At 5:44 a.m. on October 14, 1952, countless shining ballistic trajectories soared into the sky, cutting the dark sky to pieces, and with a sharp whistle, the earth began to tremble.
Van Vleet vented his anger with an unlimited amount of ammunition, and the 597.9 highland and 537.7 highland North Mountain, the explosion points continued continuously, and the huge shock wave was like a heavy punch, slamming into the head of the volunteer soldiers in the tunnel.
The warrior Zou Xixiang was shocked and confused, he always felt that the shells were drilled from the ground, and the soles of his feet were shaken and numb and itchy, not at all like on land, but more like in the middle of the waves. From time to time, soldiers were shocked to the point of vomiting blood, and in the tunnel of Beishan Mountain, a 17-year-old small sanitist from Sichuan was shocked to death while he was asleep.
This was the first wave of shelling in the Battle of Shangganling, and throughout the day on the 14th, the US and South Korean troops poured nearly 300,000 bombs of various kinds on two small highlands in Shangganling, according to the recollection of surviving veterans: Hell, I'm afraid that's what it is!
Inside the battalion command post, one kilometer away from The 597.9 Heights, Wang Fengshu, deputy commander of the 135th Regiment, was roaring with a telephone:
"Nine company commanders, nine company commanders, hey, hey!"
It was clear that the telephone line had long since been blown off by countless bombs.
Wang Fengshu could not contact the company on the upper ground, and the specific circumstances were unknown. Niu Baocai, deputy head of the battalion telephone squad, walked in:
"Colonel, let me check the line."
Wang Fengshu looked at the rain-like shells outside the tunnel and was worried, Niu Baocai picked up two telephone lines and said, "Let me try it." Then he entered the boundless rain of bullets.
Even if Niu Baocai moved more flexibly, he could not avoid being hit by shrapnel, and after using the telephone line in his hand, he found that there was still one last section that could not be connected, so he connected both ends of the wire with two hands, and at the last moment of his life, he felt the current running through his body.
Niu Baocai's body had been hit by shrapnel three times, and he used his last consciousness to ensure a 3-minute call, and the deputy regimental commander used this 3 minutes to give the two companies on the forward heights an emergency combat mission.
The sky outside the tunnel was suddenly as bright as day, and Wang Fengshu felt a chill in his heart: How many shells must be needed to illuminate the sky. Van Vliet had originally planned to solve these two small heights with 200 casualties in 5 days, but on the first day, the US and South Korean troops suffered 1900 casualties.
Shangganling is not destined to be a skirmish, and in the next 42 days, the two sides will fight here repeatedly at the cost of countless military lives until the victory and defeat are divided.
Viewed from a high altitude, The 597.9 Heights are like an arrow, embedded in the golden defense line of the US military, posing a major threat to the US military. Position 9 was the forefront of The 597.9 Heights, and at 6:02, three battalions of the 31st Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division launched an infantry attack on The 597.9 Heights.
Garrisoning the No. 9 position is the 135th Regiment 9 Company 3 Platoon, the deputy instructor of the Ninth Company Qin Gengwu is very good at fighting, in order to reduce casualties, he only sent 3 fighters outside the tunnel each time, casualties of one soldier, and then add another, so that the way of playing, while holding the position, but also let the US troops suffer heavy casualties. In just one morning, two battalions of the 31st Regiment of the US 7th Division were 70% out of their men.
Position 9 is the gateway to Hill 597.9, and its location is also crucial, at the same time, Position 11, Position 7, and Position 2 have also begun to meet the enemy. On position No. 11, after repelling four attacks by the US army, only One soldier was left in the 8th Company and 1st Squad, Yang Defu, because there were too many enemies, Yang Defu had to retreat to the tunnel to hold on, position No. 11 was lost, and soon after Position No. 2 was also lost.
Shortly after the battle began on the 597.9 heights, the battle on the 537.7 highlands also began, the attacking force was the 3rd Battalion of the 32nd Regiment of the 2nd Division of South Korea, and when the enemy began to climb upwards, the soldiers of the 1st Company rushed out of the tunnels and entered the position and began to stubbornly resist.
The South Korean army attacked for 1 hour in a row, the progress was negligible, but left a large number of corpses, and then they began to call for air support, and the four F-51 fighters of the US Fifth Air Force immediately took off, dropping 8 bombs on the 537.7 heights, and the fighters on the 5th highland did not come and retreat, and all were overwhelmed by artillery fire.
South Korea on Position 8 rushed upwards fiercely, and Chen Zhiguo, the machine gunner of Position 7, immediately adjusted the muzzle, but because the machine gun platform had been destroyed, the machine gun mount was too low to reach the target. Therefore, Chen Zhiguo squatted down and used his shoulder as a machine gun mount, and then he shouted to the deputy company commander:
"Deputy Company Commander, come on!"
Chu Yingjiang hesitated for a moment, and Chen Zhiguo shouted again:
"Hurry up, the enemy is in the ninth squad!"
Chen Zhiguo's move had already exposed his body to the enemy, and Chu Yingjiang no longer hesitated, pulling the trigger and firing at the enemy. Chen Zhiguo was hit by a bullet and sat on the ground in pain, followed by a second shot, Chen Zhiguo could only lie on the ground and support the machine gun until the moment of sacrifice.
Wang Er's veteran soldier recalled:
"His body has never been found, but I still remember Chen Zhiguo's appearance, that was a good soldier!"
On the two high ground, heroic deeds are constantly happening, and warriors are defending their positions with their lives and blood. The soldiers of the 1st Company who held their positions fought with the enemy for 10 hours from the beginning of the engagement, and 31 of the 38 submachine guns of the whole company were damaged, 37 of the 45 Soviet rifles were damaged, more than 3,000 grenades and grenades were thrown, and more than 7,000 rounds of ammunition were fired.
Due to the fierce enemy fire, the sky above the two highlands was covered with dust and fog that had been blown up into the sky, and the 14th was originally a sunny day, but the surviving veteran soldiers recalled: It was a cloudy day.
At Position 6 on Hill 537.7, only 5 wounded were left, and in the end only one soldier named Nam Shu-deok survived, and according to his recollection, the fire of the South Korean army was very fierce that afternoon, and several of them retreated to the tunnel while fighting, and the battlefield was full of corpses.
A machine gun of the South Korean soldiers happened to be mounted next to a soldier named Sun Sun Ziming, who was already full of bullet wounds and covered with blood, but the sound of explosive beans suddenly woke up Sun Ziming, who was unconscious. Sun Ziming suddenly roared, jumped up from the ground, and immediately grabbed the enemy's machine gun next to him, and just as he was about to turn the muzzle of the gun, more than a dozen South Korean soldiers rushed up.
Sun Ziming felt three grenades from the ground, and when the enemy surrounded him, Sun Ziming pulled at the same time, a loud noise was heard, the blood fog filled the air, and more than a dozen South Korean soldiers were blown up and their corpses flew around. Sun Ziming was the first martyr to die with the enemy since the battle of Shangganling began.
On the 14th, the enemy dispatched nearly 7 battalions of troops to besiege two companies and a platoon of our army, and even though most of the 537.7 surface positions were lost, the enemy also paid a heavy price. Due to the fierce enemy fire, the telephone line was blown off, and it was impossible to communicate with the superiors, and Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army, could not know the specific situation of the position.
At that time, the main artillery of the 15th Army was not in the Shangganling area, but was basically transferred to the Nanshan Ofezidong, and under the condition that he could not understand the enemy's situation, Qin Jiwei still did not dare to assert that Shangganling was the main direction of attack of the US army.
The pressure on Qin Jiwei's body doubled, Shangganling was the frontier of the Five Holy Mountains, and if he lost Shangganling, he might lose the Five Sacred Mountains, and Peng Dehuai said to Qin Jiwei before leaving Korea:
"Whoever loses the Five Holy Mountains is responsible for the history of Korea."
The Five Holy Mountains are the gateway to the central line of Korea, and once we lose this place, our army will have no danger to defend and can only retreat 200 kilometers, and Qin Jiwei cannot bear such a defeat. Forty years later, Qin Jiwei recalled:
"October 14, 1952, was another anxious day in my life."
At dusk, the battle report finally reached the ears of Cui Jiangong, commander of the 45th Division, and the commander of the 135th Regiment called, and the 9th Company lost 3 positions, and the 1st Company lost 8 positions.
"Zhang Xinyuan, I am very aware of your situation, the division and artillery groups are concentrated in the direction of the Zhuzi Cave, and it is very difficult for you to rely on infantry defense alone. But you must calm down, make a good plan, take advantage of the fact that the enemy's foothold is not stable, immediately organize a counterattack force, and take back the position for me overnight, not one less. ”
Cui Jiangong was also very aware of the situation at that time, the Five Holy Mountains were the focus of many wars between the enemy and us, and in the stage of stalemate in 1952, it was absolutely impossible to lose, once lost, it was pressed by the enemy's heavy troops, coupled with the strong fortifications of the US army reinforced concrete, it was difficult to retake the position, so it was necessary to retake the position before the enemy stabilized.
At 7 p.m., four companies of volunteer soldiers, without any artillery fire, began a counterattack on the two heights, with rock powder at their feet that went deep into their ankles.
After dark, Li Shisuo, commander of the 7th Company of the 135th Regiment, personally led the second platoon to launch a counterattack on the No. 2 position on the 597.9 heights, and the U.S. army reacted quickly, and after learning that the Chinese army began to counterattack, countless signal flares and flares took off, and the sky was illuminated like daylight.
In just half an hour, the company commander was killed, the second platoon platoon Leader Sun Zhanyuan was blown off by artillery fire and broke his legs, and Li Zhong, the deputy squad leader of the fifth squad, picked up two explosive canisters and rushed into the enemy's trenches, immediately pulled the fuse, and died with the enemy. Soon several American troops attacked Sun Zhanyuan, who was seriously wounded, and Sun Zhanyuan pulled away the grenade and rolled into the enemy group.
The counterattack at The 537.7 heights was equally fierce, and in the end, our army and the South Korean army ran out of bullets, so the two sides began a white-knife battle, roaring and screaming, and the battle went on for midnight, and the Chinese army took back all the positions lost during the day.
The one-day battle on the 14th set the savage tone of the Blood Sea on the Corpse Mountain of Shangganling. Our army annihilated 1,900 enemy troops at the cost of 500 people without the support of artillery fire, which was undoubtedly a big victory.
In just one day, the top of the hill in Shangganling was cut down by artillery fire by two meters, and the fierceness of the battle can be imagined. The volunteer army has defended our position with countless lives, and those who are the most lovely will always be remembered in our hearts. (Text/Nine Fish Pavilion)