"One of my head tilted to death, one of my head tilted to death, one of my head tilted to death, one of my head tilted to death at night, one of my death, and all of my life slowly died. No matter how uncomfortable it is, there is no way to die, I can't see, all my fellow villagers are all ours."—— Kinmen Battle Surviving veteran Xu Qinlin
- Shocked the entire army
time entered the second half of 1949. With the liberation of Xiamen , the Kuomintang's military forces in the mainland have been few. In order to facilitate the future liberation of Taiwan Island , Kinmen, the small island known as the gateway to Taiwan, has become a must-attack place for our army.
Kinmen is a small island located in the eastern part of Xiamen. It is usually inconspicuous. The island has only 40,000 residents, and most of them make a living by fishing. The island covers an area of 124 square kilometers. There are also some scattered small islands around it, just like stars surround it. Only the north shore of the island is a beach that can be attacked, so this is a must-fight place for landing on Kinmen Island .
- Zhangxiajin Battle
- If you want to talk about the Kinmen Island Battle, you must start with the Zhangxiajin Battle, because the failure of the Kinmen Island Battle is related to the complete victory of the Zhangxiajin University. In September 1949, the People's Liberation Army marched into Fujian, winning streaks and victories in a row, approaching the last base of the Kuomintang armed forces, Taiwan, Xiamen and Kinmen have always been important transportation sites to guard the southeast coast. They have always been known as Jinxia and Kinmen. Xiamen and Kinmen are Taiwan's gateway to the mainland, and their geographical location is extremely important. After losing the support of the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek , in order to protect Taiwan and adjust its defense, the focus of defense was placed on Xiamen and Jinji Islands, in an attempt to use the strait as a barrier to prevent the People's Liberation Army from attacking the treasure island.
In order to quickly liberate the coastal areas and treasure islands of Fujian, the 10th Corps of the Third Field Army began a pre-war meeting after arriving at Quanzhou to discuss how to attack the remaining Kuomintang armed forces. At the meeting, it proposed three plans: "Gold and Xiamen to take over", "Shanxia first and Xiamen later", ", and Jin first and Xiamen first and Xiamen first". After comprehensive analysis and weighing the pros and cons, it was decided to "take together with Jin and Xiamen". The battle is to be divided into two stages. First, annihilate the enemies in the Zhangzhou and area, control the continental positions outside Xiamen and Jin, and then conquer Xiamen and Jin at the same time.
On October 4th Battle of Zhangxiajin started. The Kuomintang realized that Zhangzhou had no danger to defend, so he retreated to Xiamen Island just after a little resistance to prepare for the final battle. So the 10th Corps decided to attack Xiamen by the 31st and 29th Army; the 28th Army was the main task of attacking Kinmen.
The prerequisite for crossing the sea to attack Jin and Xiamen is to recruit ships and ship workers. At this time, most of the ships in the Xiamen Strait were robbed and destroyed by the Kuomintang; the coastal areas of Fujian were just liberated, and the fishermen lacked understanding of our army, and they were not able to speak language, so it was very difficult to collect ships. By early October, the three armies under the Corps had only recruited more than 630 wooden ships of different sizes and various performances and more than 1,600 ship workers. As the vehicle for crossing the sea combat could not be solved, the 10th Corps had to postpone the attacks on Xiamen and Kinmen three times.
In order to close the door and fight dogs, it is best for Xiamen and Kinmen to attack at the same time, but the insufficient ships seriously restrict the pace of the PLA. The 10th Corps had to liberate Xiamen Island first and then liberate Kinmen Island. The battle in Xiamen was much simpler than expected. Xiamen was only a few nautical miles away from the shortest area of the mainland. Some soldiers could cross the sea to fight with wooden boards, and they could borrow the ferry of the ships to continuously transport the soldiers to the other side. After two days and nights of battle, the Xiamen defense line that Tang Enbo worked hard to be broken, and Xiamen was liberated.
has experience in liberating Xiamen. The officers and soldiers of the 10th Corps generally believe that Kinmen Island, which lacks fortifications and lacks strong troops, is within reach.
so on October 18th, when the 10th Corps was still finishing the Xiamen battle, it issued an order to attack Kinmen on 20 days. According to the established plan, the capture of Kinmen was carried out by 6 regiments, including all the 82nd Division of the 28th Army, the 251st Regiment of the 84th Division, the 253rd Regiment of the 29th Army and the 259th Regiment of the 87th Division. At this time, since the conquering Xiamen was only a few days apart from attacking Kinmen, the Kinmen troops did not fundamentally solve the ship problems required by the 6 regiments.After the troops were ordered to attack Jin, they failed to launch a general attack on Kinmen as ordered by superiors due to the lack of ships. The troops delayed until the 24th. Only then did the troops collect ships that could ferry three regiments of about 8,000 people at a time. At this time, the 28th Army's front point made an erroneous decision that affected the outcome of the entire battle. They took the method of attacking Xiamen, transporting the three regiments first, and then waiting for the ship to return to the ferry, and then continued to transport the soldiers. It was this very wrong decision in military theory that ruined more than 9,000 soldiers.
Some people are still worried about this decision and decided to report it to the Corps and hand it over to the Corps. However, because the battle in Xiamen Island was successful, the Corps ignored the distance of Kinmen Island's waters that were much wider than Xiamen Island and had tidal effects. The answer given was that it remained unchanged as planned.
- followed and did not follow
After the first echelon arrived at the attack, the ship suffered a lot of losses due to the impact of being bombed by artillery bombing. At this time, the Kuomintang ambushed warship suddenly appeared and began to break the ships in the first echelon. As a result, the ships in the echelon were affected by the tide and made it more difficult to return. As a result, tens of thousands of soldiers in the second echelon were just watching their comrades bombed by artillery fire and were isolated without help. They were red-eyed, and some even bit their lips. Some even wanted to swim across the sea to support and were stopped by their own troops. Under the blockade of the warship, this was undoubtedly a suicide act. On the 25th, the soldiers on the other side had already lost more than half of the soldiers on the other side. The ships they finally found were only enough to send the soldiers of the 4th Company. The soldiers of the four companies could not reverse the situation, but the Corps believed that they would never give up their comrades on the other side. So the soldiers of the 4th Company basically knew that they had no turning back and still went to fight fiercely. Yes, as long as they could save their lives, they would sacrifice their lives, it was a consensus among everyone in the army at that time.
However, because there was no support, the Battle of Kinmen ended in failure.
After the war, the commander of the 19th Army of the Kuomintang who guarded Kinmen, who originally guarded Kinmen, wrote in an analysis of the reasons for the lucky victory of Kinmen in "Recapturing the Battle of Kinmen", "Fortunately, the bandit army had no ships, so they could not continue to sail for assistance."
- Let's talk about why the Kinmen Battle failed
The 3rd Field Army in charge of combat , Su Yu, deputy commander, foresaw the difficulties of fighting Kinmen. He specially called the 10th Corps to remind the leaders of the corps to pay attention to the following three points: (1) Calculate based on the 12,000 people of the 08th Division of the original enemy 25th Army, as long as one more enemy regiment is added, it will not be fought; (2) The ships carrying 6 regiments at once will not be fought; (3) As long as the coastal areas of northern Jiangsu or Shandong are required to select 6,000 tried shipmen , The ship workers won't fight.
1. Command problem, Ye Fei, commander of the 10th Corps, later recalled that there were big problems with the command of the Corps. After crossing the river, the 10th Corps attacked Shanghai, attacked Fuzhou, and fought Xiamen, and played a sing of triumphant songs along the way. Especially after capturing the two islands of Pingtan and Xiamen, many officers and soldiers were proud of themselves, believing that island landing wars were nothing great, "Log in" The understanding of victory" and "going ashore is success" spread throughout the army. The slogan of "finding this battle, offering a gift to the New China" inspired all officers and soldiers, so they were more impulsive and not calm enough. Even the front command of the 28th Army, who was doubtful about the battle, believed that the worst plan was to sacrifice three or four thousand people, but the final victory still belonged to us. The old saying goes: "A arrogant soldier will be defeated", which makes some sense.
10 The Corps is known for their ability to conquer and fight, but landing on the sea is a new topic, which is completely different from all the combat experiences of the Corps in the past. Before the Battle of Kinmen, the Huanglu army also strengthened the training of sea ferry, command, contact, rescue and beach landing, but the ability of amphibious combat is still insufficient, and officers and soldiers do not understand the influence of tides, ships and other factors in the battle of ferrying on the sea. Learning about war in war is a fine tradition of our army. What are the characteristics of the battle of ferrying on the island, what difficulties will be encountered when landing on the assault, and what role will tide laws play in the battle of ferrying on the sea, etc. If the War of Xiamen is over, the Corps can make a timely summary and warn the Kinmen battle, the Kinmen battle will not fall into a passive position.However, this important link was ignored after the liberation of Xiamen because the liberation of Xiamen was so smooth, which also made the commanders believe that liberation of Kinmen itself is not a big problem.
2. Ignoring the problem of sea tides, according to the recollection of surviving veteran Xu Qinlin, "The northeast wind was strong that day. The ship went up to the edge, and then the tide fell, and the wind stopped. The ship was on the edge of the sea. At dawn, the Kuomintang used the plane to throw gasoline bombs and burned it out in a while, and more than 300 ships exploded in a while, which caused the soldiers of the second tier of attacking the attack to arrive in time to support.
3. The intelligence was inaccurate and the strength of the enemy on the island was too underestimated. At that time, it was believed that the defense forces on the island were 20,000 recruits and had no combat power, but they did not expect that at the end of the battle in Xiamen, Chiang Kai-shek transferred the 18th Army of the Hu Lian Corps to the island. The island defenders soared to 30,000. This led to more than 9,000 brave soldiers unable to defeat the island's enemies. The enemy attacked the island without any shelter protection under the triple attack of aircraft, cannons, and warships. What was even more difficult was that the island's troops were quickly exhausted, the bullets were exhausted, and there was no way to organize the attack, and the injured were not treated.
4. The command rights of the 28th Army were decentralized, and the commanders of the 10th Corps were in peace, and the leadership of the 10th Corps was highly valued, Xiamen, and Kinmen were light. Before the combat mission was completed, the command rights were decentralized. "The main and the second were reversed." The commander of the Corps later believed in his memoirs: "This is a mistake, because it affects the preparations for liberating Kinmen.
If I sent Comrade Liu Peishan to Xiamen to assist the Municipal Party Committee in presided over the takeover work, I and the Corps headquarters would still live in Tong'an and have a comprehensive grasp, and both aspects could be taken into account. Why did I make this mistake? This is because I despise Kinmen and believe that Kinmen has no fortifications. The Kinmen defending enemy is nominally a corps, namely Li Liangrong's corps, with only more than 20,000 people, and they are all defeated soldiers; Xiamen is a fortress with permanent fortifications, and the defender is the Tang Enbo group, with sufficient troops and has been conquered, and it is believed that there is no big problem in capturing Kinmen. Xiamen is a trading port. If the takeover work is not done well, chaos will occur and the impact will be great, and it will have an impact on overseas. The command system of the 28th Army was also in trouble at that time. At that time, the commander of the 28th Army, Zhu Shaoqing, was treated in Shanghai, and the political commissar Chen Meizao stayed in Fuzhou to participate in the city takeover work. Chief of Staff Wu Su was transferred before entering Fuzhou, and no one was replaced. The only military leaders who commanded the battle were Deputy Commander Xiao Feng and Director of the Political Department Li Mancun. This situation leads to the arbitrary decision of individual commanders and cannot obtain corrective and correct opinions.
- 9000 soldiers were bleeding from Kinmen
1949 On the evening of October 24, 1949, the island-attacking troops set off. When approaching Kinmen Island, they were discovered by the enemy guarding the island. The enemy began to fire at the island-attacking troops. After our army got ashore, we attacked fiercely, repelled the enemy, penetrated through four or five miles, occupying twenty or thirty villages. But as soon as the sky was dawn, the enemy counterattacked on a large scale, dozens of planes bombed in turn, and the wooden ships of the ferry troops were blown into a sea of fire. More than 20 American tanks rushing around. Several warships also came and fired fire at the island-attacking troops. The enemy is large and we are few, and our army is attacked from both sides. Because the ship was completely sunk, the follow-up troops were unable to come to pick him up. After three days and three nights of fierce fighting, more than 5,000 people were sacrificed and more than 3,000 were captured. Most of these captured officers and soldiers were escorted to Taiwan, and some were forcibly assigned to serve in the Kuomintang troops. Many people were cruelly tortured, and many were brutally killed. It can be said that this battle was the result of any other regiment in the entire army, even Li Yunlong's independent regiment. After the defeat of the battle, the Corps Commander Ye Fei and the Commander of the Field Command Su Yu all expressed that they were responsible for this failure.
10 On October 29, Chairman Mao transferred Su Yu, deputy commander of the Third Field Army, Yuan Zhongxian, acting chief of staff, and Zhou Junming, deputy chief of staff, on 28 On the day, telegrams sent to the commander of the 10th Corps, Ye Fei, deputy chief of staff, , Chen Tiejun, and Fujian Provincial Party Committee, and forwarded to the front committees of the field army and major military regions:
According to the third field army , Comrades Su Yu, Yuan Zhongxian, and Zhou Junming, to Ye Chen, the 10th Corps and the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, on October 28, the telegrams were reported to Ye Chen, and the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, on October 27, "At 8:00 on the 27th, the telegrams were reported. You landed on Kinmen Island with three regiments, fought fiercely with the three enemy troops for two days and nights, and the support did not continue, causing all heroic sacrifices, which was very regretful. Investigating this loss is the biggest since the War of Liberation. The main reason is that underestimating the enemy and impatient..." Please tell the responsible comrades of the corps and the army to attract serious attention
