I'm Tang Tang, a history buff. Welcome everyone to [follow] me, talk about the past and the present, and discuss the general trend of the world. Gentleman I, just to learn and make friends!
In November 1950, while launching an air campaign, MacArthur was more concerned with the question of "how to quickly launch a ground offensive and eventually launch a general offensive on the Yalu River."
The contemporaries commented that he was "almost mad about it, and he couldn't wait."
1. MacArthur's concept of a "general offensive".
MacArthur wrote in his memoirs that there were three paths before him: "Advance forward, stand still, or retreat."
In this regard, he made a trade-off:
If I had pushed forward, the Chinese might not have intervened on a large scale, and the war would have ended. If I wait and see, then it is necessary to choose a line of defense to build a trench defense. But there is no terrain with natural obstacles to exploit, and with my meager forces it will not be possible to build a deep defensive line against the numerically superior Chinese. If I had not moved, they would have enough men to besiege our army, and they would have been able to send more troops from Manchuria. This will mean that our entire army will eventually be annihilated.
... If I retreated, it would contradict the orders I had received and would shatter any chance of a victorious end to the Korean War.
MacArthur's concept of a "general offensive" was actually quite simple, and it was actually a reproduction of the all-out offensive plan drawn up by the "United Nations Forces" when they crossed the 38th parallel a month earlier.
Its main contents:
The first is to devote maximum forces to launch an offensive on the entire front, the second is to take the Yalu River and the Tumen River on the Sino-North Korean border as the final target line, and the third is to make the offensive forces separate from each other in two fronts: Walker commands the 8th Army on the Western Front, and Almond commands the 10th Army on the Eastern Front, and coordinates to launch a pincer offensive to completely eliminate the North Korean resistance forces and finally achieve the occupation of all Korea.
The difference was that the offensive increased the number of offensive troops, pushed forward the starting position of the attack, and the operation was preceded by a tentative attack, with a slight increase in caution in the initial stage.
As for the timing of the general offensive, MacArthur's intention was to try to get as early as possible, with 15 November as the deadline. An important factor in his eagerness to launch an offensive was the possibility of changes in the weather on the battlefield.
According to the CIA's forecast, the Yalu River will freeze between November 24 and December 10. If the attack can be launched as soon as possible and the operation can be ended within 10~15 days, the "United Nations Army" can advance to the Yalu River before the river freezes, thus preventing the follow-up Chinese troops from reinforcing the ice in a large way.
In addition, North Korea's winter is extremely cold, which is not conducive to the operation of large regiments, and for the US military, which is not good at winter operations, ending the war before the arrival of the coldest solar term can avoid suffering in the ice and snow.
2. The helplessness of "understanding people".
However, the commander of the 8th Army, Walker, was still hesitant and unconfident about launching an offensive too soon, and delayed it under various pretexts.
Walker's attitude, of course, did not please MacArthur. MacArthur argued that Walker was clearly stalling for time by saying that he wanted to resume the offensive while setting many preconditions for action. And time was of the essence to MacArthur, and he could not allow anyone to sabotage his set plan for any reason.
So, he ordered Walker to attack immediately without delay.
Walker was cornered by MacArthur. He had no choice but to immediately attack: either act immediately on MacArthur's orders, or leave.
At MacArthur's urging, Walker finally gave the order to resume the offensive.
Although Walker had estimated that he would definitely encounter Chinese troops on the way to the north, he still knew almost nothing about the opponent's forces and dispositions.
Compared with the previous campaign, the 8th Army's offensive increased the strength of the army (the US 9th Army), so the frontal force density increased and the attack force increased.
However, judging from the overall layout, the weak points on the front are still the same.
First, although the right flank was supported by the ROK Army's 2nd Army Corps, the corps suffered a blow in the last battle, and many units were scattered.
Second, the offensive front is still too wide. This problem was not too prominent at the time of the offensive, but as it gradually advanced northward, the front of the front gradually increased from about 80 kilometers at the beginning to more than 300 kilometers. In other words, the density of troops decreases with the distance of advance, and the further north you go, the greater the gap between the various units, and the more loopholes are exploited by the other side.
The third is that Walker's reserve forces are insufficient.
Only the 1st Cavalry Division, which had been heavily damaged in the previous battle, and the Turkish Brigade, which had just entered the battlefield, acted as the reserve of the group army, and their strength was weak, and they could not come up with enough strength to deal with unexpected changes on the battlefield.
3. Loopholes in combat deployment
On the Eastern Front, Almond, commander of the 10th Army, who had independent command, issued an operational deployment order on 11 November, dividing the 10th Army and the 1st Army Corps of the ROK Army under his command into four routes, advancing to the north and east respectively.
In the last campaign, the 8th Army and the 10th Army fought separately on the eastern and western fronts and failed to form a joint force.
MacArthur clearly took note of this when planning a new offensive, emphasizing the coordination of troops on both fronts from the outset.
He demanded that the 10th Army, as "the iron pincer on the north side of the United Nations Army's roundabout operation", form a pincer offensive together with the 8th Army on the Western Front, and realize the "pincer" along the Yalu River. However, judging from the actual deployment, the troops on the two fronts have not yet established a coordinated relationship of practical significance.
The offensive deployment of the 10th Army on the Eastern Front had three weaknesses:
First, the battle line was stretched too long, especially in the direction of the main attack, the 1st Marine Division was in a prominent position, and the flanks lacked protection. Because the starting line of the offensive of the 8th Army on the Western Front was located in the flank and rear of the 1st Marine Division's current position, and the junction of the two lines was the continuous high mountains that formed the watershed of the peninsula, and there was no friendly neighbor activity in a vast area of nearly 130 kilometers, the left flank of the 10th Army was basically in a state of insecurity.
Second, the terrain of the battlefield on the Eastern Front is more complicated, the roads are narrow and rugged, there are almost no lateral roads and circuitous roads, and the troops of various routes are unable to cooperate when attacking, and it is difficult to communicate even with the least basic communication and contact.
Third, logistical supply difficulties. As the troops advance, the logistical supply routes are getting longer and longer, and logistical support will face tremendous challenges.
4. A general offensive to end the war before Christmas
On 22 November, the 8th Army completed preparations for the offensive. On the same day, Walker issued an advance order to launch a full-scale attack at 10 o'clock on the 24th.
The day before the offensive was launched, it coincided with Thanksgiving Day in Western countries. The 8th Army's offensive preparations were carried out in parallel with the Thanksgiving festivities. Ammunition, oil and other military supplies arrived at the front along with turkeys, canned sour jam, pumpkin pies, etc. Festive candles adorned the ruins of bombed-out villages and towns, officers' tables were covered with white tablecloths, and soldiers enjoyed hot baths and new clothes.
In the words of an American soldier: on this day, "the sweet smell of victory once again filled the air."
At 10 a.m. on October 24, under heavy artillery fire, the curtain of the offensive was opened on time.
On the first day of the offensive, the units encountered only occasional weak resistance, and neither a decent defensive position nor the whereabouts of the opposing large forces were found in front of them, only small detachments the size of squads and platoons fired at small arms in the distance.
At first, the "United Nations Army" acted cautiously. However, when the first day of the offensive ended unexpectedly smoothly, the original vigilance quickly relaxed. The attacking troops began to march along the road in a column of companies and battalions. It's more like a march than an attack.
Forty minutes after the offensive began, MacArthur landed on a temporary field airfield on the Cheongchon River. In addition to the commander of the Far East Air Force, Stratt Meyer, the chief of operations of the Far East Command, Wright, the chief of operations of the Far East Command, and the chief of intelligence, Willoughby, and several other generals who arrived on the same plane, followed by a large group of reporters.
MacArthur led the group around the front line for five hours, meeting with Walker, Milburn, the commander of the 1st Army, and Kurt, the commander of the 9th Army.
In the early winter, the cold wind was bitter, and MacArthur's mood was high, and the heat continued unabated. He was overjoyed to hear that the attacking troops on the 120-kilometre front had met little resistance, and he was overjoyed when Kurt said that the officers and men of the 9th were impatient to advance into the Yalu River.
He said to Kurt:
"You tell them that when they get to the Yalu River, they can all go home. I promise that words count. They were able to have Christmas dinner with their families. ”
Later, he said the same thing to Qiu Qi, the commander of the 24th Division: "Take the Yalu River, and I will let you go back." ”
MacArthur's remarks were exaggerated by the media and went viral. The general offensive advancing towards the Yalu River has since received a resounding name: "The general offensive to end the war before Christmas." ”
In the afternoon of the same day, MacArthur returned by special plane. After the plane lifted off, he suddenly gave the pilot the order to fly to the mouth of the Yalu River. The people on the same plane looked at each other in amazement. Under the protection of the temporarily transferred escort plane, the special plane turned around and headed north, until it turned back at the mouth of the Yalu River and continued to fly along the river. MacArthur looked down from the porthole of his plane at the snow-covered border between China and North Korea, and saw "extremely barren countryside, rugged hills, sunken and cracked cliffs, and the black Yalu River that was tightly barred in the freeze and snow of death," but found no trace of Chinese troops.
When the plane flew over the town of Huishan, he asked the pilots to "shake their wings" and pay tribute to the US military unit that had reached the Yalu River first.
Upon his return to Tokyo, MacArthur made an announcement announcing the start of the general offensive.
5. How to get the US military to drill into the "pocket"?
Peng Dehuai's operational policy for the second campaign was:
"Fight on the inside line, lure the enemy deep, break and annihilate the enemy individually. ”
In terms of tactics, there are two key points to lure the enemy into depth:
First, it is necessary to conscientiously conceal one's own intentions and prevent the other side from noticing them; second, it is necessary to firmly hold the "bull's nose" of the other side and lead it step by step into the trap that has been set up.
These two articles are easy to say, but it is quite difficult to implement, because whether or not we can induce the other side to fall into the trap depends not only on our own planning and arrangement, but also on whether the other party "cooperates" in action. No matter how well the "pocket" is distributed, if the other party does not drill into it, it is also for nothing.
Whether Peng Dehuai's trick to lure the enemy can succeed depends on whether the US and ROK troops in front of him are willing to burrow into the "pockets" of the volunteers.
At MacArthur's request, Walker's 8th Army had to attack north as soon as possible, and from this point of view, it did not seem a problem to lure it into the trap.
However, there is also a contradiction here:
If the US and ROK forces attack too quickly and violently, there may be a situation in which the volunteers will have to rush into battle before they have completed their preparations on the predetermined battlefield.
As Hong Xuezhi later said:
Now it seems that luring the enemy deeper seems simple, but at the time, it was not easy to determine this policy.
On the one hand, there are huge risks, and on the other hand, it is also difficult. At that time, the enemy was attacking with all his might, and we ourselves were very tired from fighting, so we had to make a lot of calculations to lure the enemy into the depths, where to deploy our pockets, how to decoy them, and which troops to use to lure. All this fully shows General Peng's military command art.
In order to lure the enemy to the north, and at the same time not let him go too fast and too far, Peng Dehuai made some designs and arrangements.
Normally, luring the enemy is to "show weakness" so that the other side will make too low a misjudgment of its own ability, so that it will boldly advance and fall into the trap, but this time the Volunteer Army first put on a tough posture -- to deal with the early attack of the "United Nations Army" with stubborn resistance.
The purpose of this is, first, to conscientiously seize the enemy and show that the volunteers really have the will to fight on the battlefield, instead of making a false shot and having other plans; second, to control the speed of the enemy's movements, so that the main force of the volunteers will have time to complete the assembly and deployment in the predetermined area, and to wait for work and calmly meet the battle.
According to the deployment of the Zhi Division, the 39th, 40th, 38th, and 42nd armies of the Western Front each left one division on the front line to fight and block the attack, and used movement defense to deal with the attacking US and ROK troops.
Most of the troops tasked with luring the enemy use non-main forces according to convention, but Peng Dehuai took out the main division (112th Division) of the main force of the Western Front Volunteer Army (38th Army) to lure the enemy.
For this reason, Peng Dehuai consulted Deng Hua and Hong Xuezhi for their opinions, and both Deng and Hong said:
If you want to use the strongest troops, then use the 112th Division, because the enemy's combat effectiveness is very strong in this direction, and the troops who are tasked with luring the enemy must first fight a good blockade, and if they can't resist it at the beginning, let the enemy rush in at once, what is there to talk about mobilizing troops and putting "pockets"?
Later, some people complained that the 112th Division failed to exert its strength in the second battle, and Hong Xuezhi corrected it: It is not that it is useless, but that it is the joint point of luring the enemy.
6. How difficult is the "resistance war"?
At the beginning of the Volunteer Army's operation to lure the enemy, the front-line troops fought a real blocking battle. In particular, in the area around Mt. Hitora and Tokugawa to the south of the course, the resistance battle was quite fierce.
Defending the Feihushan area was the 335th Regiment of the 112th Division of the 38th Army, and the enemy attacking in front of it was the 7th Division of the ROK Army and the 2nd Division of the US Army. Feihu Mountain is located on the south bank of the Cheongcheon River, east of the Valcheon River, with a dangerous terrain and controls the Pyongyang-Manpo highway. At the end of the first campaign, the 112th Division captured Feihu Mountain on November 4 while advancing towards the Valechuan attack. The U.S. and South Korean forces fought back strongly with the support of intensive artillery fire and aircraft, and fought a confrontation on the battlefield.
After that, the U.S. and South Korean forces attacked in turns with 1~3 regiments every day, and napalm blew up the position of the 335th Regiment into a sea of fire. The regiment held its position, repeatedly fought with the enemy, and after five days and nights of fierce fighting, repelled 57 attacks by more than 100 enemy troops, and held its position.
The 125th Division of the 42nd Army, which was attached to the 38th Army, held the Tokugawa area, and the 8th Division of the ROK Army attacked in person. After the 125th Division occupied Tokugawa in the first battle, it established a defensive position with Shenshan as the core and assumed a posture of sticking to the north bank of the Datong River. In order to recapture Tokugawa, the 8th Division of the ROK Army established a starting position for the northward advance, and invested 2~3 battalions of troops every day, and fiercely attacked the position of the 125th Division with the support of American artillery and aviation fire.
The two sides repeatedly fought over the position, and both paid a great price.
At the same time as Feihushan and Shenshan launched blocking operations, the 117th Division of the 39th Army and the 119th Division of the 40th Army also blocked the enemy attacking Bochuan and Yongbyon with a part of their forces, and the troops of the 42nd Army on the Eastern Front blocked the US 1st Marine Division north of Huangcaoling.
The war was fought too resolutely, and soon had a side effect, that is, the offensive actions of the "United Nations forces" became cautious, and the pace of the northward advance was greatly slowed. On 6 November, Walker ordered all units of the 8th Army (including the attached ROK Army) to begin a tentative offensive, and until the 16th, it had advanced only 9-16 kilometers in 10 days, with the main force still remaining on both sides of the Cheongchon River and south of Tokugawa.
The slow pace of the northward advance of the 8th Army was not only due to the stubborn resistance of the Volunteer Army, but also to the deliberate restraint of Walker's actions on his troops.
In order to avoid risks, when Walker issued the order to carry out a tentative attack, he specifically asked all units to pay attention to maintaining contact with their friends and neighbors, and not to advance alone.
He also made it clear:
Once the main force of the Chinese army is encountered or is stubbornly resisted, it will turn to the defense on the spot. Under Walker's instructions, both the US and South Korean armies used a wait-and-see, hesitant, and delaying attitude to deal with the new offensive during this time.
Almond, the supreme commander of the US forces on the Eastern Front and the commander of the 10th Army, was different from Walker.
As MacArthur's favorite general, Almond spared no effort to carry out MacArthur's intentions. But there are also people who speak against the US military on the Eastern Front, and the representative figure is Smith, the commander of the 1st Marine Division.
In the U.S. military, the Marines have always been very high-spirited, and this operation was placed under the command of the Army, which was somewhat uncomfortable, and MacArthur and Almond's deployment was flawed, which made Smith feel even more emotionally resistant.
He privately believed that MacArthur and Almond's plan was rather bad, and that if it was carried out, the 1st Marine Division would go deeper than 200 kilometers inland, which not only did not conform to the use practice of the Marines, but also exposed both flanks and possibly put the troops in danger.
As a result, Smith took a passively delaying attitude towards Almond's offensive orders. On the surface, he acted according to orders, but behind the scenes, he instructed his troops to slow down the attack as much as possible in order to maintain the relative concentration of the division's strength and the mutual care of the various units. On November 8, the 1st Marine Division began to set out, and it took 17 days to cover a distance of more than 60 kilometers, an average of only about 3 kilometers a day, which was literally crawling.
7. The "Art" of Tempting the Enemy
In view of the above situation, in order to aggravate the enemy's illusion and make him take the bait as soon as possible, Peng Dehuai decisively decided:
The units of the volunteers on the eastern and western fronts further retreated, and the steps of withdrawal were larger, so they simply disengaged from the vanguard of the "United Nations Army" so that they did not know the whereabouts of the volunteers, and at the same time adopted a series of deceptive measures to create the false impression that they had been defeated due to lack of strength, and tricked the "United Nations Army" into boldly advancing northward.
At noon on November 16, Peng Dehuai sent a telegram to all ministries, pointing out:
In order to lure the enemy into going deeper, the main force of the 125th Division should gradually and covertly assemble in the areas of Songcang, Yongxingdong, and Neicang, and briefly build a deep blocking position. Judging from the current situation of the 1st Marine Division and the 7th US Division, it is very possible for us to advance in parallel, but if we do not retreat on the western front, the enemy on the eastern front will not dare to advance, and even if we retreat, it is possible that we will not advance. On the 17th, the 8th Army, the 40th Army, and the 9th Army withdrew from their current positions to Yunshan and north of the stadium.
According to this order, the units on the Western Front that were tasked with luring the enemy ceased counterattacks and sorties from the 17th. The 125th Division withdrew from Tokugawa and moved to the deep area north of the Datong River, while the first-line divisions of the 38th, 39th, and 40th armies all retreated from the current front and retreated to the north of Unsan and the first line of the stadium. After completing the task of covering the advance of the 9th Corps, the main force of the 42nd Army on the Eastern Front also began to move westward on the evening of the 16th and transferred it to the Western Front.
In this way, the volunteers on both the eastern and western fronts disengaged from the US and ROK troops in front of them. In the process of retreating, various units of the Volunteer Army also deliberately discarded some dilapidated equipment and miscellaneous items to create the illusion of "evacuating in embarrassment." At the same time, the US prisoners of war who were released were deliberately revealed that the volunteer troops were in difficulty in food supply and were preparing to withdraw to China.
It worked. The U.S. military quickly judged that the Chinese army was "cowardly retreating", and estimated that the Chinese army in Korea was only 60,000~70,000, which was not an "insultable" force.
In response to the question raised about why the Chinese army suddenly retreated after stubborn fighting, their explanation was that there may have been a problem with logistics and supply, and the supply difficulties and cold weather were the reasons for the retreat of the Chinese army.
Walker also turned from cautious to optimistic. During this time, he was counting on the number of Chinese troops with his fingers crossed every day, and although the numbers were increasing, the subjective judgment was still far from the objective situation.
In the end, it was determined that the Chinese army in front of him had only a few divisions and was composed of volunteers drawn from various armies, not regular combat units, and that the purpose of these troops entering Korea was to establish a defensive line close to the border to protect the power facilities on the Yalu River.
Some people in the command of the 8th Army were skeptical, and Intelligence Chief Dabney believed on "intuition" that the Chinese army had entered the war on a large scale, and estimated that "the Chinese army is establishing an operational base in the triangle of Heecheon-Stadium-Unsan." However, this speculation was rejected due to "lack of evidence".
From 18 November, the 8th Army accelerated its northward advance along the entire front, and from the 21st to the 23rd, all divisions reached the predetermined line of launching a general attack.
On the Eastern Front, the US 10th Army also made a decision.
At that time, two defectors who had served in North Korea's railroad department confessed that an 80,000-strong Chinese army was marching on the Eastern Front.
But this important information did not attract the attention of the intelligence officers of the 10th Army, who thought that the number of defectors was outrageous. In their opinion, in this sparsely populated and remote place, it is impossible to march into a large army of 80,000 people.
According to the estimate of the army's intelligence officer on November 18, the Chinese army on the eastern front had only 1~2 divisions at most, and its "delayed operation has obviously come to an end, and they will continue to withdraw to the north, because of the rapid retreat, they have lost contact in many places, showing the appearance of defeat."
On November 21, a contingent sent by the 17th Regiment of the 7th Division of the U.S. Army arrived at the town of Huishan on the Yalu River without encountering any resistance. Almond was overjoyed at the news, claiming to "go down in history as a remarkable military achievement."
He drove to the spot to look at the Chinese landscape on the other side of the river and take pictures. MacArthur also sent a telegram as soon as possible, congratulating the 7th Division on "winning the jackpot."
This task force was the first and last U.S. military unit to reach the Yalu River.
The 1st Marine Division, which had been walking slowly in a passive attitude, finally reached Xiajieyuli, south of Changjin Lake, and prepared to continue to advance northward. Smith, who is known for his sober-mindedness, has also undergone some subtle changes in his mood at the moment. He felt that the worst days were over, because "even Genghis Khan would not come to Korea to fight in winter."
The actions of the volunteers to lure the enemy achieved the desired results.
(End of text)
If you have other topics or opinions about the field of history, you can [follow] me for a private chat, or you can leave a message in the comment area below and reply as soon as possible.