"Whoever can send an apple into the tunnel will remember the second-class merit to " This is the standard of meritorious service set by the commander of the 15th Army Qin Jiwei in the Battle of Shangganling in .
In October 1952, the Battle of Shangganling broke out. Why did a company-level confrontation develop into a major battle between divisions? How cruel is this battle? In the same way, why did the Japanese army's tunnel battle lose in a mess, but the volunteer army win the final victory?
01
In October 1952, Korean War entered a white-hot stage, and the volunteer army and the US army fell into a protracted long-term confrontation.
However, in the United States, there are constant debates about sending troops into North Korea. "Why should we send hundreds of thousands of young men to help the Koreans war tens of thousands of kilometers away?" The then-US President Truman could not answer.
1952 is the year of the US election. Republican candidate Eisenhower seized this opportunity to attack Truman. During the campaign, he announced in a high-profile manner that "if I get elected, I will end the Korean War immediately."
On the one hand, Truman's Democratic Party poll continues to decline. On the other hand, Republican Eisenhower's reputation is increasing day by day. Democratic politicians who are unwilling to fail have decided to make a big gamble. They threatened to "give the Chinese army a little color."
On the other hand, the 7th UN General Assembly is about to be held. If a big victory can be achieved, the Americans will have more trump cards at the negotiating table, forcing the volunteers to make great concessions. Therefore, from the very beginning, the political significance of the Shangganling Battle was greater than the military significance.
In order to achieve this "political show", Americans can't say that they have taken great pains. They arranged for " artillery madman" Van Vleet as the supreme commander and also brought a number of reporters from all over the world, claiming to "real-time reporting" of the entire battle.
However, what the Americans did not expect was that it was this "political show" that not only achieved the highest military casualty rate since their founding of the People's Republic of China, but also lost face in front of the media around the world.
02
Many people don’t know that in the early stage of the outbreak of the Shangganling Battle, it was just a company-level battle. Mr. Peng once recalled that Wusheng Mountain is the gateway to North Korea's central line, and Shangganling is just a frontier position of Wusheng Mountain.
This position has two small hills, and the total area is only 3.7 square kilometers. Therefore, the garrison troops arranged were only two companies of the 15th Army plus one platoon, and there was not even a battalion-level combat unit.
is so small that the large army cannot be used at all. The Americans' plan was also very simple. They planned to dispatch a battalion and took Shangganling to a cost of about 200 casualties in five days.
However, the direction of the war quickly exceeded everyone's expectations. Considering the military status and "performance effect", the US and South Korean coalition actually dispatched 7 battalions, 320 artillery, 47 tanks, and more than 50 aircraft to attack Shangganling, which is only 3.7 square kilometers.
After the 15th Army received the news, they immediately organized troops to provide reinforcements. Cui Jiangong, the commander of the 45th Division, arranged for the 135th Regiment, Zhang Xinyuan, to launch a night counterattack and regain the high ground.
That's it. The Americans lost their positions at night and organized a charge during the day. The volunteers dug tunnels in the mountains during the day, and fought head-on with the US troops at night.
How cruel is this battle? Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army, said, "Whoever can send an apple into the tunnel will receive the second-class merit to whom I will receive."
Americans were crazily pouring out ammunition. Every square meter of land in Shangganling had to withstand the explosion of 76 shells per minute, exceeding the highest level of human ammunition density since World War II ; our mountain positions were cut by two meters on average, and almost all the outsides of the tunnels were three to four meters short.
The biggest difficulty caused to our army is the serious shortage of logistics supplies. The two highlands of Shangganling are only 1,000 meters apart, but the Americans arranged ten blockade lines.
sent a squad to deliver supplies, and only one-third of the soldiers could walk into the tunnel alive. According to statistics, more than 1,700 logistics personnel sacrificed their lives in the Battle of Shangganling.
However, the tenacious resistance of our army was unexpected by the Americans. With the attention of major media around the world, the US military has been in a difficult situation and can only grit its teeth and implement "fueling tactics".
The US and South Korean coalition forces have invested a total of 3 infantry divisions, plus 8 independent regiments, 2 independent battalions, and even 1 airborne regiment, with a total force of more than 60,000.
But after paying for VanVleet's ammunition volume and nearly 40% casualty rate, they completely failed. You should know that the most brutal tunnel battle in the United States before, the casualty rate of the Battle of Iwo Jima, Japan was only 32.6%. (Data source: Ministry of National Defense of the People's Republic of China )
03
So the question is, it is also a tunnel battle. Why are the Chinese and Japanese troops wiped out by the US military while the US military in the Shangganling Battle difficult to shake the volunteer army?
In the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Japanese army's position was 20 times larger than that of Shangganling, and the artillery strike density was only one-tenth of that of the volunteers. The guardian Riribayashi Tadao spent seven months hollowing out the entire mountain with large machinery, and even built a reinforced cement fortress with 300 heavy artillery and nine layers above and below.
In contrast, the Volunteer Army did not have reinforced concrete, let alone large machinery, and could only use engineer shovels or dig with bare hands. From a material point of view, the Japanese army was several levels higher than the Volunteer Army.
But the decisive factor of war is still human. During the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Japanese army was rigid in tactics and inflexible in their thoughts. They launched a total of 15 "Long Live Charges" and were beaten back by the powerful firepower output of the United States.
The Volunteer Army has world-class squad and platoon tactics. In the first ten days of tunnel battles, a total of 148 small-scale night attacks were launched, making the US military unable to sleep or eat.
In addition, the morale of the Japanese army was low, while the morale of the volunteer army was high. Iwo Jima is an isolated island, and soldiers feel desperate in the face of the siege of the United States.
The nearly 10 years of East Asian colonial war has brought Japan to an end, and a large-scale famine has spread throughout the country, and Japanese soldiers fought for some reason. The Volunteer Army was just the opposite. The four-year Liberation War "strike the local tyrants and divide the land" mobilized the revolutionary enthusiasm of hundreds of millions of people. To protect North Korea and protect the motherland is to protect their hometown.
The same tunnel tactics face the US military, with one victory, one defeat, one honor and one humiliation. After the Korean War, the history of simply erecting a cannon in the East can make a country servilely bow down and never return!
After the Korean War, the US military has been in a 70-year haze against China, and the blessings of our ancestors are still hidden in us! After the Korean War, no one dared to say that the Chinese were the "sick husbands of East Asia" because they would think of the god of death in black that winter!
It is the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Shangganling. Let us once again pay our highest respect to those "cutest people".
Author: Jinling Fengyu
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