In 1952, the situation on the Korean battlefield underwent earth-shaking changes, and after our army joined the Korean War, the front drawn by the US military to the Yalu River retreated again and again, and the war also changed from the battlefield to the negotiating table, and the effect of China's participation in the Korean War was fully reflected.
The United States suffered such a big loss in the Korean War, but it was still determined, and in order to gain more chips at the negotiating table, they hoped to launch a big battle to defeat the Chinese Volunteer Army head-on. Shangganling became a place that the US military urgently took, but after the Battle of Shangganling, not only did the world's military experts marvel at the Chinese volunteer army, but even Chiang Kai-shek gave a 15-character high evaluation. So how difficult was this battle, and how did our army win it?
Launch of Shangganling
In 1952, the Chinese and North Koreans and the U.S. military returned to the negotiating table. In fact, at this time, both sides are very clear that the Korean War can no longer be won or lost on the battlefield, and the real decision of success or failure is at the negotiating table. Therefore, in order to increase the bargaining chips, the US military launched an attack on Shangganling.
The geographical location of Shangganling is very special, it is the gateway to the Five Holy Mountains, and if Shangganling is lost, it will be unfavorable to our army in terms of both negotiations and battlefield situations. Therefore, holding on to Shangganling is the primary task of our army, so since the two sides were in a stalemate, our army has made arrangements in Shangganling.
First of all, in order to reduce the damage caused by the artillery fire of the US army, our army dug the tunnel early on. These tunnels are the most important defensive system for our army to avoid US artillery fire, and facts have proved that these tunnels have also become the key factor for our army to win the Battle of Shangganling.
On October 14, 1952, Van Vliet commanded more than 40,000 people from three divisions of the United Nations Army to participate in the Battle of Shangganling, a solid bomb maniac who was indiscriminately covered by American artillery fire that day. Our army's tunnel system was very well resistant to the artillery fire of the US army, but the deafening shells still caused many commanders and fighters to suffer internal injuries and were shocked by the shells and bleed.
However, our army still fought tenaciously, and in the face of the uninterrupted bombardment of the enemy's aircraft and artillery, our army stubbornly held firm and repelled the enemy's repeated attacks. VanVleet faced such heavy casualties that he began a new offensive strategy.
Tough tunnel battles
Van Vliet, also a famous general who had experienced the baptism of World War II, saw that the artillery fire could no longer deal a fatal blow to the volunteers on Shangganling. However, the commanders and fighters who insisted on staying in Shangganling were also human, and their own material consumption in such a high-intensity battle was also very large.
In order to cut off the logistical supply of the volunteers, they even bombed the supply line between Shangganling and the Five Holy Mountains. For a time, our army could not deliver food, water or ammunition to the front. The battle on Shangganling was once transformed from a positional warfare to a logistical supply warfare.
Qin Jiwei, the head of the unit who insisted on staying in Shangganling, even bought tens of thousands of apples out of his own pocket, and said that whoever could send an apple to the front line of Shangganling would be awarded the second class merit. But it was this kind of encouragement that tens of thousands of apples, only one of them successfully delivered to the tunnel.
And this apple was not sent in by the soldier who specially transported the apple, but a soldier who delivered ammunition, from the corpse of the fallen soldier who sent the apple, the one that was hard-snatched, together with the ammunition, was sent to the tunnel. It can be seen how bad the battlefield environment was at that time.
Even in this environment, we did not give in. Even if they starved to death and died of thirst, these soldiers still held the submachine guns in their hands and were always ready to rush to the front line to fight the American army to the death. It was precisely because these soldiers were not afraid of life and death, and their firm and tenacious will to fight, in the end, the AMERICAN army was defeated in the Battle of Shangganling.
Since then, the US military has also lost the initiative at the negotiating table, and the Battle of Shangganling has become one of the battles in history that are worthy of military study. Even Chiang Kai-shek was amazed when he saw the Shangganling war report.
The world marveled and was invincible
Chiang Kai-shek still hoped that in the Korean War, New China would lose to the United States, so that he would have the conditions to counterattack the mainland. Before the Launch of the Shangganling Campaign, Chiang Kai-shek was very firm in his belief that New China would definitely lose to the United States, after all, the gap in national strength was so large and the gap in equipment was so large.
But after receiving the Shangganling war report, Chiang Kai-shek said: "In this world, no one is an opponent of the People's Liberation Army." Seeing the Americans eating up on Shangganling, perhaps Chiang Kai-shek can really empathize with it, after all, he is also a defeated general of the People's Liberation Army, and Chiang Kai-shek completely believes that there is no hope of counterattacking the mainland.
Except for Chiang Kai-shek, many military scientists could not understand how the volunteer army defeated the United States under the subsequent sandbox exercises. Because no matter how they practiced, the victory rate of the US army far exceeded that of the volunteer army. But they only see the battlefield factor, but they don't know that the ultimate determinant of the battlefield is people. We won the victory with a will to fight far beyond that of the Americans.
epilogue
The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was the first war in which China took the initiative to fight abroad and won victory in the face of a strong enemy since the Opium War and the Sino-Japanese War. This war marked the Chinese people standing up again and never being bullied by anyone again, and was the most important battle for the founding of our country. Those revolutionary ancestors who threw their heads and spilled their blood for the motherland interpreted China's Zhiqiang with their lives.