to an abrupt end here, so many bloody and sacrificial efforts, so many fearless charge of life and death should not have regretted. However, just as the volunteer soldiers gritted their teeth and continued to compete with the recalcitrant US troops, a scene that subverted their common sense occurred - the US military airlifted a bridge!
The U.S. military unit in charge of logistics deployed overnight, and several sets of M2 steel and wood standard bridges were produced by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan, which were transported by multiple transport aircraft to the Pratunam Bridge area more than 1,000 kilometers away for airdropping. Heavy steel components stirred up dust and snow chips on the ground, which was unimaginable to volunteer soldiers armed with "Made in All Nations" rifles — in less than three days, the U.S. military, far from home, could rebuild a steel bridge with a load of 50 tons that could pass all types of tanks and vehicles.
At this moment, the Watergate Bridge is like a metaphor for the entire War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
The military writer Wang Shuzeng wrote in the Korean War: "The story of this bridge can be clearly seen that in the entire Korean War, the huge gap in industrial capabilities between the two sides of the war led to a huge disparity in military strength, so that the war was carried out under the premise of a huge difference in war strength. "In almost every bloody story of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the volunteer army ate frozen potatoes and fried noodles under the premise that the war strength was hugely different, under the condition of no air supremacy, and with extraordinary courage and wisdom, it shook the mechanized troops of the US army and won them again and again.
The U.S. military once translated a summary of the Twenty-seventh Army's war on the eastern front of the Korean battlefield: "During the battle, soldiers camped on the snowy ground, and their feet, socks, and hands were as white as snow balls, and even the pull rings of grenades could not be pulled out." The fuzes did not fire, the mortar contracted due to the cold, and 70% of the mortar shells did not explode. The skin of the hand and the shell and gun body were glued together. At that time, the U.S. army had enough turkey pie to eat, and when it withdrew from Hagaru-ri, it destroyed thousands of tons of excess food and supplies through bulldozers and explosives. Within a few hours, the wounded officers and men could be flown by plane to the operating table of a Tokyo hospital for surgery. However, Colonel Bowser, who was then the chief of operations of the US First Marine Division, recalled the desperate retreat journey during the Battle of Chosin Lake many years later, and still had lingering feelings: "Fortunately, they did not have enough logistical support and communication equipment, otherwise the First Marine Division would never have been able to escape from Chosin Lake." ”
Bombing the Watergate Bridge is a pain that our army must endure. In the rules of the game of modern warfare, the will of man determines the course of war, but the temperature of minus forty degrees Celsius and the endless and unsparing explosion of explosives open the way beyond the limits of human willpower. Zhang Yixiang, commander of the 20th Army of the Volunteer Army, said sadly: "At the Shuimen Bridge, even if you give me a heavy artillery, there will be one, and the First Marine Division will not be able to run!" The Battle of Watergate Bridge became the regret of the general's life.
Comrade Mao Zedong once analyzed why imperialism dares to invade us, because we do not have a strong industry, and "aggression" is far more than just on the battlefield. After the signing of the Treaty of Xinugu, China was subjected to a joint embargo on arms and industry by the great powers, and the great powers were surprisingly consistent in their efforts to intercept China outside the gates of the world industrial revolution. They are reluctant to allow a huge commodity market to "do it themselves and have enough food and clothing", and they do not allow a blood-sucking colony to be "independent and self-reliant". According to some statistics, China's industry in 1949 lagged behind that of the Western world, and its industrial volume was only equivalent to the British Isles during the Opium War, the United States in 1810, and Japan during the Meiji Restoration.
In those years, Chinese average steel production was only enough for one person to hit a sickle.
New China had a huge gap in scientific and technological and industrial strength compared with the world's first-class powers on the battlefield, and when defending dignity and peace, the commanders and fighters of the volunteer army could only launch a charge again and again with their flesh and blood.
In the coldest snow, there is the hottest blood. China, which stands up, is bound to kill a bloody road in the journey of industry and science and technology.
Sixty-five years later, the U.S. military airdropped a simulated M2 bridge component on active C-131J transport airdrops as a memorial to operation "airdrop bridge" on Chosin Lake, seemingly still showing off the blessing of a major country's industrial capabilities. But this did not stir up much waves in Chinese's heart. Because as early as a few years ago, China was already the world's largest manufacturing country.
But "big" is not "strong", because we are determined to be in the sea of stars, and we must continue to grit our teeth and insist. As President Xi Jinping pointed out in his 2022 New Year message, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is by no means something that can be achieved easily by beating a gong and a drum, nor can it be achieved overnight. We must always be far-sighted, think of danger in times of peace, maintain strategic determination and patience, and "make the vast and the subtle."
December 16, 2021, the sixth "Made in China Day". China's industry, which has entered a new round of industrial technology revolution, is "comforting" the martyrs in a romantic way:
@ Aviation industry "report": Yun 20, I made; J-20 I made; straight 20 or I made;
@ China Can Build "Report": Gezhouba, the first dam of the Yangtze River, I built it; the Three Gorges Project, Wudongde Hydropower Station, I built it; China's top ten hydropower stations, or I built it;
@ China Construction "Report": more than 90% of the skyscrapers above 300 meters, I built; 3/4 of the key airports, I built; 3/4 satellite launch base, I built; Wuhan Vulcan Mountain, Leishenshan Hospital, I built;
@ CNNC "Report": A new generation of nuclear submarine land mode reactor, I built; the fourth generation of nuclear power high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, I built; China's "artificial sun", I built; the core components of the International Thermonuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor (ITER) are still made by me. Rush out of the earth and into the universe!
There are also @ power grid headlines, @ voice of military industry, @ China Communications Construction, @ China Aerospace Science and Industry...
Without exception, like the soldiers who died on the nameless plateau behind the Watergate Bridge, they proudly reported: I, Made in China, report to the people!
"On the Korean battlefield, the volunteer soldiers faced a powerful and fierce combat opponent, were in a harsh and cruel battlefield environment, threw their heads and spilled their blood, and used 'less steel and more qi' to overcome 'more steel and less gas', composing a majestic epic poem that shocked the world and wept ghosts."
Today, standing in the face of new historical issues, we must not forget the fighting bloodiness of our revolutionary ancestors, write a new answer sheet with our own hard work, and hold up our chests to promise the volunteer soldiers: The regret of the Watergate Bridge will eventually be rewritten!
(Produced by Jun Zhengping Studio and China Military)