Wearing dramas starts from Changjin Lake

Chapter 181 Marching to Bhamo

This garrison team is well-equipped, well-trained, and waits for work with ease. It can be called the last trump card of the Japanese army in northern Myanmar. Its main force is the Second Search Wing of the Japanese Army.

The so-called search wing is a unique establishment in the Japanese army.

At the beginning of the war, the Japanese army generally organized cavalry regiments or cavalry brigades in infantry divisions, governing two to four cavalry squadrons, as the division's reconnaissance force and fast commando.

With the advancement of the war and the addition of new forces such as trucks, motorcycles, artillery vehicles, tanks, and aircraft, some insightful people in the Japanese army believe that the survivability of the cavalry is becoming more and more worrying in the case of increasingly intensive battlefield firepower , Can't bear the impact of cannons and heavy machine guns at all, so the cavalry has become a tasteless war, and it's a pity to discard it.

Therefore, the Japanese army used the original elite cavalry of the division to change it from cavalry to infantry on vehicles, and supplemented it with armored troops to form a new type of motorized mixed force.

This kind of troops is an outlier in the Japanese army, which is slow in the process of mechization. They not only have more modern combat methods, but also inherit the mobility of the Japanese cavalry troops, so they are often the most powerful troops in a division. .

The Second Search Wing is such a force, which belongs to the 2nd Division. The Second Search Wing has two motorized vehicle squadrons and two armored vehicle squadrons, all of which are mechanized.

According to the thinking of General Honda Masai of the 33rd Army of the Japanese Army, Hara Yoshisan's armored force should turn Bhamo into a nail and firmly block the Indian troops.

It's just that such a formation foretells failure from the very beginning.

Because defending Bhamo with armored forces is equivalent to abandoning the assault advantage of chariots.

Such an extremely mobile assault force, mainly composed of veterans, was not used by the Japanese army for raid operations, but was used to defend the city. It was already a mistake in the use of troops.

This is probably also the helpless move of the Japanese army, because the 2nd Division, which is the new force in the northern Burmese combat, after several battles with the expeditionary force, six of the seven regiments it belonged to were basically disabled, and only the second division The search wing basically didn't participate in the battle because it was a reserve team, and it still has strong combat capabilities.

But in any case, allowing a motorized force to fight defensive warfare greatly reduces its use value.

However, with such a unit capable of fighting and running, the Japanese army seemed to be reassured and had the illusion of a comeback.

Now the Japanese army still controls a large area in southern Myanmar, including the land of large and small towns such as Lashio, Mangyou, and Zhafang.

Therefore, the Japanese army felt that it had not yet reached the end of its rope, and there was still room for maneuver.

It is about 300 miles from Myitkyina to Bhamo. There are two ways to attack Bhamo: one is the main road, going south along the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, cutting off the connection between Bhamo and the Japanese army in Nankan from the east, and then attacking the city; the other is the small road. , Go south along the west bank of the Irrawaddy River, reach the Taiping River on the opposite bank of Bhamo, and then cross the river to attack the city.

According to the scheduled plan, the troops of the Indian Expeditionary Force in Myitkyina marched eastward in a large scale. In this attack, the New First Army and the New Sixth Army were originally going hand in hand. The strange formation of the three columns of , center and right.

The main attacker was Sun Liren's new army on the left, which went down the Irrawaddy River from Myitkyina, attacked from northwest to southeast, and aimed directly at Bhamo.

In the middle, Liao Yaoxiang's 6th Division of the New 50th Army went straight to the south, taking the West Fort from Nanzhi, Manna and other places south of Bhamo. The supporting troops of the division and regiment cover the attack of the New First Army on Bhamo.

And to the south of this supporting force, there was also an inexplicable right column. This right column came uninvited. It was not the Huaxia army, but the 36th Division of the Yingguo Army.

According to Mengbatten, this is to cover the safety of the right wing of the Allied forces.

But many people know well that Daying's army is not so much to fight the Japanese, it is better to say it is to defend against the Indian army!

In the hearts of the Daying Empire, although the Japanese army occupied most of southern Burma in the past two years, they still believed that this place was still a colony of Daying.

The Daying Empire could not accept that the Huaxia army continued to advance south.

If Huaxia continues to expand its influence here, it will cause unavoidable diplomatic friction.

There has always been a point of view in the Guo army: when the expeditionary army fought for the first time, the Yingguo people's wishful thinking was to let the Huaxia army cover their retreat, deliberately not wanting the Huaxia army to win.

The Daying Empire has done the best in defrauding people.

So, there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests.

However, the Battle of Bhamo could not be won by the infantry alone, so after a lot of bargaining, the expeditionary army had to take action in the end.

According to the strategic deployment, in order to save the defeat in northern Myanmar, the Japanese army launched the Henan-Xiang-Guangxi Grand Battle, pressing step by step until they reached Xuefeng Mountain. The domestic situation was very severe.

Therefore, not long after Liao Yaoxiang's Sixth Army marched eastward, it received an order to return to China by air.

He left the 50th Division to cooperate with the First Army to continue to attack Bhamo, and he himself returned to China with the 14th Division and the new 22nd Division.

Dai Anlan's 200th Division, which still belongs to the Western Yunnan Expeditionary Force, has also been ordered by the Western Yunnan General Headquarters to not go back for the time being and continue to cooperate with the new army's eastward advance.

However, the main force attacking Bhamo is still mainly the New 38th Division, 30th Division and 50th Division.

As a reserve division, the 200th Division temporarily followed Pan Yukun's 50th Division to attack West Fort.

Xibao is an important military base of the Japanese army in central Burma.

Two years ago, when the expeditionary force entered Burma for the first time, the Japanese army dispatched a division, interspersed through the jungle, and went north through Xibao, and captured Lashio, the logistics center of the expeditionary force, which led to instability of the army and made the entire Burmese war situation worse. Take a nosedive.

More importantly, the distance from Xibao to Mandalay, the ancient capital of Myanmar, is only 124 miles.

The 50th Division led by Pan Yukun implemented a tactic this time of deep penetration, trying to intercept the Japanese reinforcements heading to Bhamo in the south, and cover and support the new 38th Division to attack from the front.

According to the news sent back by the spies, the Japanese troops stationed in West Fort had a very large number of numbers, including the 29th, 56th, 113th, 146th, and 148th five infantry regiments and one artillery regiment. Troops of 23 other auxiliary units.

If they were fully loaded, the number of Japanese troops could reach 2000, but now they are all a group of small groups of defeated soldiers who have been scattered and retreated here, and they are improvised, and there are less than [-] people.

Therefore, Pan Yukun estimated the strength of the enemy and ourselves, and with Dai Anlan's 200th Division behind him, he led the 50th Division to launch a strong attack on the periphery of Xibao.

The 50th Division's assault was too fast and sharp. Before the Japanese troops in the outskirts of West Fort could react, they were defeated and had no power to parry.

It took only one day for the 50th Division to clear the outlying strongholds of West Fort. This sudden attack gave the Japanese army a great shock, and the Japanese defenders with a large number of numbers were defeated before they had time to coordinate.

The various units of the Japanese army had to retreat quickly, and organized a river defense position by the Nandu River, south of Xibao, to continue to resist tenaciously.

At the same time, Nakamura Yuji, the squadron leader of the third squadron of the first brigade of the 146th regiment of the Japanese army, used a 355 highland near the river to defend, and called a tank force with seven Type [-] armored vehicles as the main force to cover his attack. The infantry unit counterattacked the attack of the Huaxia army.

Facing the obstruction of Nandu River, as well as the 355 highlands and seven tanks, the fierce offensive of Pan Yukun's 50th Division was finally stopped.

The enemy and us both settled down with Nandu River as the boundary.

The chariot company of the advance regiment rumbled in. Milong, Bula, and Snakebutt, in order to save their feet, learned to hitchhike and climbed on top of the tank to sit.

Although sitting on the tank cover is not as good as driving a tank, it is also very refreshing when the tank is racing, and the bean cake has finally passed its addiction.

Kang Ya commanded eight chariots to the area where the 50th Division was stationed.

(End of this chapter)