The Battle of Kinmen was the biggest defeat of our army in the late period of the Liberation War. There are endless topics about this battle. So what did Ye Fei say as the commander of the 10th Corps and the supreme commander of the Kinmen Battle? After the defeat in the battle of
, the front-line commander ran to Ye Fei and cried. Ye Fei said, crying cannot solve the problem. I am the commander of the Corps and I am responsible for it, you can go back. Ye Fei repeatedly requested punishment from the central government.
However, neither Commander Chen Yi, nor Chairman Mao of the Central Military Commission, Ye Fei was punished. Chairman Mao said that the failure of Kinmen is not a matter of punishment, but a matter of learning lessons. learned from the pain and followed Chairman Mao’s instructions. Ye Fei summarized three lessons to warn future generations.
The first and most important lesson is that the commander underestimates the enemy, which is the most fundamental reason for the failure of the combat . It is very difficult to liberate Kinmen. We do not have the support of the air force and navy, and we rely solely on wooden sailboats to cross the sea to fight. The Kuomintang not only has air force support, but also naval support. They are joint operations of the three armies, and we are individual soldiers in the army.
The so-called soldiers and horses move first before they move their food and grass. This is the most basic common sense. But the war has started, and there are not enough ships organized. Even if you can only transport three regiments of troops at a time, it should be said that this force is very tight. There is a corps of the Kuomintang defenders on Kinmen Island.
When attacking Xiamen, our army prepared the first batch of ships that were enough to transport 8 regiments. On the way, he was bombed by the Kuomintang Air Force, which suffered a lot of losses, but because he prepared enough, it did not affect the final battle. This is called being prepared for any trouble.
What's worse is that after the first batch of troops landed, a large number of ships were stranded on the beach and could not return to continue to transport the subsequent troops. The second echelon troops were unable to land, and the first batch of landing troops were trapped in a passive situation of fighting alone, which was undoubtedly a disaster. The fundamental reason for all this is that the commander does not pay enough attention to the commander, lacks preparation, and underestimates the enemy too much. Before this, because the liberation of Xiamen Island was too smooth, everyone ignored the various difficulties in liberation of Kinmen.
Even the commander of the Corps, Ye Fei, underestimated the enemy. After the liberation of Xiamen, in order to successfully accept this big city, he focused on solving the supply problem in Xiamen, and handed over the task of liberating Kinmen to the 28th Army for execution. The information about Hu Lian's regiment's reinforcement of Kinmen did not attract enough attention.
The second lesson is that it is a more professional military issue. After successfully seizing the beachhead position, the first batch of landing troops did not build fortifications in a timely and effective manner to consolidate the position, and waited for the subsequent troops to arrive, but blindly advanced in depth, leaving only one battalion to consolidate the position, which was a fatal mistake.
Looking at the world military history, all landing operations, no matter how large your troops are, after successfully landing, the first thing to do is to consolidate the beachhead position and ensure that subsequent troops can log in safely, and then advance in depth.
However, I went to Kinmen to fight, but I violated this rule and violated the taboo of military strategists. This shows that the commanders of the troops lack basic common sense for landing operations.
The third lesson was that the first batch of three regiments that logged in did not establish a unified command, because no division-level commander followed the login, and the three regiment leaders were all at the same level. Who would let who command?
No matter how many troops work together, a unified command organization must be established, unified orders must be issued, and various troops must be coordinated to fight. This is the most basic military common sense. Otherwise, if you fight on your own and fight indiscriminately, such troops will have no combat effectiveness. Ye Fei had never expected this point. Ye Fei is of course to blame for this. When the 28th Army reported that the Battle of Kinmen that night, Ye Fei just asked whether the Hu Lian corps, whom he was most concerned about, had arrived in Kinmen.
When the leader of the 28th Army replied that he had no, he would approve it with confidence. Ye Fei had no choice but to approve their combat plan, so he asked them to start fighting.If Ye Fei could review the combat plan of the 28th Army in advance, he would definitely designate a division-level general to follow the army and command it in a unified manner. And not make such a low-level mistake.
Not only Ye Fei was neglected by himself, but his Corps staff were also neglected. The defeat of Kinmen was a huge regret for Ye Fei's life, and it also left a forever tail for the Third Field Army's East China Liberation War, which has not been resolved to this day.
