Edit the search image
Please click to enter the image description (up to 18 words)
In April 1942, the Chinese Expeditionary Force was defeated in the Burma Campaign, and the commander Luo Zhuoying fled directly away from the troops into India; tens of thousands of his 5th Army, 6th Army, 66th Army and other troops were cut off by the Japanese and could only be divided into troops and scattered into Yunnan. Most of the 5th Army was forced into the primitive jungle of Savage Mountain, and only 2,000 people finally came out alive and were forced to turn into India.
▲Topographic map of the Yunnan Burma Highway
The Japanese invaded western Yunnan along the Burma Highway
On May 3, 1942, the Japanese Kou entered China along the Burma Highway and successively conquered the cities of Hatamachi, Chafang, Mangshi, and Longling. On May 5, it entered the Huitong Bridgehead of the Nu River, which is a 205-meter steel cable suspension bridge with a maximum load of 7 tons, and is also an important transportation hub in western Yunnan. At that time, the Japanese had organized an advance force of hundreds of cars, and once they took the Huitong Bridge, they could drive straight in and take Kunming within 10 days, threatening the Nationalist government to accompany the capital Chongqing.
Late on the night of May 4, Song Xilian, who was commander-in-chief of the 11th Group Army of the Kuomintang Army and commander of the Kunming Garrison, suddenly received a long-distance phone call from Chiang Kai-shek from Chongqing, asking him to immediately organize troops to march west along the Burma Highway to block the Japanese Kou and save the crisis. At that time, there were a large number of materials snatched back from Myanmar on the Yunnan Burma Highway that were being transported to the rear, and there were also a large number of overseas Chinese and businessmen who came to Myanmar to do business, carrying luggage or goods, or hitchhiking or walking, and also desperately fleeing to the rear, resulting in crowded traffic on the road and making it difficult to pass.
Trucks on the Burma Highway
The commander of the army group recruited trucks overnight
Song Xilian rushed overnight to the General Bureau of Road Transport in Yunnan burma in Heilin Town, on the outskirts of Kunming, and the director of the bureau was concurrently served by Yu Feipeng, minister of communications, so naturally it was impossible for him to serve as a director. Song Xilian had no choice but to call the deputy director in charge and several principal responsible persons out of bed, inform them of the current situation, and ask them to immediately suspend all military transport vehicles and make way for the road so that the headquarters of the 11th Army group could advance east as soon as possible. At the same time, it is required to immediately inquire about the vehicle situation at the stations along the way and to recruit vehicles to participate in the transport of troops.
After 2 hours, the results came out, and the General Directorate of Transport mobilized 550 trucks. This was exactly enough to transport 2 divisions in 3 days, and Song Xilian ordered the 36th Division stationed in Xiangyun County, Dali, Western Yunnan, to be fully equipped for transportation, which was an old unit that Song had served as division commander since 1934, with strong combat effectiveness and familiarity with officers at all levels. In order to facilitate command, Song Xilian arranged for the defense of Kunming, and then simply rushed to Xiangyun County as a plane and set off with the 36th Division.
▲The Japanese Kou on the west bank of the Nu River
The Japanese brigade that crossed the river was completely annihilated
At 10:00 a.m. on May 5, the 106th Regiment of the 36th Division arrived on the east bank of Huitong Bridge. Early in the morning of the same day, because the Japanese Kou disguised themselves as refugees and intended to seize the bridge, Zhang Zhenwu, the commander of the independent engineering battalion who was on the task of guarding the bridge, had ordered the bridge to be blown up, but the Japanese Kou, who were not willing to lose, immediately gathered 1 brigade, crossed the Nu River by boat, and occupied several high grounds on the east bank of the Huitong Bridge, trying to build a bridgehead, repair the bridge, and resume traffic; the Japanese Kou who remained on the west bank also occupied the commanding heights of Songshan and set up mountain artillery to bombard.
The officers and men of the 36th Division immediately began to return fire, and concentrated the mortars of the whole division to bombard the hills held by the Japanese Kou, and the battle lasted until the morning of the 8th, and finally through the white-knife battle, the last 200 remnants of the enemy were finally solved. Of the more than 500 enemies who crossed the Nu River, all but more than ten days of escaping from the water were annihilated. From then on, the two armies formed a confrontational situation on both sides of the Nu River, until the later re-formed Chinese Expeditionary Force launched a counterattack in western Yunnan.
▲ Song Xilian Rong dressed up photo