This was Chiang Kai-shek 's last desperate struggle after his defeat in Taiwan, and it was also the last fierce war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.
On an island called Dongshan Island, the Kuomintang invested 13,000 elite national troops, including more than 400 paratroopers who had been carefully trained by the United States and made their debut, in an attempt to counterattack the mainland with a last-ditch determination.
Such a good military lineup was defeated and embarrassed by an army of only more than a thousand people in just two days, completely extinguishing the last glimmer of hope of the Kuomintang to regain state power. .
So, under what background did the Battle of Dongshan Island break out? Why did the national army, which was ten times more numerous than ours, suffer a disastrous defeat? How intense was the fighting between the two armies? In this issue, we will tell you the story behind the Battle of Dongshan Island.
Since the People's Liberation Army launched the cross-river campaign in 1949, the national army has been retreating steadily in front of the overwhelming our army, and its political influence has also been declining.
After the founding of New China, our army carried out a strategic outflanking of the National Army, forcing it to withdraw from Guangzhou, Chongqing and Chengdu, completely ending their rule on the mainland.
Seeing that the situation was over, Chiang Kai-shek, who was defeated so badly, had no choice but to lead the remaining troops to flee to Taiwan and linger in a corner. At that time, in addition to Taiwan and its affiliated islands, his sphere of influence also included several southeastern islands that relied on naval power.
The former overlord was reduced to a "prisoner" on an isolated island. Such a completely different situation naturally made Chiang Kai-shek unwilling to accept it.
So he began to prepare intensively - He dispersed and deployed his troops on Taiwan and nearby islands in an attempt to block the mainland and wait for opportunities to counterattack.
He dreams of returning to the pinnacle of power. To this end, he not only puts forward the slogan of "one year of preparation, two years of counterattack, three years of mopping up, and five years of success" to confuse people, he even plans to use the remaining national troops on the mainland. Working as an internal agent with the spy organization, he helped him attack the mainland in one fell swoop.
At that time, our military was limited by insufficient naval power, so the road to regaining Taiwan was very difficult. In the Battle of Kinmen in 1949, our army was defeated by the troops of the famous national army general Hu Lian.
After the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea broke out in June of the following year, our army even suspended its plan to recover Taiwan, and gradually transferred the main forces to attack Taiwan to the Korean battlefield. This gave Chiang Kai-shek an opportunity.
Chiang Kai-shek took advantage of our army's neglect of coastal defense and lack of skills to spread military force, and frequently launched military operations in the coastal areas under our army's jurisdiction.
Their usual method of invading our island is to first land suddenly with lightning speed, and then adopt the combat policy of "eating the small with the big and the few with the many" against our troops on the island. Finally, after our army Evacuate quickly before reinforcements arrive.
This was the case in the Battle of Nanri Island in October 1952.
In this battle, the commander of the national army Hu Lian led more than 9,000 people to launch a surprise attack on Nanri Island belonging to our army. Our island-defending soldiers were caught off guard and were at a disadvantage from the beginning.
Subsequently, the hurriedly arriving support troops of our army were defeated by the national army one by one due to insufficient weapons. This battle caused heavy casualties to our army.
The Kuomintang tasted the sweetness after launching many raids on our army, so Hu Lian encouraged Chiang Kai-shek to allow him to launch an attack on Dongshan Island.
Chiang Kai-shek readily agreed. This was not only because the successive victories doubled his confidence, but also because the international situation at that time also became favorable to him - the US military was defeated by us several times in the Korean War At the hands of the military, the United States began to reconsider its cooperation with the Kuomintang.
Finally, in order to realize the Kuomintang's strategy of containing New China, the United States restarted delivering top military supplies and weapons and equipment to the Nationalist Government .
This was naturally like a life-saving straw for the national army, which was already in danger at that time. Chiang Kai-shek himself was even more ecstatic, as if he saw the hope of regrouping and counterattacking the mainland.
In response to this, Chiang Kai-shek was gearing up and high-spirited. He felt that everything was ready, but he only lacked the east wind. But can things really develop as he wishes?
This was Chiang Kai-shek's last-ditch counterattack on the mainland, and it was a battle related to the life and death of the Kuomintang army. It made the famous and experienced general Hu Lian not dare to be cautious.
Who is Hu Lian? He is a first-level general in the Kuomintang army. He is known as the "King of Kinmen" for his great victory in the Battle of Kinmen. He is also known as the "Erhu" together with Hu Zongnan, who is known as the "King of the Northwest."
There is a popular saying among the national army: "Ten northwest kings are not worth one Kinmen king."
Hu Lian is bound to win Dongshan Island, the center of this battle. Just because it is located at the junction of Fujian and Guangdong provinces, if it is successfully captured, it will be equivalent to opening up a broad road to the inland areas.
In order to win the battle of Dongshan Island, he made sufficient preparations before the war - he started sending ships to the waters near Dongshan Island two months in advance to conduct reconnaissance, and captured many mainland fishermen, and then intimidated Under the inducement, they learned from their mouths the activity patterns of our warships and the number of our troops on the island.
At the same time, he also dispatched special agents to collect information about our army's troop deployment, fortification construction, etc., and dispatched reconnaissance aircraft to fly over Dongshan Island for aerial photography many times, so as to formulate corresponding combat policies based on the geographical situation of the island. .
Not only that, he also often gathered troops at Kinmen and conducted simulation exercises and sand table operations for them such as embarking and disembarking, landing at night, attacking, and retreating.
The paratroopers were also on Taiwan Island and selected a terrain very similar to Dongshan Island to conduct multiple airborne drills.
Such a comprehensive and meticulous deployment arrangement gave Hu Lian full confidence in the upcoming battle. He even threatened that he would capture Dongshan Island within eight hours.
Our military camp on the other side did not dare to ignore it at all.
In view of the previous national army's repeated success in sneak attacks on Kinmen and Nanri Island, our army began to pay attention to the experience of anti-landing operations and organized the army to conduct large-scale anti-landing exercises.
Our army general Ye Fei also prepared for a rainy day and made a three-part agreement with Mei Youyao, the commander of the public security forces stationed on Dongshan Island: in a critical moment, the approaching rescue force can arrive in only about a day, so if the national army raids Dongshan Island , he must stick to it for one day, if not, he will be dealt with according to military law.
It was such a seemingly insignificant agreement that would later play a decisive role in determining the outcome of the battle.
On July 16, 1953, the Battle of Dongshan Island officially broke out.
At 4:40 in the morning, the national army general Hu Lian led 13,000 people on 13 ships. Under the cover of the navy naval gun and more than ten aircraft, they landed successfully.
With their excellent equipment from the United States, they dealt a heavy blow to our army. Subsequently, the national army's amphibious tank also successfully landed on the island. It cooperated with the Marine Corps to provide fire cover for each other, and began a deep attack into Dongshan Island.
At that time, our island defense troops only had more than 2,000 people. Facing several times the national army, the crisis our army faced can be imagined.
However, under the proper command of Mei Youyao, they took advantage of the terrain and tenaciously withstood dozens of attacks from the enemy in the three main positions of Niudu Mountain, Gongyun Mountain and Wangdai Mountain, and provided reinforcements. The arrival of the troops bought time.
On the battlefield at this time, both sides were furious, and there was a sticky and fishy smell of blood in the air.
The enemy and our armies were fighting and fighting in the smoke of gunpowder. Everywhere was the dull and heart-stopping sound of artillery, the sharp sound of bullets piercing the sky, and people's painful wails.
The ground was full of corpses with dismembered heads and broken limbs that were unbearable to look at. There is no hell on earth better than this.
When the commander of the national army, Hu Lian, saw that he could not attack for a long time, he dispatched all the paratroopers who had high hopes for them, hoping that they could exert an inspiring and powerful force on the battlefield, so as to defeat the enemy's majesty, and today The dilemma of not being able to move forward.
The four hundred and sixty paratroopers who were ordered to land in the north of the island, at a place called Bachimen, shocked everyone in our army.
Firstly, this was the first time the national army carried out airborne operations on a large scale, catching them off guard;
Secondly, the Bachimen was the throat to the mainland. If the enemy paratroopers controlled the Bachimen, even if our The reinforcements arrived at the right time, but within a short period of time they could only watch with no response.
As soon as this force descended from the air, it became the focus of everyone present - for the national army, it will be an effective force to reverse the unfavorable situation on the field; for our army, it will make As a result, our troops have fallen into an irreversible situation.
How will this exciting and worrying army change the current battlefield situation?
Hundreds of paratroopers are about to break through our army's defense line and seize the last hurdle to attack the mainland. How should our army resist them?
Seeing the enemy's menacing approach, one of our soldiers had an idea and took the lead in taking out a light machine gun to shoot at the swaying Kuomintang paratroopers.
Then one stone stirred up a thousand waves. Our soldiers woke up from a dream and followed suit one after another. Under the intensive fire attack, they quickly annihilated the first group of Kuomintang paratroopers.
Seeing this scene, Hu Lian was heartbroken - those elites had spent a lot of money to cultivate, how could they be completely lost like this?
then quickly ordered the pilot of the transport aircraft to pull the aircraft to an altitude of one thousand meters, thus staying away from the range of our army's machine gun .
However, the disadvantages of this are also extremely obvious - High-altitude skydiving not only greatly extends the time the paratroopers spend in the air, but also leads to the dispersion of their landing locations.
The paratroopers were scattered in pieces when they landed. In order to assemble the team, they had to risk exposing their positions and use signal flares to guide their teammates to rendezvous.
This exposed their position, which attracted a large number of People's Liberation Army sieges, causing heavy casualties to the paratroopers.
It was not until an hour later that the more than 300 people who survived were able to organize and join the battle.
The paratroopers who successfully escaped from our army's encirclement and suppression quickly took advantage of their weapons - they quickly occupied a high ground on the island, using heavy machine guns and mortars fire cover. , launched several condescending attacks on our army, causing a certain number of casualties to our army.
However, our army was united and held the position firmly without fear of life and death, and dragged the battle from about five o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock in the morning. Our army's desperate containment bought more than three hours of precious time for the reinforcements to arrive.
After nine o'clock, the first batch of reinforcements from our army arrived, and they devoted themselves non-stop to the struggle against the enemy.
Seeing this, the Kuomintang paratroopers retreated to the nearby high ground, and gradually showed a decline in their ability to cope with the increasingly frustrated and fierce tactics of our army.
Our army was very careful and keenly aware of the enemy's inadequacy, so it was greatly encouraged and full of momentum. In the afternoon, it launched a general attack on the high ground occupied by the enemy, and even bravely charged forward to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the national army.
The fierce fighting lasted until three o'clock in the afternoon. Most of the national army's paratroopers were shot dead or captured. Only less than a hundred of them fled in panic. It was not until that night that they met up with the large troops who were also fleeing in embarrassment.
Such a huge loss made the senior Kuomintang officials who learned about the front line heartbroken and sighed repeatedly.
Later, the 2nd Company of the 80th Public Security Regiment led by Mei Youyao relied on a tunnel less than 100 meters long and repelled forty-nine attacks from the Kuomintang army within twenty-seven hours. Its core position was never lost. We persisted in this way until three batches of our reinforcements arrived in the middle of the night.
On the morning of July 17, 1953, after the commander of the national army Hu Lian learned that all our reinforcements had landed on the island, he felt that he could not gain any benefits. In order to prevent his troops from falling into the dead end of being completely annihilated by our army. , so he ordered the withdrawal of troops and boarded the ship in a hurry.
At that time, our army's strength was only more than half of the enemy's, but we still decided to divide into three groups and pursue the victory. Along the way, the national army was littered with corpses and discarded armor.
On the afternoon of July 17, 1953, our army’s reinforcements successively seized the commanding heights near the seaside and surrounded and suppressed the national army from a commanding height.
However, our army did not have naval and air force at that time, so it was unable to intercept the retreat of the Kuomintang army. At dusk, Hu Lian led the remaining defeated generals to escape back to Kinmen by sea. At this point, the battle of Dongshan Island ended with a complete victory for our army.
In this battle, our army annihilated 3,379 Chinese troops at the cost of 1,250 casualties and missing persons, and destroyed two tanks, three small landing craft and two aircraft.
This wiped away the previous shame of Kinmen and Nanri Island, and completely shattered Chiang Kai-shek's wishful thinking of using the power of the United States to counterattack the mainland. They dare not take the initiative to launch any attack on the mainland.
