Chapter 107: Smoke Bombs

The next day. I woke up to the sound of American bombing.

As a matter of fact, the US bombardment of us has never stopped, and it goes without saying that when we attack, US artillery can rain tens of thousands of shells on our two small heights within an hour. When there was no attack, in order to block the logistics supply lines of our army with firepower, they also kept hitting the valley between Wusheng Mountain and Shangganling*. This is also the reason why Shangganling is full of gunsmoke and darkness every day.

I am not used to this kind of battlefield life, and I will be so noisy by these cannons at night that I can't sleep, and in the end I can only use the old method - stuffing cotton wool into my ears to solve the problem. Anyway, I also knew that the U.S. military would never dare to attack at night, and if anything happened, the telephone soldiers and communicators next to me would wake me up, so I was relieved and boldly lay down on the bed and slept for a while.

But I didn't expect to be awakened by a shock from the ground not long after I fell asleep. I took out my pocket watch to look at the time, it was almost dawn again, and the U.S. troops were preparing for artillery fire again. However, this time the intensity does not seem to be as strong as yesterday, perhaps the US artillerymen have weakened! Or maybe they also knew that there was nothing to be built on it but a scorched earth worthy of their destruction, and the preparation of the artillery fire was just to bolster and cheer them up for the charge that followed.

He sat up from the bed, picked up a broken step and wiped the rifle in his hand. The sound of bombing continued to come in from outside the tunnel, followed by the surrounding shocks and the earth and rocks that had been shaken overhead, and even the kerosene lamps hanging on the walls of the tunnel flickered and dimmed because of the tremors.

This kind of bombardment can't help but give me the illusion that I am in the cabin of a ship. This tunnel is a small boat, the earth and rocks outside the tunnel are seawater, and the shells are violent storms. They were screaming and shaking desperately outside, doing everything they could to sink and break our little boat......

From modern sources, I know that the US military successively invested more than 1,600 light and heavy artillery pieces in this battle, and also used 3,000 sorties of aircraft and 170 tanks. On the enemy side alone, more than 1.9 million shells and more than 5,000 bombs were poured on the two small hills of Shangganling, up to more than 300,000 shells a day, and 76 shells per square meter of land had to be bombarded.

It is said that after the war, someone picked up a handful of soil on the land of Shangganling, and dozens of large and small pieces of shrapnel could be found in it.

"Chief of Staff...... At this time, Instructor Qin ran to me with a soldier and reported: "Xiao Zhao is back, I have something to report to you!" ”

"Hmm!" Hearing this, I immediately stopped what I was doing, and looked at the soldier behind Instructor Qin, and sure enough, it was Xiao Zhao, so I hurriedly asked, "How is it?" It's okay along the way! What are the instructions of Head Zhang? ”

Xiao Zhao was the correspondent I sent out to contact Commander Zhang, because tonight we had restored our surface positions, and the enemy's blockade of us could only be limited to a fire blockade in the valley for the time being. This is already the easiest time for our supply line, so we will take this opportunity to contact the regiment headquarters more.

"Report to the Chief of Staff! All the best! Xiao Zhao saluted me and said, "Commander Zhang carefully studied the chief of staff's battle plan, and also reported the situation in Shangganling and the chief's thoughts to the division headquarters, and the division headquarters also agreed to the chief of staff's battle plan. The division commander also asked me to tell the chief of staff that not only the 135th Regiment, but also the whole division and the whole army have organized a small detachment to transport supplies to Shangganling. Corps and divisions organized artillery maneuvers in the direction of Shangganling and formed artillery command posts for unified command; In addition to the ammunition originally in reserve, we have increased the reserve of 8,000 grenades and supplies for each of our companies, and actively organized the replenishment of ammunition, food and drinking water to the tunnels. The division headquarters also intends to draw a few companies from the 134th Regiment to assist us in launching a counteroffensive! ”

"Great!" Instructor Qin clenched his fists excitedly and said, "With these words of the division commander, what are we afraid of these American devils?" This time, we must teach these US imperialists a hard lesson! ”

I couldn't help but smile bitterly when I heard this. Instructor Qin still thought about this battle too simply. However, this can't be blamed on him, if it is in normal times, the two heights of 3.7 square kilometers under his feet have been fully assisted by a division, then there is no worries in any way.

But I know that the reality is far more cruel than Instructor Qin imagined, although the division headquarters has promised to give us support and supplies, but whether and how many of these supplies can be sent is still a big problem. Moreover, we could not get in touch with the rear in real time, and we could not coordinate with the infantry and artillery at all, so we could only fight separately with the artillery that supported us......

After thinking about it, I ordered: "Xiao Zhao, it's not dawn yet, you go back immediately and report to Regiment Commander Zhang, tomorrow night's counterattack time is agreed to be at two o'clock in the morning, half an hour of artillery preparation, and then the artillery fire will be extended, and we will rush out of the tunnel with two red signal flares!" And also...... At nine o'clock this morning, artillery fire covered all positions on heights 597.9 and 537.7. It doesn't take long, 10 minutes is enough! ”

"Artillery fire covering all positions?" Xiao Zhao couldn't help but look at me suspiciously, he suspected that he had misheard: "Chief of Staff, nine o'clock artillery coverage?" At that time, the position was still in our hands, wasn't it? ”

"If you are told to go, you will go, why do you ask so much?"

"Yes!" Xiao Zhao stepped forward and turned around to leave, but before he could take a few steps, he was stopped by me.

"Xiao Zhao!" I then ordered, "Call a few more people to carry this order." We must successfully send the information to Commander Zhang, which is directly related to whether our counteroffensive tomorrow can be victorious, understand? ”

"Understood!" Xiao Zhao answered, beckoned a few people like a gust of wind, and after a few words, he plunged into the smoke outside the tunnel.

"Chief of Staff......" After Xiao Zhao left, Director Qin asked suspiciously: "Tomorrow is scheduled to counterattack at two o'clock in the morning, I know that the US army has the experience of being counterattacked by us last night, and will definitely stay up all night to guard against our counterattack." We set the time at two o'clock in the morning, just when they were sleepy, but this morning at nine o'clock the whole fire covered all the high ground......"

"Instructor Qin!" I didn't explain much, and directly ordered: "Convey the order, and the original order to stay on each high ground for four hours has been changed to 8:40 to withdraw to the tunnel!" ”

"Yes!" Instructor Qin listened to my order and quickly understood what was going on. He immediately picked up the phone and conveyed the order to the company commanders.

It is said that although Shangganling has basically lost contact with Wusheng Mountain, the communication between the 597.9 highlands and the 537.7 highlands is still very smooth, because there are already tunnels between the 597.9 highlands and the 537.7 highlands.

Thinking of this, I couldn't help shouting in my heart that I had made a mistake, I had known that this was the case, and I was going to dig the passage to the Wusheng Mountain in the rear, which is only a thousand meters away from the Wusheng Mountain, isn't it? If there is such a channel, what communications, food, medicine, and ammunition are, it is not how many are in the rear, how many can be transported......

Just as I was thinking that the sound of the cannon outside suddenly stopped, I grabbed my rifle and ran outside.

The hazy sky was overcast, and the whole highland was wrapped in fog-like gunsmoke, and there was no fresh air in the morning, but a pungent smell of burning, gunsmoke, and blood everywhere.

Originally, I thought that the air in the tunnel was corrosive, but when I ran out, I realized that this was not the case. Defenseless me. As soon as I ran out and took two deep breaths of such "fresh air", I couldn't help but be choked and coughed violently......

Exercise! I couldn't help but curse secretly, no wonder the air in the tunnel is so bad, it's like this outside the tunnel, how good can it be inside!

But I didn't have time to think about the quality of the air now, so I led the soldiers and crawled towards the top of the hill. It's miserable along the way...... Yesterday there was a day of fighting during the day, and another night of fierce fighting at night, and the position was littered with corpses that had not been moved in a hurry. There are those of our army and those of the American army.

It's no wonder that the Yankees, no one shouts loudly when they are desperately fighting for the high ground: "Wait! Give us some time to remove the body! We are also not stupid enough to be so stupid that all the shells of the American army have blown up, and we have to stay on the position to blow up the enemy because we have to carry the corpses. This is the reality on the battlefield, and it is also a kind of helplessness!

As a result, the tens of thousands of shells of the Yankees were thrown here, and what we saw with our eyes and on our feet was not the same. Stumps and broken arms were everywhere, and those that could tell whether they were hands or feet were quite complete, most of them were blurred pieces of flesh and blood, mixed with the charred black dirt like mud, and it was impossible to tell which part of the body was at all. As we walked, the soles of our shoes became heavier and heavier, and when we lifted our feet, we saw that the blood and dirt were mixed together and stuck to a large piece of sediment on the soles of our shoes, and there were some rags in between......

What is a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, I can see it today!

As soon as the fighters climbed to the top of the mountain. It was very tacitly dispersed into the divided positions, and I took a dozen fighters into the No. 9 position on the 597.9 heights.

At the beginning, I was not very familiar with the various positions on the two heights of Shangganling, and if there were no markings on the map, I really couldn't tell which one was which. But having fought several battles and organized a counteroffensive on these positions, it quickly became familiar with them.

For example, Position 8 is a place where a volunteer soldier saved my life; There was a volunteer soldier in position No. 10 who died with the enemy with a grenade, and there was also position No. 4; Position No. 2 was attacked last night, and the 2nd platoon commander died there......

This is written down, but what makes me a little sad is that these are memories of blood and life!

I moved two rocks on the position as shelter, and I set up my rifle on them and looked down the hill.

In the billowing smoke of gunpowder. The US military has already launched an offensive against us under the cover of dozens of tanks. It's just that this time, they may have been scared by us, and they didn't dare to rush up as arrogantly as yesterday, but moved out of the old routine again, covering each other and trying to move forward.

Looking at their brand-new uniforms, I knew that today's group was not the group that attacked us yesterday, nor was it the group that we beat down last night. It is said that the U.S. military is more taboo about being killed by the enemy on the battlefield in formation, so it usually replaces this unit when the unit suffers serious casualties. In this way, yesterday's army made us almost fight.

The enemy slowly moved upwards, all of them bent over, carefully raising their guns diagonally upwards.

"Pass the order on!" Looking at the enemy getting closer and closer, I ordered the warrior next to me: "Save ammunition and fight when you see it!" ”

"Pass it on, save ammo, and fight when you see it!"

……

The soldiers passed down my orders sentence by sentence, but I felt a little helpless in my heart. In such a defensive battle, to deal with the enemy who rushes up like a tidal wave, it is necessary to have pieces and pieces of bullets. Saving ammunition also means that the enemy has a better chance of rushing into position, and once the enemy rushes to position, even if we can fight them again, casualties are inevitable. So my order is almost exchanging human lives for ammunition.

But what can be done now? If we let go of the fighting, our current ammunition will last for an hour at most, and now it is only a little more than six o'clock, and there is no way to hold out until the scheduled time of the shelling.

The enemy slowly climbed up, their various equipment clanging as they collided with each other.

The enemy was clearly prepared for the attack this time, because they knew that the main attack was placed in the No. 9 position where I was.

Position 9 is the gateway to the main peak of the 597.9 heights, and the location is very important, as long as the 9th position is not lost, the 597.9 heights can be protected. Moreover, position No. 10 was in the rear on the right and position No. 7 in the rear on the left, which made position No. 9 a salient on the entire defensive front, the most vulnerable to enemy attacks.

Imagine that in the case of an attack by the enemy on all fronts, if the No. 10 and No. 7 positions behind us do not have time to provide fire support for us, then the salient of the No. 9 position is very likely to be attacked from three sides by the enemy.

I didn't dare to wait any longer when I thought of this. I raised the rifle in my hand and pulled the trigger, and a machine gunner carrying the M1919 collapsed in my sight.

The sound of a gun is an order! In an instant, the volunteer soldiers pulled the trigger on their chosen target. But because of my order to save ammunition, the gunfire is noticeably less intense than it was yesterday.

Volunteer fighters have long been fighting the enemy in a situation of lack of ammunition, so they know very well how to fight this battle to save ammunition. Those with rifles in their hands did not rush to aim before firing, and machine guns and submachine guns that could fire in bursts were changed to burst fire. Of course, such a style of play can easily make the enemy rush up, but the fighters are also ready, and several fighters are specially responsible for throwing grenades, and where the enemy rushes fast, the grenades are thrown.

The soldiers worked together so well that the enemy fell to our guns one by one. There were several times when I saw that the American troops were about to rush to our positions, but they were forced down by grenades.

But the American army also seemed to have been whetted by us, and the not strong firepower of our army made them unwilling to retreat like this, so wave after wave of enemies poured towards us like a tide under the cover of machine gun and tank fire.

"Bang bang ......" I quickly turned my attention to the anti-aircraft machine gunners on enemy tanks.

The enemy's tank guns are not terrible, in this smoke-filled battlefield, the shooters in the tank can't see where the target is at all, and even if they see clearly, they don't dare to fire because they are afraid of accidentally injuring their own people, so the tank guns are just some inconsequential places to create momentum and cheer. But the anti-aircraft machine gunners on that side were troublesome. Although we hid in a high place, and those shooters could not see us, the shooters could estimate the position of the volunteer soldiers according to the ballistics and smoke fired by our troops, and then they used machine guns to aim at this position, and it was like a storm of sweeping.

But what the shooters didn't expect was that they could determine the position of our troops based on their ballistics, and so could I.

The visibility of the battlefield shrouded in gunsmoke was poor, and the tanks at the foot of the hill could faintly see an outline, but the barrage of fire from the anti-aircraft machine guns was obvious. Where would I be polite to them, and I pulled the trigger with my rifle aimed at the fire, and the anti-aircraft machine gun quickly fell silent.

At that moment, there was a sudden muffled sound at the foot of the mountain, and then several thick pillars of smoke rose from our position. As soon as these pillars of smoke appeared, the smoke on the battlefield was compared.

"Gas bomb ......"

"Gas bombs! Cover your mouths and noses, warriors! ”

I don't know who shouted, but the soldiers who were fighting the American army suddenly became chaotic.

Seeing this, I secretly screamed that it was not good, the volunteer soldiers who had fought with Little Japan had suffered from the Japanese army's poison gas bombs, so it was natural to think of poison gas bombs when they encountered this situation. But I know that's not, for the simple reason that if these were gas bombs, the U.S. troops in front of us wouldn't continue to charge at us.

So, those are just smoke grenades, smoke grenades that are used to disrupt our vision and prevent us from shooting properly......

"Comrades!" I hurriedly shouted: "That's not a gas bomb, don't let the enemy rush up!" Hit hard! ”

At my shout, the fighters quickly came to their senses and raised their weapons again to pull the trigger on the enemy.

But it was already too late, and the American troops rushed towards us like ants from all directions, almost with shouts of victory...... (！ )