In the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the opponents of the Volunteer Army were troops from more than a dozen other countries in addition to the South Korean puppet army and the US army. Among these countries, some of them participated in the war in order to show loyalty to the United States, some of them tried to fish in muddy waters, and some of them were fooled by the United States, and this country is Ethiopia. Ethiopia is far away in Africa, separated from China by 18,000 miles, and has no revenge in history. So why did he travel thousands of miles to North Korea to fight the volunteers?
After the end of World War II, the strength of established powers such as Britain and France was severely weakened, and the United States became the boss and took the opportunity to expand to Africa, and its chosen bridgehead was Ethiopia. The method is also very simple, that is, to take the money and smash it. The United States provided Ethiopia with a total of $150 million in military aid, which used the money to purchase a number of advanced weapons and equipment. After that, the U.S. military sent a large number of advisers to help Ethiopia train troops, so that Ethiopia's military strength increased rapidly, and soon became a military power in Africa, with the possibility of competing with South Africa for the top spot.
Of course, the United States would not throw money in vain, and soon it made a request to the then Ethiopian emperor Selassie to establish a military base in Ethiopia. Nominally a request, but in reality there was no room for negotiation, and Selassie could only agree. Soon the United States established more than a dozen military bases in Ethiopia, turning Ethiopia into a bridgehead for its control of Africa. After the outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the United States tried its best to fool Ethiopia into joining the war, saying that the war would soon end and that Ethiopian soldiers would experience a "comfortable journey to the East."
At the instigation of the United States, Selassie decided to send troops to North Korea. At that time, Ethiopia's total strength was more than 42,700, including 39,000 troops in the army, 1,500 in the navy, 2,250 in the air force, and 48 combat aircraft. In order to show the importance of the war, Selassie selected the best of the best, selected 1153 elites from 39,000 infantry, organized into a battalion, and marched to Korea. Due to the distance, it was not until July 1951 that the Ethiopian battalion reached the Korean battlefield.
For a long time thereafter, Ethiopian battalions maintained communications in the rear or fought guerrillas. The officers and men of the Ethiopian battalion were very dissatisfied with this arrangement of the US army, believing that it was a waste for such elites to stay in the rear all the time, so they repeatedly asked to go to the front. The well-equipped and experienced U.S. troops were not opponents of the volunteers, let alone the Ethiopian battalion, which lacked actual combat experience. The U.S. commander was a man of understanding and directly refused the request of the Ethiopian battalion.
On October 14, 1952, the world-famous Battle of Shangganling broke out. Before the war, Van Vleet, then commander of the Eighth Army, said that it would take only a few days to end the battle, and estimated that the casualties would be about 200, but he was severely punched in the face. The US army attacked Shangganling for more than ten days, paying the price of thousands of casualties, but it was still unable to take the positions held by the volunteers, and also suffered from the fear of night fighting. At this time, the American army instigated, withdrew to the rear to rest, and pushed the South Korean puppet army and the Ethiopian battalion to the front.
Ethiopia, which had been resting in North Korea for more than a year, finally got the opportunity to go to the front, and the officers and soldiers were very excited, thinking that the time had come to make a name for themselves. In the early morning of 31 October, the Ethiopian battalion and a regiment of the South Korean puppet army were ordered to launch an attack on Dongganyeong. Before the infantry charge, the American army used heavy artillery and aircraft to carpet fire bombard the positions held by the volunteers. The Ethiopian battalion was stunned by the heavy fire of the Americans and thought that the next charge would certainly not encounter any resistance.
After the Artillery Bombardment of the American Army, the Ethiopian battalion began to charge, but before it could approach the forward position of the Volunteer Army, it was saturated with Katyusha rockets, killing and wounding 657 people in an instant. Thanks to the flexibility of the battalion commander and the rapid retreat of the remnants, the tragedy of the total destruction of the battalion was avoided. The Ethiopian battalion, which had since been severely damaged, never went to the front again. When the news came home, Selassie regretted it and thought he had boarded a thief's ship. After the end of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Ethiopia began friendly exchanges with China under pressure from the United States, and Selassie also visited China in 1971.