Du Kaishan's original determination was to use a force to cross the Hutuo River upstream and make a detour toward Xian County, in order to cut off the Japanese troops on the south bank of the Hutuo River and rescue the remnants of the 64th Division. At the same time, completely blockade the 64th Division.
The remaining troops, the final possible retreat channel, completely psychologically destroyed the Japanese army's hope of breaking out.
As a veteran, after fighting against a special division like the Sixty-Fourth Division, Du Kaishan clearly felt that this Sixty-fourth Division was not comparable to the elite divisions of the Japanese army back then.
Compared with the Japanese troops fighting in northern Shanxi, their morale and military quality were very different.
The battle has now reached this point. The troops have not been repaired in continuous battles and are already extremely exhausted. At the same time, all participating troops have suffered heavy casualties due to continuous battles. Du Kaishan still wants to encircle the remnants of the 64th Division.
Tactics can also be regarded as subduing the enemy without fighting.
But now the next order was issued within two days. The remaining three large groups of the Sixty-fourth Division must be eliminated. Du Kaishan could only change the original siege plan and determined to launch an attack. However,
In terms of tactical application, Du Kaishan still thought a lot carefully.
As a front-line commander, he knew that after a month of continuous hard fighting, the troops had suffered heavy casualties and were extremely tired. At this time, when the North China operation was coming to an end, he did not want to add more casualties.
, to ensure that the troops participating in the war are not damaged.
Because at least for now, he still doesn’t know what the possible follow-up counterattack by the Japanese army will be like. If there are too many casualties when the remnants of the 64th Division are eliminated, this will affect the strength of the subsequent battle.
investment, so Du Kaishan still wanted to solve the problem with firepower.
For him, there are no more artillery shells to recycle, but once the casualties of precious veterans with actual combat experience are too large, he doesn't know how long it will take to replenish them. Ensuring that more veterans survive as much as possible is undoubtedly more important than how much ammunition and ammunition are consumed.
Equipment is important.
In fact, the Sixty-fourth Division originally consisted of two brigades and four infantry brigades. The main force was previously on the Hejian battlefield, and most of them have been eliminated. The remaining troops were taken turns by Du Kaishan's tank group to bite the 70s.
Eight falls, the solution is on the way to retreat.
The Japanese army is now compressed on the north bank of the Hutuo River. There are only three incomplete brigades left, as well as some of the baggage, search and other directly subordinate units. The attached artillery has basically been lost, and there is not much ammunition left. There is no food and grass in the face.
There were few remnants of the 64th Division without external reinforcements. In order to complete the combat mission within the time specified by Yang Zhen, Du Kaishan still adopted the tactic of killing the chicken with a knife.
At the beginning, two directly affiliated 150 howitzer battalions, one 122 rocket launcher battalion, and part of the artillery and anti-aircraft artillery units of the two infantry divisions participating in the war were concentrated. A total of five battalions of powerful artillery covered two reinforced infantry regiments.
, with the cooperation of two tank battalions, launched a full-line attack on the Japanese army.
However, for the remnants of the Sixty-fourth Division, which was trapped on the river bank and unable to advance or retreat, Du Kaishan's offensive seemed like a relief. For the Sixty-fourth Division, which was basically out of food, all the officers and soldiers from top to bottom came to
He said that he would die anyway, and it was better to die in battle than to die of starvation.
After the final offensive in Du Kaishan was launched, the Japanese army, which was originally struggling to survive, fought extremely tenaciously. They even picked up their bayonets and ignored the napalm bombs and platoon bombardments dropped by the anti-alliance attack aircraft, especially the most lethal rocket launchers.
, the entire platoon launched a counterattack, and it was very likely that every inch of territory must be fought for.
To deal with Japanese positions without permanent fortifications, rocket launchers are the most suitable weapon. If fired in one salvo, the power is quite astonishing. In order to reduce casualties and speed up the battle, in the final battle against the Sixty-Fourth Division
, Du Kaishan specially concentrated a 122 rocket launcher battalion.
Coupled with a large number of mountain artillery and howitzers, the final territory occupied by the Japanese army was completely baptized. Coupled with a large number of small-caliber anti-aircraft guns that fired flatly, as well as a whole squadron of Il-2 attack aircraft that continuously dived and attacked.
The remaining remnants of the Sixty-Fourth Division were defeated and resorted to fire tactics.
The Japanese army, which has always used its own sea of fire tactics to deal with the Chinese army's human sea tactics with extremely poor weapons and equipment, this time really understood what a real sea of fire is. During the retreat, they lost almost all their heavy weapons. Even light weapons and ammunition had been lost.
The remaining Sixty-Fourth Division could only imitate the Chinese army back then and use a sea of men to fight against a sea of fire.
It's just that the remnants of the 64th Division, which only has three incomplete infantry brigades, are working hard. This sea of people is too thin. Although Yang Zhen did not leave much time for Du Kaishan, Du Kaishan still fought steadily.
, under the cover of artillery fire, adopt the tactics of two-sided attack and one-sided oppression.
Use two tank companies to cooperate with two infantry battalions each to carry out counterattacks from the east and west. Use one tank battalion to strengthen an infantry regiment and squeeze it from the front. The remaining troops of the 64th Division will gradually be compressed towards the bank of the Hutuo River. He
This is to drive the remnants of the 64th Division to take a bath in the river during the coldest season of the year.
Although the remnants of the Sixty-Fourth Division were desperately resisting, the gap in strength and firepower was too great. No matter how tenacious the Japanese army was, no matter how high their military quality was, in the face of overwhelming artillery fire, manpower was still limited. Du Kaishan steadily
Push forward, squeezing the remaining Japanese troops toward the river bank bit by bit.
The intensive artillery fire knocked down the Japanese troops who launched the counterattack, and the napalm bombs turned the remaining Japanese positions into a sea of fire. The horizontal-firing twin 23mm anti-aircraft guns and the four-mounted 14mm machine guns could horizontally attack the enemy.
It penetrated the entire range of the Japanese army's position, giving the Japanese army a huge lethality.
Although Du Kaishan put all his efforts into the investment of firepower, he was quite cautious in the use of troops. He repeatedly warned the commanders of the frontline troops to act steadily and not to rush for success. It can be used
If it's going to be solved with firepower, never use infantry to charge.
It is necessary to save troops to the greatest extent and squeeze the remaining Japanese troops into the Hutuo River as much as possible. Why lose your own troops when you are guarding the best natural weapon? Let the Dragon Prince of Hutuo River deal with these beasts. In Du Kaishan's view
It is undoubtedly the best choice.
According to Du Kaishan's deployment, although the frontline troops moved slowly, they firmly pushed the front line forward under the cover of artillery fire. Batteries of artillery shells created walls of fire on the Japanese positions. The Japanese counterattack was in full swing in the Anti-Japanese War.
Under the gunfire, it looked so fragile that it was impossible to get close to the anti-alliance charge troops.
Facing the anti-alliance sea of fire offensive and crushing tactics, the 64th Division was helpless. Although it resisted desperately, with the rising number of casualties, the strength of the resistance became weaker and weaker. Regardless of the 64th Division,
No matter how determined the remnants of the regiment were to resist, they still seemed so fragile in the face of the overwhelming artillery fire.
Under the repeated impact of tanks dispatched by Du Kaishan, after six hours of fierce fighting, the last will of the remnants of the 64th Division to resist finally collapsed. They were swarmed by artillery fire and the anti-union infantry tanks rushing up from three sides, and were squeezed with no way out.
The retreating Japanese army did not care about how cold the water of the Hutuo River was in the freezing season.
They desperately jumped into the river and tried to swim across the Hutuo River to escape from this terrifying place. In the eyes of the last remaining troops of the 64th Division, the Hutuo River, with ice floes still floating on the river at this moment, became the only way they could escape.
The roads of this death zone.
However, the Hutuo River, which is in the coldest season of the year in the North China Plain, is obviously not very welcoming to these exotic wolves. The Japanese soldiers who jumped into the river to avoid artillery fire, no matter how good the water quality was, they were still in trouble in an instant.
He was frozen stiff by the icy river water, and was then pushed to the bottom of the river by the huge splash caused by the cannonball. After the splash subsided, he floated to the surface again.
On the water surface of this section of the Hutuo River, corpses of Japanese soldiers were floating everywhere. These corpses gradually drifted downstream with the slow flow of the river. At the intersection of the Hutuo River and the Hulu River, downstream of the Ziya River, there were many corpses that had not yet been bombed.
The open ice layer was densely piled up. The river channel above the Shahe Bridge was full of Japanese corpses.
Although after the battle, in order to prevent such a large number of corpses from decomposing and contaminating the rivers and causing large-scale infectious diseases, at the request of the Anti-Japanese Union Health Department, the local government in central Hebei organized people to salvage and bury them many times.
To avoid water pollution.
However, there were too many corpses washed down the river. Some corpses even merged with the Hutuo River into the Ziya River, and were washed along the Ziya River to Tianjin. Within more than ten years after the war, from the battlefield to the lower reaches, Hutuo
No one dared to eat the fish in this section of the river and the downstream Ziya River. Decades later, bones wearing Japanese military-style helmets were still found in the river from time to time.
In addition to most of the Japanese troops who were completely mentally shattered, they were directly torn to pieces by artillery fire, or were burned by napalm bombs, or went directly to the Dragon King of Hutuo River as guests. There were also a considerable number of Japanese troops who were completely beaten.
Surrender phenomenon. Even more than half of the Japanese infantry squadrons, under the leadership of the squadron commander, raised the white flag in an organized manner. This was almost impossible to imagine in the previous battles.
Among the senior officers of the entire Sixty-fourth Division, except for the commander of the Sixty-fourth Division and his chief of staff, none of them survived because the simple concealment unit where the division headquarters was located was hit by a 150mm howitzer shell.
In addition, one of the two brigade commanders was crushed into a pulp by the tanks of the Anti-Union pursuit force along with his brigade headquarters during the retreat of the 64th Division.
Another brigade commander was seriously injured in the last battle and was captured in a coma. All eight infantry captains of the two brigades were killed and none survived. The entire Sixty-fourth Division participated in the battle, except for those who remained.
Except for some engineers and heavy supplies on the south bank of the Hutuo River, basically the entire army was destroyed.
None of the senior officers of the division survived or escaped. In other words, Uchiyama Eitaro was on the battlefield in Jizhong, and now one of the only two divisions has been surrounded and annihilated. And the Sixty-fourth Division was defeated in Dukaishan
While the remnants of the regiment were wreaking havoc, the reinforcements never came close to Xian County, and they were still quite far away from the battlefield of this battle.
When the division was marching, it was on the one hand that it encountered anti-Japanese air fire interception. On the other hand, it was also at the private request of Uchiyama Eitaro that it deliberately slowed down its marching speed. For Uchiyama Eitaro, when receiving the Hutuo
Report of the start of the Dukaishan attack on the river battlefield.
As well as staying on the south bank of the Hutuo River in the Hejian battlefield, the engineering team of the 64th Division not only failed to successfully erect a pontoon bridge, but also rescued the remnants of the 64th Division. Instead, they were captured by the anti-alliance forces that continued to advance eastward after Xianxian County.
, after encircling the south bank of Hutuo River opposite Shanglin Forest, it became clear that the remnants of the 64th Division were difficult to rescue.
So he secretly ordered the division that had just arrived on the battlefield to immediately stop moving north and retreat to Hengshui in the southeast. He could not take up a new division for the sake of the remnants of more than 2,000 people. The entire Jizhong battlefield
In the current war situation, this division's march north is tantamount to sending a sheep into the tiger's mouth.