The 79-year self-defense counterattack against Vietnam was a very important battle in the history of New China, and it took less than a month from the PLA entering Vietnam to fight and withdrawing troops, but in fact, not all PLA troops left the territory of Vietnam.
【War against Vietnam】
On 10 March 1979, a PLA unit went deep into Vietnamese territory alone to carry out a very special mission.
A special combat mission
In the early morning of March 10, more than 200 PLA officers and soldiers gathered at the gate of the command post of the 124th Division.
【War against Vietnam】
Those who are more familiar with the operational characteristics of our army at that time should know that this kind of situation of selecting key combat cadres to form independent combat units generally means that there are important tasks to be carried out, so it is necessary to bring in all the elite soldiers and strong generals of the whole division.
In addition to the officers and men of the People's Liberation Army, there are also eight PLA military trucks on standby, and more than 200 fully motorized units, such a task is bound to be not simple.
What is even more surprising is that it was Gu Hui, the commander of the 124th Division, who gave the soldiers a briefing on the mission, and the last order he gave to the soldiers was: find them and take them home!
【Guhui】
After listening to the division commander's briefing, all the officers and men participating in the battle were full of excitement, and their mission was full of risks but extremely sacred, and they wanted to recover the remains of our officers and men stranded in Vietnam and bring them back to the motherland for burial.
The destination of this unit of the 124th Division was the Ko Gang area of Vietnam.
During the war against Vietnam, our army temporarily buried the bodies of 108 martyrs here, and the troops had a combat mission at that time and could not take them away, so they had to return to Vietnam to fulfill the promise of that year.
After the PLA withdrew its troops from Vietnam, it did not know anything about the situation in Vietnam, and the 124th Division did not know whether there were Vietnamese troops re-stationed in the Guogang area.
[PLA withdrawal]
The 124th Division had not advanced a few steps into Vietnamese territory and soon ran into another unit head-on in front.
Fortunately, the other side was not the Vietnamese army, but the troops of the 162nd Division, who were responsible for the task of breaking off the rear on the way to the withdrawal, so they walked at the back of all our army units.
The comrades-in-arms of the 162nd Division told the soldiers of the 124th Division that they were already the last PLA troops in Vietnam, and that the location of Guogang was more than 10 kilometers deep in Vietnam, and they did not know the specific situation.
After learning about the situation, the officers and men of the 124th Division also became vigilant and accelerated their speed to march to the Guogang defense line.
【War against Vietnam】
I don't know if the heroic spirits of the martyrs favored the officers and soldiers of the 124th Division, but they didn't encounter any Vietnamese troops along the way, and arrived at Guogang without any obstacles.
After confirming the burial place of the martyrs, the soldiers were quickly divided into a guard group and an excavation group, and raced against time to collect the remains of their comrades.
The commander realized that time was running out for them, that the Vietnamese army had already discovered their presence, and that it was only a matter of time before the main forces were mobilized to encircle and suppress them.
【People's Liberation Army】
Difficult task of collecting corpses
Although the commanders and fighters kept reminding the soldiers to speed up, the funeral work was not said to be fast, and the bodies of many martyrs were already torn apart by artillery fire, and the flesh was rotten, and they fell apart at the first touch.
The soldiers had to be put in order before they could be taken away, which was a sign of respect for the sacrificed soldiers, and considering the large number of remains, the commanders and fighters temporarily decided to cremate them on the spot and only bring the ashes back to China.
After more than eight hours of intense work, the bodies of all the martyrs were cremated and packed into 108 specially prepared bags as planned.
To the surprise of the soldiers of the 124th Division, they stayed in Guogang for more than 8 hours, and it stands to reason that the enemy had time to mobilize troops to come and encircle them, but the Vietnamese army did not do so.
【War against Vietnam】
Some people on our side speculated that the Vietnamese army might have sent people to reconnoiter in the vicinity and found that our army only acquiesced to our army's actions after collecting the remains of the soldiers.
Some people also believe that at that time, the Vietnamese army was busy recovering major towns and clearing up the mines and unexploded ordnance left by our army, and did not have time to manage the relatively desolate Guogang area, so the soldiers did not encounter the main force of the Vietnamese army.
After making sure that the ashes of all the martyrs were carried, the small force of the 124th Division quickly retreated to the Chinese side.
【War against Vietnam】
During this period, our army did not hit any enemy, and the eight trucks that had been prepared returned to China with the ashes of the soldiers and martyrs, and buried the martyrs in the Guangxi Martyrs Cemetery.
In the counterattack against Vietnam, as many as 7,814 people were killed by our army, most of whom were brought back by our army, but some were stranded on the battlefield in Vietnam for various reasons.
The 124th Division is not the only unit of our army that performs such tasks.
【War against Vietnam】
In fact, from a military point of view, it is a very high-risk action to go deep into enemy territory to bring back the remains of martyrs by lone troops after the withdrawal.
However, bringing every soldier home is our army's commitment to officers and soldiers, and if this is violated, the morale and cohesion of our army will be greatly damaged, and the Chinese pay attention to returning to their roots, and for those soldiers who died in a foreign land to defend their homeland, they are more qualified to return to their homeland for burial.
Therefore, no matter how big the risk is, the troops will definitely bring the martyrs back to the motherland as much as possible, which is the military soul of the People's Liberation Army and the commitment of our army to every soldier.
Sources:
[1] People's Publishing House, The Truth of the Sino-Vietnamese Border Conflict, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1979, p. 51.
[2] Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Martyrs Cemetery.Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Martyrs Cemetery Official Website [Citation Date:2014-12-19]