On June 16, 1953, Qin Jiwei returned from the Korean battlefield and was cordially received by Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao asked him, "How is it?" Are the Yankees in Shangganling good to fight? ”
Chairman Mao's question instantly made this veteran of the battlefield red-eyed, and this battle was the most difficult battle fought in all the battles Qin Jiwei participated in. It was also a battle in which his soldiers sacrificed the most, and thinking of those sacrificed comrades-in-arms, Qin Jiwei's heart ached.
Fast forward to Korea in 1953, and the victory in the third battle scared the Yankees, making them obediently sit at the negotiating table and negotiate with the Chinese and North Korean representatives in Kaesong.
In the process of negotiation, the Americans kept making many excessive demands, which eventually made an exception to the negotiation. The Americans put down their cruel words: "At the negotiating table, if you do not give an inch, then our aircraft and artillery will also not give an inch on the battlefield." The words fell off his sleeves.
In order to obtain greater benefits at the negotiating table, in early October, Van Vleet gave Clark a combat order, named "Operation Showdown", in which he demanded that Clark find and annihilate the PVA and the Korean People's Army in one fell swoop.
Van Vleet estimated that the operation would end in six days at most, and the casualties of the American army would not be too large, at most more than two hundred people. He based all these inferences on their excellent equipment, they had planes in the air, tanks and cannons on the ground, submarines at sea, and the volunteers, on the other hand, had only artillery in their hands, and not every division had them.
It's just that the arrogant Van Vleet never expected that this war, which he expected to end in 6 days, was fought for more than 40 days, and he thought that with strong firepower, the volunteer army would be defeated with one touch, but the fact slapped Van Vleet fiercely.
On June 13, 1953, the Shangganling War broke out. The heights 597.9 and 537.7 on Shangganling are the commanding heights on our army's 38th line of defense; if Shangganling is lost, then the volunteers will become a living target on the Pingkang Plain, so Shangganling must be in the hands of our army.
The two sides launched a wheel war between 597.9 and 537.7, and these two heights changed hands several times, and even during the day Shangganling was still in the hands of the US army, and at night, Shangganling would be in the hands of the volunteers.
At the hardest time of the war, the enemy's artillery would sweep our positions one by one, and in order to avoid the frantic strafing fire of the enemy, the soldiers had to retreat into the tunnels.
In order to grasp the first-hand battle situation and adjust the operational deployment at any time, Qin Jiwei also moved the headquarters to the tunnel. He stayed sleepless for seven days and seven nights at the tunnel headquarters, his eyes were red, he did not blink, and adjusted the combat deployment at any time according to the battle situation.
The soldiers ran out of ammunition, but the supplies in the rear were blocked by the enemy's frenzied artillery fire, and not even a single bullet or nest could be delivered, and the supply troops rushed up one by one and fell one after another.
This scene stung Qin Jiwei's heart, and he called the commander of the artillery battalion and asked the artillery battalion to bomb the enemy's firing point with 24 "Katyusha" cannons to fight for a front-line opportunity for logistical supplies.
In this way, the logistics supply troops, lying in one crater after another, sent bullets and food to Shangganling little by little, but the tragic situation of the Shangganling battlefield made the logistics troops red-eyed, only to see that the fortifications on the surface of the ground were blown up by the enemy's artillery and aircraft, and the soldiers could only hide in the narrow space of the tunnel, and the wounded and martyrs could not be transported, which made the narrow tunnel even more crowded.
However, in such a crowded tunnel, the soldiers held out for more than 40 days, firmly holding the position, and this time the logistics supply also made a great contribution to the victory of the Shangganling Battle.
The Shangganling Campaign was the most difficult one to fight in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, but the more difficult the war, the more it tested the commander's perseverance to win. The Battle of Shangganling made the world realize the strength of New China and proved that the bones of the Chinese People's Volunteers are harder than the steel of the US military.
