In the end, Derek could only leave angrily because he felt that Wang Xuexin was right. The army belonged to the Eighth Route Army. It was their business to do whatever the Eighth Route Army wanted to do. As a "military adviser", he had no right to interfere.
So even though Derek's lungs were about to explode, he still had no choice but to leave.
Derek reported to his superiors: "This is a group of lunatics. They don't understand war at all. In their eyes, fighting is just about sending troops and leaving the rest to God!"
If other people heard this, they would probably laugh out loud. Those who have never experienced war and do not understand war are the 82nd Airborne Division, including Derek... The 82nd Airborne Division is adapted from the 82nd Infantry Division
, although this infantry division was formed during World War I and participated in two battles.
However, Yingjiang only joined the war at the end of the war, and the veterans who fought in the war have basically retired. Moreover, infantry combat in World War I and paratrooper combat in World War II are completely different things. The experience cannot be extended at all, because the entire First World War
Very few members of the 82nd Airborne Division have combat experience, and the vast majority of them are new recruits who know nothing about it. They have only been trained for 10 months after emergency recruitment and have not participated in an actual battle.
On the other hand, in the Eighth Route Army, every one of them grew up on the battlefield and crawled out of the mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Any guerrilla member he picks up will have several combat experiences.
And these veteran soldiers like Yingjiang actually laughed at the Eighth Route Army for "not understanding war"?
After receiving Derek's telegram, Yingjiang did not make too many comments because they also felt that they could not interfere too much.
At this time, the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division was Li Qiwei, who was well known to the Chinese people. At this time, he did not take the Chinese army too seriously, perhaps because at this time, he was actively planning the airborne landing on Sicily that would be implemented next month.
Combat.
After hearing Derek talk about this, he simply replied: "Let them go, the war will give them a hard slap in the face to wake them up!"
Derek thought so too, so he decided to do what Wang Xuexin said and only train the Eighth Route Army airborne troops to do parachuting.
He said to the instructors he led: "Don't teach us any knowledge other than skydiving. We just treat ourselves as skydiving instructors. Do you understand?"
"yes!"
"no problem!"
"That's what I originally wanted to do!"
…
The instructors responded sparsely.
In the eyes of Derek and the instructors, the Eighth Route Army was too arrogant.
Although Yingjiang and the Eighth Route Army have never fought in airborne operations, at least Yingjiang's airborne troops have become an army and have formed combat effectiveness, and they still have 10 months of training experience. Why is the Eighth Route Army so poor that even the transport planes were just equipped?
Do you think you can surpass the Yingjiang Airborne Force?
They simply didn't know that Wang Xuexin's target was not and could not be the Yingjiang Airborne Forces.
Because Wang Xuexin knows very well the virtues of the Eagle Soldiers... They are used to enjoying a peaceful and comfortable life, and it is difficult for them to withstand the hardships of the battlefield.
The reason why the parachute operation in Sicily was a complete failure was due to the commander's decision-making issues, but it was related to the fighting will of the Eagle Soldiers:
Although the nearly two thousand people of the first airborne regiment were scattered in various places, if they actively looked for fighter planes, they would not have played no role.
The degree of collapse of the Eagle Sauce Soldier is unimaginable to outsiders:
The regiment leader, Gavin, injured his leg when he was airborne. He limped around looking for troops to gather, but he only found about twenty people after searching all night.
At first Gavin thought it was because the strong wind had spread the troops too thinly, but after daybreak he discovered that this was not the case.
Because he found a group of more than 200 Yingjiang soldiers hiding in the vegetable field and sleeping soundly. Not only were they sleeping, but there were no sentries posted, so that these soldiers needed Gavin to loudly order them to get up...
Gavin said this in an interview afterwards: "Our soldiers are very brave, they have created miracles. Because they slept on the battlefield without sentries, their courage is unparalleled. Their ability to come back alive is a miracle in itself."
Miracle……"
No sentries, sleep, and fight passively.
Any one of these is an absolutely unacceptable mistake.
If we target the Yingjiang Airborne Troops... it would be too easy. The Eighth Route Army Airborne Troops only need to learn to parachute and they have already surpassed them.
A few days later, the airborne troops began to arrive, and Wang Xuexin organized them into the First Airborne Regiment.
The first thing Wang Xuexin did was to use the military rank system in the airborne regiment.
In fact, the Eighth Route Army also has military ranks.
The Eighth Route Army's military rank system was proposed and implemented in April 1939. It is basically divided into 6 levels and 16 levels like the stubborn army, that is, generals, colonels, lieutenants, warrant officers, sergeants, and soldiers. The sixth level is further divided into 16 levels.
However, the Eighth Route Army at this time emphasized the equality of officers and soldiers. Although there were military ranks, most units did not have military ranks. Only regular and well-established troops and commanders or special staff who needed to deal with stubborn troops frequently had military ranks.
Therefore, some strange things happened in the Eighth Route Army: some commanders were rated military ranks but did not use them because they were not announced, and they were not even informed because they did not know it.
For example, when a certain commander was promoted to regiment commander, he saw the word "Colonel Commander" in the official document, and then he realized that he was actually a "Colonel"!
Because of this, Wang Xuexin's plan to implement a rank system in the airborne troops attracted many objections, including Wang Shuheng, commander of the 1st Airborne Regiment.
Wang Shuheng was once a battalion commander of the main division of the Eighth Route Army. The reason why he actively sought to join the airborne troops was simply because he was jealous of repeating rifles.
This is what Wang Shuheng said to others: "All repeating rifles have been given to the mechanized troops. Our main force is probably hopeless!"
Others didn't agree with this, and they said to Wang Shuheng: "Battalion Commander, after the mechanized troops are equipped, won't they equip our main troops next? When will our main troops arrive later than others?"
Wang Shuheng replied: "What do you know? Our main force is good at marching on two legs, and is most familiar with bolt-action rifles. Now it is equipped with a Eagle Springfield rifle. Can we easily switch to a repeating rifle?"
"
Wang Shuheng has a unique vision.
This is indeed the case in terms of the combat effectiveness of the entire army.
Because the main force using Springfield rifles already has considerable combat effectiveness and can compete with the Japanese, is it necessary to replace their equipment with unfamiliar repeating rifles and retrain and adapt?
At this time, we should issue repeating rifles to those troops whose equipment is relatively backward and have not adapted to bolt-action rifles, right?
Convert them into mechanized troops, and the improvement in combat effectiveness will obviously be much greater than that of the main force.
Wang Shuheng saw this and knew that if he continued to stay in the main force, he would never own a repeating rifle in his life.
So after hearing about the equipment of the airborne troops, I resolutely signed up to join the airborne troops.