During the Battle of Shangganling, Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army, called the tunnel and just said some words of encouragement, but the little soldier who answered the phone opposite said: Commander, you should stop talking, hurry up and give the order.
This little soldier was Niu Baocai, a special meritorious hero of the Volunteer Army. He was a legendary telephone soldier who exchanged his life for three minutes of precious talk time, making an indelible contribution to the victory of the war. Li Feng's book "Decisive Battle of Korea" tells his story.
During the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Niu Bao was a deputy squad leader of the telephone squad of the first battalion headquarters of the 45th Division of the 15th Army. Since there was no very advanced wireless phone technology at that time, the troops still liked to use wired lines, and the reliability would be higher. But the problem was that the U.S. military continued to bomb, often blowing up telephone lines.
Take a look at the relevant data from "Decisive Battle of Korea". In the Battle of Shangganling, the U.S. army fired more than 1.95 million shells and 5,000 aerial bombs at the volunteer positions. Under this high-density bombardment, it is difficult to ensure that there will be no problems with the telephone line. Once blown up, it was necessary for the signal soldiers to risk repairs.
Therefore, the signal soldiers are definitely high-risk troops. The volunteers were inactive during the day and came out at night to harass, but the signal troops were the only daytime targets on the position, and of course they would be closely focused on by the American artillery. They must also ensure that communication between the forward positions and the command is smooth, and they are constantly under threat of death. You can say so. Every minute and every second of a call on the battlefield left the blood and sweat of the messengers.
As said at the beginning of the article, Niu Baocai did not hesitate to interrupt Qin Jiwei's words. Why wasn't Qin Jiwei angry? Because they all know that the call time is too short, they don't know when they will be blown up by the enemy, and they have to grab a second or a second. So many communication soldiers sacrificed and could not guarantee that the line would always be smooth, and they could only grab one sentence and count one sentence, which was Shangganling at that time.
On October 14, 1952, the U.S. army launched another artillery attack on the Shangganling position, and the telephone line was also broken several times, and it was Niu Bao who restored communication in time. On the evening of the 14th, the telephone line was blown off again, and Niu Bao did not say anything, carried a bundle of telephone lines and went out to find the breakpoint.
Although Niu Baocai was experienced, he could not withstand the enemy's artillery fire too fiercely, his left leg was bitten by the shell, but he still insisted on finding the breakpoint, but he found that he had not much wire with him, and there was no way to connect smoothly.
He thought of the principle of human conduction, tied the telephone line to his finger with a copper wire, and then bit the other end with his mouth, and a human telephone line was formed. When he felt the tingling of the electric current passing through his body, he knew that his mission was complete, and he used his life to win three minutes of talk time for the troops.
In just three minutes, the command post gave the order to start counterattacking. The volunteers recaptured six bases in one fell swoop, and two companies of enemy were wiped out by us. After the counterattack, people followed the telephone line to find Niu Baocai's body, and he still maintained the action of holding the phone, but at this time there was no trace of blood in his body.
Niu Baocai was only 25 years old when he died, he was a special hero of the Chinese Volunteer Army, a second-class combat hero. He was a flesh-and-blood figure whose blood had dried up, but he had returned to an increasingly powerful China.
When writing the preface to "The Decisive Battle of Korea," military expert Dai Xu said: We can now sing and dance because people like Huang Jiguang are standing in front of us. I would like to add that not only Huang Jiguang, but also Niu Baocai, Guo Zhongtian, Yang Gensi, Tan Bingyun, Luo Shengjiao, Sun Zhanyuan and so on. It is precisely because of so many revolutionary martyrs that our Chinese nation stands tall on top of this world.
I recommend that you take a look at Li Feng's book "Decisive Battle of Korea", which has more than 400 heroes with names and surnames. As the book says, the Chinese Volunteers have used their blood and lives to change the contempt and insult of Western imperialism, turning the army that has been vulnerable to the enemy into a force that frightens the enemy, which can be purchased by clicking on the link below.
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