After the magnificent War of Liberation, the Kuomintang government, which had originally occupied a leading position in China, was driven to Taiwan. Not content with defeat, Chiang Kai-shek kept using the money in his hand to support reactionary forces on the mainland and did everything in his power to stir up trouble for New China. It can be said that Chiang Kai-shek's heart is full of resentment. However, after the End of the Battle of Shangganling at the end of 1952, Chiang Kai-shek issued a heartfelt praise to the Chinese Volunteer Army. What's going on?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > why the Battle of Ganling was fought</h1>
The fall of 1952 was a happy time for the Chinese Volunteers and the Korean people. After two years of fighting, the front has stabilized near the 38th Line, the two sides have also begun negotiations, and peace seems to be imminent. However, the United States and the South Korean government were very reluctant. In the words of the Americans, they "could not accept a ceasefire when the war was not won." "A hundred years of war speculation have made them only know how to take advantage of each other, and they cannot accept equality.
In order to gain benefits at the negotiating table, US representatives constantly use off-the-counter tactics. They first deliberately made difficulties on the repatriation of prisoners of war and the construction of airports, and then came up with trickery methods to slow down the negotiation process. At the same time, they also launched a public opinion war, distorted the facts, and pushed the responsibility for the fruitless negotiations on the Chinese and DPRK sides. During the negotiations, the Chinese and DPRK sides skillfully responded to various unexpected situations and never gave the US side an opportunity to take advantage of it.
Seeing that the negotiating table could not take advantage, the US side began to fight the idea of war again. However, the defensive posture of the Volunteer Army was different from the past, and the teeth on the front were staggered, and it was difficult for the US army to carry out a large-scale attack with its existing strength. From the failure of the summer-autumn offensive in 1951 to October 1952, their ground forces dared to carry out only small-scale tentative operations for a full year. The US military's air raids and germ warfare were in full swing, but they could not achieve fundamental results. To reverse this situation, Van Vleet, commander of the U.S. Eighth Army, deployed a large number of resources to prepare for a "showdown operation.".
Operation Showdown, also known as the "Jinhua Offensive", is the Battle of Shangganling. The battle itself was a gambling attack formulated by VanVleet. According to intelligence, the US military believed that the garrison of the volunteer army in the area of Shangganling and Wushengshan was empty, so it decided to use this as a breakthrough point to nail a nail in the defensive side of the volunteer army. If this strategic intention is realized, it can be condescending and overlooking the flank of the Volunteer Army, which is more than forty kilometers in circumference. This attack, the significance of the decisive victory is almost nothing, but it is conducive to increasing the chips at the negotiating table.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="37" > roughly after the Battle of Shangganling</h1>
So on October 12, 1952, an overwhelming barrage of American shells and aerial bombs exploded on the Volunteers' defensive positions. In just two days, more than a million shells were fired, and the density of shells dropped was rare in the history of war. After two days of artillery preparation, the Americans began to launch a ground attack. Their original plan was to use two battalions of troops to occupy the position. However, when the troops rushed up, they were met with stubborn resistance from the volunteer soldiers.
Two days of high-density artillery preparations apparently did not cause much damage to the volunteers. The main reason for this lies in the use of new tunnels. Today's volunteer defense system is different from the open-air field fortifications when they first entered Korea. The new tunnel system is a three-dimensional form of defense, in addition to the surface part, there is also the underground part. When the enemy is ready for artillery fire, the warriors retreat to the ground to rest; when the enemy begins to attack on the ground, they return to the ground to block. In this way, the enemy's firepower advantage is greatly reduced. Later, some MILITARY experts in the United States lamented that even if the atomic bomb was used, it would be impossible to wipe out all the volunteer troops on the shangganling and five holy mountain positions.
The enemy and we engaged in a tug-of-war on the position for 6 days. During the day, the enemy can occupy some positions by relying on the superiority of firepower; at night, our army will launch a counterattack to retake the positions. The attrition of this tug-of-war was very large, and although heroes like Huang Jiguang appeared in the volunteer army, it was also necessary to consider casualties. On October 20, the volunteers all withdrew into the tunnels, preserving their strength and insisting on resistance.
U.S. and South Korean forces may feel like they are one step closer to victory when they first take up ground positions. Unexpectedly, what awaited them was a nightmare. According to the instructions of their superiors, the volunteer army was reduced to pieces, ready to strike at small enemy units. In order to kill and injure a large number of enemy forces, the so-called "cold gun and cold cannon" campaign was also carried out in the volunteer army, that is, a large number of snipers were used to kill and injure enemy soldiers indiscriminately. In front of the position, the Chinese snipers were haunted, using ordinary rifles without scopes to beat the enemy and did not even dare to come out of the toilet. It should be said in particular that The two strongest snipers in the Volunteer Army, Zhang Taofang's number of killed enemies was 214 people, and Zou Xixiang's number of killed enemies was 203 people.
Under the control of the tunnel war, the US army and the South Korean army could not advance, and the battle was stuck in a stalemate. On the other hand, the volunteers took the opportunity to deploy a large amount of weapons and ammunition and prepare to launch a decisive counterattack.
On the night of October 30, 8 companies of the Volunteer Army, supported by more than 100 artillery pieces, launched a counterattack on the position of Wusheng Mountain, and succeeded in one fell swoop. This time the battle kicked off the counterattack. For the next 5 days, the enemy would launch daily attacks on combat units above battalion level, but they were all repelled by volunteer fighters. Among them, Hu Xiudao, a new soldier of the 91st Regiment, fought alone with all his comrades sacrificed, creating a miracle of killing and wounding 280 enemy people!
With this as a starting point, the volunteer army engaged in a tug-of-war with the enemy for another 10 days, and the attrition of both sides on the battlefield was extremely huge. The enemy's will to fight was dragged down step by step. On November 16, the 92nd Regiment of the 31st Division of the Volunteer Army launched an attack and recaptured the Shangganling position in one fell swoop! Next, the two sides entered another 10 days of tug-of-war, but the enemy's offensive strength had weakened, and the final victory was no longer suspenseful. On November 25, U.S. and South Korean troops withdrew from the battle, and the Battle of Sangganling ended with our army's victory.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="38" > the special significance of the Battle of Shangganling</h1>
The intensity of the Battle of Shangganling is rare in military history. On two high sites with a radius of less than 4 square kilometers, the U.S. and South Korean armies used 60,000 troops, more than 300 artillery pieces, nearly 200 tanks, and more than 3,000 aircraft to attack. More than 1.9 million shells were fired, more than 5,000 bombs were dropped, and the soil and stones on Shangganling and WushengShan were loosened by 1-2 meters. On the side of the volunteer army, more than 40,000 troops were also invested, including 133 mountain artillery, field artillery and howitzers, 24 rocket artillery, 47 anti-aircraft guns, 292 mortars, and more than 350,000 shells. In terms of ammunition consumption, it is also unprecedented.
During the battle, the enemy paid 274 aircraft, 61 artillery, 14 tanks, and 25,000 soldiers, but the result was that no land was gained, and all strategic intentions were not achieved. From then on, their ground troops lost the ability to attack on a large scale and could only fight small battles. The United States and South Korea had wanted to add chips to the negotiating table, but they did not expect to lose even worse. The volunteers took the opportunity to consolidate the defensive line and completely block the enemy south of the 38th Line. Since then, we have no worries and have focused our main energy on filling the loopholes in the coastal defense line. After another two months, the coastal defense line was completed, and the strategic initiative in the North Korean territory was already in the hands of the volunteer army. The United States also had to bow its head during the negotiations and agreed to all the demands of the Chinese and North Korean sides.
In addition to the interests at the national level, the Battle of Shangganling also made the name of the Chinese army's toughness spread around the world. MacArthur, the former commander-in-chief of the United Nations Army, lamented: "China's infantry is the strongest in the world, and whoever wants to go to war with them is crazy!" ”。 After the news reached Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek also said a sentence: "The Americans once said that Chiang Kai-shek could not do it, but now what about them?" The combined armies of 16 countries, coupled with such advanced weapons and equipment, are not also so bad? It seems that no one in this world is an opponent of the People's Liberation Army! ”