The Battle of Chosin Lake was the most tragic battle of our army in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea; at that time, Korea suffered extreme temperatures that were rare in a hundred years, which caused our army, which was extremely difficult to supply logistics, to suffer extremely heavy casualties under harsh conditions. After the war, according to the rough statistics of our army, more than 14,000 people were injured in the battle of the 9th Corps of our People's Volunteer Army in the Chosin Lake Campaign, but more than 30,000 people were injured due to the cold current.
The 9th Corps of the People's Volunteer Army had 12 divisions, and the attrition of thousands of men in almost every division in this campaign was due to extreme weather conditions, but there were exceptions to everything, and one division of the 9th Corps was an exception, which was the 89th Division of the 20th Army of the 9th Corps.
According to post-war statistics, the number of people wounded by the 89th Division due to extreme weather in the Battle of Chosin Lake was more than 400, which is a very, very low value compared to other divisions. So, the people's volunteers, which are also organized, why did the 89th Division have the least number of frostbitten casualties in this battle?
(Battle of Chosin Lake)
Later, according to the recollections of surviving veterans of the 89th Division, they suffered the least frostbite during the Battle of Chosin Lake because General Yu Guangmao, then the commander of the 89th Division, was very far-sighted.
General Yu Guangmao is a native of Jiangxi, Jiangxi is located in the southwest of China backed by the Qinling Mountains, the climate belongs to the typical subtropical monsoon climate, the temperature throughout the year is relatively warm, at least compared with the winter in the north is not so cold, so General Yu Guangmao, who grew up in Jiangxi, is more sensitive to cold temperatures.
When the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea broke out, General Yu Guangmao received a combat order from his superiors and arrived in Shenyang, northeast China, on November 4, 1950, and when he got off the train, he was frozen by the cold of northeast China, and then he began to worry about the logistical warmth of his soldiers. Therefore, General Yu Guangmao directly made a request to the General Staff headquarters to let his troops stay in Shenyang for one more day, so that the soldiers could store their clothes to protect themselves from the cold.
The General Staff quickly agreed to the approval, and General Yu Guangmao went directly to General He Jinnian, who was then the deputy commander of the Northeast Military Region, and proposed that the Northeast Military Region help the 89th Division to replenish the wartime cold materials such as cotton clothes, cold gloves, and ear protection. But the problem is that in just one day, it is impossible to find the cold supplies needed by so many people, and at the end of the day, more than half of the soldiers of the entire 89th Division have not prepared enough warm clothing.
Therefore, in a hurry, General Yu Guangmao had a sudden idea, and he directly ordered the soldiers to remove all their quilts, and then stuffed all the cotton they pulled out into their cotton clothes, and the extra cotton was all used to make military hats and ear protection and other cold materials.
The vast majority of the 89th Division's military quilts were supplied by Jiangsu, and the soldiers of the 89th Division were mostly southerners, and even before they set out, many of them did not realize how terrible the harsh winter in the north was. The soldiers of the 89th Division were dumbfounded when they heard General Yu Guangmao's order that everyone should remove the military quilts they had brought all the way from the south to Shenyang, but even if they were confused and unwilling, they all obeyed the orders.
Later, the facts also proved the foresight of General Yu Guangmao, in the Battle of Chosin Lake, the soldiers of the 89th Division because of the sufficient cold materials to ensure combat effectiveness and low non-combat attrition, so the aforementioned 89th Division in this campaign of cold resistance far exceeded the other divisions of the 9th Army.