General Ren Maoru
In the days of fighting in Korea
Ren Maoru
On October 19, 1950, as night fell, the Chinese Volunteers crossed the Yalu River in three routes and secretly marched to the Korean front. At that time, I was the head of the Organization Department of the Political Department of the Thirty-ninth Army.
The first battle was yunshan, and the first division of the American cavalry was severely damaged
After the enemy was attacked by the volunteers in the Second Regiment of the South Korean Army, he found that our army had entered the Korean War, but MacArthur's mind was still hot, and the strength and strength of our army were underestimated. It is believed that our army is a symbolic troop, at most 40,000 to 60,000 people. They continued to advance toward the Sino-DPRK border in accordance with the battle plan for occupying all of Korea, adjusting their deployment while at the same time. On October 3, the U.S. 24th Division advanced to Zhenchuan and Guicheng and continued to advance towards Shuozhou; The British 27th Brigade advanced to Dingzhou and Xuanzhou and advanced towards Xinyizhou. The 1st Cavalry Division of the U.S. First Army Reserve was transferred from Pyongyang to the Unsan and Yongsan-dong areas to reinforce the 1st Division of the South Korean Army. At this time, the enemy army had more than 50,000 people north of the Cheongcheon River, while the volunteer army had 120,000 to 150,000 people fighting. According to this, the chief of the volunteer army was determined to take a detour from behind the enemy's flank and concentrate his superior forces to annihilate the enemy individually.
Our Thirty-ninth Army was scheduled to attack Unsan at 19:30 on November 1, but at 15:30 on the same day, it was found that the enemy in Unsan was showing signs of retreat (in fact, the Eighth Regiment of the First Cavalry Division of the United States Cavalry and the Twelfth Regiment of the First Division of the South Korean Army were changing defenses), and Commander Wu Xinquan issued an order at 16:40 to launch a general attack on the enemy at Unsan. The 347th Regiment of the 116th Division was the right wing, and the 348th Regiment was the left wing, and the two-way assault attacked together to attack the enemy at Yunshan. The Battle of Unsan destroyed the 1st U.S. Cavalry Division and the 1st Division of the South Korean Army, and destroyed more than 70 enemy tanks and vehicles.
As soon as the Battle of Yunshan ended, Commander Wu Xinquan sent me to take a car to the battlefield to find the wounded. After receiving the order, I organized a temporary ambulance team of more than 20 people to set up a bandage station on a simple airfield in North Korea, and the seriously injured tried to escort them back to China for treatment, and the light wounded were simply bandaged and sent back to the original troops.
The Battle of Yunshan was the first battle of the Thirty-ninth Army to go abroad, and it was also the first confrontation between the Chinese army and the American army since the Eight-Power Alliance invaded Beijing. In the course of their operations, the vast number of commanders and fighters of our army carried forward a high degree of internationalism and revolutionary heroism, and they have unleashed their national prestige, fought military prestige, and shocked the world.
Forcibly cross the Linjin River and liberate Seoul
After the reconquest of Pyongyang, the main force of our Thirty-ninth Army was assembled in the Pyongyang and Yongdaan areas for recuperation, and the 116th Division was ordered to undertake the garrison task of Pyongyang. On December 31, 1950, just as the people of the motherland were preparing to celebrate the New Year's Day and when the enemy planes were returning to sea in large numbers, the Volunteer Army launched the third campaign, and nearly a hundred artillery pieces of the 116th Division of our 39th Army and the regimental artillery group carried out surprise attacks and direct aiming and sabotage shooting at the enemy's forward and depth in accordance with the predetermined plan, accurately destroying the enemy's forward fire points and suppressing the enemy's observation command post and depth artillery. After crossing the river at Xindai, the 115th Division took over the fifty army across the river, and then occupied the line of Food Da Nang and ChangShan slope to ensure the safety of the right wing of our army. After the 346th Regiment of the 116th Division broke through the river defenses, the 35th O Regiment of the 117th Division immediately stepped on the ice and crossed the Linjin River and threw itself into battle. Under the command of deputy division commander Han Shu, regimental commander Zhao Xianshun, and political commissar Wang Qianxiang, the 35th OTh Division struck a fierce blow with swift action, and successively destroyed the 12th and 15th regiments of the South Korean Army at the high ground of Shammari and other highlands, and annihilated more than 100 enemy troops.
The powerful offensive of our volunteer army disrupted the defensive arrangements of the enemy's "38th Line," and the enemy was intimidated by the annihilation of the main force and began to retreat on the 2nd. On 7 February, our Thirty-ninth Army was ordered to pursue Seoul. The 116th Division advanced toward Seoul in two directions: the 346th Regiment (avant-garde) on the left and the 348th Regiment attacked in the direction of the Uighur Government; The 347th Regiment on the right side attacked and advanced towards Puguli, cutting off the enemy of the Government of Parliament from escaping southward. The 115th Division and the 117th Division followed suit to eliminate the remnants of the enemy. In the two-day and one-night battle of ice and snow, all the officers and men of our army carried forward the fighting style of enduring great hardships and enduring great labor, were not afraid of the cold and cold, did not fear bloodshed and sacrifice, and attacked bravely day and night, and fought hard in pursuit. At 16:00 on the 4th, the 348th Regiment of the 116th Division and the 346th Regiment's Vanguard Detachment entered Seoul from the northeast and east and occupied the Presidential Palace. In this campaign, our Thirty-ninth Army annihilated a total of 2,543 enemy personnel, captured 79 guns of various kinds and a large number of military materials, the 116th Division and the 117th Division were praised by the General Order of the Volunteer Army Headquarters, and the 1st Company, the 4th Company, the 5th Company and the 7th Company of the 346th Regiment were awarded the title of "Heroic Company for Breaking Through the Linjin River" by the army.
In 1957, when the Campaign Department of the Nanjing Military Academy was teaching a campaign lesson, it specifically mentioned the example of the 116th Division breaking through the defense of the Linjin River, and Marshal Liu Bocheng, the dean, praised the deployment and the choice of breakthrough points as correct, "5 points should be given."
In the spring of 1953 in Korea. Front from left: Chen Shaokun, Wang Yang, Zhang Feng, Ren Maoru, Zhang Qicheng, Shen Tiebing; From left: Wang Fuzhi, Yang Qixuan, Hu Manrong.
Complete the mission and return home triumphantly
In July 1951, I was appointed as the political commissar of the 116th Division, and the division commander and party secretary was Comrade Wang Yang.
After five battles, our division was the second echelon of the Volunteer Army, and on May 29, it was ordered to go north to rest. After seven days of rapid marching, it arrived in the Shunchuan area on June 4, and the division was stationed in Longkaili, and began a five-and-a-half-month rest.
On July 10, 1951, the "United Nations Army" led by the U.S. Military was forced to accept armistice negotiations. However, the enemy is insincere in negotiations and rejects our reasonable proposal to use the "38th Line" as the military demarcation line. First, the strangulation war that cut off the transport line and the germ war that exterminated humanity were launched. At the same time, Commander Wu Xinquan instructed Division Commander Wang Yang to lead Commander Gao Ke and engineer cadres to study the experience of building tunnels in friendly neighboring units, to study the techniques and tactics of tunnel fortifications while visiting, and then transferred the three battalions of the 348th Regiment to build a typical tunnel fortification of a reinforced company at Guoshifeng. The typical tunnel fortifications of Guoshifeng were affirmed by the head of the Zhi division. The first four months of 1952 were the climax of the enemy's dropping of germ warfare agents. In order to smash the enemy's germ warfare, ensure the health of the Chinese and DPRK soldiers and civilians, and ensure combat effectiveness, our division has carried out a great deal of environmental sanitation, and the troops have thoroughly removed garbage, cesspools, and sewage ditches around the garrison everywhere they went. During the defense of the position, the whole division did not suffer losses on one man or one horse. After nearly two months of arduous work, the whole division built 27,513 meters of tunnels, 241 external fortifications, and 4,000 meters of river embankments. It has left the glorious deeds of our division on the territory of Korea.
On July 3, 1952, our division was ordered by the Volunteer Army Headquarters to attach itself to the 27th Artillery Regiment and replace the 118th Division of the 40th Army and the 357th Regiment of the 119th Division to the west of The Neiji Valley and the east to the west bank of the Linjin River north of Guzhuangli, with a defensive position of 12 kilometers on the front, and the division headquarters was located in Zhuyidong. Mount Ma liang was the core of the division's defensive positions. The terrain on the eastern side is complex and is the main direction of the enemy's attack, and after receiving the task, I presided over an enlarged meeting of the party committee, unified my thinking, and clarified the specific tasks. The operational policy of "protracted combat, active defense, active attack, repeated scrambling, and annihilation of the enemy's living forces" was established; at the same time, the areas of positions where each regiment took over the defense were also demarcated. Over the past six months, the whole division has built more than 10,000 meters of tunnel fortifications on the 12-kilometer defensive front, and the tunnel fortifications have provided a solid foundation for our division to change from mobile defense to defensive defense, thus effectively killing and injuring the enemy's living forces and effectively cooperating with the armistice negotiations.
From October 1950 to April 1953, our division participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea for two years and seven months, and the whole division participated in 285 battles, killing and wounding 104.36 million enemy people, capturing 4 aircraft, destroying and injuring 94 enemy aircraft, and collecting and destroying 106 enemy tanks, 295 cars, and a large amount of materials. On April 28, 1953, our division boarded a train from Pyongyang, North Korea, and returned to Benxi, Liaoning Province, successfully completing the historical task of "resisting US aggression and aiding Korea and defending the country" entrusted by the party and the people. (Compiled by Yu Dexue) (Selected from Liu Qingmin's editor-in-chief", "The Monument to the Towering Heights--Memoirs of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea")