In October 1950, when the vanguard of the 10th Army of the US Army attacked the Sino-North Korean border, a scene suddenly shocked them: hundreds of cavalry, suddenly wrapped in yellow sand, came at them from the top of the mountain.
All the American troops, including the commander, had never seen a cavalry charge, and they were stunned for a while. In the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, there was almost no combat record of the cavalry, what kind of unit is this mysterious cavalry, and why did it appear here?
In 1950, after the victory of the Volunteer Army in the initial battle of Unsan, the US army did not stop advancing, and the US 8th Army and the 10th Army each advanced rapidly north along the east and west coasts of Korea, hoping to wipe out the remnants of the Korean People's Army in one fell swoop, and finally rendezvous at the Sino-Korean border.
At this time, the U.S. military did not confirm that the volunteer troops had entered the DPRK, and the two U.S. troops rushed forward, hoping to be the first to win.
Wu Ruilin, commander of the 42nd Army of the Volunteer Army, was ordered to go to the Eastern Front to block the US 10th Army.
This is a difficult problem for Wu Ruilin, the US military is basically a mechanized force, and the speed of maneuvering is particularly fast. It is almost unrealistic to set up an ambush in front of the enemy.
Thinking about it, Wu Ruilin had "cavalry" in his mind. That's right!Without a car, if you want to move quickly, only a cavalry can do it. As early as the War of Liberation, our army used a large number of cavalry units to intersperse and encircle the enemy. Wu Ruilin immediately decided to send a cavalry unit to take the enemy by surprise and delay time.
In 1948, our cavalry charged the enemy in the Black Mountain Blockade
However, after the end of the Liberation War, many cavalry units have been reduced, and after the Volunteer Army entered the DPRK, there was no special cavalry unit. At present, time is pressing, Wu Ruilin immediately decided to temporarily form a cavalry unit, and he immediately ordered the collection of hundreds of tall and sturdy military horses from the whole army.
At the same time, soldiers with good riding skills were carefully selected from the 42nd Army, as well as commanders and fighters who had served as cavalry. After a simple run-in, it took only a few days to make up the only temporary cavalry brigade of the Volunteer Army in the Korean War.
After the formation of the temporary cavalry brigade, it was quickly put into battle. The cavalry moved really fast, traveling hundreds of miles a day, and soon penetrated into the Huangcaoling area.
The cavalry soon encountered Guturi, the vanguard of the U.S. 10th Army. The cavalry took advantage of their mobility and quickly launched an assault on the American troops.
More than 300 cavalry marched forward and slaughtered the Americans. The U.S. army had never seen the cavalry unit charge at all, and when they saw the war horse rushing over with loess under their feet, they were dumbfounded, and they didn't know how to deal with it, so they stayed in place.
There were many Mongolian warriors in the cavalry brigade, who grew up on horseback since childhood, and immediately became proficient in kung fu. They rode horses and charged, stepped into the enemy formation, raised their sabers and shouted at the American troops, shouting for a moment of killing.
Only then did the U.S. military react and immediately fled in all directions, but how could two legs outrun four legs?The U.S. army was like a sheep by the volunteer cavalry, and no matter how much they ran, they couldn't break free from the cavalry. After only ten minutes, the American infantry was killed by the cavalry of the Volunteer Army, and there were corpses all over the ground.
Just as the cavalry brigade was preparing to continue the charge, suddenly the front of the road began to shake, and the rumbling engine sound was heard from behind, and it seemed that the enemy's mechanized troops were approaching. The cavalry was okay to fight the infantry, but it couldn't be hard on the iron king, and the commanders and fighters decided to accept it when they saw it, and immediately led the cavalry troops to retreat and return according to the original way.
The cavalry came like rain and went like the wind. After the arrival of the American armored unit, the volunteers left them with the corpses of the American soldiers.
Soon, Almond, commander of the U.S. Tenth Army, received a report that the vanguard reconnaissance unit reported that it had been attacked by enemy cavalry and suffered heavy casualties.
After receiving the report, Almond was very puzzled, since World War II, there has basically been no army to use cavalry in modern warfare, and he has fought with the People's Army before, and he has not encountered cavalry units, and he was suddenly attacked by cavalry here, which is incredible, so he didn't even believe the reports of his subordinates at first.
Thinking about it, he and the staff officer had only one result in mind: the Soviet "Cossack cavalry". Because since World War II, the only large-scale use of cavalry units was only the Cossack units of the Soviet Army.
Could it be that the Soviet Union has secretly entered the war?The stakes are high. At that time, the United States was very afraid of a head-on confrontation with the Soviet Union, triggering World War III. The matter had been handed over to the diplomatic level, and Almond did not dare to make his own decisions, so he immediately ordered his troops to stop their advance and stand by and watch for vigilance.
In the following days, the 10th Army of the US Army conducted a large-scale search through reconnaissance planes and reconnaissance units on the ground to determine whether the Soviet Union would send troops. After repeated searches, the US military completely found out that the Soviet Union did not send troops, but only a small force of China or North Korea. The tens of thousands of attacking troops of the US army were entangled by the small cavalry of the volunteers, and they did not dare to act rashly, so they stayed in place for several days.
It was the precious time of the past few days that Xiao Jianfei, deputy commander of the 124th Division, had led two pioneer battalions to Huangcaoling. They built defensive positions before the enemy arrived.
In order to hinder the enemy's mechanized troops, two battalions of the 124th Division planted hundreds of kilograms of explosives in the crevices of the mountains next to the road. When the enemy launched an attack on October 25, all the tanks and armored vehicles were buried alive by the bombs, so that the enemy did not dare to attack for five or six days.
Since the cavalry bought several days, the 124th Division was given plenty of time to prepare.
The blocking battle of Huangcaoling lasted for 13 days and nights, and the capital division of the Korean puppet army never broke through the defense line of our army, and by October 31, the enemy had killed 500 people and wounded 1,300 people.
After the victory in the initial battle at Huangcaoling, the Volunteer Army, a very special temporary cavalry brigade, participated in the subsequent battles one after another.
However, due to the small size of the troops, it is not mentioned much in many sources. Moreover, because of the mountainous and hilly terrain of Korea, it was not suitable for large-scale cavalry combat, so there are only a handful of combat records of cavalry in the Korean War.