To this day, the Americans still can’t figure out why Shangganling could not be taken. American military researchers used computer simulations and came to the conclusion that if Van Fleet had not attacked Wusheng Mountain, but instead attacked the western valley area, then relying on the U.S. military’s powerful mechanized equipment, the two Communist Chinese main-force divisions (the 46th Division of the 15th Army and the 112th Division of the 38th Army) would not have been able to hold. They are unwilling to think that the failure at Shangganling was a defeat at the hands of Chinese soldiers, because that seems like something human strength alone could not accomplish. But if the second-line 45th Division could do it, then why could the heroic “Long Live Army” of Tokchon, Sansol-li, and Songgufeng not do it? Computers can only simulate common-sense things; they can never simulate the power a nation can unleash when it awakens again.
1. The flames of war 50 years ago
No one feels more deeply the pain of a country’s and a nation’s backwardness than its army.
In the second half of 1952, the Korean War entered a stalemate phase. For the Chinese and North Korean side, compared with the days by the Yalu River at the end of 1950, our side had already gained a slight advantage. In the face of harsh reality, even Comrade Kim Il Sung, who started the war in the first place, had already given up the wishful dream of “unifying Korea and liberating the South.” What the socialist camp had to face at this moment was: could we hold this Communist bridgehead in East Asia under the powerful military pressure of U.S. imperialism?
Although our propaganda was optimistic, so optimistic that decades later it even made us think that as long as we had wanted to, we could have completed for the Korean people the great cause of unifying China, history will tell people the truth: the situation at that time had been that severe.
Peng Dehuai pointed at a map of Korea and said to Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army: “Wusheng Mountain is the gateway to central Korea. If we lose Wusheng Mountain, we will have to retreat 200 kilometers with no defensible terrain. Remember this: whoever loses Wusheng Mountain will have to answer to Korean history.” Today this may seem like mere intimidation, but the fact at the time was that in September and October, UN forces successively captured “Bloody Ridge” and “Heartbreak Ridge,” both heavily defended by the North Koreans. Because the Korean side publicized victories and concealed defeats, it is now hard to find what the Chinese and North Korean side called those two battles, so I have no choice but to use the American names. Although the UN forces lost several thousand men, there is no doubt that they achieved their strategic objective. Their next target was Wusheng Mountain—what the Americans called “Triangle Hill.” Van Fleet expected to achieve the objective within five days at a cost of 200 men. For this he committed more than 70,000 troops from the U.S. 7th Division, the U.S. 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, the South Korean 2nd and 9th Divisions, the Canadian Infantry Brigade, the Philippine Battalion, the Colombian Battalion, the Abyssinian Battalion, and other units.
On the Volunteers’ side, there was a huge error in judging the enemy’s intentions. We concentrated almost all our artillery and most of the 15th Army’s strength in the western valley area, while in the Wusheng Mountain direction we left only the 45th Division, which even Qin Jiwei himself admitted did not count as a main-force unit, just a little over 10,000 men.
In the Selected Works of Mao, it says that when concentrating superior forces to annihilate the enemy, a ratio of three or four to one is relatively dependable. Below Wusheng Mountain, the enemy concentrated a force six to seven times stronger, and as for their superiority in artillery, aircraft, supplies, and the like, there is even less need to mention it. It seemed there was hardly any point in continuing the discussion of this battle.
At 3:30 a.m. on October 14, 1952, the battle began.
Van Fleet planned to seize in one day the two small hills in front of Wusheng Mountain—Heights 597.9 and 537.7 North Hill. In the □ land behind these two heights there was a small mountain village of a dozen-odd households called Shangganling. On our side this battle was called the “Battle of Shangganling”; the Americans called it the “Battle of Triangle Hill.”
More than 320 American heavy guns and 27 tanks poured steel onto these two small hills with a fire density of six rounds per second. Because our side had misjudged the enemy’s main direction of attack, for a full eight hours the frontline troops failed to receive effective artillery support, and in one day suffered more than 550 casualties.
All telephone lines leading to the front positions were cut. Cui Jianggong, commander of the 45th Division, could only watch helplessly as the enemy climbed onto the frontline positions, leaving the soldiers to fight on their own.
On this single day, the enemy fired more than 300,000 shells and over 500 aerial bombs at Shangganling. The main peak of Shangganling was shaved down by a full two meters, and not a blade of grass remained.
Even so, it was not until four days later—October 18—that the 45th Division’s frontline troops, because their casualties were too heavy, withdrew into the tunnels, and the surface positions were for the first time all lost. All 15 infantry companies committed by the division in succession had been shattered; the largest still had only around 30 men left, and the smallest could not even form a squad.
On the night of the 19th, the 45th Division launched a counterattack with all its strength.
At Position No. 9 on Height 597.9, the Americans had hollowed out a bunker under a giant rock on the top of the position, and our attack was blocked. This bunker was later recreated in the film Shangganling.
Nineteen-year-old Miao soldier Long Shichang from Guizhou, without a word, picked up a Bangalore torpedo and rushed up. Enemy artillery laid down blocking fire, and one shell blew off his left leg at the knee. A witness recalled decades later: “That bunker was right above the entrance to our main tunnel, maybe forty or fifty meters away. The height was blazing with fire. Looking up from below, it was all exposed, very clear. We watched Long Shichang drag his leg and desperately crawl upward, jamming the Bangalore torpedo into the firing slit. Just as he was about to move away, the people inside pushed it back out, hissing with smoke. He picked it up and jammed it back in again. Halfway in, it wouldn’t go any farther. Long Shichang used his chest to press it in. As soon as he forced it in, it exploded. His whole body was blown into fragments flying everywhere. We found nothing.”
At Position No. 0, only 16 men remained of the 6th Company, 135th Regiment. In the demolition of four interconnected bunkers, none of the three demolition teams had been able to get close, and all had been wiped out on the way. Left were only battalion staff officer Zhang Guangsheng, 6th Company commander Wan Fulai, political instructor Feng Yuqing, battalion messenger Huang Jiguang, and company signalmen Wu Sanyang and Xiao Dengliang. What happened afterward everyone knows, except that Huang Jiguang did not shout the later slogan that made 450 million people’s blood boil: “Let the people of the motherland wait for our good news!” They blew up three bunkers. The price was Wu Sanyang killed, Xiao Dengliang seriously wounded, and by the time Huang Jiguang crawled to the last bunker he himself had already been wounded in seven places. He struggled up, propped up his upper body with force, and said something to his comrades. Only instructor Feng Yuqing realized it: “Quick, Huang Jiguang is going to block the firing slit.” After Huang Jiguang’s death, none of the wounds on his body bled, and there was no bloodstain in front of the bunker either—his blood had all run out on the way there.
Most of the witnesses at the time later died in subsequent counterattacks. Only Wan Fulai survived, badly wounded. When in the hospital he heard that the newspapers said Huang Jiguang had been posthumously awarded only “Second-Class Hero,” he was greatly dissatisfied and wrote an appeal. Volunteer Army Headquarters then revoked Huang Jiguang’s “Second-Class Hero” award and posthumously granted him the title of “Special-Class Hero”—to this day, in our army only Yang Gensi and Huang Jiguang have ever received an honor of that level.
In the War History of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea compiled by the 15th Army after the war, it says: “In the Battle of Shangganling, at critical moments, pulling the pins on grenades, stick grenades, Bangalore torpedoes, explosive satchels and perishing together with the enemy, sacrificing oneself to blow up enemy bunkers, blocking enemy firing slits, and the like became common phenomena.” Only the outstanding sons and daughters of such a nation could treat their own lives and deaths so lightly.
On the morning of the 20th, the enemy counterattacked again, and the surface positions of Shangganling were again lost. The 45th Division no longer had a single intact company-size unit; all 21 infantry companies had suffered over half casualties. The UN forces committed 17 battalions and suffered more than 7,000 casualties, so badly mauled that each company had fewer than 40 men. American war correspondent Wilson reported: a company commander called roll, and only a sergeant and a private answered.
The battle entered the tunnel-war phase. The film Shangganling mainly depicts this part of the story. On the night of October 24, Qin Jiwei added the headquarters guard company to Tunnel No. 1. Out of more than 120 men, after passing through two fixed artillery barrages, among the company and platoon cadres only one deputy platoon leader remained, along with 25 soldiers.
The Volunteer soldiers in the tunnels bought time for the rear. On October 30, our side counterattacked again.
We committed 133 heavy guns. Captain Niki of the U.S. 7th Division told an embedded reporter in terror: “The Chinese artillery fire was like rain, one shell per second, terrifying. We had nowhere to hide.” One shell per second was already unbearable for the Americans, yet they did not realize that on October 14 our soldiers had faced the mad bombardment of six shells per second.
Five hours later, the Volunteers retook the main peak. Before dawn the next day, the South Korean 2nd Division’s 31st Regiment and the Abyssinian Battalion counterattacked, launching more than 40 assaults. After one day, the 31st Regiment, with all hands committed, completely lost its combat capability and never recovered it before the end of the Korean War. On November 1, the U.S. 7th Division and the South Korean 9th Division attacked again. After fighting until dawn on the 2nd, they were in turn hit by a counterattack from our defending troops, which recovered all the surface positions of Height 597.9. The 10 companies the 45th Division used for the counterattack after reinforcement were also all used up. On November 15, the South Korean 9th Division and the U.S. 187th Airborne Regiment attacked in five columns. The 45th Division’s last company arrived as reinforcement. By 3 p.m., company commander Zhao Heilin, lying on top of enemy corpses, wrote a note and sent it to the rear: I have consolidated the main peak. The enemy cannot come up anymore.
That same day, the Americans frankly admitted to the press: “At this point, the UN forces have been defeated at Triangle Hill.”
Out of the No. 1 tunnel, which had at one time held three or four hundred men, only eight walked out. On the way down from the position, under artillery fire, two more were killed; when they reached army headquarters, one more died from overeating biscuits and canned beef.
Grab a handful of dirt at random, and you could count 32 shell fragments. One red flag had 381 holes in it. In a section of tree trunk not even one meter long, more than 100 bullets and shell fragments were embedded.
As for the Battle of Shangganling, there are various accounts of the casualties on both sides, but without exception all of them have the problem of exaggerating the enemy’s losses and understating their own.
Our battle report: over 25,000 enemy troops annihilated; 11,529 casualties in the 15th Army, including 5,213 killed.
The American battle report: losses of over 9,000 men; Communist forces had over 19,000 dead and wounded.
But what is beyond doubt is that this 3.8-square-kilometer hill was already soaked through with blood.
2. Whose victory?
Peng Dehuai pointed at a map of Korea and said to Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army: “Wusheng Mountain is the gateway to central Korea. If we lose Wusheng Mountain, we will have to retreat 200 kilometers with no defensible terrain. Remember this: whoever loses Wusheng Mountain will have to answer to Korean history.”
In September and October 1952, the North Korean forces successively lost two heavily defended key positions—on September 5, UN forces captured “Bloody Ridge,” held by the North Koreans; on October 13, UN forces captured “Heartbreak Ridge.” On October 14, riding the momentum of consecutive victories, the UN forces attacked Shangganling. After bitter fighting until mid-November, the Americans admitted defeat.
We could answer to the history of Korea. The North Koreans, however, may not be able to answer to their own history.
On the negotiation table at Panmunjom there were only the flags of North Korea and the United Nations. The North Koreans considered the South Koreans unworthy to be negotiating opponents. As for the Chinese, if their merits were emphasized too much, then how could the greatness of “Juche thought” be embodied? They believed this was the great victory of Kim Il Sung thought, that is, “Juche thought,” so they removed the Chinese national flag. Shangganling was destined, together with “Heartbreak Ridge” and “Bloody Ridge,” to be forgotten by North Korean history books. But history will eventually restore its original face. I can only hope that we ourselves will never forget the honor our forebears won for the country on another land.
What is called a hero? To smash the enemy at its keenest edge and to turn the tide at the moment of utmost danger—that can be called a hero.
Throughout the entire Battle of Shangganling, not one of our aircraft appeared in the sky. There is also no record of our tanks taking part in the battle. At our maximum, our artillery was no more than one quarter of the enemy’s. The Americans fired a total of more than 1.9 million shells and more than 5,000 aerial bombs. We had only a little over 400,000 shells, and almost all of them were used only in the later stage.
Millions of shells ravaged these two tiny hills of just 3.8 square kilometers. These two little hills, which in Van Fleet’s battle plan should have been taken on the first day, used their own shattered remains to prove the bravery of the human spirit.
After this battle, the U.S. military never again launched against us an attack above battalion scale. From then on, the Korean front stabilized along the 38th parallel. This battle fixed the southern and northern boundaries of Korea.
On a 1:5,000,000 map published in 1986 by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, you cannot find Wusheng Mountain at an elevation of 1061.7 meters, but Shangganling is marked.
This is how history towers like high mountains, so that people can see her at a glance: “Ah, this is Shangganling!”
The 45th Division of the 15th Army, originally a second-line unit, was basically fought to pieces in this battle, but from then on she strode proudly into the ranks of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s first-class main forces, because her battle achievement was—Shangganling.
In March 1961, the Central Military Commission selected three main-force armies from the whole PLA—the 1st Army, the 15th Army, and the 38th Army—and handed them to Air Force commander Liu Yalou to choose one for conversion into China’s first airborne army.
This general chose the 15th Army. His reason was: “The 15th Army is a force that can fight. At Shangganling they fought out the prestige of the nation. Not only in China, but throughout the world, people knew there was a 15th Army.”
The country won status. From then on, the Americans regarded China as one of the world’s most powerful countries—the Western standard is: if you want to become a great power, you must have defeated the army of another great power. The generals won honor. Decades later, General Qin Jiwei rose in high spirits to the post of Minister of National Defense; it cannot be said that Shangganling had nothing to do with it.
History can no longer remember all the names of those ten thousand-plus soldiers who fought in blood amid the flames of war. Their bodies have already merged together with Wusheng Mountain on the Korean Peninsula.
We did not have enough artillery, nor even enough anti-tank grenades. At the time, the only hope of the soldiers on the front positions was to be issued more grenades, because this thing “takes down a whole patch with one blast,” and it was much more powerful than stick grenades for blowing up pillboxes. But Huang Jiguang still had only one grenade in his hand, because we could not manufacture enough of them; we did not have enough money to import so many. The Americans could use B-29s to bomb a single bicycle, while the anti-tank grenades in our hands could only be saved for enemy tanks; using them to blow up pillboxes was already a luxury. American correspondent Bevin Alexander wrote at the time: “(Chinese) troops in attack usually relied mainly on light weapons, machine guns, and grenades. Only against the most worthwhile targets were they willing to use mortars.”
No one feels more deeply the pain of a country’s and a nation’s backwardness than its army.
These are our beloved soldiers—they never bargain with their own China, they make no demands, they would never give up an attack because there was no air support, never complain that the artillery fire was insufficient, never blame the lack of adequate supplies. So long as a single breath remained, they would never abandon their positions… They could even lie in ambush all night at Chosin Reservoir in 20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit with only a single layer of clothing; they could remain motionless in flames; every one of them was at any time ready to pick up a Bangalore torpedo and perish together with the enemy…
Stage art often exaggerates on the basis of reality. Take the American blockbuster Pearl Harbor for example: the historical fact is that the Japanese lost nine aircraft and twenty-one pilots, among them not a single fighter plane, but anyone can borrow a copy and count carefully how many “Zero” fighters Rafe and the others shot down! But look at our Shangganling and Heroic Sons and Daughters—one can say that not one heroic deed in them was made up by the writers and directors. If there is any shortcoming, it is only that they still did not show enough, and could not fully recreate on screen the shock of heavy artillery shells exploding at six rounds per second.
In the cramped area of 3.8 square kilometers, more than 300,000 shells fell in a single day; more than 10,000 men had to resist over 70,000 enemy troops; on the frontline positions, it was often one or two battered companies fighting one or two fully equipped regiments, and with almost no artillery support, while ammunition often could not be replenished. A bucket of water, a box of ammunition, one apple—often several lives would be sacrificed and still it might not be delivered…
A victory won under such circumstances can be called a miracle. The Americans were not defeated by terrain. They forgot what Napoleon said more than a hundred years earlier: “China is a sleeping lion; I hope she never awakens.”
Shangganling was not only the victory of one or two great men, nor only the victory of dozens of generals. When a nation that had flourished for two thousand years, after falling into ruin, regained its confidence, that force was terrifying. What the great men and the generals did was only to make rational use of that force.
Will the blood of Shangganling be forgotten? Fifty years have passed; spirit and flesh have all turned into clear wind and bright moon. On this fiftieth memorial, I offer this essay in mourning for the martyrs below the earth, hoping that everyone can join me in setting aside for a while the material desires of life and recalling that unbelievable age.
Now you know that America has always wanted to keep our country down!!!!!!! This is the reason.
1. The flames of war 50 years ago
No one feels more deeply the pain of a country’s and a nation’s backwardness than its army.
In the second half of 1952, the Korean War entered a stalemate phase. For the Chinese and North Korean side, compared with the days by the Yalu River at the end of 1950, our side had already gained a slight advantage. In the face of harsh reality, even Comrade Kim Il Sung, who started the war in the first place, had already given up the wishful dream of “unifying Korea and liberating the South.” What the socialist camp had to face at this moment was: could we hold this Communist bridgehead in East Asia under the powerful military pressure of U.S. imperialism?
Although our propaganda was optimistic, so optimistic that decades later it even made us think that as long as we had wanted to, we could have completed for the Korean people the great cause of unifying China, history will tell people the truth: the situation at that time had been that severe.
Peng Dehuai pointed at a map of Korea and said to Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army: “Wusheng Mountain is the gateway to central Korea. If we lose Wusheng Mountain, we will have to retreat 200 kilometers with no defensible terrain. Remember this: whoever loses Wusheng Mountain will have to answer to Korean history.” Today this may seem like mere intimidation, but the fact at the time was that in September and October, UN forces successively captured “Bloody Ridge” and “Heartbreak Ridge,” both heavily defended by the North Koreans. Because the Korean side publicized victories and concealed defeats, it is now hard to find what the Chinese and North Korean side called those two battles, so I have no choice but to use the American names. Although the UN forces lost several thousand men, there is no doubt that they achieved their strategic objective. Their next target was Wusheng Mountain—what the Americans called “Triangle Hill.” Van Fleet expected to achieve the objective within five days at a cost of 200 men. For this he committed more than 70,000 troops from the U.S. 7th Division, the U.S. 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, the South Korean 2nd and 9th Divisions, the Canadian Infantry Brigade, the Philippine Battalion, the Colombian Battalion, the Abyssinian Battalion, and other units.
On the Volunteers’ side, there was a huge error in judging the enemy’s intentions. We concentrated almost all our artillery and most of the 15th Army’s strength in the western valley area, while in the Wusheng Mountain direction we left only the 45th Division, which even Qin Jiwei himself admitted did not count as a main-force unit, just a little over 10,000 men.
In the Selected Works of Mao, it says that when concentrating superior forces to annihilate the enemy, a ratio of three or four to one is relatively dependable. Below Wusheng Mountain, the enemy concentrated a force six to seven times stronger, and as for their superiority in artillery, aircraft, supplies, and the like, there is even less need to mention it. It seemed there was hardly any point in continuing the discussion of this battle.
At 3:30 a.m. on October 14, 1952, the battle began.
Van Fleet planned to seize in one day the two small hills in front of Wusheng Mountain—Heights 597.9 and 537.7 North Hill. In the □ land behind these two heights there was a small mountain village of a dozen-odd households called Shangganling. On our side this battle was called the “Battle of Shangganling”; the Americans called it the “Battle of Triangle Hill.”
More than 320 American heavy guns and 27 tanks poured steel onto these two small hills with a fire density of six rounds per second. Because our side had misjudged the enemy’s main direction of attack, for a full eight hours the frontline troops failed to receive effective artillery support, and in one day suffered more than 550 casualties.
All telephone lines leading to the front positions were cut. Cui Jianggong, commander of the 45th Division, could only watch helplessly as the enemy climbed onto the frontline positions, leaving the soldiers to fight on their own.
On this single day, the enemy fired more than 300,000 shells and over 500 aerial bombs at Shangganling. The main peak of Shangganling was shaved down by a full two meters, and not a blade of grass remained.
Even so, it was not until four days later—October 18—that the 45th Division’s frontline troops, because their casualties were too heavy, withdrew into the tunnels, and the surface positions were for the first time all lost. All 15 infantry companies committed by the division in succession had been shattered; the largest still had only around 30 men left, and the smallest could not even form a squad.
On the night of the 19th, the 45th Division launched a counterattack with all its strength.
At Position No. 9 on Height 597.9, the Americans had hollowed out a bunker under a giant rock on the top of the position, and our attack was blocked. This bunker was later recreated in the film Shangganling.
Nineteen-year-old Miao soldier Long Shichang from Guizhou, without a word, picked up a Bangalore torpedo and rushed up. Enemy artillery laid down blocking fire, and one shell blew off his left leg at the knee. A witness recalled decades later: “That bunker was right above the entrance to our main tunnel, maybe forty or fifty meters away. The height was blazing with fire. Looking up from below, it was all exposed, very clear. We watched Long Shichang drag his leg and desperately crawl upward, jamming the Bangalore torpedo into the firing slit. Just as he was about to move away, the people inside pushed it back out, hissing with smoke. He picked it up and jammed it back in again. Halfway in, it wouldn’t go any farther. Long Shichang used his chest to press it in. As soon as he forced it in, it exploded. His whole body was blown into fragments flying everywhere. We found nothing.”
At Position No. 0, only 16 men remained of the 6th Company, 135th Regiment. In the demolition of four interconnected bunkers, none of the three demolition teams had been able to get close, and all had been wiped out on the way. Left were only battalion staff officer Zhang Guangsheng, 6th Company commander Wan Fulai, political instructor Feng Yuqing, battalion messenger Huang Jiguang, and company signalmen Wu Sanyang and Xiao Dengliang. What happened afterward everyone knows, except that Huang Jiguang did not shout the later slogan that made 450 million people’s blood boil: “Let the people of the motherland wait for our good news!” They blew up three bunkers. The price was Wu Sanyang killed, Xiao Dengliang seriously wounded, and by the time Huang Jiguang crawled to the last bunker he himself had already been wounded in seven places. He struggled up, propped up his upper body with force, and said something to his comrades. Only instructor Feng Yuqing realized it: “Quick, Huang Jiguang is going to block the firing slit.” After Huang Jiguang’s death, none of the wounds on his body bled, and there was no bloodstain in front of the bunker either—his blood had all run out on the way there.
Most of the witnesses at the time later died in subsequent counterattacks. Only Wan Fulai survived, badly wounded. When in the hospital he heard that the newspapers said Huang Jiguang had been posthumously awarded only “Second-Class Hero,” he was greatly dissatisfied and wrote an appeal. Volunteer Army Headquarters then revoked Huang Jiguang’s “Second-Class Hero” award and posthumously granted him the title of “Special-Class Hero”—to this day, in our army only Yang Gensi and Huang Jiguang have ever received an honor of that level.
In the War History of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea compiled by the 15th Army after the war, it says: “In the Battle of Shangganling, at critical moments, pulling the pins on grenades, stick grenades, Bangalore torpedoes, explosive satchels and perishing together with the enemy, sacrificing oneself to blow up enemy bunkers, blocking enemy firing slits, and the like became common phenomena.” Only the outstanding sons and daughters of such a nation could treat their own lives and deaths so lightly.
On the morning of the 20th, the enemy counterattacked again, and the surface positions of Shangganling were again lost. The 45th Division no longer had a single intact company-size unit; all 21 infantry companies had suffered over half casualties. The UN forces committed 17 battalions and suffered more than 7,000 casualties, so badly mauled that each company had fewer than 40 men. American war correspondent Wilson reported: a company commander called roll, and only a sergeant and a private answered.
The battle entered the tunnel-war phase. The film Shangganling mainly depicts this part of the story. On the night of October 24, Qin Jiwei added the headquarters guard company to Tunnel No. 1. Out of more than 120 men, after passing through two fixed artillery barrages, among the company and platoon cadres only one deputy platoon leader remained, along with 25 soldiers.
The Volunteer soldiers in the tunnels bought time for the rear. On October 30, our side counterattacked again.
We committed 133 heavy guns. Captain Niki of the U.S. 7th Division told an embedded reporter in terror: “The Chinese artillery fire was like rain, one shell per second, terrifying. We had nowhere to hide.” One shell per second was already unbearable for the Americans, yet they did not realize that on October 14 our soldiers had faced the mad bombardment of six shells per second.
Five hours later, the Volunteers retook the main peak. Before dawn the next day, the South Korean 2nd Division’s 31st Regiment and the Abyssinian Battalion counterattacked, launching more than 40 assaults. After one day, the 31st Regiment, with all hands committed, completely lost its combat capability and never recovered it before the end of the Korean War. On November 1, the U.S. 7th Division and the South Korean 9th Division attacked again. After fighting until dawn on the 2nd, they were in turn hit by a counterattack from our defending troops, which recovered all the surface positions of Height 597.9. The 10 companies the 45th Division used for the counterattack after reinforcement were also all used up. On November 15, the South Korean 9th Division and the U.S. 187th Airborne Regiment attacked in five columns. The 45th Division’s last company arrived as reinforcement. By 3 p.m., company commander Zhao Heilin, lying on top of enemy corpses, wrote a note and sent it to the rear: I have consolidated the main peak. The enemy cannot come up anymore.
That same day, the Americans frankly admitted to the press: “At this point, the UN forces have been defeated at Triangle Hill.”
Out of the No. 1 tunnel, which had at one time held three or four hundred men, only eight walked out. On the way down from the position, under artillery fire, two more were killed; when they reached army headquarters, one more died from overeating biscuits and canned beef.
Grab a handful of dirt at random, and you could count 32 shell fragments. One red flag had 381 holes in it. In a section of tree trunk not even one meter long, more than 100 bullets and shell fragments were embedded.
As for the Battle of Shangganling, there are various accounts of the casualties on both sides, but without exception all of them have the problem of exaggerating the enemy’s losses and understating their own.
Our battle report: over 25,000 enemy troops annihilated; 11,529 casualties in the 15th Army, including 5,213 killed.
The American battle report: losses of over 9,000 men; Communist forces had over 19,000 dead and wounded.
But what is beyond doubt is that this 3.8-square-kilometer hill was already soaked through with blood.
2. Whose victory?
Peng Dehuai pointed at a map of Korea and said to Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army: “Wusheng Mountain is the gateway to central Korea. If we lose Wusheng Mountain, we will have to retreat 200 kilometers with no defensible terrain. Remember this: whoever loses Wusheng Mountain will have to answer to Korean history.”
In September and October 1952, the North Korean forces successively lost two heavily defended key positions—on September 5, UN forces captured “Bloody Ridge,” held by the North Koreans; on October 13, UN forces captured “Heartbreak Ridge.” On October 14, riding the momentum of consecutive victories, the UN forces attacked Shangganling. After bitter fighting until mid-November, the Americans admitted defeat.
We could answer to the history of Korea. The North Koreans, however, may not be able to answer to their own history.
On the negotiation table at Panmunjom there were only the flags of North Korea and the United Nations. The North Koreans considered the South Koreans unworthy to be negotiating opponents. As for the Chinese, if their merits were emphasized too much, then how could the greatness of “Juche thought” be embodied? They believed this was the great victory of Kim Il Sung thought, that is, “Juche thought,” so they removed the Chinese national flag. Shangganling was destined, together with “Heartbreak Ridge” and “Bloody Ridge,” to be forgotten by North Korean history books. But history will eventually restore its original face. I can only hope that we ourselves will never forget the honor our forebears won for the country on another land.
What is called a hero? To smash the enemy at its keenest edge and to turn the tide at the moment of utmost danger—that can be called a hero.
Throughout the entire Battle of Shangganling, not one of our aircraft appeared in the sky. There is also no record of our tanks taking part in the battle. At our maximum, our artillery was no more than one quarter of the enemy’s. The Americans fired a total of more than 1.9 million shells and more than 5,000 aerial bombs. We had only a little over 400,000 shells, and almost all of them were used only in the later stage.
Millions of shells ravaged these two tiny hills of just 3.8 square kilometers. These two little hills, which in Van Fleet’s battle plan should have been taken on the first day, used their own shattered remains to prove the bravery of the human spirit.
After this battle, the U.S. military never again launched against us an attack above battalion scale. From then on, the Korean front stabilized along the 38th parallel. This battle fixed the southern and northern boundaries of Korea.
On a 1:5,000,000 map published in 1986 by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, you cannot find Wusheng Mountain at an elevation of 1061.7 meters, but Shangganling is marked.
This is how history towers like high mountains, so that people can see her at a glance: “Ah, this is Shangganling!”
The 45th Division of the 15th Army, originally a second-line unit, was basically fought to pieces in this battle, but from then on she strode proudly into the ranks of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s first-class main forces, because her battle achievement was—Shangganling.
In March 1961, the Central Military Commission selected three main-force armies from the whole PLA—the 1st Army, the 15th Army, and the 38th Army—and handed them to Air Force commander Liu Yalou to choose one for conversion into China’s first airborne army.
This general chose the 15th Army. His reason was: “The 15th Army is a force that can fight. At Shangganling they fought out the prestige of the nation. Not only in China, but throughout the world, people knew there was a 15th Army.”
The country won status. From then on, the Americans regarded China as one of the world’s most powerful countries—the Western standard is: if you want to become a great power, you must have defeated the army of another great power. The generals won honor. Decades later, General Qin Jiwei rose in high spirits to the post of Minister of National Defense; it cannot be said that Shangganling had nothing to do with it.
History can no longer remember all the names of those ten thousand-plus soldiers who fought in blood amid the flames of war. Their bodies have already merged together with Wusheng Mountain on the Korean Peninsula.
We did not have enough artillery, nor even enough anti-tank grenades. At the time, the only hope of the soldiers on the front positions was to be issued more grenades, because this thing “takes down a whole patch with one blast,” and it was much more powerful than stick grenades for blowing up pillboxes. But Huang Jiguang still had only one grenade in his hand, because we could not manufacture enough of them; we did not have enough money to import so many. The Americans could use B-29s to bomb a single bicycle, while the anti-tank grenades in our hands could only be saved for enemy tanks; using them to blow up pillboxes was already a luxury. American correspondent Bevin Alexander wrote at the time: “(Chinese) troops in attack usually relied mainly on light weapons, machine guns, and grenades. Only against the most worthwhile targets were they willing to use mortars.”
No one feels more deeply the pain of a country’s and a nation’s backwardness than its army.
These are our beloved soldiers—they never bargain with their own China, they make no demands, they would never give up an attack because there was no air support, never complain that the artillery fire was insufficient, never blame the lack of adequate supplies. So long as a single breath remained, they would never abandon their positions… They could even lie in ambush all night at Chosin Reservoir in 20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit with only a single layer of clothing; they could remain motionless in flames; every one of them was at any time ready to pick up a Bangalore torpedo and perish together with the enemy…
Stage art often exaggerates on the basis of reality. Take the American blockbuster Pearl Harbor for example: the historical fact is that the Japanese lost nine aircraft and twenty-one pilots, among them not a single fighter plane, but anyone can borrow a copy and count carefully how many “Zero” fighters Rafe and the others shot down! But look at our Shangganling and Heroic Sons and Daughters—one can say that not one heroic deed in them was made up by the writers and directors. If there is any shortcoming, it is only that they still did not show enough, and could not fully recreate on screen the shock of heavy artillery shells exploding at six rounds per second.
In the cramped area of 3.8 square kilometers, more than 300,000 shells fell in a single day; more than 10,000 men had to resist over 70,000 enemy troops; on the frontline positions, it was often one or two battered companies fighting one or two fully equipped regiments, and with almost no artillery support, while ammunition often could not be replenished. A bucket of water, a box of ammunition, one apple—often several lives would be sacrificed and still it might not be delivered…
A victory won under such circumstances can be called a miracle. The Americans were not defeated by terrain. They forgot what Napoleon said more than a hundred years earlier: “China is a sleeping lion; I hope she never awakens.”
Shangganling was not only the victory of one or two great men, nor only the victory of dozens of generals. When a nation that had flourished for two thousand years, after falling into ruin, regained its confidence, that force was terrifying. What the great men and the generals did was only to make rational use of that force.
Will the blood of Shangganling be forgotten? Fifty years have passed; spirit and flesh have all turned into clear wind and bright moon. On this fiftieth memorial, I offer this essay in mourning for the martyrs below the earth, hoping that everyone can join me in setting aside for a while the material desires of life and recalling that unbelievable age.
Now you know that America has always wanted to keep our country down!!!!!!! This is the reason.
艰难奋长戟，万古用一夫
中国DOS联盟 http://www.cn-dos.net 欢迎大家来共同学习
我的MSN&E-Mail cn_archer@hotmail.com QQ 56049418
中国DOS联盟 http://www.cn-dos.net 欢迎大家来共同学习
我的MSN&E-Mail cn_archer@hotmail.com QQ 56049418
