In the 1962 battle against India, our army fought very beautifully, smashing Nehru's forward policy and ambition to occupy China's southern Tibet, but in fact, Zhang Guohua, commander of the Tibet Military Region, who was in charge of commanding the war against India, was deeply concerned about his own misjudgment in the war.
[Self-defense counterattack against India]
He said many times
Famous general Zhang Guohua
In 1962, Zhang Guohua was already a veteran of war, and he always thought that his grasp of the enemy situation was relatively accurate, but he did not expect such a major error in judgment to the Indians.
【Zhang Guohua】
When Zhang Guohua estimated the combat strength of the Indian army before the war, he always believed that they were equivalent to the Kuomintang ace army in the Liberation War, but the actual situation on the battlefield confirmed that Zhang Guohua
Zhang Guohua was very impressed by the Kuomintang ace troops, during the Anti-Japanese War, Zhang Guohua led the 359th Brigade of the Eighth Route Army to fight against the Japanese, and did not feel that the Japanese army was anything remarkable, but the real difficulty was the several ace troops in the hands of Lao Chiang.
For example, in the new 1st Division of the National Army, the division commander Sun Liren was a famous anti-Japanese general of the National Army during the Anti-Japanese War, and the expeditionary force with brilliant achievements was pulled up by Sun Liren.
【Sun Liren】
The 1st Division is very well equipped, all of them are American weapons that have been redressed in the Yunnan-Burma Theater, and the officers and men of the unit have also received unified training from allied instructors, and their military quality is very high.
Zhang Guohua's troops fought against this unit many times during the Liberation War, and almost every time the 1st Division would cause a lot of trouble to Zhang Guohua, it was definitely a hard nut to crack.
Zhang Guohua also gave Sun Liren and his 1st Division a high evaluation in his heart, saying that they were not easy to mess with.
【General Zhang Guohua】
There is also a national army trump card that makes Zhang Guohua feel palpitations is the 82nd Division of the Kuomintang.
This is the unit of the famous anti-Japanese general Luo Lirong, Luo Lirong's reputation on the anti-Japanese battlefield is very great, and even the Japanese army has to retreat when they encounter him.
Zhang Guohua has also fought with this army, and the opponent's technical and tactical level and will to fight are very high, and he is indeed an opponent worthy of careful treatment.
After the liberation of the whole country, Zhang Guohua, who had been tempered by the domestic battlefield, accepted another important task, that is, the counterinsurgency in Tibet.
【Tibetan Counterinsurgency】
Zhang Guohua performed very well in this battle, in the case of the PLA forces are not superior, Zhang Guohua calmly commanded in time to block the rebels' large-scale counterattack, and created the result of winning more with less, he was also awarded the rank of lieutenant general, and became the commander of the town to defend Tibet.
After decades of battlefield years, Zhang Guohua was confident in his command ability, and the central leaders, including Chairman Mao, had doubts about whether the mainland could defeat India, and only Zhang Guohua dared to guarantee that he would be able to complete the task of self-defense and counterattack assigned by the central authorities.
[Zhang Guohua and his comrades-in-arms in Tibet]
In 1962, Zhang Guohua also learned about some information about the Indian army that our army had at that time, and Zhang Guohua made a preliminary judgment that
Zhang Guohua made such a judgment on a basis, the Indian army's weapons and equipment at that time were quite advanced, the United States and the Soviet Union were both providing military assistance to India, and the scale of the Indian army was not small, and its combat effectiveness should indeed not be underestimated.
Second, India has been entrenched in the Sino-Indian border for many years, and they are quite familiar with the plateau and mountainous environment here, and preparations for war against China have been going on for a long time, so the PLA must be cautious in its operations so as not to be exploited by the enemy.
【Indian Army】
In order to reduce the risk of operations, Zhang Guohua even asked the troops to be as conservative as possible in their maneuvers during the advance, especially to guard against some traps set by the Indians. In this way, the PLA lost an opportunity to take India by surprise.
But where would Zhang Guohua have thought that the Indian army, which seems to be at its peak, is actually a vulnerable paper shell, and if he lets go of his hands and feet to march, he is likely to quickly repel the Indian army at the beginning.
Weak Indian Army
The weakness of the Indian army is not only beyond Zhang Guohua's imagination, but also beyond the estimation of every PLA officer and soldier, and the Indian army is not a question of whether the Indian army is fighting a war at all, but a question of not fighting a war at all.
【Indian Army】
This is not to belittle the combat effectiveness of the Indians, the Indian military units participating in the war are far from being as well-equipped as Zhang Guohua saw before, but the weapons are quite backward.
To take the simplest example, at that time, the so-called ace brigade of the Indian army, the infantry weapon was still a combination of Enfield rifles and Bren light machine guns, and the PLA had already used the Type 56 gun family, and the individual firepower of the Indian army was incomparable with the PLA.
At the same time, the Indian army has no will to fight, and only a very small number of people will choose to fight to the death with the PLA.
【Surrender of the Seal】
In just one month, the Indian army that took the initiative to attack completely collapsed, with a loss of 15,000 people, and the ace brigade of the Indian army, which was the main attacker, was completely wiped out. Zhang Guohua also had to sigh after the war, how did he know that the Indian army was so vulnerable.
In fact, if it weren't for the fact that the People's Liberation Army fought too conservatively in the early days of the war, our army's results in this war would have been even more brilliant.
For example, in the Sino-Indian War, when the vanguard of the Indian army was defeated by the PLA, Zhang Guohua believed that the Indian army had just fought with the PLA and fled, and there must be deception behind it, so not only did he not order the troops to pursue, but let them stand by and wait to act with the large army.
【Sino-Indian Confrontation】
If Zhang Guohua and the People's Liberation Army had dared to fight a little more at that time, the end of the Sino-Indian war would have been faster, and the mainland would have been able to avoid some casualties, so Zhang Guohua had been haunted by this for a lifetime.
Sources:
[1] Jinggang Spirit Casting Loyal Soul Glory Reflecting the West.Communist Party of China History Network.2014-10-27 [Citation Date:2014-11-1]
[2] 1962 Sino-Indian Border Self-Defense Counterattack Operation.International Online [Citation Date:2020-06-17]