The supreme glory of the US "Polar Bear Regiment" was destroyed overnight

At about 23:00 on the night of November 27, 1950, the 4th Battalion, 239th Regiment, 80th Division, 27th Army of the Volunteer Army, was ordered by the superiors to join forces with fraternal forces in the early morning of the next day to encircle an American force in Hingheung-ri, Korea. The 4th Company served as the interspersed company and had to arrive within two hours to the designated location more than 30 miles away.

The officers and men of the whole company, under the leadership of company commander Li Changyan and instructor Zhuang Yuandong, marched rapidly overnight, and they set out from Fengliuli, and the team gradually disappeared into the vast snowy fields, and they plunged straight into the hinterland of the US troops in Xinxingli Dongshan.

The 4th Company had recently entered Korea with most of the 9th Corps, and due to the hasty preparations, they did not even have time to change into winter clothes, and entered the Gaima Plateau at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters from the moderate temperature of East China, which was difficult to adapt to the extremely cold climate of heavy snow and freezing, and the average daily temperature of the battlefield was minus 27 degrees Celsius.

It was night, the temperature dropped sharply to minus 36 degrees Celsius, and the mountain roads were rugged and complex, the snow was knee-deep, the soldiers carried 3 days of supplies with them had long been exhausted, it was difficult to allocate a semi-cooked potato, and it was quick to freeze into hard stone in their hands, the water in the kettle had long been frozen, and the hard potatoes could only be nibbled on a thin layer by covering their arms, and it was slow to swallow in the snow, and it was difficult to imagine the difficulty of the cold and lack of clothing and food.

The cold wind at midnight was bitterly painful, the goose feather snow was blocking the eyes of the warriors, the mountain world was white, except for the sound of pouting snow footsteps, the pine forest wilderness was surprisingly silent, as if all the creatures slept peacefully, and the 4th Company quietly used the night and snow to hide the enemy.

After marching at night on the snow for more than an hour, soon some soldiers vaguely found that in the Area of Dongshan, there were several bright and dim lights, and when they approached, they saw that on the mountainside of Highland 1200, there was a separate house with bright lights and mobile sentries in front of the door. According to the judgment of company commander Li Changyan, the independent house in front of him was at least a command headquarters at the level of a US military camp or higher.

By capturing American prisoners, the 4th Company basically understood the defensive deployment of the 3rd Battalion of the 31st Regiment of the 7th Division of the US Army, and the strength of a forward infantry platoon of the US Army was distributed in the 5 tents in front of it.

At 2:00 a.m. on the 28th, when the 1st platoon of instructor Zhuang Yuandong advanced to the middle of the Xinxingli East Mountain, he unexpectedly found more than 30 bulging duck down bags in an open depression, and the American troops were sleeping with their heads covered. Zhuang Yuandong resolutely ordered the enemy to open fire first, and took the lead in firing the first shot of the battle in Xinxingli, and suddenly the gunfire in the mountains was blazing with fire.

Under the leadership of company commander Li Changyan and instructor Zhuang Yuandong, the 4th Company attacked the neighboring independent houses in three ways.

The most feared thing for the Americans was the volunteers' melee night combat, because their tanks and artillery could not exert their firepower advantage at close range. After a short battle, 4 companies and 1 platoon soon rushed into the independent room.

A platoon leader reported to the instructor that in addition to the radio, walkie-talkie, and map, there were still unburned pieces of paper on the ground, and a military flag hung on the wall.

Zhuang Yuandong ran into the tent and ripped off the polar bear regiment flag hanging on the wall, and said loudly: "What a broken thing, continue to fight me!" During the conversation, the dying American troops fired a shuttle of bullets, and the instructor Zhuang Yuandong fell to the ground and died on the spot.

It turned out that this big house was the command post of the 31st Regiment of the 7th Division of the US Army, commonly known as the Polar Bear Regiment, which is the last word.

The invincible American army was temporarily blinded by the volunteers, and some were killed or captured on the spot before they could react, and the leader of the Polar Bear Regiment, Colonel McLean, was killed on the spot, and the flag symbolizing the supreme honor of the "Polar Bear Regiment" was discarded on the ground and trampled on.

Hungry and cold coupled with dry mouths, the soldiers seized a batch of supplies from the US army on the spot, including a batch of canned beef, cold suits, duck down sleeping bags and a part of guns and ammunition. Volunteer soldiers who had eaten American canned food were pleasantly surprised to find that there was such a delicious delicacy in the world. Cold suits and duck down bags are both warm and light to carry.

After a full meal, the 38 large covers used by the volunteer army and the M1917 rifle, which had been eliminated by the United States, were replaced by the captured Garland M1 type 7.62 mm semi-automatic rifle, and the spirit of the officers and men was suddenly boosted.

The 3rd Battalion, which had entered the battle at almost the same time as the 2nd Battalion and 4th Company, under the leadership of the battalion commander Bi Xuyang, rushed into the village from the high ground on the south side of Xinxingli Village, and they quickly expanded their results. Clean up the loot, clean up the battlefield.

Zhang Jiqing, the head of the battalion headquarters communications squad, picked up the delicate satin cloth on the ground, folded it and put it into his satchel, thinking that this thing was really good to make a bagcloth.

When The head of the cooking class of the battalion headquarters, Chen Ban, saw Zhang Jiqing's cloth, so he tricked him into taking it out, and the square one could be used as a steamer cloth.

Zhang Jiqing was reluctant and said busily, "This cloth will lose color."

When the battalion commander Bi Xuyang heard about it, he hurriedly ordered Zhang Jiqing to take it out and take a look.

It is a blue cloth 1.2 meters wide and 1.5 meters long, surrounded by golden tassels, and in the middle is a white-headed eagle with open wings, the body of the eagle is embroidered with a monster with the body of a lion's head, and above the white-headed eagle is a polar bear. The two paws of the bald eagle grasp an arrow and an olive branch, and under the carving is embroidered a streamer with the English characters of "THIRTY-FIRST INFANTY REGIMENT".

After all, Bi Xuyang had seen a lot, and he suddenly felt that this blue cloth marked with English letters was not so simple. So he immediately asked the correspondent to invite Liu Guangrui, a translator of the Regiment Enemy Work Department who graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University, to come and translate.

"Wow, that's a good thing! You've done it! ”

As soon as he looked at the English, Liu Translator recognized the "Polar Bear Regiment" military flag.

It should be noted that the 31st Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division of the US Army, the Polar Bear Regiment, is one of the most elite units of the US Army, and has always been known for being good at fighting in cold areas and daring to fight hard battles. In World War I, the 31st Regiment successfully invaded Russian Siberia, and its outstanding achievements were awarded the title of "Polar Bear Regiment" by US President Woodrow Wilson and the "Polar Bear Flag". During World War II, the 31st Regiment participated in the Battle of the Aleutian Islands, the Battle of the Marshall Islands, and the Battle of Okinawa, and although it experienced bloody battles, it never tasted defeat.

If it were not for the encounter with the volunteer army on the Korean Peninsula, the invincible 31st Regiment would have continued this glory. But history has no if, and all glory was extinguished on November 28, 1950.

It was on this night that the 4th Company, at the cost of wounding 54 and 13 dead, killed 300 American troops, captured 9 American troops, captured 3 radio stations, 12 howitzers, light weapons and ammunition.

After the war, the 4th Company was awarded the title of "Model Combat Company in Xinxingli" by the 27th Army of the Volunteer Army.

In fact, the biggest trophy of this battle is this military flag.