Chosin. To icy hell and back
Argued that Americans do not know how to fight in difficult conditions. Say, yes, the army of the staff members is not bad, but it fights only if there are fridges with cold cola, a Michelin restaurant and a five-star hotel instead of barracks. This is not true. The most glorious battle of the US Marine Corps is the battle of the Chosin reservoir, the Korean War. The most insane battle for the whole history US forces, held at a temperature of - 40 degrees with many times superior enemy forces. I know about the developed anti-American sentiment among Russians. But I also know that real men can appreciate a worthy opponent. Therefore, I will tell you about Chosin.
But first, a little background. The Korean War in June 1950 began with the fact that the DPRK troops suddenly attacked South Korea, immediately destroying the South Korean units. The American occupation contingent, remaining after the war with Japan, took the brunt of it and, despite the constant attacks of the North Koreans, was able to hold a protective perimeter around the most important port - Busan, where reinforcements immediately began to be transferred. Having built up a military group in the Pusan perimeter, in September 1950, the Americans broke through the front line, turning the North Koreans into an indiscriminate flight.
At the same time, a brilliant landing at Incheon was carried out 160 kilometers to the north - the Americans managed to land 40 000 people in the deep rear of the Communists, turning those into indiscriminate flight. Sandwiched between Incheon's hammer and Pusan's anvil, the Reds ran in such a way that only the heels sparkled, the front of the communists collapsed in just a day, the North Korean army ceased to exist. From the 200 000 red invaders that crossed the 38 parallel, only 25 000 returned. Without weapons. Without technology. Without hope.
But hope came from the Americans. By the end of October, 1950, most of the territory of the DPRK was occupied, only the northern mountains remained under the control of the Communists. General MacArthur announced the final offensive before the line of the Yalu River, promising the troops that they would return home for Christmas. In the end, what can the pathetic remnants of the squads of narrow-eyed commies do? Nothing. But besides the North Koreans, another force entered the game. China. The Americans ignored the warnings of the Chinese to leave the life of the DPRK and continued to advance north, believing that China would send a couple of poorly trained divisions, purely for demonstration.
The Americans were wrong. As they advanced to Yalu Jiang, the flat terrain changed first to the hills, then to the mountains, and then to the monstrous mountain ranges. If a modern Russian got there, he would have noticed that the north of Korea terribly reminds him of Chechnya. Narrow mountain roads. Endless ridges, from which everything at the bottom is shot at a glance. Steep cliffs. Rocks. Collapses. Landslides. The slowly moving troops of the X Corps, the one that had so brilliantly landed earlier at Incheon, began to descend the anticyclone that had come from Siberia, the coldest winter in the last 100 years began in Korea. Because of the impassable East-Korean mountains, the shock group was forced to separate, the X Corps, left without communication with the rest of the troops, continued to move forward to the Chosin reservoir. The temperature dropped. Trucks broke off the cliffs. More and more often, there were reports of the Chinese detachments noticed - but the command believed that their maximum was 30 000. In fact, General Peng Dehuai secretly threw 200 000 across the border against the doomed 8 army, another 150 000 was moving towards Chocin, our X corps, which had a base in the form of an 30 division of the US Marine Corps.
Theoretically, the X corps consisted of 103 000 people, but they were stretched along a huge 640 kilometer front, so 30 000 took part in the battle of Cosin.
It is worth saying more about the balance of power. The Americans had a lot of heavy equipment and excellent air support, but in the mountains (Chechnya), armored vehicles often became a burden to help, which should be protected and protected from sudden attacks from the surrounding mountains. The Chinese had only light small arms, a minimum of ammunition and uniforms, and donkeys as the main vehicle. The Chinese lacked everything, including food - but paradoxically in the conditions of Korean Chechnya this was not a disadvantage, but an advantage. Relieved of the need to drag mountains of iron, the Chinese easily threw their units over considerable distances, constantly setting up ambushes and surprise attacks, with a crown number - an attack in the middle of the night. When a huge horde runs out of the frozen darkness, no matter how much you have tanks or what kind of weapon you have, it is important whether you can beat them all in hand-to-hand combat. Unlike the Chechens, who attacked from afar and fled, the Chinese preferred to cover enemy positions with human waves, literally overwhelming the fortifications of the Americans. And those who crossed the border of 350 were just the beginning - by the end of the war, there were 000 Chinese troops in Korea (another 1, including the wounded, were mowed by the Americans). Maintaining strict discipline, stealthily moving at night, using all the features of the mountainous terrain, the Chinese did not allow the Americans to realize their advantage in firepower. Chinese circulars were expressly forbidden to engage in battle in an open area (open within a minute), only in the mountains, only unexpectedly, only close to the enemy’s order.
On November 27, elements of the Chinese 42nd Army attacked the X Corps, which stretched out in a thin line around the Chosin reservoir, quickly and effectively isolating groups of American troops from each other. To the left of the reservoir in Yudam-ni, units of the 1st Marine Division were located, easily repulsing numerous ferocious assaults by the Chinese, inflicting terrible losses on the human mass, yelling, screeching, strumming (the Chinese used gongs to communicate in battle). Realizing that the main enemy forces were here, the Chinese shifted the blow a little lower, to the critically important Toktong Pass, where the 2nd company of the 7th Marine Regiment was heroically defending. If the Chinese attack were successful, the main forces of the Marines in Yudam-ni would have been completely cut off from the outside world - and therefore a company of 220 people stood to death for 5 days and nights, repelling the incessant attacks of over 2 Chinese at a temperature of minus 000 degrees. Howl of the wind. Pitch darkness. Mountain pass. The morphine capsules that the medics hold in their mouths to thaw and inject into the wounded, and wave after wave after wave of fearless, merciless, unfeeling Chinese, crashing down as if they were not living people, but Robots.
By the sixth night, the remaining parts of the division broke through the blizzard and hordes of Chinese to the pass - by that time only 220 could stand on their own from 82, and everything around was littered with mountains of corpses, the second company interrupted over 1000 cursed narrow-eyed communists. It was during the breakthrough from Yudam-ni to Tokthong, Major General Oliver Smith said his famous: "Retreat? The hell with two, we are simply advancing in another direction!". Because of the blockages and snow, the convoy moved so slowly that the Chinese rolling down from above clung to the American trucks, climbed up and entered into melee fights with the soldiers sitting in the truck, periodically delighting them with grenades. Jump down, slaughter a Chinese who is trying to break the driver’s door with a glass butt, dodge another Chinese, shoot the third, finally kick the fourth and jump back into the body before the convoy moves on - and all this at minus 40 degrees, under wild howling of the wind, high in the mountains. Yes, in Choshin they knew how to have fun!
Having broken through to the Toktong pass and combined with the heroic remnants of the 2nd company, the marines continued their movement south, hoping to make their way to the main base in Hagaryuri. To the west of Chosin, the fate of the special group Faith, which was suddenly attacked by several divisions, was not so successful - it was completely cleaned out. Of the 3000 “believers,” 600 were from KATUSA, ancillary Korean units. It was against them that the Chinese hit, knowing that this was the weakest element of defense. The Koreans ran, crowds of Chinese zerg poured through the gaps that formed, the Americans held steady, but there was no place for faith, hope or love in Chosin. Only for the merciless slaughter in ice and fire. At first, a few dozen Americans simply froze in the trenches, then the commander Macklin was wounded and captured by the Chinese, whom he mistook for the long-awaited reinforcements, and to top it all off, with the very last, desperate attempt to break through to his own, before that, the navy worked perfectly aviation mistakenly threw napalm onto the remains of Vera. The head of the column burned to the ground, night fell, the aircraft driving away the zerg went to the base, and the Chinese surrounded the little remaining from the column, like hungry ants surrounding a fresh corpse of an animal. By dawn, only a few hundred believers, moving erratically, were able to get to Hagaryuri. The special Vera group became the largest American unit destroyed during the Korean War, destroyed as a result of a series of tragic accidents - it seems that someone up there really doesn’t like to be relied on so openly. God betrayed, the Chinese ate.
But there were also lucky coincidences - the 58 Chinese division, which should attack the base in Hagar-ri (at the top of the reservoir, on the left, on top of Yudamni, on the right, on top of "Vera", at the bottom - Hagar-ri, where the roads connect), used old Japanese maps and naturally lost in the mountains. When the Chinese finally approached Hagar-ri, their movements were spotted, and the small garrison of the base was brought to full readiness — even chefs were put into the trenches. In the case of the capture of Hagar-ri, all American forces would have been cut off higher, therefore both the Chinese and the garrison fought like beasts. Commander Smith even called from the Koto-ri stronghold (even lower down the road) all the forces there, including a unit of British commandos. Halfway to Hagar-ri, the Chinese attacked a convoy from Koto-ri and broke it into two parts - in the end, only half of the reinforcements reached the base, 300 people. Nevertheless, together with the cooks, they were enough to hold out until the arrival of the main forces from Yudam-ni. We must pay tribute to the Chinese - having suffered terrible losses, they nevertheless threw in the last attack of 1500 the soldiers who remained from the 58-division, who were almost completely killed. The whole Chinese division died trying to take over a small base with a tiny garrison.
The arrival of the remnants of “Faith” that had broken through from Yudam-ni made a rather demoralizing impression on the garrison - instead of the main forces, the heroes of Hagaru-ri saw deadly tired, wounded, frostbite, half-dead people. And the same night, 76 and 77 attacked Chinese divisions at the base, attacking from all sides at once, literally trying to flood half-dead Americans with human waves, which had been fighting for a week in the ice-cold winter of the century. The marines repelled all attacks, and the next morning they began a breakthrough, first to Koto-ri, and then to Hynnam, the coveted port of evacuation. The Chinese had only miserable remnants of their countless hordes by that time, and the Chinese did the smart thing - having overtaken X Corps, they occupied the strategically important Funchilin Pass, blowing up the only bridge. The Americans that reached him were forced to request sections of the bridge, which they dropped by parachute, and then build a bridge anew under continuous fire. By December 9, the bridge was restored, the troops moved forward and the Chinese, realizing that they had lost, threw in an attack of the few survivors of the 60 and 58 divisions. By that time, from two 9 units to 500 soldiers each remained less than 200 people. But the Chinese commissioners worked as well as the Soviet during World War II - and these 200 people rushed forward without question.
It goes without saying that they were quickly and cruelly killed - the marines already felt the fresh taste of the salty sea wind, the wind of salvation, the wind of life, and they were uncontrollably pulled into the light, into life, away from the icy hell with endless hordes of Chinese under each rock. When the X corps finally came to Hynnam, men with faces blackened by burning and frost began to sob. Off the coast stood an armada in 193 of the ship, endless, radiant, ready to bring down fire and metal on any enemy movement. The Chinese did not even try to approach the coast, allowing the Americans to evacuate slowly and with dignity, destroying everything in Hynnam that could be even the smallest value for the enemy, and also take on Korean refugees over 100 000.
The X building should not have come out of осosin, the X building should have stayed in осosín forever, among the snow, among the ice, among the frozen rocks. However, the Americans came out, having lost only 10 000 people, breaking through the waves of flesh, not feeling pain, but only attacking, attacking and attacking time after time. In the fierce cold. In the harsh terrain. In fierce nights. Two Chinese divisions, fighting mostly only with parts of the 1 division of the US Marine Corps, were completely destroyed, another six divisions suffered losses that made them useless. Chairman Mao officially expressed his deepest condolences and stated that over 40 000 Chinese civil war veterans (which ended only in 1949 in China, a year before the Korean) found their death in the Hoshina Mountains. The whole Chinese army was destroyed as a combat unit by a single division of marines, marching and advancing, no matter what. The heroic breakthrough from Chosin paralyzed the Chinese horde, which, after a quick victory, was supposed to move on - and instead found that in some companies there was not a single person left.
Two weeks of continuous march and continuous fighting. Forty degrees below zero. An endless horde attacking from all sides. Hand-to-hand fights. Assault on the mountain, a desperate battle at the top, march to the next mountain. Night ambush. Daytime ambush. The crash of gongs. Wounded, hundreds freezing to death. Healthy, sent to patrol and freezing to death. Soup in small portions, in polnichki - because until you finish eating a large portion, it turns into literal ice. Capsules with morphine in the mouth. Multiple frostbite and amputations right on the road, under bullets from the Chinese. Mountains of corpses - and living, dragging corpses on themselves, "Because we are marines, we always bury our dead with honors!". Mountain dear, covered with a thick crust of frozen blood. Mountain roads covered with a thick crust of frozen glory.
Perhaps the Americans still know how to fight.
But first, a little background. The Korean War in June 1950 began with the fact that the DPRK troops suddenly attacked South Korea, immediately destroying the South Korean units. The American occupation contingent, remaining after the war with Japan, took the brunt of it and, despite the constant attacks of the North Koreans, was able to hold a protective perimeter around the most important port - Busan, where reinforcements immediately began to be transferred. Having built up a military group in the Pusan perimeter, in September 1950, the Americans broke through the front line, turning the North Koreans into an indiscriminate flight.
At the same time, a brilliant landing at Incheon was carried out 160 kilometers to the north - the Americans managed to land 40 000 people in the deep rear of the Communists, turning those into indiscriminate flight. Sandwiched between Incheon's hammer and Pusan's anvil, the Reds ran in such a way that only the heels sparkled, the front of the communists collapsed in just a day, the North Korean army ceased to exist. From the 200 000 red invaders that crossed the 38 parallel, only 25 000 returned. Without weapons. Without technology. Without hope.
But hope came from the Americans. By the end of October, 1950, most of the territory of the DPRK was occupied, only the northern mountains remained under the control of the Communists. General MacArthur announced the final offensive before the line of the Yalu River, promising the troops that they would return home for Christmas. In the end, what can the pathetic remnants of the squads of narrow-eyed commies do? Nothing. But besides the North Koreans, another force entered the game. China. The Americans ignored the warnings of the Chinese to leave the life of the DPRK and continued to advance north, believing that China would send a couple of poorly trained divisions, purely for demonstration.
The Americans were wrong. As they advanced to Yalu Jiang, the flat terrain changed first to the hills, then to the mountains, and then to the monstrous mountain ranges. If a modern Russian got there, he would have noticed that the north of Korea terribly reminds him of Chechnya. Narrow mountain roads. Endless ridges, from which everything at the bottom is shot at a glance. Steep cliffs. Rocks. Collapses. Landslides. The slowly moving troops of the X Corps, the one that had so brilliantly landed earlier at Incheon, began to descend the anticyclone that had come from Siberia, the coldest winter in the last 100 years began in Korea. Because of the impassable East-Korean mountains, the shock group was forced to separate, the X Corps, left without communication with the rest of the troops, continued to move forward to the Chosin reservoir. The temperature dropped. Trucks broke off the cliffs. More and more often, there were reports of the Chinese detachments noticed - but the command believed that their maximum was 30 000. In fact, General Peng Dehuai secretly threw 200 000 across the border against the doomed 8 army, another 150 000 was moving towards Chocin, our X corps, which had a base in the form of an 30 division of the US Marine Corps.
Theoretically, the X corps consisted of 103 000 people, but they were stretched along a huge 640 kilometer front, so 30 000 took part in the battle of Cosin.
It is worth saying more about the balance of power. The Americans had a lot of heavy equipment and excellent air support, but in the mountains (Chechnya), armored vehicles often became a burden to help, which should be protected and protected from sudden attacks from the surrounding mountains. The Chinese had only light small arms, a minimum of ammunition and uniforms, and donkeys as the main vehicle. The Chinese lacked everything, including food - but paradoxically in the conditions of Korean Chechnya this was not a disadvantage, but an advantage. Relieved of the need to drag mountains of iron, the Chinese easily threw their units over considerable distances, constantly setting up ambushes and surprise attacks, with a crown number - an attack in the middle of the night. When a huge horde runs out of the frozen darkness, no matter how much you have tanks or what kind of weapon you have, it is important whether you can beat them all in hand-to-hand combat. Unlike the Chechens, who attacked from afar and fled, the Chinese preferred to cover enemy positions with human waves, literally overwhelming the fortifications of the Americans. And those who crossed the border of 350 were just the beginning - by the end of the war, there were 000 Chinese troops in Korea (another 1, including the wounded, were mowed by the Americans). Maintaining strict discipline, stealthily moving at night, using all the features of the mountainous terrain, the Chinese did not allow the Americans to realize their advantage in firepower. Chinese circulars were expressly forbidden to engage in battle in an open area (open within a minute), only in the mountains, only unexpectedly, only close to the enemy’s order.
On November 27, elements of the Chinese 42nd Army attacked the X Corps, which stretched out in a thin line around the Chosin reservoir, quickly and effectively isolating groups of American troops from each other. To the left of the reservoir in Yudam-ni, units of the 1st Marine Division were located, easily repulsing numerous ferocious assaults by the Chinese, inflicting terrible losses on the human mass, yelling, screeching, strumming (the Chinese used gongs to communicate in battle). Realizing that the main enemy forces were here, the Chinese shifted the blow a little lower, to the critically important Toktong Pass, where the 2nd company of the 7th Marine Regiment was heroically defending. If the Chinese attack were successful, the main forces of the Marines in Yudam-ni would have been completely cut off from the outside world - and therefore a company of 220 people stood to death for 5 days and nights, repelling the incessant attacks of over 2 Chinese at a temperature of minus 000 degrees. Howl of the wind. Pitch darkness. Mountain pass. The morphine capsules that the medics hold in their mouths to thaw and inject into the wounded, and wave after wave after wave of fearless, merciless, unfeeling Chinese, crashing down as if they were not living people, but Robots.
By the sixth night, the remaining parts of the division broke through the blizzard and hordes of Chinese to the pass - by that time only 220 could stand on their own from 82, and everything around was littered with mountains of corpses, the second company interrupted over 1000 cursed narrow-eyed communists. It was during the breakthrough from Yudam-ni to Tokthong, Major General Oliver Smith said his famous: "Retreat? The hell with two, we are simply advancing in another direction!". Because of the blockages and snow, the convoy moved so slowly that the Chinese rolling down from above clung to the American trucks, climbed up and entered into melee fights with the soldiers sitting in the truck, periodically delighting them with grenades. Jump down, slaughter a Chinese who is trying to break the driver’s door with a glass butt, dodge another Chinese, shoot the third, finally kick the fourth and jump back into the body before the convoy moves on - and all this at minus 40 degrees, under wild howling of the wind, high in the mountains. Yes, in Choshin they knew how to have fun!
Having broken through to the Toktong pass and combined with the heroic remnants of the 2nd company, the marines continued their movement south, hoping to make their way to the main base in Hagaryuri. To the west of Chosin, the fate of the special group Faith, which was suddenly attacked by several divisions, was not so successful - it was completely cleaned out. Of the 3000 “believers,” 600 were from KATUSA, ancillary Korean units. It was against them that the Chinese hit, knowing that this was the weakest element of defense. The Koreans ran, crowds of Chinese zerg poured through the gaps that formed, the Americans held steady, but there was no place for faith, hope or love in Chosin. Only for the merciless slaughter in ice and fire. At first, a few dozen Americans simply froze in the trenches, then the commander Macklin was wounded and captured by the Chinese, whom he mistook for the long-awaited reinforcements, and to top it all off, with the very last, desperate attempt to break through to his own, before that, the navy worked perfectly aviation mistakenly threw napalm onto the remains of Vera. The head of the column burned to the ground, night fell, the aircraft driving away the zerg went to the base, and the Chinese surrounded the little remaining from the column, like hungry ants surrounding a fresh corpse of an animal. By dawn, only a few hundred believers, moving erratically, were able to get to Hagaryuri. The special Vera group became the largest American unit destroyed during the Korean War, destroyed as a result of a series of tragic accidents - it seems that someone up there really doesn’t like to be relied on so openly. God betrayed, the Chinese ate.
But there were also lucky coincidences - the 58 Chinese division, which should attack the base in Hagar-ri (at the top of the reservoir, on the left, on top of Yudamni, on the right, on top of "Vera", at the bottom - Hagar-ri, where the roads connect), used old Japanese maps and naturally lost in the mountains. When the Chinese finally approached Hagar-ri, their movements were spotted, and the small garrison of the base was brought to full readiness — even chefs were put into the trenches. In the case of the capture of Hagar-ri, all American forces would have been cut off higher, therefore both the Chinese and the garrison fought like beasts. Commander Smith even called from the Koto-ri stronghold (even lower down the road) all the forces there, including a unit of British commandos. Halfway to Hagar-ri, the Chinese attacked a convoy from Koto-ri and broke it into two parts - in the end, only half of the reinforcements reached the base, 300 people. Nevertheless, together with the cooks, they were enough to hold out until the arrival of the main forces from Yudam-ni. We must pay tribute to the Chinese - having suffered terrible losses, they nevertheless threw in the last attack of 1500 the soldiers who remained from the 58-division, who were almost completely killed. The whole Chinese division died trying to take over a small base with a tiny garrison.
The arrival of the remnants of “Faith” that had broken through from Yudam-ni made a rather demoralizing impression on the garrison - instead of the main forces, the heroes of Hagaru-ri saw deadly tired, wounded, frostbite, half-dead people. And the same night, 76 and 77 attacked Chinese divisions at the base, attacking from all sides at once, literally trying to flood half-dead Americans with human waves, which had been fighting for a week in the ice-cold winter of the century. The marines repelled all attacks, and the next morning they began a breakthrough, first to Koto-ri, and then to Hynnam, the coveted port of evacuation. The Chinese had only miserable remnants of their countless hordes by that time, and the Chinese did the smart thing - having overtaken X Corps, they occupied the strategically important Funchilin Pass, blowing up the only bridge. The Americans that reached him were forced to request sections of the bridge, which they dropped by parachute, and then build a bridge anew under continuous fire. By December 9, the bridge was restored, the troops moved forward and the Chinese, realizing that they had lost, threw in an attack of the few survivors of the 60 and 58 divisions. By that time, from two 9 units to 500 soldiers each remained less than 200 people. But the Chinese commissioners worked as well as the Soviet during World War II - and these 200 people rushed forward without question.
It goes without saying that they were quickly and cruelly killed - the marines already felt the fresh taste of the salty sea wind, the wind of salvation, the wind of life, and they were uncontrollably pulled into the light, into life, away from the icy hell with endless hordes of Chinese under each rock. When the X corps finally came to Hynnam, men with faces blackened by burning and frost began to sob. Off the coast stood an armada in 193 of the ship, endless, radiant, ready to bring down fire and metal on any enemy movement. The Chinese did not even try to approach the coast, allowing the Americans to evacuate slowly and with dignity, destroying everything in Hynnam that could be even the smallest value for the enemy, and also take on Korean refugees over 100 000.
The X building should not have come out of осosin, the X building should have stayed in осosín forever, among the snow, among the ice, among the frozen rocks. However, the Americans came out, having lost only 10 000 people, breaking through the waves of flesh, not feeling pain, but only attacking, attacking and attacking time after time. In the fierce cold. In the harsh terrain. In fierce nights. Two Chinese divisions, fighting mostly only with parts of the 1 division of the US Marine Corps, were completely destroyed, another six divisions suffered losses that made them useless. Chairman Mao officially expressed his deepest condolences and stated that over 40 000 Chinese civil war veterans (which ended only in 1949 in China, a year before the Korean) found their death in the Hoshina Mountains. The whole Chinese army was destroyed as a combat unit by a single division of marines, marching and advancing, no matter what. The heroic breakthrough from Chosin paralyzed the Chinese horde, which, after a quick victory, was supposed to move on - and instead found that in some companies there was not a single person left.
Two weeks of continuous march and continuous fighting. Forty degrees below zero. An endless horde attacking from all sides. Hand-to-hand fights. Assault on the mountain, a desperate battle at the top, march to the next mountain. Night ambush. Daytime ambush. The crash of gongs. Wounded, hundreds freezing to death. Healthy, sent to patrol and freezing to death. Soup in small portions, in polnichki - because until you finish eating a large portion, it turns into literal ice. Capsules with morphine in the mouth. Multiple frostbite and amputations right on the road, under bullets from the Chinese. Mountains of corpses - and living, dragging corpses on themselves, "Because we are marines, we always bury our dead with honors!". Mountain dear, covered with a thick crust of frozen blood. Mountain roads covered with a thick crust of frozen glory.
Perhaps the Americans still know how to fight.
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