Chapter 372 9. A tragic page in the history of the War of Liberation

Kinmen, located in the east of Xiamen Island, is 2310 meters away from Xiamen.Great Kinmen Island covers an area of ​​131.7 square kilometers, and Kinmen County is located in the west of the island; Little Kinmen Island covers an area of ​​15 square kilometers.In addition, there are several small islands such as Dadan and Erdan.On the eve of our army launching the battle on Xiamen Island, Kinmen was defended by 4 divisions and 8 regiments belonging to the 22nd Corps of the Kuomintang.The 2 regiments of the 201st Division of the Youth Army are located in the northwest of Dajinmen Island; the 11th Division of the 12th Corps and the 18th Army (one regiment was annihilated in the Battle of Dadeng Island) that was withdrawn from the Chaoshan area to Kinmen took over on the 11th to replace the 45th Division in the east of Dajinmen Island and the defense of the Northeast; the 133rd Regiment of the 40th Division (2 regiments were wiped out in the Battle of Dadeng Island) was located near Kinmen County; the 200th Division of the 5th Army was located in Xiaojinmen.

The liberation of Xiamen Island surprised the Kinmen defenders a lot.In order to strengthen the defense of Jinmen, the Kuomintang army ordered the 12th Corps to withdraw the 18th and 19th armies from the Chaoshan area of ​​Guangdong to Jinmen, increasing the total strength of the Kuomintang defenders to more than 40,000. The head of my 10th Corps believes that Xiamen is a fortress with permanent fortifications. The defenders are the Tang Enbo Group, which has enough troops and has been conquered. However, there are no fortifications in Kinmen. Kinmen is a corps in name, but in fact there are only more than 20,000 people. , and they were all remnants and defeated generals, determined to take advantage of the victory to attack Kinmen, and handed over the entire command responsibility of the Kinmen battle to Xiao Feng, deputy commander of the 28th Army.

According to the instructions of the Corps, the front finger of the 28th Army issued an order to attack Dajinmen Island on October 18: the 244th, 245th, and 246th Regiments of the 82nd Division of the 28th Army, the 251st Regiment of the 84th Division, and the 29th Army The 253rd Regiment of the 85th Division and the 259th Regiment of the 87th Division consisted of 6 regiments, attacking Dajinmen in two echelons.After succeeding, take Xiaojinmen with 2 regiments of the 85th Division. The order stipulates that all troops should be concentrated in one direction, and the split roads should break through between Huwei Township and Longkou. , Then the main force will attack the Kuomintang army in the Shamei and North Taiwushan areas eastward.

The specific deployment is that the 244th, 251st, and 253rd regiments are the first echelon, and the 245th, 246th, and 259th regiments are the second echelon.The first echelon took the regiment as a unit and set off from Dadeng Island, Lianhe, and Aotou respectively. The 244th regiment landed between Longkou and Housha, quickly captured the Houban Mountain and Shuangru Mountain, and controlled the Dajinmen from Qionglin to Shatou. The waist of the island, guarding eastward, covered the 251st and 253rd regiments to attack Kinmen County; the 251st regiment landed between Xibao and Guningtou, quickly captured Hunan and Banglin, and cooperated with the 253rd regiment to attack Kinmen County; the 253rd The regiment landed at Guningtou, quickly occupied Lincuo and Putou, and attacked Kinmen County, annihilating the Kuomintang army in the Western Peninsula.Then, together with the second echelon, they encircled and annihilated the Kuomintang army in the eastern part of the island and liberated the entire island.The battle is scheduled to start on the 20th and is expected to end in 3 days.At the same time, it was decided that the frontline command post of the army would be responsible for organizing and commanding all echelons to cross the sea, and the head of the 82nd Division would uniformly command the landing troops to fight.

After the 28th and 29th armies received the task of attacking Kinmen Island, they made serious preparations for crossing the sea.Since most of the coastal ships were captured or destroyed by the Kuomintang army, it was very difficult to collect ships.By the 20th, only more than 100 wooden boats had been collected, and some still needed repairs, which were far from meeting the needs of crossing the sea.In this case, with the consent of the Corps, the 28th Army postponed the start of the battle to the 23rd. On the 21st, the 10th Corps discovered that the headquarters of the 12th Corps of the Kuomintang Army had arrived at Jinmen Bay, and the rest of the troops also started shipping from the Chaoshan area, and their whereabouts were unknown. On the 23rd, it was also learned that the 118th Division of the Kuomintang had arrived in the Kinmen waters, and that the follow-up troops were on the way, and asked Chiang Kai-shek for instructions (actually, most of the 12th Corps had landed on the Great Kinmen Island at this time).

The head of the 10th Corps has three possibilities for judging its whereabouts: one is to replace the 22nd Corps for defense; the other is to withdraw to Taiwan; the third is to strengthen the defense of Jinmen.At this time, the 28th and 29th armies had gathered ships that could carry 3 regiments. Based on this, it was decided to take the 12th Corps before they all arrived to capture Kinmen.The head of the 10th Corps predicted that three regiments would be transported to land for the first time that night, and after the return flight, two more regiments would be transported, and the strength of five regiments would be transported that night, which would be enough to consolidate the position and eliminate the Kuomintang army on the island.In order to make further preparations, it was decided to extend the time for one more day and launch the battle on the night of the 24th.

On the morning of the 24th.The 28th Army convened the heads of all divisions to hold the last battle meeting before attacking Kinmen to check the preparations. From 18 to 19:00, the three regiments of the first echelon successively boarded nearly 300 wooden boats and were on standby to set off.Due to insufficient ships, the combat companies of each regiment could not finish the first batch of shipments, leaving 1 or 2 companies waiting for continued transportation. At 20 o'clock that night, the 244th and 253rd regiments departed from Lianhe and Aotou Northeast Harbors respectively, and sailed towards Dadeng Island to join the 251st regiments that sailed from the island on the sea.

At 24:00, the three regiments headed for Dajinmen from the sea of ​​Dadeng Island. At that time, the sky was dark, and the sea was blowing with three or four northeast winds. Since the preparations for the attack were not yet fully ready, the ships were temporarily assigned after the order was issued, and the temporary formation However, most of the recruited boatmen are from Fuzhou and Quanzhou. They are not familiar with the waterway and have not conducted drills with the troops.In addition, the command post of the 82nd Division was unable to move with the fleet due to insufficient ships, and communication was poor. All regiments lost the command of their superiors.Therefore, soon after the fleet set off, it gradually became disordered and could not maintain a complete sailing formation.The regiments sailed on their own, and when they approached the shore of the island, the tide coincided with the ebb, and they were blocked by fierce artillery fire from the Kuomintang army on the island, causing some casualties.

Around 2 o'clock on the 25th, each regiment began to land and break through on the 10-kilometer front. The 244th regiment landed scattered between Lancuo and Longkou; The artillery attack caused nearly 1/3 of the casualties; the 253 regiment landed in Guningtou and the area east of it. After the regiments landed, not only did they not organize ships to return to pick up the second echelon, but except for the 253rd regiment which consolidated the landing field, the rest of the troops did not take measures to consolidate the landing field.At the same time, the regiments lacked a unified command and failed to restore the organizational system in time. The commanders above the battalion commanded no more than one company.

Under the control of the tactical thinking of "several people fight several people, do not wait, do not hesitate, plunge in", according to the established combat direction, the troops scattered and penetrated in depth.Before dawn, advance to Xishan, Guanyintingshan, Huwei, Hunan Highland, Anqi, and Putou. At 4 o'clock in the morning on the 25th, the 2 regiments of the 118th Division of the 12th Corps and the 18th Army of the Kuomintang Army, which had just arrived in Kinmen, together with the 2 regiments of the 201st Division of the original defenders on the island, launched a partial counterattack against the PLA. The 18th and 14th Divisions of the 19th Army, with the support of tanks and artillery, launched a full-line counterattack against the PLA in three routes. At 8 o'clock, planes and ships were dispatched to bombard the PLA positions and ships that had not returned.

The battle was extremely fierce. The landing troops fought fiercely with the Kuomintang army all day long, causing heavy casualties. The commander of the 244th regiment, Xing Yongsheng, was seriously injured and still led the soldiers to fight bravely. By 12 noon, the ammunition was exhausted, and most of the regiment personnel died .Liu Tianxiang, head of the 251st Regiment, led the main force to fight fiercely until 15:00, with nearly a thousand casualties. Withdrew from the 7 assaults of the Kuomintang army, and then led the remaining 2 squads to break through to Guningtou and join the 253rd regiment.The troops holding on to the Guningtou and Lincuo areas repelled many attacks from the Kuomintang army. At dusk, the Kuomintang army suffered heavy casualties and was forced to stop attacking and readjust their deployment. The ships used by the first echelon were stranded because there was no organization to command them to return, and they ran aground at low tide after landing. They were bombed by the Kuomintang navy and air force, and all of them were lost.In order to relieve the danger of the landing troops, the 10th Corps ordered the emergency mobilization of ships.However, some of the ships attacking Xiamen were damaged and could not be used, and some were carrying spoils. Only ships carrying 4 companies were collected. The 246th regiment commander Sun Yuxiu led 2 companies of the 246th and 259th regiments to go to reinforcements immediately. At 3 o'clock on the 26th, two companies of the 246th regiment landed in Huwei Township. After a bitter battle, they joined the troops of Guningtou. Ningtou landed. At dawn on the 26th, the Kuomintang army, supported by tanks and artillery, launched another attack on the People's Liberation Army that was holding on to Guningtou. Luo Zhuoying, deputy chief of the Southeastern Military and Political Chief Office of the Kuomintang, and Hu Lian, commander of the 12th Corps, also arrived in Kinmen to supervise the battle.After repelling many attacks by the Kuomintang army, the landing troops who stood firm in the area of ​​about 1.8 square kilometers in Guningtou and Lincuo took advantage of the darkness to break through to the sea at 22:00, but failed to find the ship, so they went to Southeastern mountain shift. On the afternoon of the 27th, they were discovered and surrounded by the Kuomintang army in Shuangrushan. The bloody battle lasted until the afternoon of the 28th. In the battle to attack Kinmen Island, more than 9,000 Kuomintang troops were killed or wounded, but the two groups of the People's Liberation Army landed on the island with a total of 3 regiments of 9,086 people (including 350 boatmen and civilian husbands), all of which were lost.This was the biggest defeat of the People's Liberation Army in the War of Liberation.