<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="64" > foreword: Hainan Island, China's famous treasure island and tourist attractions, Sanya in Hainan is an endless stream of tourists all year round, but when the People's Liberation Army liberated Hainan Island, it was extremely dangerous, and even the great man said that if it is two months late, Hainan Island is likely to become the second Taiwan. </h1>
Battle to liberate Hainan Island
When meeting Deng Hua, one of the commanders of the campaign to liberate Hainan Island, the great man personally expressed his feelings: From here we can know how severe the hostile forces in our country were at that time, so how did our army liberate Hainan Island? What ranks were the four division commanders awarded after the war?
The difference between the campaign to liberate Hainan Island and the outbreak of the Korean War in that year was only a short month, and the US military arbitrarily intervened in China's internal affairs of the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait for only two months.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="63" > strategically important Hainan Island</h1>
Hainan Island is located at the southern tip of our country, which is not only rich in resources and famous tourist attractions, but also guards the throat of the Nansha Islands like a general, and our army's strategic nuclear submarine unit and port are here. Hainan Island has an irreplaceable strategic position in national defense.
Hainan Island is more closely linked to Taiwan Island, and the remnants of the Kuomintang regard Hainan Island as an important springboard outside the Golden Gate, and if the People's Liberation Army loses control in Hainan, the entire southeast coast of China will be under the threat of the enemy army. It is precisely because of the important and irreplaceable strategic position of Hainan Island that our army attaches great importance to Hainan Island, but the Kuomintang also knows the importance of Hainan Island, and even more has laid a net of heaven and earth on Hainan Island, and the defensive position is even more impregnable. When the People's Liberation Army attacked Hainan Island, it was not as smooth as expected, and it encountered many difficulties and difficulties.
It can be said that the liberation of Hainan Island was another considerable challenge of our People's Liberation Army after the failure of the attack on Kinmen; General Han Xianchu served as the deputy commander of the corps of the 12th Corps of the Fourth Field Army at that time, and also served as the commander of the 40th Army; General Han Xianchu even made a "military order" in order to liberate Hainan Island.
Looking at the entire war situation, General Han Xianchu's military order to the Party Central Committee can be said to be the "turning point" of the entire war to liberate Hainan Island. The officers and men of the Fourth Field Army were even more freed from the influence of the "Defeat of kinmen" and completely opened up a new situation in the war situation.
Before the liberation of Hainan Island, our army first attacked Kinmen, and our army and the Kuomintang troops on Kinmen Island fought fiercely, fighting for three days and three nights, and more than 9,000 people who were responsible for landing on the island died heroically, and some PLA fighters became prisoners of the Kuomintang. Although our army killed nearly 10,000 Kuomintang troops, the objectives of this combat mission were not completed, and the operation was a failure.
Because the War of Liberation was not over at that time, the Battle of Kinmen, which broke out at this moment, did not receive enough attention, and later after the founding of New China, when liberating Hainan Island, the case of this failure returned to the eyes of the senior generals of the People's Liberation Army.
The People's Liberation Army analyzed the reasons for the failure of the operation, that is, our army's naval combat effectiveness was not good, and there was no way to compete with the Kuomintang army. The sea crossing operation is different from all the combat experience of our army in the past, and there are too many factors concerned in naval warfare, whether it is the rising tide or the low tide, and whether to establish a beachhead position or sneak in quietly.
On December 18, 1949, the great man personally called the commander of the four fields, Lin Biao, to emphasize this matter many times, and at the same time reminded the four fields and the relevant units to cross the sea to learn from Su Yu all the experience of the sea crossing operation, as well as to study the reasons for the failure of Kinmen, so as to avoid the 10th Corps of Sanye repeating the mistakes of the past, and the commander had an unshirkable responsibility at that time.
Battle of the Golden Gate
In the context of the War of Liberation, the bitter lessons behind the Kinmen Campaign did not receive enough attention, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, when our army liberated Hainan Island, the unique combat experience and methods of the Kinmen Campaign were analyzed by our army. The defeat in the Battle of Kinmen also gave the Kuomintang the opportunity to survive, and at the same time exposed the weaknesses of our army, that is, it was invincible in land warfare, but not in naval warfare!
In view of the weakness of the PLA's naval warfare shortcomings, Chiang Kai-shek's son Chiang Kai-shek, in order to firmly control Hainan Island, even gathered 100,000 troops, and various aircraft and warships directly blocked the Qiongzhou Strait and established the "Boling Defense Line."
The Kuomintang was well aware of the weakness of the PLA's failure in naval warfare, so it sent a large number of warships directly to Hainan Island, and even more because of the extremely important strategic position of Hainan Island, the Kuomintang was even more lonely in its hope of trying to overturn the market.
However, if we raise our gaze and look at the overall situation, we can see that the People's Liberation Army has always had a lack of self-confidence in naval warfare, and a large part of the reason for this lack of confidence in naval warfare is because of the defeat in the Battle of Kinmen, which was confused by the Kuomintang naval battle, and it was also the reason for the lack of experience in naval warfare.
At that time, the 10th Corps responsible for attacking Hainan Island was prepared to attack Hainan Island on December 18, 1949, and according to the original plan, the time of armed landing of troops was before February 1, 1950, but unfortunately, on February 1, 1950, Marshal Ye Jianying directly postponed the launch of the attack to June during the meeting in Guangzhou, which was not the first time Marshal Ye Jianying postponed the operation time.
If the reason behind it is related to the failure of the previous "Battle of Kinmen" operation, the self-confidence of the People's Liberation Army has been lost, and the lessons of commanders and troops are too painful.
In landing operations, there are two preliminary challenges, the first is to have a sea-crossing ship with incomparable strength and combat effectiveness, and the second is that the landing vanguard troops must quickly establish a beachhead position, the position needs to be incomparably stable, and the materials and personnel behind can be continuously sent up, and then expand their achievements little by little.
Marshal Ye Jianying
What makes people helpless is that none of these units of our army have met the requirements, the commanders of the troops at all levels are accustomed to land operations, and their understanding of naval warfare is even more lacking, not to mention the combat experience, which makes the nationalist army face the head-on attack, and the Kinmen Campaign directly fails.
Therefore, Marshal Ye Jianying's caution is also inevitable, because the real problems facing the liberation of Hainan Island are even more difficult.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="62" > the impregnable "Boling Defense Line"</h1>
The main force of the troops responsible for attacking Hainan Island was the Fourth Field Army, most of the soldiers were from the three northeastern provinces, and the commander Han Xianchu saw the sea for the first time, and the Fourth Field Army, which marched all the way from the northeast, was invincible, but the sea stopped the lions of the land battle. There was a serious lack of experience in naval warfare, and other factors were taken into account, and there was no news of the delay in the timing of the attack.
Chiang Kai-shek also deployed 100,000 heavy troops on Hainan Island, claiming to the outside world that the "Boling Defense Line" was impregnable and the PLA's inability to break through the Kuomintang blockade.
Chiang Kai-shek
Judging from the hard power on paper, the PLA's ships capable of crossing the sea, whether military or civilian, all of which together only add up to a few hundred ships, far from meeting the operational requirements of at least 1,000 ships for cross-sea operations. However, the Nationalist army on Hainan Island was waiting for a long time, and the Navy's Third Fleet and the Marine Corps had a whole regiment, with up to 20 ships of various types. There were four groups of aircraft flying in the sky, and the number of fighters was as high as 45.
After thinking about it again and again, our army tentatively launched an attack, but was beaten back by the other side, which made the Nationalist troops extremely arrogant, and even more public opinion was made against the PLA, saying that the PLA was too dishy.
The PLA, which failed in the tentative offensive, could only consider other methods again, sending people to Hong Kong and Macao to purchase relevant ships for combat, but unfortunately, the whereabouts of the relevant personnel were exposed, and the Kuomintang and the United States joined forces to pressure the relevant chambers of commerce not to dare to sell to the PLA ships, and this plan completely failed.
But the liberation of Hainan Island was imminent, and the PLA had two ideas at this time, one was Ye Shuai's cautious attitude, which always emphasized learning the lessons of the defeat in the Battle of Kinmen; the other idea was the various breaking tactics expressed by Han Xianchu.
Liberation of Hainan Island
The liberation of Hainan Island is imminent, and if you always wait, it is not the way, whether it is the morale of the Platon Army or the pressure of logistics, it is a great test, afraid of the long night and many dreams, Han Xianchu submitted his own battle plan. That is to send a small group of troops to infiltrate, tentatively smuggle, inquire into the deployment of the Kuomintang defenders on the island, attack it, which is a bit like the current special operations, like small savvy; if successfully send the reconnaissance force to infiltrate the head, and then accumulate into a large number of final large troops to cross the sea to meet them.
Hainan Island is surrounded by the sea on all sides, and there is still a great chance that the head will sneak in, and in addition, Hainan Island is not only the Kuomintang troops, but also Feng Baiju's troops, who have established a base area on Hainan Island.
However, Han Xianchu's battle plan and Marshal Ye Jianying's thinking were diametrically opposed, resulting in Han Xianchu's battle plan not being taken seriously, and General Han Xianchu was even more angry and directly issued a military order on the spot, and the liberation war on Hainan Island could not continue to drag on.
On March 20, 1950, Han Xianchu and Cai Guozheng sent a telegram to the 15th Corps and the headquarters of the Fourth Field Army at that time, but they were refused, and Han Xianchu was not discouraged, while actively preparing according to his own plan, and on the other hand began to continue the battle.
However, the mainstream idea of our army is to fight steadily, using the seasonal north wind and the recruited ships to implement the strategic combat policy of crossing the sea overnight after June 1950.
However, Han Xianchu learned from the local fishermen that after the valley rain in April, the wind direction will change greatly, and before the valley rain, it is generally a north wind or a northeast wind, which is beneficial to our army's sea crossing operation, but after the valley rain, the strong wind changes instantly, and the wind blows are all south wind and southwest wind, which is extremely unfavorable to our army, and the north wind will not come again until winter, which is unacceptable to our army. The plausibus of our People's Liberation Army will wait until June when the south wind blows, so how can our army's sailing ships use the wind to achieve their operational objectives?
Unable to wait, Han Xianchu took the lead in sending his own special forces, and at about 7 p.m. on March 5, 1950, Han Xianchu's carefully selected elite generals formed a special force to infiltrate Hainan Island. The infiltration plan was unusually smooth, and then the second group of special operations teams began to land, and the two small units all landed smoothly and successfully met the division.
The red flag of the Fourth Field Army of the People's Liberation Army was planted on the tall building of the Kuomintang, so Han Xianchu resisted his excitement, and for the next half a month, he continued to send small units to carry out sneaky infiltration operations, and by March 31, 1950, the number of PLA soldiers who had infiltrated Hainan Island was as high as 8,000, which was an amazing achievement, and the infiltration operation of more than 8,000 people did not arouse the vigilance of the Kuomintang troops.
These more than 8,000 soldiers of our army formed the receiving force within our army's Hainan Island, at this moment the time for liberation of large-scale operations is ripe, the fighters can not be delayed, in early April Han Xianchu again applied to his superiors to go to war, but did not get a specific reply, just let han Xianchu wait first, can not wait for Han Xianchu helplessly can only make a "military order."
Han Xianchu sent a telegram to the 15th Corps, and at the same time sent a telegram to the Headquarters of the Fourth Field Army and the General Headquarters to express his determination and express his willingness to personally lead the main force of the 40th Army to cross the sea! This was Han Xianchu's "report to the next level," and if the battle plan was not successful, Han Xianchu would face serious consequences that he could not bear.
In the face of The resolute Han Xianchu, Marshal Ye Jianying finally agreed to Han Xianchu's request for battle.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="61" > all-out offensive began, attacking Hainan Island! </h1>
After receiving the order, Han Xianchu, as the commander of the first batch, embarked on the battlefield of liberating Hainan Island.
General Han Xianchu, commander of the 40th Army, and Li Zuopeng, commander of the 43rd Army, directly led eight regiments of troops totaling more than 25,000 people, led by hundreds of wooden sailing ships and 32 mechanical sailing ships, set sail on the Leizhou Peninsula at 7:30 p.m. on April 16, directly launching the offensive horn on Hainan Island.
The defenders of the Kuomintang army did not expect that the People's Liberation Army would dare to attack with a wooden sailing boat, and under the wind and waves of the sea, the wooden sailing ship traveled very fast, and it did not take much time to successfully pass through the strait.
Our army's gunboats successfully pinned down the enemy's gunboats to cover our army's landing combat troops, and at 3 o'clock on the 17th, the first batch of main forces landed on Hainan Island, and at six o'clock in the morning, all 25,000 soldiers of the main force landed on the island and successfully completed their tasks. Marshal Nie Rongzhen, who was far away in Beijing, after receiving the telegram from the Fourth Field Command, happily slapped his thigh and said loudly: "Han Xianchu has already gone to the island, and it is worthy of Han Xianchu hahahahaha!" ”
After the main force of our army landed on the island, the naval superiority relied on by the Nationalist army was gone, and in the face of the Platon's Liberation Army, the king of land warfare, the "Boling Defense Line" composed of 100,000 troops that Chiang Kai-shek was proud of was naturally self-defeating.
The soldiers of the Fourth Field Army quickly annihilated the Nationalist troops near the landing site with lightning speed. Soon our army captured Fukuyama. In important areas such as the United States and Taiwan, Yubao Port, and Leigong Island, the troops deployed by the Kuomintang here were either completely annihilated or run away, and with the surrender of the Nationalist troops, the Kuomintang had already gone to Hainan Island.
On April 24, 1950, the main force of the second echelon of the Fourth Field Army of the People's Liberation Army successfully landed on the island, and the Kuomintang army had no place to turn over, and was completely pressed to the ground, and the Battle of Hainan Island entered the late stage of sweeping the tail.
On May 1, 1950, after the eight ports of Hainan Island were captured by our People's Liberation Army, Hainan Island was officially liberated to the outside world. The Battle of Hainan Island made our army completely raise its eyebrows and breathe a sigh of relief, and the shadow of the defeat in the Battle of Kinmen Island was swept away, and the spirit was refreshed. In this battle, our People's Liberation Army suffered more than 4,500 casualties, annihilated more than 33,000 Kuomintang defenders, won the first large-scale naval battle victory after the founding of new China, and fought with wooden sailing ships and was still a single army-based combat method, breaking the world naval battle record and shocking the world.
In the liberation of Hainan Island, the four division commanders played an outstanding role, and what rank were awarded to these four division commanders after the founding of the People's Republic of China?
The first division commander was Deng Yue, who played an important role in attacking the 118th Division on Hainan Island, and the 118th Division completely annihilated the core defense system and position of the Nationalist army, and played the military prestige of our army, and in 1955, Deng Yue was awarded the rank of major general.
The second division commander was Xu Guofu, xu Guofu's 119th unit, with his own earthen gunboats, sank the warships of the Nationalist army, successfully pinned down the enemy's naval ships, and the landing operation of the main force of our army was able to proceed smoothly.
Wang Dongbao
The third division commander was Wang Dongbao, and the biggest difficulty and danger in liberating Hainan Island was the sea, and in the face of the plastered ducks, how to cross the Qiongzhou Strait was a fatal problem. But the 127th Division led by Wang Dongbao gave the answer, nearly 4,000 people of the People's Liberation Army troops riding 88 wooden sailing ships, hard to start the landing operation, these are Wang Dongbao's family base, if the 127th Division folded here, Wang Dongbao instantly became the commander of the light pole, it can be said that Wang Dongbao for this operation to pull out his own family bottom out. Fortunately, Wang Dongbao, who landed successfully, soon arrived in the Zhongrui area west of Wenchang City pool and waited for him. And the 127th Division also defeated the enemy troops who came to support, and Fukuyama City was taken into our pocket. In 1955, Wang Dongbao was awarded the rank of major general!
The fourth division commander was Huang Ronghai, Huang Ronghai's revolutionary qualifications were the oldest of the four masters, the famous commander of the 128th Division was Huang Ronghai, and the soldiers of the 128th Division defeated the enemy's Iron Warship with wooden sailing ships, which greatly enhanced the reputation of all the soldiers of the 128th Division. Later, this deed was also made into a movie, and the movie "Bihai Danxin" is about this scene, the heroic 128th Division created the miracle of the plausible sea operation of our People's Liberation Army. In 1955, Huang Ronghai was awarded the rank of major general.
It can be said that the liberation of Hainan Island is the result of the concerted efforts and cooperation of our army, the commander's thinking is clear, the grass-roots soldiers dare to fight and fight bravely, and the four division commanders have led their own units to create a naval warfare miracle.