Wang Benzeng: From a telephone soldier to a combat hero

Hikiko

*This article is excerpted from the second series of "Rongcheng Literary and Historical Materials" (December 1988), written by Wang Benzeng, and the original title is "My Combat Life Retrospective"

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My name is Wang Benzeng, and my name in the army is Wang Wenzeng, a native of East Flagpole Stone Village, Shangzhuang Town. He is sixty-two years old. Disabled servicemen of the second class B.

In the summer of 1945, when we were about to get married, I gave up my position as a primary school teacher and resolutely joined the Eighth Route Army.

Soon after joining the army, he was upgraded from the Wendeng County Independent Battalion to the Eighth Regiment of the Fourth Garrison Brigade and assigned to the telephone squad at the regiment headquarters.

Rong as a telephone soldier

There are 12 people in the telephone squad of the regiment headquarters, who are responsible for the telephone communication tasks of the whole regiment. In times of war, there was a frequent movement of troops. At least six telephone lines should be set up at each new defensive site: one for the three staff departments, one for the political, and one for the logistics department, and one for each of the first, second, and third battalion headquarters. The line is one or half miles close, three miles or five miles away, and sometimes dozens of miles long when a battle starts.

At that time, the telephone line used was a 22-gauge thin wire, which had to be supported by poles. Otherwise, as soon as the wires come into contact with the dirt, the phone will not work. To erect a telephone line, you need to use a lot of poles. In order to make it easy to carry, a lot of sunflower straw was raised from the common people. In the cold winter, the pole is not firmly buried, and it often has to be erected many times.

By the time the troops moved, the company had been on the march for a long time, and we were still packing up the wires. After arriving at the new defensive position, the fighters were already asleep, and we were still busy setting up a new line. When marching, the warriors traveled a hundred miles a day, and we said that it was also a hundred and twenty miles.

After the Battle of Menglianggu, our communication equipment was improved, the barbed wire was replaced with leather wrapped wire, and the American-style road machine replaced the Oriental hang-up machine.

Although the equipment was so rudimentary, the battles were so frequent, and the situation was so treacherous, everyone's mood was always full, high, and vigorous.

Gejiazhuang fights

In July 1946, the enemy surrounded Gejiazhuang with the strength of one division. Gejiazhuang is a small village of 100 households, surrounded by earthen polders. A battalion and a company of our regiment were stationed there. The squad leader ordered me to set up a line to a company, and I took the only bit of foreskin line with me, ran all the way, swam across a river, and crawled through the enemy's blockade line with a rolling belt, and quickly completed the task of setting up the line.

Faced with an enemy several times my size, I fought bravely and tenaciously against the enemy's attacks again and again. When repelling the enemy's fourth attack, the troops suffered heavy casualties, most of the commanders were killed or seriously wounded, and only one Lin platoon commander remained in the forward position. I received a telephone order from the regiment commander instructing the company to hold out until dark, and immediately braved the dense artillery fire and ran to the forward position.

By this time, the earth polder had opened many gaps, and some of the warriors had begun to retreat. I shouted: "The regimental commander ordered us to hold our positions, reinforcements will arrive soon, persistence is victory!" "The soldiers, thinking that I was a cadre sent by their superiors, followed me back to their positions and bravely repelled the enemy's fifth attack.

I found Platoon Commander Lin and assisted him in dividing the remaining platoon of troops into several groups and holding the position. As soon as the deployment was ready, the enemy attacked again. I shouted with a grenade: "Comrades, hit hard!" "Rows of grenades blossomed in the enemy group. Many fighters fought bloody battles with politicians. Soon the enemy's sixth attack was repulsed.

The battle began at 9 a.m. and lasted until 9 p.m., crushing a total of 12 enemy attacks, killing and wounding 5 or 600 enemies, and successfully completing the task of blocking the attack.

Lines in the midst of war

Not long after the battle of Gejiazhuang, we entered the battle of Xiliufeng again. This battle was regimental strength against regimental strength. The enemy blocked the advance of our troops with heavy artillery fire, and the second battalion of our regiment made a frontal attack.

The regimental headquarters urgently needed to know the fighting situation of the second battalion. Zhang Xinchun, the telephone squad leader, assigned Zhou Fenglou to be responsible for setting up the telephone line of the second battalion. For a long time, the line did not work. The regiment headquarters was very anxious. So the squad leader sent me to complete it again. I was just about to run out, but Staff Officer Wang Mingzhu said: "We must not only cover our bodies, but also complete the task." "I ran along the line and looked, and found Zhou Fenglou in a ravine.

It turned out that the command post of the second battalion was commanding with the troops, and Zhou Fenglou was pressed by enemy fire and failed to keep up. I rushed out of the ravine, braved the rain of bullets, and ran quickly to the command post of the second battalion, and soon set up a telephone line.

Just when the second battalion did not know what to do next, the phone was connected. In accordance with the order of the regiment commander, the battalion commander Jiang immediately organized the troops to charge, and quickly broke the enemy's resistance and won the battle.

Attack Weixian County

In 1948, the 8th Regiment of our 6th Division was renamed the 77th Regiment of the 26th Division of the 9th Column of the East China Field Army. In the beginning of spring, our army won the first battle of Zhoucun, cutting off the passage between Weixian and Jinan, and then attacked Weixian.

The city wall of Weixian County is strong and there are many fortifications. There were 45,000 regular Kuomintang troops stationed there. The houses and trees near the city walls were all destroyed by the enemy. The enemy boasted that Weixian County was "round as a golden soup" and that it was an unbreakable "golden city". Our troops dug deep trenches to reach the enemy's reinforced concrete fortifications. The explosives bag exploded, and the enemy and the fortifications went up into the sky together. After a fierce battle for a day and night, all the defending enemies were annihilated, and the enemy commander Chen Jincheng was captured alive.

Just when everyone was immersed in the joy of victory, the telephone line of the second battalion was blocked. I immediately went with Zheng Guangming to connect the line, and when I returned, an old man about 60 years old suddenly knelt down and begged for help, repeating that "the girl is crying at home". We realized that it must be the enemy soldiers of the Kuomintang who were doing evil, so we hurried into the old man's house, and sure enough, it was an enemy army that was strengthening the woman. He was about to grab his gun to give way to resist, but was shot dead by Zheng Guangming. When I checked the identity card, it was a Kuomintang company commander.

Exemplary correspondent

Soon after I arrived on the telephone shift, I became a correspondent for the newspaper Frontline. I wrote and posted the deeds of Shi Fushan, a model military training model, and published it in the "Front Line Daily". During the military training, Zhang Dezhi suddenly fell down when he was practicing a single-pole overturning wheel, and everyone was startled, but he got up and laughed. The squad leader asked him if it hurt, and he said that the more it hurts, the more I practice. I wrote a draft on this topic and published it again, and I was very moved by the report of the shooting hero Wei Laiguo at the division and model meeting, so I wrote a draft of "Learning from the Shooting Hero Comrade Wei Laiguo" and published it in the special issue of the Heroic Model Conference. Since then, I have been hired as a special correspondent of the newspaper, and later I was rated as a model correspondent of the party newspaper.

In the battle of Nanma, Sun Zhongxue and I went through hardships and dangers when we set up a line to the third battalion of the main attacking force. The phone line was interrupted; Interrupted the connection, back and forth five or six times. The last time, when I was wiring the line, Sun Zhongxue suddenly pushed me down, a shell fell beside me, he died honorably, I wrote with tears in my eyes and wrote "The Lifeline of Cannonballs Calling Telephonemen", which was published in the "Fire Line Daily" of the regiment headquarters on the same day, and reprinted in the "Front Line Daily" the next day.

The manuscript written in the war-torn years is soaked with sweat and blood stains between the lines. If it weren't for the revolutionary cause, who would still have that leisure.

Acting platoon commander

On the eve of the Huaihai Campaign, I was transferred to the 1st Battalion and 2nd Company as a cultural officer. Soon after the company was launched, the Battle of Huaihai began. Before attacking Nian Zhuang, where the headquarters of Huang Botao's corps was located, our company's task was to take Xiaoweizhuang. The small polder village is adjacent to the mill village, which used to be a landlord's village and is now the gateway of the mill village.

After nightfall, we began to attack the small polder. The company commander led the first platoon and the third platoon to attack from the front, and the instructor led the second platoon and the company's miscellaneous personnel to build fortifications on the east side of Xiaoxuzhuang to prevent the enemy from reinforcing Xiaoxuzhuang. During the battle, the commander of the second platoon died. The instructor ordered me to act as the commander of the second platoon and direct the continuation of the battle.

As the day dawned, the battle in Xiaoxuzhuang became more intense, the troops suffered heavy casualties, and the instructors were also sacrificed. As soon as the day breaks, we will all be exposed to the enemy. The chief of staff ordered us to retreat, and I sent the fourth squad leader to lead the rear, and I left to check the position unfortunately being discovered by the enemy, and the bullets flew towards me, and I was shot in the right leg, and blood flowed. I had to crawl and run into my body and bandage my wounds. After a while, two enemies approached me, and I pulled the only grenade I had with me, and I fell unconscious. It took me a long time to wake up. Two enemies, one lying on the cliff of the traffic ditch, the other fled back from the bloodstains. I lay down in the traffic ditch and waited until it was dark before crawling back to the camp headquarters. Chief of Staff Chen Jingyi shook my hand and said, "Good job!"

Selected three heroic models

In December 1946, during the recuperation of the troops, I was selected. At the regiment's heroic model meeting, I was rated as a first-class combat model of the regiment.

Then he rode a horse and wore flowers to participate in the division's heroic model meeting. At the division's heroic model meeting, I was rated as the division's second-class combat model.

In 1947, he was awarded the East China Third-Class Combat Hero by the East China Military Region.

Sources:

Rongcheng Literary and Historical Materials, Volume 2 (December 1988)