Chapter 36: The War on the Southern Front
Just when the D1 Army of the Volunteer Air Force launched a vigorous "nest smashing operation". With the order of General Peng, the ground forces of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army launched a heroic counterattack against the United States-led joint [***] in full swing.
Under the specific command of Han Xianchu, deputy commander of the Volunteer Army, the 38th and 42nd armies of the Volunteer Army entered the DPRK from Ji'an to the highway from Ji'an to Hamxing, passed through the river boundary to the south, and after receiving the waist of the Korean bee, turned westward, avoided the main road, and used the mountains and hills as a cover to take a shortcut. It has penetrated directly into the depth of the rear of the US Eighth Army. After receiving the order for a general attack, they quickly engaged the enemy and launched a fierce attack on the enemy with lightning speed. It launched a surprise attack on the 7th Division of the 2nd South Korean Army Corps, which was responsible for the rear right flank of the enemy's Western Front.
The 38th Army's 3 divisions of 46,000 troops were divided into three routes, all the way was interspersed with 112 divisions to the western part of Tokugawa, and launched an attack on the 7th Division of South Korea in the Tokugawa area from west to east; On the other hand, the 113th Division, which was hidden in the mountains of southern Tokugawa, launched an attack on the 7th Division of South Korea in the Tokugawa area from south to north; On the other hand, the 114th Division, which was on standby in the east, launched an attack on Tokugawa from the east to the west.
The soldiers of the 7th South Korean Division were surprised to find that behind their fortifications, two or three Chinese soldiers wearing rubber-soled shoes, as if they had come out of the ground, silently and as agile as a tanuki, quickly approached their bunkers, and then calmly threw grenades and explosives bags into their fortifications and bunkers. These Chinese soldiers tirelessly enjoyed a group of happy children playing their favorite games.
Explosions came and went. With the sound of explosions, the bunkers and fortifications of the 7th South Korean Division were constantly mixed with the stumps of the soldiers, and the guns flew into the sky. Then one after another signal flares rose into the air, and the soldiers of the 38th Army of the Volunteer Army, in a piece of military trumpets, whistles, and small trumpets, launched a crazy charge against the enemy. Rushing into the enemy line, engaging the enemy in close quarters, grenades flying, and a bayonet with three or eight guns was inserted into the chest of the enemy who was hindering their advance without hesitation. In the face of such a sudden attack, the officers and men of the 7th South Korean Division were immediately overwhelmed, and before they received the battle order, grenades fell on their sides and heads. The bayonet pierced his body. They had never seen such ferocity, dazzling, and undisciplined playfulness. Those who reacted quickly threw down their guns and fled in all directions, and those who reacted slowly had to raise their hands and surrender except to be killed.
These are a set of unique tactics formed by our army according to its own situation during the long-term war, and although the weapons in its hands are backward, they have used them very fully and brought into full play the maximum effectiveness of each weapon. The long-term weakness of equipment has made our army more accustomed to moving at night, covertly engaging the enemy, and launching a surprise attack on the enemy. In particular, Siye's troops were extremely adapted to the geography, climate, and terroir of Korea. There is not much difference between North Korea and Northeast China, and even the writing is in Chinese characters. The 38th Army of the Volunteer Army put the tactics of mobile attack, sharp knife breakthrough, interspersed with division, and central flowering: improvisable attack and flexible mobile defense, one point and two sides. A group of two teams brought Lin B's six tactical principles into full play.
After three hours of fierce fighting, the commander of the division was killed, and more than 10,000 men of the 7th South Korean Division were annihilated in the Tokugawa area. Occupied Tokugawa, an important transportation hub to the east, west, north and south, and an important storage place for the South Korean Second Army. The seizures were very large. More than 550 artillery pieces, 29 tanks, more than 800 cars. It was the first to cut off the main retreat route of the enemy who invaded the north and fled south. Subsequently, the 112th Division deployed in this area, the 113th Division and the 114th Division pulled part of the booty to the south, and the 113th Division stayed in Beicangli, 30 kilometers south of Tokugawa, to make the reserve of the 112th Division, and the 114th Division occupied Chengchuan to the south and guarded to the south, while at the same time as the reserve of the 125th Division of the 42nd Army to hold Shunchuan.
The 124th Division of the 42nd Army had moved to the south of Tokugawa and east of Kitakang-ri, and at the beginning of the general attack, they quickly launched a charge towards Kitakang-ri, completely annihilating more than 1,000 people from a battalion and a regiment headquarters of the 7th South Korean Division defending the enemy in Kitakang-ri, occupying Bukchang-ri, and then handing over Kitakang-ri to the headquarters of the southern line of Shisi. Starting from Beicangli, attack and advance west along the road in the direction of Suchuan, and occupy Suchuan, so as to completely cut off the retreat of the entire US Eighth Army to the south.
The 42nd Army advanced with 126 divisions from the east to Nyongyuan, quickly eliminating a company-level reconnaissance detachment of the South Korean 7th Division at Nyongyuan. After occupying Nyongwon, one regiment was left behind to protect the right flank of the 112th Division Tokugawa and prevent a single mistake by the Korean People's Army from affecting the security of the right flank of our troops on the southern front. More than 10,000 people from the other two regiments kept moving westward and passed through Beicangli
Advance in the direction of Suncheon, Sucheon, and stand by in Suncheon, Sucheon area. As a reserve for the 124th Division to guard Suchuan.
The 125th Division was the farthest force before the start of this campaign, and in order to speed up the march in the mountains, it almost gave up all its heavy weapons, and rushed to the lurking place as scheduled, and leaned into the hills of the railway on the east side of Shunchuan. A fierce attack was launched on two companies of the 1st Battalion of the 187th Parachute Regiment defending the enemy in Suncheon.
This paratrooper unit guarding Sunchon is the airborne unit of more than 1,000 people that Kim Yuecheng said was parachuted into the Sunchon and Suchon areas and cut off the back roads of the DPRK's party, government, and military organs.
On October 18, Company A and Company B of the 1st Battalion of the 187th Parachute Regiment parachuted in Shuncheon under the leadership of Battalion Commander Wilsey. After landing on the parachute landing site, the fire of the Korean People's Army was suppressed on a small plateau. Company A and Company B were flanked from both sides, and soon drove the Korean People's Army from this high ground out of their positions, and two hours later, the two companies completely cleared the Korean People's Army of resistance in this area.
Due to the successive victories of the U.S. landing at Incheon, the morale of the Korean People's Army was dealt a heavy blow, and they had no intention of resisting at all. Soon fled north. The battle was not like a fight at all, but more like a light maneuver . Two companies of the 1st Battalion of the 187th Airborne Regiment parachuted a total of 647 people, and their losses were very light, with only 4 killed in battle, 13 wounded, and 11 injured in a parachute jump. In this battle, two companies of the 1st Battalion of the 187th Airborne Regiment captured 156 officers and soldiers of the Korean People's Army and killed 103 people. It was easy to occupy Suncheon, the main north-south transportation route.
On the side of the C Company of the A Battalion of Sucheon, 400 people, under the leadership of Deputy Battalion Commander Michael, repelled a battalion of the Korean People's Army and easily occupied the north-south communication artery of Sucheon. This shows that this is an elite American unit that is very capable of fighting.
The attack of the 42nd Division of the 125th Army on Sunchon was first started by the 373rd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment. The 2nd Battalion 5th Company was the sharp knife company of the 373rd Regiment. After Wang Baozhu returned from the sniper training class, he was directly promoted to the commander of the company where he was located. He led a company of men and searched from north to south along both sides of the railway. When they reached a distance of 4 kilometers from Shunchuan, Yang Guang, a sniper instructor who accompanied the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 373rd Regiment of the 125th Division of the 42nd Army, found that there was an enemy on the two high ground in front of him. He was lying on the roadbed. Through the infrared scope, it was found that 400 meters in front of the railway, there was a hill about 80 meters high and 300 meters long, and a platform of more than 60 meters below the peak, on which there was a semicircular open-air field fortification about 40 meters long that the enemy had built with sandbags, and behind the fortifications could be seen 4 field tents, in the middle of this fortification, there was a sentry standing on the sandbag bunker. From the analysis of the four tents set up, there should be about two combat detachments of the enemy living on the entire heights, that is, four squads of the US army, and one squad of the US army is composed of 5-6 people, which is equivalent to two combat groups of our army, and two squads are one detachment. Equivalent to a squad of our army. Later, he observed the high ground on the east side of the railway, which was slightly lower than the high ground on the west side, about 60 meters or so. Also on top are four tents, two detachment-level combat units. He told Company Commander Wang about the situation. He turned around and said to the two platoon commanders who came up: "First platoon commander, you take your men and pass through the woods in front of you to the west, then make a detour to the west of the enemy, and then attack from the west after you are in place; Second platoon leader, you lead people from the woods to the front of the enemy to quickly and covertly approach; Instructor Young, you keep an eye on the enemy's sentry and shoot him if he notices something unusual. Everyone took the first gunshot as a signal, once an attack was launched, they must not hesitate, they must not be afraid of sacrifice, they must rush and fight fiercely, and do not let the enemy slow down. Act now. Company headquarters and three platoons to the east, machine guns platoon together."
Yang Guang followed the 2nd row to the woods. The front of the woods was about 200 meters away from the high ground, and at the foot of the hill was a field of corn that no one had harvested, and between the cornfields and the woods there was a dry seasonal river. He quickly found two sniper positions in this wood, one was a two-hugging thick Dayue tree with a large hairpin, and the other was a more convex one-meter-high Lying Cow Stone. He returned to the Dayue tree, quickly climbed the big tree fork more than a meter high from the ground, he put the gun on a small tree, adjusted his body, felt quite comfortable, he looked through the scope to see that the shooting range was very good. Let's take a look at the speed of movement and the line of each row. Then quickly observe the situation of the enemy's position through the scope. Then he pointed his gun at the sentry and watched his reaction carefully, and for about seven or eight minutes he saw the sentry straighten out and look down, then he took the gun off his shoulder, pulled the bolt, and pointed the gun to the north. He pulled the trigger boldly. He saw the sentry throw his gun high and fall backwards. He immediately aimed his gun at the machine-gun bunker that could block the second platoon's route up the hill. About half a minute later he saw an enemy rush out of the tent and run towards the machine-gun fort made of sandbags. Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger again, and when he saw the enemy, he threw himself on the machine gun. At this time, he heard the explosion of grenades, and saw that the fastest fighters in the second platoon were a few meters away from the enemy's fortifications, and the slower ones were more than ten meters, and they were struggling to climb up, while throwing grenades into the enemy's fortifications. In his heart, he deeply admired the idle tactical movements and brave fighting spirit of these soldiers. He did not shift his position, but kept his eyes on the other side's position, when two flares were fired at the high ground to the east. He saw that a soldier in the second platoon had jumped into the enemy's fortifications and was constantly strafing. Another fighter was knocked down the moment he jumped the sandbag. He saw an American soldier with a submachine gun firing wildly, and he held his breath and gently pressed the trigger of his Type 88 sniper rifle to end the enemy's madness. At this time, the explosion of a grenade and the sound of a Thomson submachine gun were heard in the west, and the explosion of the grenade and the strafing of the submachine gun were all in one. The battle was soon over. Six of the enemy were killed in the tent, and in fifteen minutes before and after, 23 were killed, 17 were killed, and 6 were captured.
The 2nd platoon lost one person and wounded 2 people.The 1st platoon wounded 2 people.
Yang Guang came to the mountain and saw that everyone was cleaning the battlefield. He pulled out his tactical flashlight and saw that two Bazooka 60-mm rocket launchers and 24 rockets had been captured. One fighter said, "We're going to have bazookas too." Wang Lian Chang carried that one on his back all day long, and he couldn't even touch it. I don't know how about this thing? ”
Yang Guang said: "Not very good. But it's better than nothing."
He went to the machine gun fort again and looked at it, an M2 large-caliber 12,7 mm heavy machine gun, five boxes of ammunition, he opened a wooden box, and saw that there were five bullet chains inside, each chain had more than a hundred rounds, plus about 3000 rounds of bullets hanging from the gun. Then he looked at the three targets he had hit, two of them were hit in the head and one in the chest, and they were all shot to death. He didn't have the nausea, vomiting, or even the speed of his heartbeat. He pulled out a box of "camel" cigarettes from the heavy's jacket pocket. I ordered one that tasted good and put it in my pocket. At this time, the second platoon commander came over and said, "Teacher Yang, you really didn't brag!" This black light blinds. One shot at a time. We won the most precious two or three minutes for our frontal charge, and if we let this machine gun of the enemy go off, I don't know how many people would be killed and wounded. ”
Yang Guang smiled: "The main thing is that you move quickly and have proper tactics." Hurry up and fix the fortifications. I think the enemy to the north is about to retreat. That's the real bloody battle. Yes, when I came up, I saw a lot of straw bags piled up under the corner of the mountain near the railway, and it was just right to bring them up to repair the fortifications. There are also some gasoline cans, and I'll send a few men to pour gasoline into the woods. He pointed to the woods where he had sniped.
The eastern hills were also in full swing at this time. The distance between the two hills is about 400 meters. In the middle is the railway, the narrowest point is about 20 meters, it is to build the railway is opened with explosives, this is a Y-shaped pass, the opening is to the north, the north is a U-shaped relatively flat and open land. It is about 600 meters wide and 4 kilometers long. It was an easy pass to be closed and difficult to attack, and it was no wonder that the enemy sent a tactical detachment of four paratroopers to guard it, but they were still too careless.