Changjin Lake After watching the movie, I couldn’t feel calm for a long time. The result of this battle was to regain the eastern area north of the 38th parallel and reverse the battlefield situation. There is no doubt that we are strategically successful, but we also Many soldiers made great sacrifices during the liberation of Jinan, the Menglianggu battle, Huaihai battle, and the liberation of Shanghai made great achievements. We are familiar with strict discipline, the sentry under the neon light , which also came from this The troops, they did not fall under the enemy's guns, but disappeared in the freezing cold of minus 40 degrees in North Korea.
Why is there a large-scale freeze to death and frostbite, and even 3 companies have been built into a tragic "ice sculpture company"?
In the battle of Changjin Lake in , the U.S. military was shocked by a scene while fleeing south. Rows of volunteer soldiers were wearing thin winter clothes and holding steel guns in the battle formation at minus 40 degrees. They all stopped breathing. They did not fall under the enemy’s muzzle, but were killed by the severe cold. The U.S. Army wanted to remove the gun from the hand, but it was too cold to take it off, so they had to break three of them. finger.
People who live in the winter in the Northeast know that the temperature is more than 30 degrees below zero. Cotton hats, cotton vests, velvet pants, gloves, cotton coats and cotton shoes are standard equipment for daily travel. Food and grass go first, why does , dressed in thin winter clothes, big brimmed hats, and rubber shoes, have to rush into the imperial regime?
There are four reasons:
- The current situation has reversed abruptly, there is no delay in sending troops, and there is no time to equip
26th, 1950 p9p The North Korean army is still entangled with the US and South Korean forces. We have not decided to send troops to join the war. On October 18th, landed in Incheon. The situation on the peninsula was reversed. Within a few days, Pyongyang had fallen into the enemy's hands. The strengthened corps prepared for the liberation of Taiwan, with a total number of 150,000. As the pioneer of the Ninth Corps, the 20th Army, it will go northward on October 30. It takes more than ten days to prepare so many winter clothes.
2 Limited capacity and limited resources
On November 5, when the 20th Army's first military train arrived in Shenyang, He Jinnian, then deputy commander of Northeast Military Region , was surprised to find this unit He even wore a big brimmed hat and rubber shoes. The Northeast Army’s standard cotton hat, cotton vest, velvet trousers, gloves, overcoat and cotton shoes were not available, and the winter clothes prepared before were given to the 13th Corps who entered the DPRK in advance. In desperation, the agencies and directly affiliated units were mobilized urgently, took off their winter clothes, and collected 641 pieces for the 20th Army. But in just two days, the first troops will enter the DPRK, which is a drop in the bucket for the 40,000 troops. With the arrival of the follow-up troops, by the end of November, the Northeast Military Region had prepared more than 210,000 new and old cotton coats from various aspects.
Although they have received a lot of them, there are very few troops that are really equipped, and they lack sufficient transportation power. After entering North Korea for 20 days, under the condition of absolute air supremacy in the United States, the loss of vehicles is more than 600. even has limited transportation capacity. It is necessary to leave more urgent food and ammunition, followed by warm products. After all, there is no food and the loss is greater. Moreover, the most urgent response of the troops is not the cotton-padded clothes, but the leather shoes and gloves. If you can't use a gun, you can't charge the front, you lose your combat effectiveness. The winter clothing of the US military includes cold-proof caps, thick woolen uniforms, sweaters, overcoats, woolen socks, leather boots, duck down sleeping bags, cotton tents, stoves and other materials for the company, which are very different from our military.
3 The army has poor motorization and lack of cold protection experience
Back then we could not produce cars ourselvesThey are all ordered from the Soviet Union. The cars are used to transport supplies in the rear. Each soldier eats for a week. Guns and ammunition can only be carried on their shoulders, and they can only walk on their legs. The weight of individual soldiers has exceeded the standard. Heavy cold supplies, gives you a piece of data. When the U.S. Marine First Division retreated in the ancient soil, the total number of troops was 14,000, and the number of vehicles reached 1,400. The degree of mechanization was high, and the Volunteer Army 27 Corps 4 The division, an artillery regiment with more than 48,000 people, only has 45 cars and 82 carts that rely on livestock.
In addition, the Ninth Corps is a southern unit. The commanders and fighters lack experience in cold protection and do not pay enough attention. Some units (20th Army 60th Division) left more than 6,000 pieces of cotton coats supplemented by the Northeast Military Region before departure. This is also not subjective enough. Pay attention to the results.
4 Geography, extreme weather
Although the latitude of Changjin Lake is not high, it is about 40.5 degrees north latitude, but it is vulnerable to cold waves, and the coldness in winter is more than that of Beijing at the same latitude Wait for the place.
In normal years, the Changjin Lake area entered a cold winter in October. By late November, the temperature dropped sharply to minus 27 degrees Celsius. Until March of the following year, the Changjin Lake area was in a snowy, icy and snowy winter. The temperature is often kept at minus 30 degrees Celsius.
In November 1950, when the Battle of Changjin Lake took place, it ushered in the coldest extreme cold weather in 60 years, and the temperature reached more than minus 40 degrees. Even with the US military’s complete cold-preventing supplies, the number of non-combat attritions in the entire campaign was as high as 7,313, most of which were frostbite.
In summary
During the War of Liberation , our army has won many battles. The logistics support is not based on the system, but on the selfless supply of the common people. Mr. Chen said that the victory of the Huaihai Campaign is It was pushed out by the people in a wheelbarrow,However, outbound operations lack local support and a systematic logistic support system. The early stage mainly suffered losses in this regard.
On May 9, 1951, the Volunteer Army established the Rear Service Command, with Hong Xuezhi as its commander, and coordinated the planning of some logistics tasks. This greatly alleviated a series of logistics problems for the Volunteers entering North Korea and participating in the war.
writes here, a kind of respect and admiration for heroes spontaneously, lack of food and clothing, extremely cold weather, but also brave the guns and bullets rain to live and forget to charge, complete the combat interspersed mission, crawling at minus 40 degrees In the snow, the entire company was turned into ice sculptures. What was it that supported them? This is something we cannot imagine in peacetime.
Let us always remember the name of the Ice Sculpture Company
20th Army 59th Division 177th Regiment 2nd Battalion 6th Company
20th Army 60th Division 180th Regiment 1st Battalion 2nd Company
27th Army 80 Division 242 Regiment 2 Battalion 5 Company
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