The uniqueness of the Fifth Campaign is that it is the only time that three generals at the level of corps commander fought in the same battlefield environment, providing a rare opportunity for later researchers to compare.
The author declares in advance that the three corps commanders of Song and Yang are all heroes who have made great contributions to the country, and there is no disrespect in any way.
The significance of contrast is to better study the war, the US military, and ourselves.
1. The strange Song Wheel of Song
The topics of the Ninth Corps of the Volunteer Army are endless, and the most concerned is that the Battle of Changjin Lake paid more than 50,000 heavy casualties, but failed to annihilate a division of the US Army in a whole formation.
After the war, the morale of the Ninth Corps fell into the most treacherous ice cave since its formation, the troops were in tatters, many regiments lost their combat effectiveness, and their self-confidence was also at a historical freezing point.
Such a huge corps, a large army of 150,000 people, is in such a very dangerous situation, and if it is unable to turn over, it is very likely that it will encounter an unpredictable fate in the course of large-scale disarmament in the future.
The opportunity came from the Fifth Campaign, and the greatest hero was none other than the commander and political commissar Song Shilun.
The fifth campaign began at the end of April 1951. The main forces participating in the battle were the 3rd, 9th, and 19th corps. The commanders of the three corps competed on the same stage.
Wang Jinshan was the deputy commander of the Third Corps at the time, and because Chen Geng was not in office, he was actually responsible.
Song Shilun was the commander of the Ninth Corps at the time.
Yang Dezhi was the commander of the 19th Corps at the time.
Yang Dezhi served as the commander of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Field Army, and later participated in the Pingjin Campaign as the commander of the Second Corps of the North China Field Army. Song Shilun and Wang Jinshan became corps-level commanders, which was after the three major battles, so we have always believed that Song and Wang were slightly inferior to Yang Dezhi.
The stranger thing is Song Shilun.
There has been a lot of criticism of Admiral Song. For example, during the Anti-Japanese War, the eastern Hebei was defeated and retreated, the unauthorized crossing of the Yellow River in the War of Liberation suffered heavy losses, and the main commander of Huaye slapped the table before the Battle of Jinan to explain the matter, and so on, as well as the resulting Song Shilun's rough personality and no one in his eyes, etc. Even many people attribute the heavy losses suffered in the second battle of Changjin Lake to Song Shilun's character and style, thinking that he is not enough. These are unavoidable, they are all big holes in Song Shilun's previous military career, and they really can't be erased.
But think about it from another angle: If Song Shilun was really a good-for-nothing person, would the central authorities make him the commander of the corps? None of the commanders of the four major corps in Huaye was an ordinary person. You must know that Ye Fei, Song Shilun, Chen Shiyu, and Wang Jian'an, the four corps commanders, have always been on the front line of the battle, just Ye Fei and Song Shilun, and the other two have left the front line of the war early.
After the Battle of Changjin Lake, Song Shilun insisted on staying in North Korea to recuperate, waiting for a chance to turn around. The opportunity of the fifth campaign, he seized it, and did a good job.
General Peng's general layout of the campaign, Song Shilun led the 3 armies of the 9th Corps, plus the 39th and 40th armies of the first batch to enter the DPRK, on the battlefield of the Eastern Front. and Wang Jinshan in the middle line and Yang Dezhi in the west line go hand in hand.
The fifth campaign was roughly divided into three phases, the first stage of which our army attacked on all fronts, divided and annihilated the enemy, and tried to eat the division-level units of the United Nations Army.
In the second stage, our attack on all fronts, because the United Nations forces retreated in a planned way, and had no plan to annihilate the enemy, so they concentrated their forces on the eastern front to attack the ROK troops on the eastern front, hoping to defeat two of its divisions and fight a rout, only annihilating 8,000 of its men, and most of them escaped. At this time, the attack was weak, and the food and ammunition were urgent, so the attack was stopped.
The third stage, in this stage, is not officially stated in the history of our army's war, but it is the most arduous and the most sacrificed. Our army turned from offensive to retreat, and while withdrawing and defending, all corps suffered certain losses, some of which were quite serious.
The fifth battle was the most intense transition between attack and defense between the two sides, the number of enemy annihilations broke records, the scale was extremely large, and the command was extremely difficult.
Therefore, the test brought to the commanders and senior commanders of the two sides was quite great, and Song Shilun, Yang Dezhi, and Wang Jinshan were all severely tested to varying degrees, and their true level was vividly displayed in this war.
Second, Song Shilun turned over to prove himself
Although Song Shilun was regarded as having character, ability, and lack of pattern in China, he became the commander of the Corps, especially after the tragic lesson of Changjin Lake, he changed quickly, was extremely responsible, and had enough ability to win complex and difficult commands.
Each of the three stages has its own difficulties and learnings.
The first stage of learning lies in quickly interspersing and dividing and cutting the ties between the British, American, and South Korean armies.
Don't look at this is our army's specialty in the country, it has been tried and tested on the Kuomintang army, but it is not so easy in North Korea, Li Qiwei has already thoroughly studied our army's housekeeping skills, and has formulated a corresponding strategy for this purpose, as soon as our army is violently interspersed, there will be an organized retreat, and on the way back, the air force and artillery fire will be summoned to carry out a fierce volley, and when it retreats to a stable defensive line, it will carry out a strong counterattack against us.
At the same time, the divisions and brigades of the United Nations Army maintained close contact with each other, strictly guarded against being interspersed by the volunteers in their formations, and ensured that there was no chaos when retreating, so as to minimize losses, especially to avoid being surrounded and annihilated by the formed (regimental, brigade and above) as much as possible.
Li Qiwei is not an ordinary person, and this change accurately hit the door of our army.
How is Song Shilun doing?
As soon as they came up, they smashed the defense line of the United Nations Army with heavy fists, and the 39th Army and the 40th Army jointly broke through the 6th Division of the ROK Army and cut it off from the 1st Marine Division of the US Army.
We wrote an article in a few simple sentences, but it was too difficult for the troops.
1. Reconnaissance should be in place.
Other corps have made many mistakes in this regard, thinking that the enemy in front of them is the ROK army, but they have encountered American troops and have been killed and wounded in large numbers because of their lack of preparation. It is also necessary to find out the location of the enemy in front of you, otherwise it is easy to punch the open ground. It is even more clear about the direction of the march, there are many mountains in Korea, and if you strayed into the mountains, the troops would have to climb the mountains while walking, and it would be very easy to intersperse them in place.
2. Concentrate the strongest forces to break through.
Song Shilun's arrangement was that the 40th Army was in front, the 39th Army was in the flank, the 40th Army was responsible for rushing through the South Korean front, and the 39th Army was covering and cutting off the 1st Marine Division of the US Army on the flank. Although these two armies were tired after a long battle and suffered great losses in soldiers, they had the advantage of being experienced and cooperating well, and they rushed into 50 kilometers at once, stunning the South Korean army with a stick, and the American troops were powerless to resist and had to retreat continuously.
3. Command communication.
That is, the corps should ensure that it is connected with the army, and it is best to go to the division. The army commander should ensure that the division is contacted, and it is better to go to the regiment. The division commander must control the attack of each regiment strictly, from the whole process to the whole line, and constantly control the attack, and ensure that the regiments gather and exert force whenever there is a situation.
To be sure, the Ninth Corps did not do a very good job in command and communication. When the 60th Division of the 20th Army advanced in pursuit, the 179th Regiment of the Avant-garde Regiment took the wrong path and climbed Yunyue Mountain, and unexpectedly caught up with the armor, tanks, and heavy troops of the 24th Division of the US Army, with almost 1,000 vehicles.
However, the strength of one regiment of the 179th Regiment was simply not enough to stop it, so it had to call the follow-up echelon 178th Regiment, and these two infantry regiments alone could not kill the US armored troops, and they also had to call the artillery regiment. But because of communication problems, not only did the artillery not catch up, but the 178 regiment did not arrive in time.
In the end, the 179th Regiment only intercepted an infantry battalion behind the US Army and captured only more than 50 enemies.
Ma Ping's "1007 Days of War" regretfully describes that a big meal has become a snack like this.
Rao is like this, in the first phase of the operation, Song Shilun basically gave full play to the strong and great advantages of the Ninth Corps, and the command and control was also qualified.
What is the basis for saying this? I can't see it just by looking at the Ninth Corps, and there is a difference when I compare it.
How did the 3rd Corps and the 19th Corps do in the first stage?
The 19th Corps was slightly inferior, the overall planning was too steady, a bit shallow, and it should have completely annihilated the 29th Brigade of the British Army. The brigade departed from England and went to Hong Kong to resupply on the way, and when it left Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour, a grand farewell ceremony was held, and if the volunteers were to annihilate it in Korea, it would be a loud and bloody slap in the face to Her Majesty, but unfortunately it was missed. Although Yang Dezhi commanded more Zhengda, the shortcomings are also obvious.
Why we missed a great opportunity, we will talk about it in detail in the next section of Yang Dezhi.
The Third Corps fell into chaos, and from the corps headquarters to the three corps, the command was in a mess, and the formations wanted to eat big, but as a result, the pursuit formation was seriously chaotic, and the armies could not cooperate with each other, let alone divisions and regiments. The biggest mistake was that during the pursuit, the US troops did not expect their strong emergency stop and counterattack capabilities, and the troops paid heavy casualties.
What was particularly unexpected was that Song Shilun and Yang Dezhi played many bright spots in the entire campaign, but Wang Jinshan not only did not reach the same height, but was also fiercely pursued by the US troops during the retreat stage, and his corps headquarters was bombed by US planes, Wang Jinshan was almost killed, and the corps headquarters lost contact with the army and division for a day, causing extremely serious consequences.
Yang Dezhi and Wang Jinshan will open special chapters respectively, please look forward to it.
The general content of the next two chapters is: in the second part, Yang Dezhi is just one word. In the third chapter, the madman was silent.
Let's go back and continue to talk about Song Shilun and the Ninth Corps.
3. Advance suddenly and retreat: the Ninth Corps is the only one
In the first phase of the operation, due to the ineffective pursuit, there was no large-scale formation to annihilate the enemy. General Peng quickly adjusted his strategy, and in the second phase of the operation, all his troops were transferred to the Eastern Front, focusing on annihilating the 3rd and 5th Divisions of the South Korean Army, and if the subsequent development went well, he would defeat the South Korean Capital Division and the 11th Division.
The second phase of the operation is mainly to fight the South Korean army, where is the learning?
1. Rapid division, rapid pursuit, and no opportunity for the US military to transfer troops from the Western Front to the Eastern Front.
2. Improve the problem of over-emphasis in the first phase of operations, and send as many troops as possible to make it impossible for the enemy to break through our defense line when they flee and retreat.
It's still hard!
Although our army carried out campaign deception, but the U.S. army reacted too quickly, while the Ninth Corps besieged the South Korean army, the U.S. army quickly transferred troops to the eastern front in a mechanized way, and the 3rd Division of the U.S. 8th Army held a reserve and never entered the battlefield, and after the outbreak of a major battle on the eastern front, Van Vliet immediately ordered the 3rd Division to rush to the eastern front.
200 kilometers of road, the 3rd Division was in place in one day.
This speed cannot be reached by the Volunteer Army in any case.
It's not just the infantry that runs away, but also the artillery towed and the food and ammunition were transported, and the command and organization were quite complicated.
In the second stage, the results of the Ninth Corps were not very satisfactory, and although the ROK 3rd and 5th Divisions were defeated and collapsed, they only destroyed more than 8,000 enemies, did not complete the set target of 10,000 prisoners, and did not defeat any of its divisions in a formed formation.
Why?
The Volunteer Army described the characteristics of the South Korean army, which was menacing, withdrawing as soon as it was fought, and dispersed as soon as it withdrew.
It was this dispersion that made it difficult for our army to encircle, and the ROK army learned from the first four battle blows, and immediately after the blows, they fled in all directions like wild dogs, and did not need weapons (the heavy equipment of the two divisions all fell into the hands of the volunteers), nor did they form a formation, and ran all over the mountains and fields according to the retreat assembly areas predetermined before the war.
This happens to be in line with the classic Laiwu Battle comment, 50,000 pigs are actually more difficult to catch than 50,000 national army troops.
People will listen to orders, they will be afraid, and they will raise their hands and surrender collectively without killing them. Pigs are running all over the place, but it's not easy to catch.
In the second stage, the fight was decent, and in the final third stage, the US counteroffensive did not suffer much loss.
Compared with the unsatisfactory start of the 19th Corps, the unsatisfactory start of the 3rd Corps, and the tragic situation of the entire division being scattered at the end of the stage, the overall performance of the 9th Corps was the best. In the face of a powerful enemy, it is a rare and valuable ability to advance and retreat.
After the war, Song Shilun reported the situation to the Party Committee of the Volunteer Army and the Central Military Commission, and after the second phase of the operation, the mood of the troops was extremely high.
The Volunteers praised the best divisions in the Fifth Campaign, especially in the third stage, namely the 58th Division of the 20th Army, the 81st Division of the 27th Army, and the 181st Division of the 60th Army.
The Ninth Corps, which was trapped in the ice cave, finally climbed up with a bloody battle, and the fate of 150,000 soldiers and Song Shilun was saved.
Interestingly, whether it was the previous Battle of Changjin Lake or the Eastern Front of the Fifth Campaign, there were no particularly shocking results, but they all made the US army palpitate, leaving a shadow. In his memoirs, Li Qiwei rebuked the South Korean army for its defeat on the Eastern Front, but in fact, the US army was only 50 steps and a hundred steps.
However, it is worth thinking about that Song Shilun did not get a very ideal destination, as a battle-hardened general, before the Korean War ended, he returned to China to serve as the principal of the General Senior Infantry School, and never led troops to fight again, nor did he serve as the commander of a large military region to sit on one side.
The author believes that this is based on Song Shilun's rich experience in front-line combat and his ability to summarize and refine his strengths. After all, the construction of military academies is an important part of promoting the regularization of our army, and there will always be generals who will withdraw from the front line, and Song Shilun is one of the representatives.
But was there any impact of Korea's defeat? If Song had not said goodbye halfway and commanded such battles as the counterattack battle south of Shangganling or Jincheng, would he have made his military achievements even fuller, or would he have traversed the commanders of the Jinan, Wuhan, and Kunming Military Regions like Yang Dezhi after returning to China, sat on one side, calmed down the crisis, and finally attained the post of deputy commander?
Some people also talk about Admiral Song's character, but in fact, there is no need. Song Shilun was in the Ninth Corps, and Tao Yong, the most famous rough man in Huaye, who was violent and unbending, teamed up, the two were intimate, never estranged, and had smooth commands, can you still accuse General Song of having a problem with his personality?
It is not a big problem for people to be violent and rough when they are young, the difference is that some people have always been rough and violent, while some people will change, grow, and try their best to overcome their shortcomings, and Admiral Song is obviously the latter.