Author: Mo Bilian.
Every year, when I see reports on the planes picking up the remains of the martyrs of the volunteers who died in South Korea, I am reminded of the deep regret of an old man. On the battlefield, he and his comrades-in-arms shared life and death, narrowly escaped the strafing of the plane's bullets, was almost buried alive, and was scratched by shrapnel several times. In 1954, on the eve of returning to China, he led his comrades-in-arms to collect the scattered remains of volunteer martyrs and bury them together, and put a stone monument for each comrade-in-arms with a name. I just hope that I can take them home when I have time in the future. After returning to China for decades, he looked forward to it again and again, but he still couldn't expect the news of the return of his comrades-in-arms in Korea. In August 2022, the second-level top shooter, with deep regret, reunited with his comrades in Jiuquan. I don't know when the old man's expectations will come true?
The old man's name is Liu Chuanjun, Miao nationality, born in November 1931 in Longtan Town, Huayuan County. He joined the Chinese People's Liberation Army in November 1950 and entered the Korean War in the spring of 1951. He participated in the Autumn Offensive of 1951, the 45-day garrison battle, the two counterattacks of Imjin Gangdong and Jeongdong Seosan in 1952, and the 80-day garrison battle in early 1953, and negotiated for the defense of Kaesong for about 2 months. He successively served as a soldier of the second company of the transport battalion of the 139th division of the 47th Army of the Chinese People's Volunteers, the deputy shooter and shooter of the second platoon of the machine gun squad of the ninth company of the 4153rd battalion, the battalion communications officer, the deputy squad leader of the second squad of the recoilless gun platoon, and the first squad leader of the first platoon of the ninth company. After the end of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, he accompanied the army to help the Korean people rebuild their homeland. He joined the Communist Party of China in December 1953, returned to China in November 1954, changed jobs in November 1964, and retired in May 1992. He passed away in August 2022.
1. Enlistment: admiration for strict military discipline
After the liberation of the southwest, the 139th Division of the 47th Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army returned from Sichuan to Xiangxi to eliminate the remnants of the Kuomintang and bandits. One morning in September 1950, when Liu Chuanjun got up to relieve himself, a team of People's Liberation Army passed by his house and called him: "Little ghost, will you show us the way?"Liu Chuanjun said okay. In this way, he led the way for the PLA to suppress bandits for more than a month, during which he ate and lived with the PLA, and saw with his own eyes that the PLA comrades were strictly disciplined and did not commit any crimes against the people. One day at noon, the chief asked, "Would you like to be a soldier?"Liu Chuanjun had this idea for a long time, but he didn't dare to say it, and when he saw the chief ask, he immediately replied, "Yes." So Liu Chuanjun joined the Chinese People's Liberation Army in November.
2. Entering the court: a sweat-soaked rapid march
After receiving training in Changsha in December, Liu Chuanjun was assigned to the Second Company of the Transport Battalion of the 139th Division of the 47th Army. In the spring of 1951, they took a train from Changsha to Dandong City, Liaoning Province, in northeastern China, after seven days and seven nights of bumpy driving. Dandong is separated from Korea by a river, and every day US planes on the other side of the Yalu River are seen bombing day and night, and the smell of gunpowder in the war is very strong, and everyone is very angry and eager to immediately cross the river to join the war. The troops rested in Dandong.
After five or six days, after making preparations for the invasion of Korea, they took advantage of the darkness to cross the Yalu River from a temporary wooden bridge made of wooden boats and planks. Because the Yalu River and the surrounding area were important targets for bombing by enemy planes, on the first night after crossing the river, they all ran forward, and they ran for more than 30 miles before stopping, and their clothes and pants were all soaked with sweat. Because the enemy planes were very rampant, everyone could only march at night. In order to prevent the enemy planes from discovering them, each soldier, including all the cars and artillery, was camouflaged, and each person had a camouflage circle, which was tied with branches and leaves, so that if the planes came, as long as they did not move, it would be difficult for the enemy planes to detect them. After the enemy planes passed, they continued their rapid march. In this way, the clothes were wet and dry, dry and wet, and they walked for seven nights in a row, and finally arrived in Sunan, North Korea.
3. Build an airfield: strafing by enemy aircraft + "night owl's eye".
Due to the enemy's air supremacy in the Korean battlefield in the early stage, Shiji decided to build a military airfield in Sunan, where the terrain was slightly flat, and the 47th Army undertook the task of building the airfield. Because the activities of the enemy planes were so frenzied that they could only repair at night, they used iron stools and pickaxes to dig up rocks and soil, and picked up low-lying places to fill in. It's better to have moonlight, you can see the road, when there is no moonlight, you can't see anything, and the work efficiency is very low. So the leaders of the army decided to try it during the day, and 2 people were selected from each shift, and Liu Chuanjun was selected to participate in the daytime construction. I was really unlucky, five enemy planes came that day, and when they found the target, they strafed at a low altitude. Although everyone immediately hidden, Liu Chuanjun's company still had 1 soldier killed, 1 soldier wounded, and other companies participating in the construction also had **. After this incident, the troops no longer had to repair during the day, except for a few people who were on guard, everyone rested during the day and worked at night.
One night, Liu Chuanjun found that his eyes were blurry, he couldn't see things clearly, and he couldn't work. He was nervous and reported it to the squad leader. The squad leader is from the Northeast, thinking that Liu Chuanjun is lazy, and criticized him twice. Unexpectedly, there were soldiers in other companies who had such a problem, and after the hygienist examined, it turned out that it was because they often ate canned food, lacked vitamins, and had "night owl's eye" (night blindness). After this situation was reported to the rear, some radishes and carrots were shipped from the rear one after another, and after eating for about half a month, Liu Chuanjun's "night owl's eye" was fine, and he could see things through the faint moonlight at night.
4. Pride: Promoted from a secondary shooter to a shooter
The airfield was not yet completed, the 139th Division accepted the combat mission, and the whole division marched to the front line. In order to strengthen and enrich the strength of the combat company (12 men per squad), some personnel were transferred from the divisional transport battalion to the 415th Regiment, and Liu Chuanjun was assigned to the machine gun squad of the 9th Company and the 2nd Platoon of the 3rd Battalion. The machine gun squad had 2 machine guns, one for 4 people, with a shooter, a deputy shooter and 2 ammunition men. The squad leader arranged for Liu Chuanjun to be the deputy shooter of the machine gun. When marching, the shooter and the sub-shooter carry their guns, and the ammunition bearer carries the bullets. Since the bullet box was not easy to carry, they pressed all the bullets in the bullet bag, and it was very convenient to march on their shoulders. Before the battle began, the troops seized the time to repair fortifications and conduct military training, basically half of them repaired tunnels and half of them engaged in training, and they took turns to change shifts. Military training mainly uses the terrain to aim at live ammunition and throw grenades. During the training, Liu Chuanjun had excellent shooting results, throwing bombs of more than 50 meters, ranking first in the whole company, and was praised by the company and platoon commanders. In the political science Xi, Liu Chuanjun actively spoke, and once the whole company held a Xi discussion meeting, and the squad leader arranged for him to speak at the conference. Coupled with his good shooting performance, he was later promoted from a secondary shooter to a shooter.
During his four years in Korea, Liu Chuanjun participated in the autumn offensive of 1951, the 45-day garrison battle, the two counterattack battles of Imjin Gangdong and Jeongdong Seosan in 1952, the 80-day garrison battle in early 1953, and the defense and negotiation in Kaesong for about 2 months.
5. Garrison Battle: I was almost buried alive that night
In the 45-day garrison battle, Liu Chuanjun's platoon was tasked with defending the nameless heights. The enemy repeatedly attacked them, and the fighters used trenches and bomb shelters to put up stubborn resistance to the enemy. One day, enemy planes dropped bombs on our position, and a bomb was 10 meters away from the air-raid shelter where Liu Chuanjun was, which shattered the cave wall, and Liu Chuanjun, the team leader, and another soldier were buried underneath. The team leader was lucky to be buried shallowly, and Liu Chuanjun and the other comrade-in-arms were buried a little deeper, about meters deep in the soil. The team leader is a northeasterner, tall, with long hands and feet, and soon pulled it out by himself, and immediately used an iron pry to save Liu Chuanjun and another comrade-in-arms. Fortunately, they showed their hands and heads first in the process of self-rescue, and they did not suffocate. After being rescued, Liu Chuanjun was fine, and he could still participate in the construction of fortifications and battles the next day. The comrade-in-arms was unwell due to the pressure on his chest for a long time, so he rested for a few days.
Once, the enemy's bullet rain hit again, and the shrapnel after ** was everywhere. Liu Chuanjun suddenly felt a numbness in his left leg, but fortunately, the heavy cotton pants protected him, and his thigh was only injured by flesh. However, one of his comrades-in-arms was hit by shrapnel in the vital part and fell forever and was buried in the position.
In the Korean battlefield, there was basically no distinction between the front and the rear, and in the garrison battle, Liu Chuanjun and his comrades-in-arms all lived in air-raid shelters, and the enemy's aircraft and artillery often frantically dropped bombs and fired, so it was necessary to pay attention to air defense at all times. Liu Chuanjun has suffered several minor injuries, but fortunately, they are only bruises, not muscles.
In the face of the enemy's many crazy attacks, Liu Chuanjun's platoon 3 infantry squads and 1 machine gun squad fought bravely with the active cooperation of artillery, they destroyed 2 enemy tanks at the cost of 4 sacrifices and most minor injuries, eliminated about 40 enemies, captured dozens of various **, held the position, and collectively won the first-class merit 1 time, and the platoon commander Zhao Hongzhi was awarded the special merit, and he was received by the first class when he returned to China.
6. Recuperation: Military training and cultural Xi
There were many troops to resist US aggression and aid Korea, and they fought in turns. Later, according to the orders of the superiors, Liu Chuanjun's unit was transferred back to the second line to rest and sum up experience. During the break, half a day of military training and half a day of learning Xi political culture, each company has a cultural instructor, and each soldier is issued with a Xi of pinyin and alphabet and a new character book, and is required to learn Xi pinyin and recognize characters. After several months of learning Xi, the soldiers basically learned pinyin, and could read, write, and speak the meaning of more than 1,000 commonly used words. Liu Chuanjun read private school and new books when he was a child, and he had a bit of a cultural background, and he performed well in the school Xi, and was transferred to the battalion headquarters as a correspondent. The requirements for correspondents are mainly bold and flexible, able to complete tasks alone, and able to speak Mandarin. There are 10 comrades in the communications class, and the task is to upload and distribute, go up to the regiment headquarters, down to each company, all of them communicate on foot, and complete the task alone. Every time the battalion commander went to the division headquarters and regiment headquarters for a meeting, he had to send a messenger to follow him. The correspondent not only shoulders the duty of communication, but also performs the task of security, and the battalion commander Bai Erlong likes Liu Chuanjun very much, and when he goes out for meetings, he often asks Liu Chuanjun to go with him.
Liu Chuanjun served as a correspondent for about half a year, and due to combat needs, he was transferred to the recoilless artillery platoon of the battalion headquarters and served as the deputy squad leader of the second squad. After serving as the deputy squad leader for two months, he was transferred to any squad leader in the first platoon of the Ninth Company.
7. Post-war: an agreement
In July 1953, an agreement was negotiated in Kaesong. After the armistice, in order to help the Korean people rebuild their homeland, Liu Chuanjun and his comrades actively participated in the construction of reservoirs and dams on the west coast. In December 1953, under the training and introduction of two cadets, platoon commander Xu Hai and squad leader Qu Ruhua, Liu Chuanjun joined the Communist Party.
In August 1954, Liu Chuanjun went to the teacher to teach the camp Xi. During the teaching camp Xi, he served as class leader in the second consecutive year. Not long after studying Xi, he received instructions from his superiors to spend half a month to collect the scattered remains of volunteer martyrs and bury them together. Liu Chuanjun led his comrades-in-arms to collect the remains of volunteers who were temporarily buried during the war, chose a small mountain fort for reburial, and made a stone tablet for each martyr with a name. In the process of laying the monument, everyone felt very heavy when they thought that these comrades-in-arms who fought side by side could no longer be reunited with their families. Everyone agreed that they would take them home when they had time in the future.
After completing the task, they rested for a few days, and when the leader told them that they were going back to China, everyone was extremely happy.
8. Return: Farewell
In October 1954, Liu Chuanjun's 139th Division and other seven infantry divisions returned to China from North Korea in triumph. When walking to the train station, the North Korean people sang and danced, hugged and signed with them, and it was inseparable, and Amani, Abba, and their brothers and sisters all shed tears. Every time the train arrives at a station, it is a scene of farewell by a sea of people, which fully shows that the friendship between the peoples of China and the DPRK will last forever. When the train arrived in Dandong City, Liaoning Province, the motherland, through the Yalu River Bridge, the train stopped, gongs and drums were noisy, and firecrackers rang out, and Liu Chuanjun and all the soldiers were warmly welcomed by the people of the motherland.
After graduating from the training camp, Liu Chuanjun was left in the training camp as a deputy platoon commander for two months, and then served as the company secretary general, and was promoted to second lieutenant platoon commander in November 1955 because of his good military skills. After four years of work in the training battalion, he was transferred back to his original unit to take up his post, and participated in military training and military competitions many times, and was awarded the "second-class excellent marksman" of the Guangzhou Military Region, the third place in the army's military triathlon competition, and the "bomb throwing pacesetter" of the regimental headquarters.
9. Shooting range: the motivation of an 83-year-old shooter
On August 1, 2014, under the scorching sun, 83-year-old Liu Chuanjun demonstrated the shooting of the Type 56 submachine gun at the Huayuan County Light ** Shooting Range for hundreds of cadres and people who came to experience the military day activities. After the five rounds were fired, the old man immediately got up and stood up. "Six targets, two ten rings, three nine rings!When the sound of the target was announced, the people who pricked up their ears to listen immediately burst into applause and amazement. The accurate shooting of the veterans of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea greatly boosted the enthusiasm of the cadres and masses to participate in military activities.
10. Last wish: The soft sigh
In 2014, Liu Chuanjun said that when he heard that someone traveled to North Korea, he went to look for the mountain bags where they concentrated on burying the martyrs of the volunteers, but he did not find them.
In 2018, the veteran brought up the topic again: "Hey, I don't know when I'll find it." ”
Today, the veterans have returned. His soft sigh hit my heart all the time. Those martyrs of the volunteer army buried in North Korea, when will you return to the embrace of the motherland?
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