What was the first battle in which the Japanese army recovered lost territory and was wiped out since War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression?

At the end of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the Chinese Expeditionary Force wiped out the Japanese troops occupying Songshan in the most tragic way in western Yunnan, opened the Yunnan-Myanmar passage, and started the strategic counterattack against Japan, which was called the Songshan Campaign in history. Songshan is the first battlefield of the Japanese army on the whole mainland front. "The Battle of Broken Jade" is a name for Japan's self-beautification, but in fact it was completely annihilated.

The Japanese Army's "Breaking War" in the Asian Battlefield

In the battle of Songshan, more than 300 Japanese defenders 1300, 1250 were killed or committed suicide, and only a few were captured and broke through, which was a veritable war of annihilation. It should be said that the battle of Songshan was the first "jade war" on the Asian battlefield during World War II. At that time, there was another time, Tengchong, which was very close to Songshan. In these two battles, the Japanese army was basically wiped out, and only a few fled. So, how did the battle of Songshan happen?

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, Britain invited China to send100000 troops into Myanmar. At that time, after the Japanese army occupied Southeast Asia, it landed from Yangon and occupied Myanmar. Burma was a British colony at that time, and the British asked China to send troops to help them meet the Japanese. Therefore, China established the first expeditionary force to Myanmar. At that time, the official name was "The First Road of Chinese Expeditionary Force", and General Stilwell, the newly appointed chief of staff of the China Theater and commander of the US Southeast Asian Theater, served as the chief commander. Stilwell also arrived in a hurry, with 65,438+10,000 troops from three armies. The time to enter Myanmar was relatively late, which led to the Japanese army's invincible all the way.

1942, the Japanese army occupied Songshan and built strong fortifications on it. In the same year, the Chinese Expeditionary Force lost its first battle in Myanmar and the Yunnan-Myanmar Highway was cut off. The rest of the Chinese expeditionary forces retreated to the east bank of the Nujiang River and confronted the Japanese army on the other side.

After the first defeat in Myanmar, after two years' gestation,1May, 944, the newly formed Chinese Expeditionary Force and Indian troops stationed in China, one in the east and one in the west, simultaneously launched a counterattack against the Japanese army in western Yunnan. According to Stilwell's vision, the battle in the battlefield between Yunnan and Myanmar is that X+Y: X troops (stationed in India) fight from north to west of Myanmar, Y troops (expeditionary force) fight from west of Yunnan to north of Myanmar, and finally meet at the border between China and Myanmar.

The most thrilling scene in China War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

In western Yunnan, the main battlefields of the expeditionary force are concentrated in Songshan, Tengchong and Longling. These were the three supporting points of the Japanese 56th Division in the triangle defense system in western Yunnan. Because the code name of the 56th Division is "Dragon Corps", a Japanese army officer once vividly drew a picture in his memoirs, comparing it to "two-headed dragon": Songshan and Tengchong are two "dragon heads" and Longling is the "dragon body".

The Japanese army defeated our first expeditionary force in northern Myanmar in 1942, and arrived at Nujiang River along the Yunnan-Myanmar Highway on May 5. At that time, they formed a fast force with 160 vehicles to transport troops. After entering China from Wan Ding, it passes through mangshi and Longling and reaches Ramon Street on the Nujiang River. Later, Songshan set up wild guns to bombard our vehicles and refugees on the other side of the road. Fortunately, our engineers at the bridgehead blasted Huitong Bridge in time. Subsequently, Song Xilian, the 36th Division of 1 1 Army, led his troops to the east bank of the Nujiang River to stop the attack, and cooperated with the US "Flying Tigers" fighters in the air to smash the Japanese attempt to force the Nujiang River to continue the invasion.

The scene at that time was the most thrilling scene of China's Anti-Japanese War. According to the early warning issued by American "Flying Tigers" pilots during aerial reconnaissance, if the Japanese army can't be successfully stopped in Nujiang River, the Japanese army will reach Kunming about ten days after crossing the river, detour the rear area of the Anti-Japanese War, and force China to surrender. Many historians have commented that the small battle of Huitong Bridge, at that moment, became a turning point in the fate of China's Anti-Japanese War. Since then, the 56th Division of the Japanese Army has ordered 1 13 to station in Songshan, the "bridgehead" on the west bank of the Nujiang River. Because the Yunnan-Myanmar Highway bypasses Songshan, goes down to Huitong Bridge and occupies Songshan, it is equivalent to blocking the throat of the Yunnan-Myanmar Highway and cutting off the supply line of international aid materials that our army enters from India through Myanmar. The Japanese army that captured Songshan took Ramon Street, a village under Songshan Mountain, as a homonym and named it Ramon Guard. They built a large number of reinforced concrete fortifications in Songshan, making it a strong fortress and calling themselves "maginot line of the East". During the two-year confrontation across the river, there was basically no war on the Nujiang River, and only a small number of troops were sent by the enemy and ourselves to cross the river for reconnaissance, harassment and guerrilla warfare.

The "bottleneck" that determines the success or failure of counter-offensive in western Yunnan

After two years of silence, in May 1944, 1 1, the 20th Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Force took the lead in launching a counterattack from Gaoligongshan in the upper reaches of the Nujiang River, with the goal of Tengchong.

Because the Japanese army seized a cipher book of China's army in advance, and mastered our army's battle plan five days before my counterattack, they quickly mobilized the main Japanese army in western Yunnan to reinforce Gaoligong Mountain. After learning this situation, our high command made up for it, and at the end of May, the 1 1 army in the lower reaches of the Nujiang River also launched a counterattack, targeting Songshan and Longling.

Although the main Japanese troops stationed in Songshan at this time have been transferred to the northern line to reinforce, there are still 1300 people staying in Songshan. Since June 4th, the Expeditionary Force 7 1 New 28th Division and17th Regiment (under the new 39th Division and 6th Army) attacked Songshan for one month, with nearly 1700 casualties, but failed to make significant progress. At this time, Wei, commander of the expeditionary force, felt that he had not known the enemy situation in Songshan before and had underestimated it. Therefore, the 8 th Army of the General Reserve is ready to take over the battle.

Because Songshan cut off the throat of the Yunnan-Myanmar highway, our left-wing counter-offensive corps could not transport food and ammunition by vehicles, but had to rely on civilian workers to pull mules and horses to carry them. In the case of bad weather in rainy season, it could only rely on airdrops to supply them, so that our 7 1 Army could not annihilate more than 700 Japanese troops stranded in Longling.

On June 16, the Matsui detachment of the Japanese army, with 1500 men and 7 guns, reinforced Longling from Tengchong south, smashed our defense line and turned to Huangcaoba in an attempt to attack Songshan in one fell swoop and rescue the Japanese army trapped in Songshan. At the critical moment, Wei Li advised the deputy commander of the Eighth Army to lead the honorary 1 division to cross the river to reinforce, and fought to the death with the 7 1 army in Huangcaoba, thus stabilizing the Longling front and being in a stalemate with the Japanese army. At this time, conquering Songshan as soon as possible and opening up the supply channel have become the "bottleneck" that determines the success or failure of the counterattack in western Yunnan.

China recovered its lost territory for the first time since War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

The 8th Army (the officers and men are mostly from Guizhou) with a strong color of "Guizhou" began to take over the battle on July 1 day under the command of the commander He Shaozhou. However, due to the advance and investment of troops scattered in various places before the war, the number of troops besieging Songshan was never more than two infantry regiments, and the "wheel war" was carried out entirely by "oil-filled tactics", which failed to form an absolute military advantage over the Japanese army in Songshan.

Although there is a mixed battalion of the 10 Regiment and the 7th Regiment of Heavy Artillery, there are several companies bombarded by nearly 100 guns, and there are uninterrupted aerial bombardments by American planes, the progress of our army's war situation is extremely difficult due to the exceptionally strong fortifications of the Japanese Songshan Mountain and the continuous offensive defense.

At the end of July, Li Mi, deputy commander of the Eighth Army, was transferred to Songshan to strengthen the command of the Eighth Army. After that, the Eighth Army first isolated and surrounded the Gunlongpo outside Songshan Mountain, fired at a distance of 300 meters from the mountain cannon and covered the infantry with flame throwers, and captured this important frontier position on August 2. On August 20th, the 8th Army Command made a decision again. After nearly 20 days of tunnel construction, 400 to 500 people from the army barracks and the engineering company of the division dug two back roads, which went straight to the abdomen of the main peak of Songshan, filled with 3,000 kilograms of American TNT explosives, and subverted the "lock and key" department of Songshan position with the "artificial volcano" blasting, which tore open the hole of the Japanese Songshan defense system.

In this big explosion, about 70 Japanese soldiers were killed and buried alive, and five of them were knocked out of the floating soil. Since then, after 17 days of hard sweeping battles, our army finally wiped out the last Japanese army retreating to the Yunnan-Myanmar Highway on the evening of 1944, and won the battle in Songshan.

Since the infantry attack on June 4th, the Expeditionary Force has successively invested more than 24,000 troops and launched 10 total attacks within 95 days. At the heavy cost of 7,773 casualties, about 1280 Japanese troops were annihilated in Songshan, 9 Japanese troops were captured and 4 comfort women/kloc-0.

Nearly 20 square kilometers of Songshan's territory was finally recovered after being occupied for two years, which was the first time that China recovered its lost territory since the Anti-Japanese War.