Chapter 6 〇6. Railway guards in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea

After the outbreak of the Korean War, the U.S. military relied on air superiority to blockade important stations, transportation hubs, and material distribution centers in North Korea, and bombed them indiscriminately, posing a serious threat to railway transportation.The Central Military Commission decided to transfer the Railway Public Armored Regiment to North Korea to participate in the war and take on the task of guarding railway tunnels and bridges. In the early days of the founding of New China, in order to restore and build the railway industry of New China, the Sixth Detachment of the Railway Corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army undertook the task of repairing the Beitongpu Railway from Datong to Taiyuan.

In August 1950, when it was restored from Datong to Shuo County, because the Kuomintang remnants and bandit activities were rampant at that time, which directly threatened the safety of the railway transportation and the lives and property of the people along the line, the superior ordered the sixth detachment to accept a new combat mission and go to Beijing from Datong Xizhimen Station was reorganized into the Railway Public Armored Regiment, consisting of 6 armored trains, each of which is a squadron, and each train is equipped with 2 mountain guns, 2 field guns, 2 heavy machine guns, 4 light machine guns, and "six zero" guns 2 guns, 1 anti-aircraft machine gun and other weapons, immediately went to Liuzhou, Guisui, Baotou and other places to carry out the task of protecting roads and suppressing bandits.The troops are fully equipped with firepower, strong combat effectiveness, and flexible. Wherever there is an enemy situation, they will seize the opportunity to attack quickly.In just a few months, a large number of remnants were wiped out.

After the troops received the order to go to North Korea to participate in the war, in mid-July 1951, the armored trains from Liuzhou, Guisui, Baotou and Tangshan were gathered at Shenyang Station to prepare for the war.In order to meet the needs of marching and fighting in the DPRK, the old, weak, sick, and disabled were first streamlined and demobilized; secondly, heavy weapons such as mountain cannons, field cannons, and shells were left on the train, and "sixty" guns, heavy machine guns, and anti-aircraft machine guns were kept on the train. and all ammunition handed over.Then, clean up your personal belongings. Because the troops are stationed on the armored train all the year round, all actions are carried out with the train. In the past, there were no problems with marching on foot and carrying backpacks.Nowadays, the personal belongings of cadres and soldiers have also increased. In addition to the quilts issued by the troops, cadres above the platoon also distribute blankets and leather shoes. Some soldiers issued cloth shoes that they usually don’t want to wear. , Centralized and handed over to the left-behind office for safekeeping.For the needs of the war, the troops were re-equipped with infantry-based equipment.

In order to solve the problem of the language barrier between the troops, each company is equipped with a liaison officer (translator). On September 1, 1951, the troops received an order to go to North Korea.After running for two days and two nights, the train stopped suddenly in the early morning of September 3.The liaison officer inquired with the North Korean railway staff, and only then did he know that he had arrived in Manpo, North Korea.It used to be a station, but it has been destroyed by enemy plane bombing.For safety and to prevent air strikes, the troops were immediately evacuated and arrived at a village at dawn.The village is about 2.5 kilometers away from the station, in a ravine.The houses are all at the foot of the mountain, scattered one by one in the east and one in the west.

Due to the serious damage to the front line, it will not be open to traffic in the near future. In order to reach the destination as soon as possible, we decided to march on foot.This is indeed a difficult task for the troops stationed on the iron-clad trains all the year round. On the armored trains, the march is to follow the train. There is no need to carry backpacks. They can travel hundreds of miles a day and enjoy the scenery along the way. I don't feel the pain and tiredness of marching.It is different now, because the troops before entering the imperial court were fully equipped with weapons and equipment, and they were issued cotton coats and trousers. They also brought their own millet and fried noodles with 5 catties each, with a total weight of more than 70 catties.

During the day, enemy planes kept appearing in the sky, and as soon as they found traces of people and vehicles, they would straf and bomb.It is impossible to act during the day, so we have to rest during the day and march at night. After the sun went down, the troops started to march. Although the road was on the road, because it was a mountainous area, the road was bumpy. After 8 days of marching, they finally arrived at the guard area, the Santoku No. 1 and Santoku No. 2 tunnels and the Shinseongcheon No. 1 bridge in Chengchuan County. The combat readiness materials of the front troops are mainly transported by railway.Relying on its "air superiority", the U.S. military implemented a strict blockade of the volunteer army's rear supply line and carried out a "strangling war."The main tasks of the Railway Public Security Corps: On the one hand, to protect the safety of various vehicles entering the tunnel; on the other hand, to protect the integrity of the tunnel and nearby lines, and to ensure the smooth flow of bridges.

Xinchengchuan is the hub area of ​​the railway, and it is also the target of the enemy plane's key bombing and blockade.The U.S. military regularly sends planes to bomb the area. Over 38,000 bombs were shot in four months along a 73-kilometer road in this area.The bombing by enemy planes is generally carried out during the day, sometimes for two or three days, sometimes for three to five days, very irregular, each time 20 or 30 planes are dispatched and 40 or 50 bombs are dropped, causing serious damage. It is not peaceful at night.The local situation is very complicated. Whenever the station marshals and transfers vehicles at night, some enemy agents will send signal flares to the enemy planes on the nearby mountains.After the enemy plane saw the signal flare, it began to straf and bomb.Sometimes, enemy agents use submachine guns and grenades to attack duty posts, posing a great threat to the troops.

The Railway Public Armored Regiment could not be stationed in the guard area: firstly, the nearby houses were all destroyed by bombing;Generally, they choose to be in a relatively hidden valley not far from the guard target. Regardless of day or night, regardless of severe cold or heat, and sometimes risking enemy planes strafing and bombing, they are on duty on time. In order to better complete the guarding task and prevent enemy agents from attacking, it was necessary to build fortifications, but under the conditions at that time, there was no reinforced concrete, no wood, bricks and tiles, and everyone tried their best to use local materials.Generally, choose a suitable location at the entrance of the tunnel, dig a circular pit with a depth of two feet and a diameter of three feet, and leave a door near the entrance of the tunnel. Cover it with wood, and a simple fortification is completed.

No matter day or night, the railway public security regiment must conduct strict checks on the personnel entering the tunnel to prevent enemy agents from destroying them, and constantly check the nearby lines, especially after the bombing of enemy planes. Once they are found to be bombed, Repairs should be carried out immediately. Soldiers on duty have to walk back and forth in the tunnel every day. Because the locomotive stays in the tunnel during the day, sometimes it takes three to five days if the line is damaged. The black smoke from the locomotive smokes the tunnel into a black hole.After a few days, the new cotton padded clothes just put on turned black and gray, and all the soldiers looked like coal miners.

In order to break the bombing blockade of the U.S. Army and ensure the victory of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, the Railway Public Armored Corps, under the command of the Volunteer Army Headquarters, together with engineering corps, anti-aircraft artillery and other fraternal units, launched a tenacious anti-bombing blockade and anti-"strangulation" with the enemy behind the battlefield. battle" struggle.In combat practice, a special combat form of air defense post was created.The Railway Public Armored Regiment is mainly engaged in guarding tasks, and sometimes assists the logistics force in serving as a night air defense post.

North Korea’s railways and highways are parallel in many places. In addition to railway transportation, there is also a huge car transport team. Cars cannot travel during the day and also at night. On mountainous roads, headlights must be turned on to move forward quickly. Due to driving The motor in the room roars, and the enemy plane can’t hear it when it flies over. Especially the enemy plane also patrols at night and strafes and bombs when it finds a bright light. How to solve this contradiction?The logistics department set up an air defense sentry every 500 meters or so on the highway. If a car turns on its lights and advances, and an enemy night plane approaches, our army will immediately fire a gun to the sky in the direction of the car to call the police. Pat the cab, and the driver immediately turns off the lights when he hears the signal to prevent the enemy plane from capturing the target. The air defense post seems simple, but it is not easy to complete it well.Not only must there be a heroic and tenacious fighting spirit, but also skilled business skills.The soldiers on duty quickly mastered a set of air defense skills during the training of the war.No matter how many planes and cars there are, how noisy the sound is, and no matter how cold the wind is calling, rain and snow, the sound of enemy planes and cars can be accurately identified, the type of enemy plane can be identified, and its performance, activity rules and road safety can be understood. The degree of danger of transportation, so that the vigilant masters the timing of firing a gun and calls the police skillfully, so that the alarm can be timely and accurate. When the Railway Public Armored Regiment took over the defense, the U.S. military was launching the so-called "autumn offensive" on the front line, and the Battle of Shangganling was underway.to stop the Volunteers Personnel and military supplies were transported to the front line, and the enemy intensified the bombing and blockade of Xinchengchuan Station and nearby tunnels and bridges in the guard area of ​​the Railway Public Security Corps. Although they were repeatedly attacked by enemy planes during the march after entering the DPRK, most of them happened at night, and there were one or two enemy night patrol planes. The targets were not accurate, the threat was not great, and no major casualties were caused.But this time it was different. This was the first time that the Railway Public Armored Regiment was subjected to a major bombing blockade. It was also daytime, and the entire target was fully exposed, so the enemy plane had a relatively high hit rate.Seeing the large number of enemy planes and their fierce approach, the guards of the Volunteer Army had no choice but to avoid their sharp edge and withdraw into the depths of the tunnel to hide.At this time, the inside of the tunnel was also shaken, and the clods and gravel on the top fell down.A bomb fell on the entrance of the tunnel, and the collapsed earth and rocks almost blocked the entrance of the tunnel. This kind of key bombing blockade by enemy planes is generally a one-time bombing, and it will return immediately after the bombing.In order to restore and open to traffic as soon as possible, the railway soldiers, Korean railway employees, guard troops and local people worked together around the clock to carry out emergency repairs at the risk of another bombing by enemy planes.The army set up an air defense post on the nearby mountain. When they heard the sound of the engine of the enemy plane, they fired an alarm.Especially in the cold winter, it is very difficult to fill a bomb crater with a depth of 2 meters and an upper diameter of 3 meters. Since it is impossible to take soil, it has to be leveled with some stones and sleepers, and then the sleepers and steel rails are laid. . Enemy planes bombed every three or four days, and sometimes what was damaged last time was damaged by bombing before it was repaired.Yang Liandi, the hero of the railway soldiers, was bombed by enemy planes when he was rushing to repair the Qingchuan River Bridge, and died heroically.No matter how serious the bombing damage of the enemy plane is, it must be repaired after the bombing until it is repaired and opened to traffic. After many observations, the Railway Public Installation Corps has mastered some rules of the enemy planes: when the enemy planes are bombing and blocking, they are all 20 to 30 aircraft groups. There are not only fighter jets but also bombers.The enemy plane dived and dropped bombs over the guarding target. The height of the dive was very low, and at the same time, there were mountains on all sides. After research, it was decided to dig a one-man tunnel and a light machine gun bunker above the hill guarding the target.In order for the light machine gun to rotate flexibly and catch the target in time, everyone used their brains to dig the fortifications into a circle, leaving an earthen platform in the middle, and a rotatable bracket was installed on the earthen platform.The light machine gun is mounted on the movable bracket, which is very convenient and flexible to rotate.And because the enemy planes are flying in the air, erratic, diving, raising, circling, the speed and angle are different, it is difficult to hit the target, so when aiming and shooting, it is necessary to grasp the correct flying speed and direction according to the flying speed and direction of various aircraft. Shooting essentials, increase hit rate.Then, an anti-aircraft shooting group with several light machine guns and 10 rifles was formed. On the first day, the anti-aircraft shooting team entered the position after eating breakfast, but there were only a few patrol planes passing by at high altitude, and there were no fighter planes.The next day, they entered the position again. At around 8:00 am, more than 20 enemy planes flew over to carry out fixed-point bombing.At the same time, the "Eighth Five-Year" artillery, the "37" artillery, the anti-aircraft machine gun, and the anti-aircraft shooting team on the antiaircraft artillery position fired at the same time. I saw hundreds of clouds of shell explosions scattered in the air, and an enemy plane was shot down. A fire broke out and fell to a ravine 3.5 kilometers away, dragging thick smoke.Because it was flying at low altitude, the pilot had no time to parachute. With a loud noise, the enemy plane and the pilot were immediately smashed to pieces. The troops are also struggling logistically. On the first National Day after entering the court, he wanted to improve his life but there was no white flour. The chief secretary managed to borrow a bag of white flour from the health team of a nearby division.There was no meat or vegetables, so I had to buy a few catties of tofu from ordinary people's homes, dig wild vegetables in the fields by myself, and ate a meal of vegetarian dumplings, which finally improved my life.In the future, the supply will still be mainly sorghum rice, and sometimes some white flour can also be received. There was a shortage of green vegetables, and sometimes I had to use the only rations I had to go to my fellow villagers to exchange for some pumpkin and other vegetables.In terms of non-staple food, we mainly provide some dried pickles, tempeh, and a small amount of dried tofu and peanuts. Because the troops could not eat vegetables and meat for a long time, most of the comrades suffered from night blindness, and could not see clearly when it was dark. They had to be led by a comrade with better eyes, which weakened the combat effectiveness and directly affected the protection mission. Finish.After discovering this situation, the regiment headquarters distributed some vitamin pills to the troops, and bought pig liver and beef liver from China to supplement.Later, the regiment headquarters also bought some cabbage, radish and other vegetables from China and distributed them to the companies, but they were pitifully few. The company had nowhere to buy coal for cooking, so they had to burn firewood.Although there are many trees in North Korea, in order to protect the forest resources of North Korea, you can't just go into the mountains to cut down trees, so you have to go to the mountains to pick up some dry branches.Winter is coming, in order to prepare enough fuel for the winter before the heavy snow closes the mountain, the task of 250 kilograms per person can only be completed in a surprise attack, walking three or four miles a day, climbing a very high mountain, picking up a bundle, and carrying it on the shoulders, because It is difficult to walk in the dense mountains and forests, and it takes a lot of effort to carry it every time, and it takes five consecutive days to complete the task. It is also very difficult for the troops to live.Due to repeated bombings by enemy planes in northern North Korea, the larger villages and towns no longer exist, and it is difficult to find complete villages near the guard area, so they had to find a few houses in the valley two or three miles away from the guard area.There was not enough housing, so they had to dig air-raid shelters on the hillside to live. It was okay in summer, but it was not easy in winter, because the northern part of North Korea was cold in winter, and the dripping water turned into ice. A cotton coat. In the coldest days, taking off clothes to sleep is a big problem, because getting into the bed after taking off clothes is like going into an ice cave, so people have to lie next to each other in crowded places, and use each other's bodies to keep warm.The sentries were on duty in the crude fortifications, wearing cotton hats, cotton shoes, and cotton coats. They felt like wearing single clothes, and the cold wind blew and shivered all over.Each shift is on duty for two hours, and only keeps walking to prevent the body from freezing. The army’s logistics supply channels are also not smooth: there is no toothpaste, so I have to rinse my mouth with salt water; there is no soap, so I have to go to the small river and wipe my face with a towel; Rinse off. Cultural and sports life was even more lacking: there were no semiconductor radios and cable broadcasts at that time, and newspapers and periodicals were not read for a long time, the information was blocked, and no news was heard; I wanted to carry out recreational activities but suffered from lack of equipment; I was afraid of enemy air raids. Blackout is very strict. Although the life in the battlefield was very difficult, the troops cleaned the garrison very clean and decorated it beautifully: in the courtyard in front of the gate, white stones were used to form five-pointed stars, doves of peace, and the words "Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Defend the Home and the Country" to decorate and beautify the surrounding environment , to create a comfortable and cheerful atmosphere. On December 21, 1952, the troops were ordered to return home. From September 1, 1951, when Shenyang set off to fight in North Korea, to December 21, 1952, when he was ordered to return to China, the Railway Public Armored Regiment worked closely with brother troops to make the rear railways and highways become "steel that cannot be broken by bombs and cannot be broken." The "transportation line" ensured that combat resources were continuously transported to the front line, broke the myth of the US military's "air superiority", and successfully completed various tasks it assumed.