Zhu Tian: Beginning to Cross the Changjin Lake

After a long and bloody battle, the 45th Division of the Volunteer Army suffered heavy casualties, and even began to use general staff and cadres to supplement the combat troops and participate in the battle.

But even so, it cannot solve the fundamental problem.

The military headquarters applied to its superiors to allocate 45 new recruits to the th Division to replenish the troops' consumption.

However, new recruits could not be replenished in time, so the corps had no choice but to use the 29th Division, which was the reserve force of the corps. The 29th Division also selected two regiments to participate in the Battle of Shangganling.

The 15th Army has three divisions under its command: the 29th, 44th and 45th Divisions. The 29th Division has always been responsible for the mission of the Corps' reserve.

The 44th Division, the absolute main force, was deployed in the direction of the Pingkang Valley. In order to cooperate with the Battle of Shangganling, the 44th Division also launched an appropriate offensive in the direction of the Pingkang Valley to tie down the enemy forces here and prevent them from reinforcing Shangganling.

In order to support the Battle of Shangganling, not only the 44th Division, but also the Zhisi ordered all the troops on the front line to launch appropriate offensives to tie down the enemy in front of them and prevent the enemy from reinforcing Shangganling.

Therefore, the only one that can support Shangganling now is the 29th Division, the Corps Reserve.

The enemy's main force was tied up in the long line of defense, and our army also tied up a large number of troops.

The casualties in the meat grinder of Shangganling were too fast.

On the 24th, in order to support the troops defending the tunnels, Commander Qin even sent out his own guard company.

This was the first time that the 15th Army used the Army Guard Company, but the results were quite tragic.

Captain Wang led 96 soldiers from the Army Guard Company across the line of fire to provide emergency support for Shangganling.

While crossing the enemy's fire blockade line, Company Commander Wang was unfortunately shot and killed, and a large number of outstanding soldiers fell on the enemy's fire blockade line.

Of the 96-man guard company, only a deputy platoon leader and 24 soldiers successfully entered the tunnel.

Commander Qin was heartbroken because Company Commander Wang had followed Commander Qin during the Taihang Mountains period and had even saved the commander several times. However, this time he died in the Battle of Shangganling, and dozens of outstanding soldiers also died on the fire blockade line.

Commander Qin ordered the bodies to be collected, but no bodies were found. There were only bomb craters of various sizes at the scene.

Our army suffered heavy casualties, but the enemy suffered even greater casualties.

Their other troops were also all tied up, and they could only continuously send new soldiers to the US 7th Division and the South Korean 2nd Division at the front line.

However, the US military did not have so many new recruits to replenish its troops, and in the end it could only recruit new Korean recruits into the US 7th Division.

In one battle, our army captured 12 soldiers from the US 6th Division, and it turned out that of them were South Korean soldiers.

After all, the South Korean army is fighting on its own soil and can continuously recruit new soldiers to the front-line combat troops.

Even so, the US 7th Division could not hold on.

Lieutenant General Van Fleet saw that the 7th US Division had suffered heavy casualties and thought that if the fighting continued, it would probably have to be renamed the 7th Korean Division, so he simply withdrew the 7th US Division.

All the frontline positions were handed over to the Korean 2nd Division. Although the puppet army's nd Division suffered heavy casualties, it could continuously replenish its troops and now became the main force in the Shangganling battlefield.

Of course, it would not be enough to rely on this one division alone, so Lieutenant General Van Fleet transferred the 9th Division of South Korea to protect the flank of the nd Division of South Korea and assist the nd Division of South Korea in launching the attack. He also mobilized the th Division of South Korea as a reserve force.

As a result, the enemy forces on the Shangganling front were basically fought by the Korean army itself.

Of course, during the fierce fighting, Van Fleet also mobilized the Ethiopian and Colombian battalions to join the battle.

As a result, the Egyptian battalion was defeated and reduced to an Ethiopian company within one day of going up. The Colombian battalion was in a similar situation. They were basically wiped out and lost their combat effectiveness.

Van Fleet withdrew the US 7th Division and left the South Korean army to fight on its own, which caused great dissatisfaction among the South Korean army.

Many puppet soldiers were cursing, after all, it was obvious that the Americans were afraid of casualties and sent them to die.

But they had no choice. The U.S. military was there to help. What could they say? Besides, they couldn't afford to offend the American father.

However, the US military did not completely abandon the puppet army. Although the 7th Infantry Division withdrew, there were still many US artillery and air forces on the front line to assist them in combat.

The volunteers gave up their surface positions and retreated to the tunnels to hold their ground.

The enemy also tried every possible means to destroy the tunnels and launch attacks on them.

Every day, the soldiers who defend the tunnels will pay a certain price in casualties.

However, although the enemy occupied these two hills in the past few days, they were simply unable to continue attacking the Five Sacred Mountains.

It was simply wishful thinking to want to complete Van Fleet's mission of capturing the Five Sacred Mountains.

Thanks to Li Guotao's reminder, a large amount of water was stored in the tunnel in advance, so the soldiers in the tunnel did not suffer from serious water shortage during this period.

However, due to the continuous casualties in the troops, the volunteers had no choice but to risk crossing the enemy's fire blockade line and continuously send reinforcements into the tunnels. As a result, a large number of soldiers fell on the enemy's blockade line.

However, our army also deployed a large number of artillery on the front line, and continuously bombarded the enemy during this period, causing huge casualties to the enemy. According to incomplete statistics, most of the enemy casualties during the entire Battle of Shangganling were caused by our artillery.

On the 30th, Li Guotao came to the military headquarters, took out a few pieces of paper from his arms and handed them to the commander.

The commander took it and looked at it carefully, then said with a smile: "Thank you for your hard work. With these things, our artillery will have eyes."

During this period, Li Guotao did not go to the tunnel, but took Wu Qianli and others to infiltrate the enemy's position to investigate the enemy situation.

These pieces of paper showed the enemy's military deployment, with all the military camps and artillery positions clearly marked.

In fact, this information was not obtained by Li Guotao through visual reconnaissance. For Li Guotao, who was in a good condition, there was no need to rely on his eyes to check one by one.

With a system map, it is easy to find out the enemy's deployment map.

In fact, Li Guotao just took Wu Qianli and others to a hidden and safe place for a while before coming back.

Wu Qianli and the others knew about Li Guotao's situation, so they naturally didn't suspect anything. Li Guotao was just worried about arousing other people's suspicion, so he stayed outside for a while before coming back with the information and handing it over to the commander personally.

Moreover, providing this information to the military is far more important than Li Guotao personally going to the battlefield to fight the enemy.

That night, according to the original plan, the Volunteer Army launched a large-scale counterattack.

The Volunteer Army mobilized more than 120 large-caliber heavy artillery and mm heavy mortars, and launched a fierce bombardment on the enemy positions.

Amidst the piercing whistling sound, one artillery shell after another quickly cut through the sky and flew towards the enemy positions like meteors.

"Boom~! Boom~!"

There were loud explosions one after another.

Thanks to the intelligence provided by Li Guotao, the Volunteer Army's artillery shells seemed to have eyes and fell accurately on the enemy's camps and positions.

The enemy's camps and positions behind the enemy were destroyed one after another by artillery fire. In addition to these heavy artillery, the Volunteer Army also used dozens of Katyusha rocket launchers to cover the enemy's positions with firepower.

In just ten seconds, hundreds of rockets fell on the enemy's deep positions and artillery positions.

The US military's artillery was burned to ashes by the high temperature of thousands of degrees.

Many of the enemy's artillery pieces deep inside the country were completely silenced, and the enemy paid a heavy price in casualties that night.

More than one hundred heavy artillery pieces bombarded the enemy positions for four hours.

The artillery positions were littered with discarded shell casings.

The soldiers transporting the shells saw that the shells they had worked so hard to carry were instantly used up by the artillery soldiers. They cried and laughed and cursed: "You losers, I worked so hard to carry them up, and you guys just shoot them like this?"

The artillery soldiers were so excited that their eyes turned red. They said with a smile: "Save the shells for offspring? Send them all to the Yankees."

A gunner broke three gun ropes in a row, and finally replaced them with an iron wire and continued to fire.

That night, the Volunteer Army's transportation lines went crazy, with as many as 15 trucks transporting ammunition to the 144th Army on the front line alone.

At the pre-war mobilization meeting, Deputy Commander Wang of the Corps said: "We must be prepared for huge casualties. Every soldier must be prepared not only to be a squad leader or platoon leader, but also to be a company commander or battalion commander."

And this is indeed the case. There was a new recruit who had just joined the army for a few months. After one battle, he was promoted directly from a soldier to a company commander.

This shows how fierce the battle was and how huge the casualties were.

After four hours of artillery preparation.

At 22:25, the Volunteer Army's fierce attack began.

The soldiers hiding in the tunnels also attacked at the same time to cooperate with the attacking forces.

During this period, the soldiers hiding in the tunnels were actually not idle. They had to deal with the enemy's attacks during the day, and sneak out at night to attack the enemy on the positions, sneak up on the sentries, and blow up the bunkers, making the enemy unable to sleep at night and restless.

After a long period of perseverance, they finally had the moment to launch a major counterattack.

As the enemy had occupied the position for nearly ten days, they had built a large number of fortifications on it.

As a result, the attacking forces also suffered heavy casualties.

Eleven companies from the 45th and 29th Divisions launched an attack at the same time, storming the two heights on the front line of Shangganling.

The battle was extremely brutal. After the soldiers fought hard, at two o'clock in the morning, the brave volunteer soldiers successfully captured Hill 597.9.

More than 1,500 puppet soldiers remained in Shangganling forever, most of whom were killed by our artillery.

In order to capture this high ground, our army suffered hundreds of casualties.

It can be said that every time a position changed hands, it was accompanied by rivers of blood and mountains of corpses.

On the morning of November 11, the angry Korean army sent the White Horse Division, also known as the 1th Division, to launch a large-scale counterattack on Hill 597.9.

The 10th Division had just blocked an attack by the 38th Army in early October, which was the Battle of White Horse Mountain. The enemy was very proud of this battle, and the th Division was therefore given the name of the White Horse Division.

At this moment, the morale of this so-called White Horse Division is high.

The 30th Regiment was dispatched to attack Hill 597.9 and launched 23 consecutive battalion- and company-scale group assaults.

What greeted them was the Volunteer Army's endless bullets, grenades and artillery shells.

The so-called White Horse Division was killed and corpses were scattered all over the ground, and blood flowed like a river.

After a whole day of fierce fighting, more than 1,500 soldiers of the White Horse Division remained on the battlefield of Shangganling forever.

And on that night, the 12st Regiment of the 31st Division of the 91th Army also joined the battle.

At this point, the Volunteer Army had successively deployed three regiments from the 45th Division, two regiments from the 29th Division, and one regiment from the 31st Division.

That night, the volunteers took advantage of the situation to recapture all the positions lost during the day and once again completely occupied Hill 597.9.

On November 11, the enemy once again launched a fierce counterattack on Hill 2. After a day of fierce fighting, thousands of corpses were left on the battlefield again. The Volunteer Army suffered more than 597.9 casualties, but the enemy did not gain an inch of land.

The fierce fighting lasted for several days, and the enemy was never able to capture Hill 597.9.

At dawn on the 5th, the enemy launched an attack on the position under the cover of aircraft and artillery.

A new recruit named Hu from the 91st Regiment who had been in the army for less than a year and a half was ordered to hold position No. 3, which is the main peak position.

The enemy launched several attacks, but was repelled each time. He and another soldier were the only ones still fighting on the position.

By noon, another soldier and two soldiers who came to support him from other positions had all died. He was the only one left on the position and was wounded. However, he was not afraid. He wrapped his wounds and continued to fight. He bravely repelled the Korean army's multiple attacks alone. He fought from dawn to dusk and repelled 41 enemy attacks without losing an inch of territory.

He alone killed and wounded more than 280 South Korean soldiers, creating a glorious example of fighting alone.

On the night of the 5th, the infantry units of the 45th Division were ordered to withdraw from the battlefield, leaving only artillery, communications, observation and logistics agencies to assist the 12th Army in the battle.

By this time, the main force of the Battle of Shangganling became the 12th Army.

12军31师的91，92，93三个团以及34师的106团先后投入了上甘岭战场。

In view of the development of the war situation, the Third Corps of the Volunteer Army also readjusted its command system.

The Wushengshan Command Post was formed, headed by Deputy Commander Li of the 12th Army, to unify the command of the two regiments of the 15th Division of the 29th Army and the five regiments of the 12th Army on the front line.

An artillery command post was established, headed by the commander of the 7th Artillery Division, responsible for unified command of all artillery units.

Under the tenacious resistance of the Volunteer Army, Hill 597.9 was always firmly in the hands of the Volunteer Army, and the enemy could no longer capture this hill.

It took the 12th Army three days to stabilize Hill 597.9.

On November 11, the press officer of the U.S. Eighth Army had to frankly admit: "So far, the coalition forces have been defeated at Triangle Hill."

However, the surface position of the northern hill of Hill 537.7 was still in the hands of the enemy, which was the last straw for the enemy to save face by launching this battle.

If the Volunteer Army had not launched a counterattack on the northern hill of Hill 537.7, the Battle of Shangganling would most likely have ended there.

However, the leaders from the Zhisi to the Corps and even the 15th and 12th Armies did not intend to stop there. They were determined to defeat and terrify the enemy in this battle.

So the headquarters began to intensively plan the battle plan to recapture Hill 537.7. (End of this chapter)