Chapter 40 1. The Heights That Never Fall

In Xiwei, an American artillery correction machine swayed its wings sideways, circling circles over Shangganling.Servetis, the artillery aerial observer with acne on his face, sat anxiously in the co-pilot's seat, leaning against the window and looking down at the battle on the ground, so frightened that he forgot his duty of correcting the impact point. In fact, he couldn't correct it. The artillery groups of the enemy and the enemy were furious, attacking and suppressing each other, and the ballistic trajectory was chaotic like hemp threads, forming a web under the belly of the machine.On the two small hills under his eyes, the smoke and dust from the explosion filled like mist, tightly covering up the terrifying bloody battles.Across this chaotic smog area, under the Jixiong Mountain and the Five Sacred Mountains, helicopters took off and landed frequently, and trucks ran back and forth, and both sides were busy rushing to transport the wounded.

The driver Gilles shouted nervously: "Okay, let's go quickly, if we let the Chinese anti-aircraft artillery keep an eye on us, we will not be able to pass Christmas this year." But they failed to get away, and 11 minutes later the correction plane was shot down by anti-aircraft guns of the Fifteenth Army.Giles was dead, and the golden crucifix around his neck did not keep him alive.Servetis fell out of the cabin a few feet away with blood on his face, and was captured by several volunteers with cotton caps covering their cheeks.He felt that life in the prisoner-of-war camp was not bad. On Christmas Day, he was given a Chinese roast chicken, which tasted much stronger than the roast turkey in his hometown, and he ate it with great enthusiasm.Like remembering his own birthday, he firmly remembered this horrible day of being captured-November 1, 1952.

Two days ago, a new call sign frequently appeared on the radio of the enemy facing the Five Sacred Mountains: "Lion", which was deciphered by the Fifteenth Army's wiretapping;This is an honorary division that the Korean Army has just made famous. It was originally deployed on the defensive front of the 38th Army of our Volunteer Army.Not long before the Shangganling battle, when the 38th Army was preparing to counterattack the 394.8 highland, an important support point for the division's defense, a cultural teacher defected to the enemy and disclosed the counterattack plan to the Han Jiu Division.Jin Zhongwu, the commander of the Han Jiu Division, immediately adjusted his deployment, withdrew the 28th regiment that was originally responsible for the defense, and pulled the 30th regiment, the main force of the division, to the 394.8 highland from the second line to reinforce the fortifications and conduct surprise training.

When the 38th Army launched an attack as originally planned, the 30th Regiment of South Korea, which had been prepared for a long time, carried out a desperate and effective resistance. Jin Zhongwu once told reporters: "During the battle, General Van Fleet of the U.S. Eighth Army came to inspect our division almost every day, and President Rhee Chengman also inspected it twice, encouraging me and fully supporting our division. I called the whole division to speak , Live and die on the battlefield. Many soldiers have written suicide notes, and their fighting spirit is very strong."

The 38th Army successively invested 5 regiments, and after 10 days of strong attack, they failed to overcome, and then voluntarily withdrew from the battle.This Chinese powerhouse has never fought such a half-battle. The Han Jiu Division blocked the attack of the first-class main force of the Volunteer Army, the famous "Long Live Army", which made Syngman Rhee ecstatic, calling this battle a "major victory" for South Korea. The 394.8 highland is a limestone geological structure, and its mountain shape is like a white horse lying down, so it is also called Baima Mountain.From this battle, Han Jiushi won the title of "White Horse Division", which was extremely glorious for a while.The division commander, Jin Jong-oh, has been on the rise since then, and became the chairman of the Korean Senate more than ten years later.

At that time, the chief of staff of the division was South Korean President Park Chung-hee who was stabbed to death in Gongjing-dong, Seoul in October 1979. For the counterattack troops in Shangganling, the intensity of artillery fire on the 1st was second only to that of October 14th. A wave of scorching heat swept into the highland tunnels, scorching people's skin and face. The 8-meter-thick solid rock tunnel was blown down, and the soil layer on the entire high ground was so soft that there was no place to mount a machine gun.The shooters used sacks to build a shooting platform; some had no time to install the platform, so they simply piled up the corpses and mounted machine guns.

The Han Thirty Regiment, which was urgently transferred, attacked the 597.9 Heights in four groups in turn. This regiment actually had some combat effectiveness. At 3:30 p.m. on the 1st, two platoons of the 30th regiment of the division made a detour to attack the main peak position of 597.9.The head of the regiment Lin Yichun was overjoyed when he heard the news, picked up the phone and ordered the commander of the third battalion: "Hurry up and send troops to reinforce them, and we must strengthen the position." Then he asked the staff to find out what the company commander's name was, and prepared to reward him.Before the name could be found, Lin Yichun called again and asked, "Have reinforcements been sent yet?"

The commander of the third battalion said dejectedly: "There is no need to send them." Because it took only one cigarette to attack, the two platoons were driven off the main peak position. Lin Yichun yelled: "Attack again!" He was so angry that he dropped the microphone and cursed: "What a fucking bad luck." In fact, this is not bad luck. For Lin Yichun, the most bad luck was that during the Battle of Jincheng eight months later, the Han Junxiao general who had been promoted to the deputy commander of the "Capital Division" was captured alive by the volunteers at the foot of Yuefeng Mountain.He stayed in the prisoner-of-war camp until the end of the Korean War; he was repatriated together with General Dean, the commander of the US 24th Division.

The 30th Regiment of Han launched an attack in four directions, but they gained nothing in a day of hard work.However, the Fifteenth Army was still a little bit lingering. The two companies of the Eighty-sixth Regiment that went up that night for reinforcements launched a small counterattack and regained all the lost ground on the 597.9 Heights in one go. From dawn to dusk, the 45th Division repelled 23 group charges of 5 battalions of the US and South Korean troops in a row, annihilating more than 1,500 of them. This was the most intense blocking battle since the battle of Shangganling. Qin Jiwei said excitedly that this was his happiest day.

So far, the forty-fifth division's counterattack troops have suffered too many casualties to defend, and the rest of the division can only defend four or five positions.The Eighth Company of the Ninety-first Regiment, which was assembled on standby at Wusheng Mountain, was pulled to Shangganling overnight and took over the seven positions on the 597.9 highland. From then on, the 31st Division of the 12th Army entered the battle for Shangganling regiment by regiment.This is the second time that the 31st Division and the 45th Division have joined forces on the battlefield. In the early winter of 1948, in order to achieve a strategic encirclement of the Liu Zhi Group of the Kuomintang in Xuzhou, the Central Plains Field Army decided that the 27th Brigade of the Nine Columns (the predecessor of the 45th Division) would be assigned to the Three Columns of Chen Xilian, and seize Su County, the throat of the Jinpu Line.The 3rd Vertical and 7th Brigade (the predecessor of the 31st Division) was mainly attacked by the east gate of Suxian County, and the 9th Vertical and 27th Brigade was assisted by the Suxian West Gate.The two brigades attacked the fortresses, advancing east and west.After more than 10 hours of fierce fighting, the two brigades joined forces at the crossroads in the center of Su County.It was a service that wiped out more than ten thousand enemies.

Four years later, history swapped the two powerful armies, assigned the 31st Division to the 15th Army, and fought side by side with the 45th Division. At the beginning of the decisive counterattack, Army Commander Qin Jiwei didn't even take a nap. On the night of the 31st, the 597.9 Heights had all been regained, but he still hadn't left the war room, squinting his bloodshot eyes and meditating.The staff officers knew that the army commander was competing with his old opponent again, so they couldn't help but take their actions lightly. After thinking for a long time, he opened the cloth-covered diary and wrote down his judgment of the enemy: "After today's battle, I judge that the enemy may have three situations: "First, withdraw troops. Because the enemy suffered too many casualties, the enemy had no second echelon, and both the US Seventh Division and the Korean Second Division had defensive tasks, which determined that the enemy had no more force to invest in the attack. "Second, the Ninth Division of Han was dispatched to take turns attacking with the Second Division of Han. This will be more difficult for us and the battle will last longer, but our position cannot be taken away. "Three, the U.S. 7th Division will increase their input, so they must use the 187th Airborne Regiment, but the airborne troops are not as good as infantry troops in combat, and the use of the 187th Regiment shows that the enemy has no second-line troops. "The estimation of the above situation can be seen within two days whether it is correct or not." As Qin Jiwei expected, two days later—on November 2, Van Fleet spared no expense and threw the 187th Airborne Regiment into Shangganling, a tomb that would never be filled. attack. Van Vleet is crazy.The regiment has rich experience in airborne combat, the quality of officers and soldiers and weapons and equipment are first-class in the US military, and its commander is also famous for his rebelliousness. In September 1950, when MacArthur planned the Incheon landing, he asked the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to send an airborne regiment to Seoul to coordinate with the landing.The chiefs of staff of the three armed forces were reluctant to use the airborne troops to fight in North Korea, but in the end they still couldn't resist MacArthur's insistence and decided to send the 187th regiment to participate in the airborne operations in Incheon. Unexpectedly, Colonel Bowen, the head of the 187th regiment, put forward a harsh condition that more than 4,000 officers and soldiers and all heavy weapons and equipment of the regiment should be transported away at one time.The U.S. Air Force and Army made great efforts to piece together a sufficient number of transport aircraft.However, a major liaison officer of the 87th Regiment went to have a look, and he felt that the planes were assembled and the models were messy and inconvenient to command, so he refused to use them.MacArthur, the "overlord" of the U.S. military, had no choice but to order the U.S. Far East Army to organize an organization to deal with air transportation affairs in the theater to specifically solve the problem of airborne transportation. When this coordinating agency resolved the problem, the 187th Regiment was transported from Campbell Camp in Kentucky to Kimpo Airport in South Korea via Japan. Two US infantry divisions had already landed in Incheon for half a month.As a result, MacArthur temporarily assigned the regiment to the US Tenth Army. Major General Almond, the commander of the U.S. Tenth Army, was overjoyed, and suddenly felt that his waist had grown a lot thicker.Soon, U.S. forces occupied Pyongyang.In order to cut off the retreat of a large number of North Korean government agencies and the People's Army, and rob the captured officers and soldiers of the U.S. and South Korean troops, MacArthur used the 87th Regiment to airborne in the Suchuan and Sunchon areas north of Pyongyang. In March of the following year, at the end of the fourth battle, in order to prevent the North Korean People's Army's Northward withdrawal and achieve a battle encirclement, Li Qiwei personally took a dragonfly small reconnaissance plane and commanded the 187th Regiment 3500 troops. Many people were intercepted by airborne in the Wenshanli area where the Korean People's Army must pass.However, the 187th Regiment failed again. Although the two airborne operations failed to achieve the planned combat attempts due to intelligence errors, the regiment's airborne operations were bold and dexterous. Such an elite airborne force, a combat readiness strike force directly controlled by the headquarters of the group army, would not be willing to use it as an ordinary infantry regiment if it were not for the sake of urgency.This also shows how depleted the reserves of the U.S. Eighth Army have been. As soon as the 187th Airborne Regiment launched its attack that day, the garrison of the 45th Division reflected: Today this group of enemies is different from usual, equipped with all automatic weapons and grass-green nylon body armor.The tactics are also very similar, the first is the commando, the middle is the firepower team composed of heavy machine guns, 60 guns and recoilless guns, and the second echelon is the second echelon, forming a continuous attack in depth.Before the impact, the airborne regiment skillfully cast a smoke screen, covered the squad, arranged a small force, and made a tentative attack in an evacuated formation.After the opponent's garrison strength and firepower deployment are ascertained, a thick artillery barrage will be used to support the company and battalion-scale charge.If the attack fails, they will return to the attacking starting position, put together a "T"-shaped air-to-air indicator board, and guide the bombers of the Fifth Air Brigade to carry out the bombing, and then attack again.Played well and well, quite well. However, the infantry and artillery coordination of the 45th Division is more mature, and only a few soldiers are placed in each position, and they are replenished while fighting.Three walkie-talkies were placed on the main peak, calling for artillery fire and instructing to correct the target.Sometimes artillery fire smashed an attack before the enemy could get close to the position. The 187th Airborne Regiment fought more tenaciously than any other team in the US 7th Division, with one wave after another hitting the 597.9 plateau.But by noon they had not been able to break through a single position. At around 4 o'clock in the afternoon that day, the 187th Regiment finally aggressively attacked the No. 10 position on the sharp corner of the 597.9 Heights.However, the joy of American success seemed to be in vain, and it was fleeting. More than a dozen volunteer soldiers followed the impact of the artillery fire more bravely than them, and rushed forward to counterattack in the position. They fired at each other face to face and regained their positions. The soldiers from the eighth company of the ninety-first regiment rushed over. Shangganling successively played the eighth company of 3 heroes.The most famous is the Eighth Company of the 134th Regiment; there is also the Eighth Company of the Ninth Artillery Regiment; the other is the Eighth Company of the 91st Regiment. The sky in early winter is pure and clear, so blue that it has the texture of high-grade golden velvet.A few fluffy clouds floated elastically in the cool and dry monsoon.However, not long after the sun rose above the sea level of the East Korean Gulf, the battle on the 3rd began in a tsunami-like bombardment. Li Changsheng raised his wrist to look at his watch, it was 8 o'clock again.In recent days, the enemy's first attack has always been at this time, and it has become regular.He wondered before eight o'clock.The enemy must have been preparing to attack at some rally point.If we can identify the enemy's assembly point, we can preemptively strike and crush the enemy's attack before the battle begins. He sent a few scouts to lurk to the front of Shangganling under the cover of night to reconnaissance. The scouts were very clever, and they effectively found out that the enemy had assembled in a miscellaneous forest just south of the 597.9 Heights around 4:00 in the morning. Li Changsheng immediately found the head of the rocket launcher group, Duan, and suggested, "Let's take advantage of the enemy's gathering today, and let's attack them first. How about using your rocket launchers to fuck them hard?" Duan said: "Go ahead, our 'Katyushas' are panicking." At 4:30 on the 4th, the rocket artillery regiment fired a volley according to the target position indicated by the scouts of the 91st regiment. Hundreds of powerful rocket shells were fired, and the tail flames flew red to the miscellaneous forest. The forward interception station of the Fifteenth Army immediately listened to the enemy's call in the radio, and reported that it was attacked by our artillery fire and suffered heavy casualties. On this day, the enemy infantry launched an attack at 12 o'clock, and the attack strength was obviously weak. The flames of war burned into the sky on the 5th. From now on, the 597.9 Heights are all defended by the 31st Division. The regiment made a brave assault in the second stage of the fifth Korean campaign, becoming the team with the deepest penetration among the 11 field armies of the Volunteer Army.Later, it was cut off in the depths of the enemy in the Fuzhen area, more than 90 kilometers away from the Volunteer Army's front.Captain Li Changlin resolutely made a detour to break through.The 91st Regiment, which had been out of food for 7 days, carried dozens of wounded, and only relied on finding some soybeans and corn along the way to satisfy their hunger.They didn't lose a single shot along the way, and captured more than 100 prisoners.This move can be called a miracle in the Korean War. Such an ace team swings to the 597.9 high ground, and the battle has not yet started on the 5th, and the ending will be over.Although the fierce battle on this day has created a "Hero of the Democratic Republic of Korea" Hu Xiudao for the regiment, the enemy has been obviously exhausted. The soldiers reported to Li Changsheng: The enemy will be particularly easy to fight in the future. Once dozens of grenades are dropped, an attack wave will collapse. The 29th Division is also a tough team, but when Master Zhang Xianyang saw Li Changlin, the deputy commander of the 31st Division, he still couldn't help praising him and said: "Your 91st Regiment can fight, and the wounded are carried on stretchers." He still hugged the gun and said that he had to continue shooting when he recovered from his injury." In the afternoon of the 5th, the enemy began to cast a smoke screen, tied the corpse's ankles with a rope and dragged it down the position, and retreated hastily. Just when the enemy's last group charge was shattered, a thrilling scene appeared over the main peak of Shangganling: an F-51 attack aircraft of the U.S. Army, which dived to attack and support the infantry, collided with a projectile on the trajectory of our ground artillery. There was a loud noise that tore the eardrums, and a dazzling ball of light suddenly exploded on the chaotic sky covered by the blast dust.In an instant, that colorful light suddenly resplendent the entire battlefield.Then, the wreckage of the plane fell like fiery red rain one after another, presenting a terrifying spectacle of the battlefield. Since then, U.S. military pilots have never dared to fly at ultra-low altitudes. Looking at the enemy's continuous attack on the 597.9 highland in the past five days, it is obvious that there is a downward curve at the end of the battle. The log of the 45th Division records: On the 1st, the battle ended at midnight. On the 2nd, the battle went until dark, and the enemy stopped at 18:00. On the 3rd, the enemy stopped attacking at 17:00. On the 4th, the attack was still stopped at 17:00. On the 5th, at about 15:00, the call was stopped. Since the start of the battle at Shangganling, it has been rare to have such an early battle: Soldiers from both sides went up and down the mountain while enjoying the quiet evening.Niu Genzi, the company commander of the fifth company, and his soldiers ate a meal of steaming steamed buns leisurely and leisurely on the battlefield, and 40 years later he could still smell the oily stuffing. So far, only one third company of the 91st Regiment has not been put into battle.That night, a battalion from the 93rd Regiment came to reinforce the 91st Regiment.At the same time, the follow-up troops of the Twelfth Army were transferred and assembled to Shangganling regiment by regiment like a continuous flow of water, preparing to face a larger-scale counterattack by the enemy. Korean historical records: "November 5th—the operation started at 4 o'clock. Before attacking the triangle mountain, the enemy was disrupted and destroyed all night, and the attack was prepared at the same time. After the smoke covered the triangle mountain, (the 30th One regiment) charged directly at the target. From 6:30, the enemy's artillery fire intensified, and the defenders used machine guns and grenades to block the attack. The battle was extremely fierce. The third battalion of the 30th regiment served as an assist. Starting at 8:15, the battle fell into a stalemate. Suddenly, the division commander ordered: "Stop attacking from 15 o'clock." The whole battalion withdrew from the battlefield at 15:10 and returned to Fengwei. Youyun: "The corps commander decided to stop attacking the 'Triangle Mountain' high ground. Since the 'Showdown Operation' began, the U.S. Seventh Division fought for 12 days, and the Korean Second Division fought for 11 days, which only increased casualties. Plus The bloody battle against the ridge line continued for days, and there was nothing to do if we continued to attack. Therefore, we have decided to end the battle on the 'Triangle Mountain' highland from now on." The U.S. Seventh Division finally collapsed, retreated more than 50 kilometers, and withdrew to the Gapyeong area to rest. The equipment of the South Korean army was inferior to that of the US military, and the casualties were even heavier.The Jiu Division of Han was severely injured, and the Second Division of Han was beaten to pieces. In the 23 days of endless fierce competition, the four regiments of the Second Han Division took turns to enter the battlefield, and replenished more than 2,000 people from the 105th Trainer and the troops directly under the division as they fought, which was still not enough for consumption.In addition, a large number of recruits from the recruit training centers in Busan and Geoje Island were added to the army. Corporal Qian Zhishi of the 17th Regiment of the Korean Army captured in the battle on the 30th was recruited from the 3rd Recruit Regiment to the 2nd Company on the first day.At that time, there were only 15 people in the Second Company, and it was the third time to replenish and rebuild the unit. Jin Shouzan, the second lieutenant platoon leader of the 17th Korean Regiment, recalled the battle on the 1st and said: "When I launched the fourth attack, I looked at the members of the platoon. There were very few acquaintances, and most of them were recruits. I gave the order to attack. , They were too afraid to move, so I had to charge and lead them." Major Li Genshi, the battalion commander of the 1st Battalion of the 32nd Regiment of the Republic of Korea, still remembered clearly after more than ten years: a week after the battle at Shangganling, there were more recruits than veterans in each regiment. The more recruits, the weaker the combat effectiveness, and the greater the casualties; the greater the casualties, the more recruits must be replenished, and the more recruits, the more recruits, thus forming a terrible vicious circle.This kind of supplement that can't stop the car is simply drinking poison to quench thirst.Among the recruits recruited successively by the Second Han Division, only the intelligence department of the Volunteer Army found out that there were 6 recruit regiment numbers. On the afternoon of the 5th, Van Fleet rushed to the overcrowded Jinhua Front Field Hospital to visit the wounded.The captain Kiri, with his chest bandaged, described to his commander's palace the scene of leading the company to reinforce the sixth company with only about 10 people left: "We were beaten to pieces. The radio operators around me and the soldiers in the platoon They were all killed. There was no place to hide there, and the mortar shells fired by the Chinese soldiers were fired every second, which was terrifying." The U.S. military can't stand one mortar shell per second. Didn't they know that on the first day of the battle at Shangganling, the officers and soldiers of the 45th Division fought against the berserk of six large-caliber shells per second. The U.S. military finally restrained its greed for the 597.9 Heights. On the 6th, the press release officer of the U.S. Eighth Army admitted to the press with Western-style frankness: "So far, the coalition forces have been defeated at the Triangle Mountain." The most embarrassing thing for Americans is that this day is the day when the newly elected US President Eisenhower enters the White House. On the afternoon of the 5th, Peng Dehuai, Deng Hua, and Park Yiyu, heads of the China-North Korea Joint Command, jointly sent a call to commend the 15th Army: "Your army has fought bloody battles with the enemy for more than 20 days, and the enemy has concentrated unprecedented superiority in artillery, aircraft, tanks and A large number of infantry groups charged, not only failed to capture our army's position, but also lost the vitality of more than 15,000 people and a large number of shells. The closer the fighting, the fewer casualties in the battle... If the fighting continues like this, "the enemy will surely be defeated". We congratulate you and hope to inspire the whole army to make persistent efforts and fight resolutely until the enemy's local attacks are completely smashed. I wish you success." The Fifteenth Army quickly electronically printed this commendation into a red number and distributed it to every position of the entire army to boost morale. On November 10, Mao Zedong, who had followed the Battle of Shangganling from afar, forwarded this commendation point to the major military regions, various services and arms, and various departments of the Military Commission. On the same day that Peng Dehuai Jiamian Fifteenth Army, the Third Corps of the Volunteer Army drew up a "combat deployment for the 597.9 Heights and 537.7 Heights Beishan": "...for the convenience of command, it was decided to organize the Five Sacred Mountain Operation Command Post. Comrade Li Desheng, the deputy commander of the 12th Army, is responsible for the unified command of the counterattack operations of the 31st and 34th Divisions. Defense). This command post is under the direct command of Commander Qin Jiwei of the 15th Army. In order to unify the artillery command, it was decided to form an artillery command post, and Comrade Yan Fu, the commander of the Seventh Artillery Division, was responsible for the unified command and support of the artillery attached to the frontier operations of the Five Sacred Mountains. Artillery The command post should be close to Comrade Li Desheng's command post to facilitate coordination. The artillery groups under the artillery finger and the various fire groups should not have too many organizational levels so that orders can be issued quickly and timely. "The above is limited to deployment at 12 o'clock on the 6th." On the same day, Zhisi reported the deployment to the central government. On the 7th, Mao Zedong wrote a telegram in the name of the Central Military Commission: "At 11 o'clock on the 6th, I learned that your determination and deployment of strengthening the 15th Army's combat area are correct. The battle near the Five Sacred Mountains has developed into a campaign. scale, and has achieved great victories. I hope you will encourage the army to fight resolutely and strive for overall victory." From then on, the Volunteer Army Headquarters collectively referred to the Battle of 597.9 Highland and 537.7 Highland Beishan as the Battle of Shangganling. The victory in the Battle of Shangganling marked that the Volunteers and the People's Army had fully grasped the initiative in the entire frontal battlefield.The "United Nations Army" has completely lost confidence in winning the frontal front, and has never launched a large-scale ground offensive.The South Korean war history admits: "During the whole winter, no matter defensive or offensive, the initiative was taken away by the enemy backed by superior forces."