Volume 3 The Third Battle Chapter 13 Happy New Year
On December 30, when night surrounded both sides of the Imjin River, the entire regiment was divided into several groups, crawled out of the forest, crawled across the plains, and quietly sneaked into the tunnels. The entire regiment was hidden overnight.
The attack time is set at 5 o'clock tomorrow afternoon, which is the favorite attack time of the volunteer soldiers! This is the time when the enemy eats dinner and then takes a rest and sleeps. Not only is it getting darker and darker, but the enemy is also getting more and more tired!
Because the attack was to begin the next afternoon, the entire regiment had to enter the tunnel the night before. Once I entered the tunnel, I realized that I had made a big mistake. I usually went in and out of the tunnel without noticing it, but this time I had to spend the night in the tunnel, and I realized how stuffy it was, just like riding on a packed train when I was a kid. I hadn't even slept for half an hour in the tunnel when I regretted why I didn't dig a few more ventilation holes.
But thinking about it, there was nothing I could do. The ground was full of mines. Every time I dug a vent, I carefully scouted it several times and only dug one after confirming that there were no mines. If I dug more, I didn't know how long it would take to finish.
It sounds simple to lurk, but it is not that easy to do. More than a hundred people are huddled in a narrow space with bad air, and they have to urinate and defecate... Hey, luckily each class and each platoon has prepared a few iron boxes!
Although most of the volunteer soldiers were not well educated, they were no worse than me, an outstanding graduate of a certain university, in coming up with ideas. Look, the tunnels were full of "props" prepared by the soldiers, including door panels and wooden boards borrowed from ordinary people, which were used to cross the ice caves in the Imjin River; homemade wooden ladders, which were used to climb the cliffs; socks sewn from raincoats, which were used to solve the problem of waterproofing and antifreeze when wading in water...
There are also straw sandals, which are the strengths of the volunteer soldiers. Everyone made a pair for themselves, right? I also put on a pair of shoes outside my rubber shoes. Instructor Zhao helped me make them. It is said that they are used to prevent slipping when walking on ice. I don’t know , but it is indeed much better on snow.
From this I can't help but admire again that the wisdom of the masses is infinite!
But then the problem I was worried about also appeared. The general offensive would be launched tomorrow, but the dry food distributed to the volunteers was only enough for three days, and each soldier had only 30 rounds of ammunition. When I heard this number, I couldn't help but feel dizzy. During the entire World War II, the 's combat ammunition base was 120 rounds. Now the volunteers, who were also holding Type 38 rifles, had only a quarter of the bullets in their hands.
Logistics, logistics has always been a big problem for the volunteers. When they first entered the Korean War, this problem was not serious, because the first two battles had not been fought far, and the domestic food and ammunition basically only had to be shipped abroad to reach the hands of the volunteers. But now the volunteers have fought near the 38th parallel. While this shows the great victory of the volunteers, it also exposes a very serious problem - the supply line of the volunteers is getting longer and longer. Moreover, without the air force and navy, the supply line of the volunteers is still very fragile. It can be said that every bullet, every fried noodles, and every cotton coat is condensed with the blood of the logistics troops.
But the problem of lack of bullets should not occur to me. I weighed the ammunition bag on my body, which weighed more than ten pounds! I counted it and found that there were a total of thirty-eight magazines, more than three hundred rounds of bullets, and six grenades, which I picked up along the way during the second battle. This did not include the fifteen magazines that I was forced to hand over.
Touching the M1C sniper rifle in my hand, I couldn't help but secretly feel lucky that this thing uses ordinary M1 rifle bullets. If it uses sniper rifle-specific competition bullets, where can I find so many bullets...
Most of the day was dull and boring. No one was allowed to talk or make any noise. Time passed by minute by minute in boredom and tedium.
By nearly five o'clock the next afternoon, the atmosphere in the tunnel was extremely tense, but it was not because of welcoming the New Year, but because of waiting for the upcoming third battle.
At this time, ordinary people in China should be preparing wine and food to celebrate the New Year, or the family may be sitting in front of a warm kang and making dumplings.
And we... hid in the tunnels, enduring the turbid air, shivering in our thin cotton-padded clothes, with only two days' worth of fried noodles left in our dry food bags. If it weren't for the impending war, I think no one would have been willing to eat a single bite.
"Happy New Year!" Instructor Zhao patted my shoulder as he passed by me. I was stunned, grabbed my sniper rifle and stood up, checked my equipment in the dim light, and then took out a magazine to load the rifle.
"Happy New Year!" I poked Hu Zi on the back. He was shoveling fried noodles into his mouth. When he heard this, he turned around and smiled at me, his beard covered with fried noodles crumbs.
"Happy New Year!" Hu Zi called to the old squad leader in a slightly hoarse voice. The old squad leader's hands paused as he was helping Jin Qiulian tie up her military blanket.
"Happy New Year!" The old squad leader weighed the marching belt on Jin Qiulian's back to make sure it was firm.
"Happy New Year!"
"Happy New Year!"
…
Soon the tunnel was filled with whispered greetings. Everyone had smiles on their faces and wished each other well. It didn't seem like they were going to fight a big battle, but more like they were preparing to attend a banquet!
Outside the tunnel, there was still snow and wind, and everything was white. Suddenly, a series of brilliant signal flares rose into the sky, and hundreds of artillery pieces of the Volunteer Army roared almost at the same time. In an instant, waves of earth-shattering artillery sounds broke the silence of the Imjin River, and groups of artillery shells rolled towards the enemy positions like a whirlwind, and the enemy positions were filled with smoke and fire, and countless fragments of destroyed bunkers, barbed wire, and fences flew into the air.
This was the first time that the Volunteer Army had used artillery on a large scale since entering North Korea. In order to break through this line of defense, the Volunteer Army poured out all the accumulated artillery shells at this moment.
The artillery fire lasted for more than 30 minutes. The enemy thought that the artillery of the Volunteer Army was weak and had no air force, so they were relieved to expose their artillery positions and firing points to the observation of the Volunteer Army. This made the artillery fire of the Volunteer Army very successful in suppressing the enemy's artillery and firing points. Many enemy artillery soldiers were unable to fire a single shell in the dozens of minutes of the Volunteer Army's artillery bombardment.
At this time, several red flares rose in the sky again, and the artillery fire began to extend. It was time for us to attack.
