The Korean peninsula, which was originally the same country, was divided into two countries, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea, as a result of its occupation by two major blocs after World War II. Today we will explain in detail a fierce battle on the peninsula.
October 25, 2020, Beijing, from 10 o'clock today, at the Military Museum of the Chinese Revolution, the "Remembering the Great Victory."
If you ask which campaign of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea is the most famous? Most people will say that it is the Battle of Shangganling. In fact, the five battles before the Battle of Shangganling and the Battle of Jincheng after the Battle of Shangganling were all larger than the Battle of Shangganling, but why was the Battle of Shangganling so famous? There's probably a lot you don't know about the Battle of Shangganling.
In fact, the Battle of Shangganling was not the place where it took place, in fact, Shangganling was the forward position of the Five Holy Mountains, a strategic point of the central front of the Volunteer Army. If the Five Holy Mountains are lost, the Five Holy Mountains will be directly threatened; if the Five Holy Mountains are lost, the "United Nations Army" will be condescending, and it will be difficult for the Volunteer Army to gain a foothold in the Pingkang Plain. Therefore, the volunteer army must hold Shangganling, and Shangganling has become a place where the two armies must fight.
Situation map of the Battle of Shangganling
In the autumn of 1952, the Chinese Volunteer Army and the Korean People's Army won a comprehensive tactical counterattack operation, and the "United Nations Army" became more and more passive. At this time, on the eve of the US presidential election and the seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly, negotiations on the repatriation of prisoners of war were at an impasse. In order to meet the needs of the political struggle, sabotage the tactical counterattack being carried out by the Volunteer Army and the People's Army, get rid of the passive situation on the battlefield, and seek a favorable position in the armistice negotiations, the "United Nations Army" first unilaterally announced an indefinite adjournment on October 8 to exert pressure on the DPRK and China, and then began to launch the "Kim Hua Offensive" on the Korean Central Front on October 14. Attacked the support point positions of two companies of the Volunteer Army in the Shangganling area north of Jinhua, Hill 597.9 and Hill 537.7, in an attempt to seize the Five Holy Mountains, the key points of defense of the Volunteer Army, and improve their battlefield posture.
The Golden Offensive, personally planned and commanded by commander of the U.S. 8th Army, J.A. VanVleet, was launched on October 14. The "United Nations Army" successively put in troops, and the participating units successively included the US 7th Division (with the US Airborne 187th Regiment, the Ethiopian Battalion, and the Colombian Battalion), the 2nd Division of the South Korean Army (attached to the 37th Regiment), and the 9th Division, with a total of 11 infantry regiments and 2 battalions, another 18 artillery battalions, more than 300 guns of more than 105 mm caliber, more than 170 tanks, more than 3,000 sorties of aircraft, and a total strength of more than 60,000 troops.
Upper Ganling terrain
The volunteer army's defensive task in the Shangganling area was the 15th Army under the command of the 3rd Corps (Deputy Commander Wang Jinshan and Deputy Political Commissar Du Yide). The 597.9 Heights and the 537.7 Highlands North Hill were defended by 2 reinforced companies of the 135th Regiment of the 45th Division, and the two positions were constructed with 48 tunnels over 10 meters long (a total length of more than 760 meters). At the beginning of the campaign, the 15th Army was participating in the tactical counterattack in the autumn of 1952, and after the "United Nations Army" launched the offensive, the 15th Army immediately changed its battle plan and threw itself into the defense of the Shangganling area. In the course of the campaign, the volunteers successively participated in the battle, including the 45th and 29th Divisions of the 15th Army, 1 regiment of the 31st And 34th Division of the 12th Army, the 2nd and 7th Howitzer Artillery Divisions, the 1st 209th Regiment of Rocket Artillery, the 1st Artillery Regiment of the 601st and 610th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiments, 114 Jishan Artillery, Field Artillery, and Howitzers, 24 Rocket Artillery, 47 Anti-Aircraft Guns, and two other engineering battalions, with a total strength of more than 40,000 troops. The entire operation was commanded by Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army, and Gu Jingsheng, political commissar. The Rear Service Command of the Volunteer Army also adjusted its deployment and made every effort to support operations in the Shangganling area.
In the Battle of Shangganling, the enemy poured more than 1.9 million shells on the volunteers' positions of about 3.7 square kilometers on two heights, up to a maximum of more than 300,000 rounds a day; more than 3,000 aircraft sorties were dispatched, more than 5,000 bombs were dropped, and at most 250 sorties and more than 500 bombs were dropped in a day.
Shell casings left by the "United Nations Army" after the Battle of Shangganling
The intensity of the fighting, the density of artillery fire, was rare before, exceeding the highest level of the Second World War. On average, there were 6 rounds per second, and 76 shells exploded per square meter of land. The top of the hill of our position was cut down by two meters, the soil and stone of the highland were blown loose by 1-2 meters, becoming a scorched earth, and many rock tunnels were also blown short by three or four meters. Relying on the tunnels and wisdom and courage, the volunteer troops participating in the battle repeatedly fought with the enemy 29 times, repelling 25 charge at the enemy's scale above the battalion and 653 charge below the battalion. The volunteers suffered 11,529 casualties, with a casualty rate of more than 20%. The "United Nations Army" suffered 25,498 casualties, with a casualty rate of more than 40%. Such a casualty rate and the average number of casualties per day are extremely frightening for the Americans, because the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific War, which the United States considers the highest casualty rate, was only 32.6%.
The volunteers held their positions
The most arduous part of this campaign was the tunnel warfare, because of the enemy's artillery suppression, our supplies were difficult to deliver, and many soldiers could only endure hunger. They can only eat half a compressed biscuit per person a day, and what they lack most is water, and without water, the biscuits cannot be swallowed at all. You can only drink urine when you don't have water, but you can rarely even urinate without water.
Contact difficulties at the Shangganling Command Post
"Whoever can send an apple into the tunnel will be given a second-class merit!" This is the criterion for the Shangganling Campaign to adhere to the stage of tunnel warfare. The tunnels of the two highlands are only 500 meters from the closest place to the main peak of the Five Holy Mountains, and the farthest is only more than 1,000 meters, but they have to pass through 10 blockade lines. Even at the mouth of the tunnel, it is difficult to get in, and every step you take may bleed and die. Sent to a class, only a third of them entered the tunnel alive, and even had to pay for a few lives to deliver a pot of water. Under such difficult circumstances, the logistics department of the 15th Army organized organs and troops to send 30,000 mortar shells and a large amount of food and materials into the tunnel by means of "creeping transportation" and "relay transportation". In the entire Battle of Shangganling, more than 1,700 people were transported, accounting for 14% of the total casualties of our army.
Volunteer soldiers receive water from the rocks of the tunnels
Tunnel warfare is actually more difficult in terms of trench warfare. The enemy on the ground could take advantage of the favorable terrain to blockade the volunteers in the tunnels, blocking, blasting, smoking, and chemicals to cut off the volunteers' food and water reserves, trapping the volunteers alive.
At that time, the volunteers in the tunnel were only half a biscuit supply, and the water resources were almost exhausted, and most of them were forcibly replenishing the water with excrement. Ren Dan could not be opened in his mouth, so he held it dry in his mouth, and many wounded chose to starve themselves to death at the mouth of the cave in order to survive their comrades-in-arms.
The Battle of Shangganling produced the most heroes
In the Battle of Shangganling, a large number of combat heroes and heroes emerged from the 15th Army, the 12th Army and other volunteer units. Among them, there was Huang Jiguang, a special meritorious hero and special hero who blocked the enemy's machine gun hole with his body and opened the way for the impact troops; Huang Jiguang, a special meritorious man and a special hero who insisted on commanding the battle when his legs were broken, pulled the last grenade at the last breath and rolled toward the enemy group, and died with the enemy; there was a new soldier, Hu Xiudao, who, in the case of the casualties of the whole class of comrades-in-arms, one man insisted on fighting in the position, heroically and cleverly repelled more than 40 enemy charges, killed and wounded more than 280 enemy troops, held the position, and made special meritorious contributions. He was awarded the title of first-class combat hero; he was seriously injured in battle, and in the last breath of his life, he used his body to connect the broken line to ensure the smooth communication of command, and The communication hero Niu Baocai, who was awarded the title of second-level combat hero, was awarded the title of second-level combat hero. In addition to them, there are many heroic deeds and heroic figures that can be sung and wept.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea awarded Hwang Ji-kwang the Gold Star Medal
The 15th Army alone produced more than 50 combat heroes in the battle. In 43 days, grenades, grenades, and explosive canisters were fired with the enemy, and as many as 38 martyrs who sacrificed their lives to bomb bunkers and block gun holes left their names! This kind of heroism of seeing death as a homecoming and the tenacity of insisting on the tunnel for fourteen days and nights have made Shangganling synonymous with heroism and tenacity for more than half a century.
In the list, Wang Wancheng is alone in battle and grabs a blaster and pounces on a group of enemy troops - he is one of the prototypes of the protagonist Wang Cheng in the future film "Heroes and Children"
The Battle of Shangganling fought out the national prestige and military might!
The Battle of Shangganling was a "big battle on a small hill." Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army, wrote in his memoirs: "At that time, the gunfire in other parts of the Entire Korean Battlefield was sparse, and both sides at the Panmunjom negotiating table were waiting for news from Shangganling. The Corps, zhisi, the Central Military Commission, and even Chairman Mao Zedong paid close attention to the gains and losses of Shangganling. From October 23, 1952, the battle in Shangganling not only became the focus of the Korean battlefield, but Xinhua News Agency also began to report intensively for two consecutive months, and for a time the two highlands of Shangganling with an area of only 3.7 square kilometers were closely watched by North Korea, China and even the world.
Pictured 丨 Volunteer Soldier
On November 26, the 15th Army Command issued a communiqué on the results of the Battle of Shangganling:
"In the 43-day battle, we repelled more than 900 attacks from the enemy platoon and above, engaged in 29 large-scale battles with the enemy, killed, wounded, and captured 25,498 enemy people at the cost of 11,529 casualties, shot down and wounded 300 enemy planes, destroyed 40 enemy tanks, and 61 large-caliber guns, so that the enemy's so-called 'biggest offensive in a year' ended in complete failure."
On December 16, Mao Zedong delivered a speech on the situation in the Korean War and its characteristics, highly praising the Battle of Shangganling.
The news reached the United States, causing a large uproar, the anti-war sentiment of the American people was temporarily high, the opposition to the Korean War was full of calls, and the United States was forced to negotiate in advance.
So this battle had to be fought!!!
Salute to you!!!