In addition to the more than 100 wounded soldiers and the escorted 200 Japanese troops who were sent back to Changyang County on the afternoon of the first day, more than 3,400 people from the 232nd Infantry Regiment of the 39th Division set out from Changyang, 3,082 of whom were killed in battle, and 83 were captured.
However, the Japanese army knew the specific losses of its infantry due to the Chinese broadcast announcing the loss to all the Chinese people at 9 o'clock that night.
An infantry regiment and a naval aviation squadron disappeared into the most beautiful mountains in China. The commander of the Japanese 11th Army, Yokoyama Isamu, and the Japanese Navy Commander, Hasegawa Ao, collectively spat out a mouthful of old blood!
However, the loss of an infantry regiment of 3,000 men was clearly affordable for the Japanese 11th Army, which had more than 100,000 troops.
The Japanese troops attacking from the Changyang direction were frustrated, but this did not mean that the Japanese troops encircling them from other directions stopped.
January 18th!
Lieutenant General Yokoyama Isamu, the commander of the Japanese 11th Army, flew to Yiling in person, which was equivalent to supervising the battle on the front line. The commander of the 39th Division, Murakami Kaisaku, acted as the front-line commander and personally boarded the light destroyer Murasame to lead the 39th Division.
The 233rd Regiment, another main infantry wing of the 39th Division, and an infantry brigade of the 13th Division, under the aerial escort of dozens of fighter planes, headed towards the front of Shipai Fortress.
If you think that this Japanese army of no more than 10,000 people is the main force behind Hengshan Yong's attack on Shipai Fortress, you are totally wrong.
Although these three infantry regiments were all elite members of the Japanese 11th Army, they only accounted for a small part of the forces deployed by the Japanese army to attack Shipai Fortress.
In addition, a total of more than 40,000 Japanese troops from the Yegou Detachment, the Needle Valley Detachment, the 231st Infantry Regiment of the 39th Division, the 3rd Division and the 40th Division encircled the Shipai Fortress from three directions.
It is the real main force of the Japanese army.
In this combat area with a linear length of approximately 200 kilometers and a width of approximately 60 kilometers, China has deployed a total of 13 divisions and 3 independent brigades in the Sixth and Fifth Theater Zones, with a total strength of nearly 150,000 troops.
Although the Chinese military strength is greater than that of the Japanese army, which has invested a total of 120,000 troops, at least five divisions were forced to retreat after the Japanese army suffered heavy losses in the early operations against Shipai, leaving only an area of less than 100 kilometers around Shipai.
A main infantry corps, three divisions and a special forces regiment are still holding their positions, and the overall defense strength will never exceed 70,000 people.
70,000 vs. 50,000, the military strength is still not weak, but the heavy firepower is still far inferior.
From the river surface alone, the Japanese army invested 4 light destroyers and more than a dozen gunboats. Not to mention the 140mm naval guns equipped on the destroyers, the Anzhai gunboat, which has a tonnage of only 780 tons, is equipped with two 120mm guns.
mm naval gun.
The smoke caused by the artillery bombardment of the Chinese positions in Shipai Fortress from the river could be described as covering the sky and the sun.
On the other hand, the only thing that China can effectively counterattack is the six 190-caliber river defense guns owned by the fortress, while the main division like the 11th Division only has 12 75-mm caliber mountain guns.
That's not to mention other infantry divisions. Some infantry divisions don't even have mountain artillery, and only have a small number of 82 mortars to support their appearance.
Among the 60,000 to 70,000 Chinese troops, the Si Xing Regiment was the only one with heavy firepower that completely surpassed the Japanese army.
At noon on the 18th, the Japanese army launched a landing battle on the front position of Shipai Fortress. Dozens of naval guns blasted all positions in Shipai into smoke.
In the sky, the Japanese Navy used all its strength, with more than 40 fighter planes flying up and down, dropping all kinds of heavy aerial bombs into the mountains and forests where Chinese soldiers might be.
The six Chinese anti-river artillery pieces also fired back angrily, causing the water column to splash up to a height of more than ten meters on the river surface, and burning the river beach where the Japanese infantry were landing.
An infantry company responsible for defending this area also fired vigorously in an attempt to prevent the Japanese infantry from landing smoothly.
However, due to the terrain and the defensive tactics of division commander surnamed Hu, the five machine guns and bullets fired by 130 soldiers deployed on this platform called Tianxiantai were not enough to stop thousands of Japanese troops from jumping into the freezing waist-deep river.
Advance towards the landing site.
The Japanese army suffered more than 200 casualties, and most of them successfully landed on the river beach. This loss was completely within the acceptable range of Lieutenant General Murakami.
The most brutal battle broke out at three o'clock in the afternoon that day!
Tianxiantai is a mountain with three vertical sides. There is only one place that can be climbed up the mountain by a small road. Two machine guns are used to block the only way to the mountain. Even if there are thousands of Japanese troops, the Chinese infantry company will not run out of ammunition and food.
, and there is no way to climb this high ground.
And it was impossible for the Japanese army to bypass this area where deadly bullets could be fired at any time.
Therefore, the Japanese army first detoured to the rear of Tianxiantai, completely cutting off the retreat of the Chinese defenders of Tianxiantai, and then covered Tianxiantai with artillery fire of various types, and used 12 bombers to bombard the place in turn.
According to post-war statistics, on this day, the Japanese army dropped more than 790 artillery shells of various types and 38 aerial bombs on the hilltop of Tianxiandai, which was only 8,000 square meters in radius. Even steel would be blown into ashes.
But to the surprise of the Japanese army, even under such intensity of artillery fire, the gunfire on the mountain peak did not stop for a moment until nightfall that day.
In order to prevent this serious enemy from launching another attack at night, the Japanese army waited until the early morning of the 19th to send an infantry squadron to attack Tianxiantai and completely occupy the high ground that had been extremely soft by the bombing. Then the main force moved towards the core defensive position of Shipai Fortress.
Advance.
The more than 200 Japanese troops did not encounter much resistance in the early morning of the 19th, mainly because after half a day of heavy artillery and aircraft bombing, there were few living people on the Tianxiantai Highlands where all the fortifications had been destroyed.
Even those who are alive are seriously injured!
According to Shipai after the war, he did not participate in the meat grinder battle inside Shipai Fortress due to injury. The then 233rd Infantry Regiment 8th Infantry Battalion Sergeant Edogawa Koma’s oral account of his ascension to Tensendai:
On this beautiful mountain peak overlooking the river and river beach, there is no green at all, it is all scorched earth, and the soil here is obviously much softer than in other areas. When you step on it, the dust can reach your ankles.
I didn't think anyone would be alive here, but I was wrong. While my colleagues and I were still looking around blankly, a bullet burst out of the soil and hit Mr. Nomura.
I still remember his confused look as he looked at his chest. Like me, he didn't believe there were enemies here, but the blood flowing out of his chest told me that this was a fact.
Someone actually hid in the soil and launched this fatal blow.
My colleagues and I angrily fired bullets at the target whose position had been exposed. In the soil more than thirty meters away, a figure was quietly crawling, and the blood on his body continued to splash under the bullets.
Someone walked over and carefully opened the corpse with a bayonet. Many imperial officers and soldiers were stunned on the spot.
He should still be a teenager, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old.
But what shocked me so much that I didn't speak for a long time was not because of the young age of the corpse, nor because the corpse was only 2 meters long at most, but because his legs had long been broken off by the horrific bombardment yesterday.
Instead, there was no fear on the extremely dirty face of the corpse, but tranquility and serenity. I could even feel that he was smiling!
His leg was broken, and he must have been in pain. He was hit by at least 20 bullets before he died. It was so painful that it hurt so much, so what was he laughing about?
It's hard for me to understand, maybe he is a madman!
It was difficult for Sergeant Edogawa Kokon to understand the peace on the face of the young Chinese soldier when he died, but he had to be grateful to the young Chinese soldier who made the final resistance on the Tensendai position.
Because when the Japanese army opened his body with a bayonet, they did not notice that he was holding a thread in his hand.
As the thread was pulled, smoke began to rise from the dust six meters away from the young soldier's body.
Those are three grenades tied together!
Five seconds later, the grenade exploded, killing five Japanese infantrymen and wounding six others on the spot, including Sergeant Edogawa Koima, who had just woken up from the shock.
A young Chinese soldier achieved a miracle of 1 for 6 at the critical moment. Do you think he should laugh?
Of course Edogawa Kokon would not understand the calmness on the face of the last Chinese soldier who died in battle. It was not because he finally completed the feat of one for six, but because he finally and his comrades were on the same battlefield. Reunion in another world.
When the Japanese army's overwhelming artillery fire hit, as the youngest soldier of the infantry company, he was protected by a group of uncles and eldest brothers with his body. Before the company commander died, he even ordered him to use his time to sneak in at night. Go down the mountain to escape here and ask him to report the battle situation of the infantry company to the regiment headquarters.
Brothers can all die, but they cannot die in vain. At least they must let their superiors know that they died heroically. This was the infantry company commander's final explanation to his brothers in the company.
It's a pity that the only Miaomiao who was rescued from the artillery fire by the whole company using his body as a shield could not escape the bad luck in the end. A shrapnel from the artillery shell severed his legs, so he could not escape from the position no matter what.
The young soldier blocked the wound on his broken leg with soil, tied together the last three remaining grenades on the entire position, and used the rope to make a torpedo, and then buried himself in the soft soil caused by the bombing.
Moreover, he successfully killed a Japanese invader.
However, the young soldier did not expect the Japanese counterattack to be so swift and violent. More than 20 bullets hit his body, and several of the bullets even hit his arms, causing tendons and fractures. He had no strength to pull the rope at the last moment of his life.
But it didn't matter. At the moment when his bright eyes sank into the darkness, the young soldier seemed to see his comrades walking towards him with a smile.
It's great to see you again! The young soldier exhaled his last breath of satisfaction.
Really, nothing else matters anymore, what matters is that we are together!
After the battle of Shipai defense, the division commander surnamed Hu stood on this position littered with the remains of his own soldiers and could not let go for a long time.
It was the only infantry company among the Chinese units in the Shipai Defense War whose entire structure was killed. Not even the communications and cooking soldiers survived.
The Chinese infantry used the ground to deal with the three-dimensional three-dimensional attacks of the Japanese army, land, sea and air. They were naturally outmatched. No matter how brutal they were, they could not prevent the Japanese army from successfully landing on the river beach and advancing their troops towards the Shipai Fortress.
Where is the Chinese Air Force, which has mobilized dozens of fighters and bombers?
The Chinese Air Force actually joined the war!
However, this time the Chinese Air Force did the opposite. Instead of flying directly over the Shipai Fortress to defend the airspace, at around 4 p.m., it dispatched more than 30 fighters and bombers to attack Yiling and Jingmen.
The airports in both places were bombed.
This "you fight yours, I'll fight mine" tactic was proposed by Zheng Shaoyu. He judged that the Japanese army would definitely invest more air power in the battlefield, not because they were afraid of a head-on confrontation, but because the Chinese Air Force only had such little wealth, if this
If you fight hard in one battle, what should you do in the next six months?
Therefore, a fleet of aircraft led by him personally took advantage of the Japanese fighter planes to show off their power on the Shipai battlefield, directly made a large arc, and blew up the Yiling Airport occupied by the Japanese army.
Many Japanese planes that dropped bombs were originally going to reload at Yiling Airport and fly into the battlefield. As a result, they lost their homes and had to return to Jiangxia Airport hundreds of kilometers away.
This virtually prevented the Japanese fighter planes from returning to the battlefield to drop bombs, and even two Zero fighter planes had to make an emergency landing in the farmland of the Jianghan Plain due to lack of fuel.
Moreover, Zheng Shaoyu's prediction was very accurate. In order to seek a decisive battle with the Chinese Air Force, the Japanese Navy deployed more than 50 fighter planes this time. In addition to the fighter planes participating in the enemy attack, there were 12 Zero fighter jets circling on alert at an altitude of 4,500 meters.
If the Chinese Air Force really fights with it, it will lose at least 20 fighter planes in this battle. For the Chinese Air Force, which is responsible for providing air support to the 5th Theater, 3rd Theater, 9th Theater and the defense of Sichuan Province,
It's absolutely gut-wrenching.
Although the Chinese defenders of Shipai withstood all the pressure on the first day, the Yiling and Jingmen airports were all successfully bombed by the Chinese Air Force. In the middle and late stages of the Shipai defense battle, the Japanese naval aviation had to fly from 600 kilometers away.
Taking off from Jiangxia Airport, the air attack time had to be shortened, and the frequency and efficiency of dispatches were accordingly reduced.
It can be said that despite the fact that the Japanese army won a comprehensive victory at the landing site on the 18th, with more than 9,000 Japanese infantrymen stationed in front of the Shipai Fortress, in fact, the Chinese and Japanese sides fought back and forth on this day.
Yokoyama, who had lost two airports, scolded the two infantry captains guarding the airport until they were furious.
The two Japanese army majors were actually very aggrieved. The 25mm twin machine guns they were equipped with could break the sky to a height of 2,500 meters, but the Chinese's aircraft were stuck in the 3,000-meter area. They could only watch helplessly.
What else can you do if your house is being bombed?
"The Chinese Air Force is so abominable. If you have the ability, why don't you blow up the warships of the Navy and Maldives!" Two Japanese Army majors, who were scolded by their superiors so much that their heads were almost stuffed into their crotches, resented in their hearts.
Airports are valuable, but battleships are equally valuable. They can transport infantry, have large-caliber naval guns to provide fire support to the ground, and can even provide air defense.
A 780-ton gunboat like the "Anzhai" has three three-year-old 76 mm artillery with 40 times 76 mm, which can shoot to a height of 6,800 meters. It is an absolute air defense weapon.
The Chinese planes sought their bad luck and cut off the escape route for the landing of more than 10,000 infantrymen. Taka's tactic?
The wish of the extremely aggrieved Japanese Army Major came true.
At 10 a.m. on the 19th, 16 Wildcat fighter jets of the Chinese Air Force visited the sky above Shipai. Instead of bombing the Japanese infantry that had landed, they attacked the Japanese naval fleet anchored by the river.
The most common mode for aircraft to attack ships is to drop bombs and torpedoes. Wildcat fighter jets are all land-based. The Chinese Navy, which has basically lost all its ships, has no torpedoes, so naturally it is the most conventional way to drop bombs.
Seeing a dozen fighter planes rushing madly from high in the sky along the Yangtze River, the Japanese Navy's dozen or so warships, large and small, panicked.
Although destroyers and larger gunboats are equipped with anti-aircraft anti-aircraft guns, they can hit aircraft but not dropped bombs.
Not to mention a 500-pound aerial bomb, even a 250-pound aerial bomb would cause serious damage to the destroyer.
The Japanese navy warships ran away in a swarm, trying their best to fight back and avoid maneuvering on the relatively wide river surface.
The 16 Wildcat fighter jets all started dropping bombs from an altitude of about 2,800 meters. After dropping the bombs, they did not hesitate to fight and immediately turned and flew away.
Their purpose is not to fight the Japanese fleet. Their main goal is to blow up if they can. If they can't blow up, they will scare you to death, so that you can stop and anchor comfortably to provide supplies to the Japanese infantry on the front line.
Artillery support.
The young members of the Chinese Air Force, who are becoming more and more cunning in their tactics, have once again achieved military success.
The four main-class light destroyers of the Japanese Navy escaped this round of air attacks, and no officers and soldiers were injured or killed!
But there are always unlucky ones. The stern of a 670-ton gunboat was unfortunately hit by a 250-pound aerial bomb. The huge bomb smashed through the stern deck and exploded inside the cabin.
The powerful aerial bomb directly shredded the tail of the gunboat and killed nearly half of the sailors on the gunboat. Soon, the gunboat, which was seriously flooded, sank.
Many Japanese soldiers struggled in the cold river water and were rescued by other gunboats. However, due to hypothermia caused by the low temperature, nearly one-third of the Japanese navy sank to the bottom before rescue arrived.
In addition, there was another gunboat that ran too fast and too fast, and unfortunately hit the tail of a friendly ship. The gunboat was directly hit and lost two-thirds of its propulsion. In the end, it had to be towed back to Yiling by a transport ship.
.
Two days before the start of the war, the Japanese army completed the most critical tactical goal of a frontal attack on the battlefield in front of Shipai. However, the Chinese Air Force lived up to expectations and reduced the pressure on the Chinese infantry in Shipai Fortress, and the Four Lines Regiment also ushered in
their opponents.
When he received the Japanese military number from the reconnaissance company, Tang Dao's eyes turned faint red!
