After the brigade commander received the telegram, he asked Li Changshui to send a telegram to Xu Dalong, saying that they would pay close attention to the movements of these Japanese troops and would report to Xu Dalong at any time.
Soon after, the news came. The Japanese army went in a circle and took a detour to Lingao City.
This time they learned the lesson from the last time the military column was attacked. They first attacked in the east and in the west. Moreover, they did not dare to ride on the military column again. Instead, they collected a large number of vehicles and used the night march to Lingao City to supplement the Japanese 32nd Army. The strength of the division.
After receiving the telegram from Li Changshui, Xu Dalong decided to take a preemptive strike and first attack the troops supplemented by the Japanese 32nd Division.
At this moment, Xu Dalong received a telegram from the brigade commander and gave the Mawushan guerrillas a task that must be completed.
It turned out that the Japanese army discovered the location of the headquarters' logistics organization through aerial reconnaissance, mobilized heavy troops and launched an attack.
The brigade commander was ordered to lead the troops to block the attack and cover the transfer of the headquarters' logistics organization.
The scale of this battle was very large. The Eighth Route Army dispatched the brigade headquarters team, the 69th Regiment, the 70th Regiment, the Independent Regiment, the 1st Supplementary Regiment, and the 2nd Regiment. They built defensive positions relying on the mountains and were engaging in fierce exchanges of fire with the Japanese army.
All units of the Eighth Route Army were brave and tenacious. After bloody battles, they repelled many Japanese attacks.
The Japanese army dispatched bombers. The Eighth Route Army had no anti-aircraft weapons and suffered heavy losses. Among them, the Independent Regiment alone suffered more than 300 casualties.
The brigade commander asked Xu Changlong to lead the Mawushan guerrillas to attack the Japanese airport in Yucheng and knock out the Japanese air support.
To be honest, for the Mawushan guerrillas, the most important thing at the moment is to destroy the Japanese army's additional troops to defend the 32nd Division.
If the Japanese garrison 32nd Division is allowed to be replenished, it will pose a huge threat to the Mawushan base area.
But Xu Dalong did not hesitate to first carry out the tasks assigned by the brigade commander.
The Japanese Second Air Force has four main field airports in Shanxi, namely Taiyuan, Yucheng, Houma and Linfen.
This time the Japanese bombers took off from Yucheng Airport.
Xu Dalong received the telegram from the brigade commander, and immediately led the Mawushan Special Operations Squadron, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Cavalry Squadrons, and the Motorcycle Squadron with Sun Desheng to Yucheng Airport overnight.
Xu Dalong and others hurried on as hard as they could. When they arrived at the outskirts of the airport, they met Li Changshui, chief of the enemy engineering section of the brigade headquarters, who had been waiting here.
After a brief greeting, Li Changshui introduced the enemy situation at Yucheng Airport.
The Japanese airport is in the eastern suburbs of Yucheng, only 3km away from the east gate of the city. The airport has a reinforced squadron of the Japanese garrison, about 250 people, which is not a lot of troops.
However, nearly 20,000 troops were stationed in the city, including the division headquarters of the 108th Japanese Field Division, the 215th Brigade and the Military Police Headquarters directly under the division, not including a brigade of Huang Xiejun's 3rd Division.
Since the airport is close at hand, if the battle cannot be resolved as soon as possible after the battle begins, the Japanese army will soon arrive for reinforcements. Not only will the guerrillas be unable to complete the mission of attacking the airport, but they will also be besieged by the Japanese and puppet troops and be in danger of being annihilated. .
Xu Dalong didn't think much, and together with Li Changshui and others, quietly approached the Japanese airport to conduct reconnaissance.
On the right side of the Japanese airport is a complex of buildings, including hangars, fuel depots, ammunition depots, and dormitories for officers and soldiers. Close to the airport runway is the control tower of the Japanese airport.
Xu Dalong and others could see with the naked eye that there were sixty or seventy Japanese aircraft parked on the Japanese apron. On the runway, there are also Japanese aircraft on duty parked, and many Japanese air force personnel are active at the airport.
The airport is surrounded by barbed wire and a large number of landmines are planted around it.
There are six Japanese watchtowers around the airport. You can see Type 92 heavy machine guns mounted on them and sentries standing guard on them.
The terrain around the airport is flat, making it difficult to approach the airport discreetly.
The worst thing is that there are Japanese anti-aircraft machine gun positions around the airport. These anti-aircraft machine guns have an extremely long range and are lethal at a distance of two thousand meters. Even if the guerrillas want to attack with mortars, they cannot enter the effective range.
Xu Dalong asked about the situation of landmines planted outside the Japanese airport. Li Changshui said that the matter was not clear yet. It was just an intelligence agent of the underground party operating in Yucheng. They said that some people stepped on landmines outside the airport and were killed. It can be concluded that mines were planted here. Mines, I don't know about the others.
It would be very troublesome to destroy the Japanese airport. The guerrillas can use artillery to carry out long-range attacks, but they cannot enter the range of the artillery and will be discovered by the Japanese army.
If the attack is carried out at night and the targets on the airport cannot be clearly seen, the attack effect will be very poor, and the mission of severely damaging the Japanese airport may not be completed.
The most effective way is to rush into the Japanese airport and use grenades and explosives inside the airport to complete the mission of destroying Japanese military aircraft and sabotaging the airport.
It was even more difficult to enter the airport through the Japanese airport gate.
Xu Dalong saw a Japanese watchtower near the airport gate. In front of the watchtower, there were two machine gun fire points built with sandbags, making it difficult to enter by force.
With the strength and firepower of the Mawushan guerrillas brought by Xu Dalong, it would not be a problem to capture the Japanese airport if the damage caused by the Japanese anti-aircraft machine guns was not taken into account.
The key problem is that this place is too close to the large Japanese army, and the time left for them is only 20 minutes at most. If they attack by force, it is impossible to complete this task in 20 minutes.
Xu Dalong thought twice and formulated a combat plan. This plan only took 15 minutes from start to finish. The entire mission of destroying the Japanese airport must be completed in such a short period of time.
After listening to Xu Dalong's plan, Li Changshui thought it was feasible. However, he believed that in order to implement the plan smoothly, he suggested delaying the time until dusk so that it would be easier to approach the Japanese airport.
However, now the officers and soldiers of the Independent Regiment and the Eighth Route Army are fighting bloody battles with the Japanese army. They see the Japanese bombers at the airport refueling and installing bombs, and will soon take off for bombing.
Xu Dalong made a prompt decision and decided to take action immediately.
The Japanese sentry on the watchtower east of the airport stood there very boredly.
The Japanese troops here are heavily concentrated and have never been attacked, so the vigilance of the sentries is not that high.
At this time, the sun was shining from the east, and the sentry felt it was very dazzling, so he looked elsewhere, occasionally building a pergola with his hands to look into the distance.
Suddenly, he seemed to see something. Just when he set up a pergola and observed carefully, he found a large group of cavalry appearing in the distance. , approaching quickly towards the airport.
The Japanese sentry quickly sounded the alarm.
Gu Wei
The commander of the Japanese airport looked out from the glass window of the control tower and saw a large group of enemy cavalry approaching.
He hurriedly picked up the phone and called for help from the Japanese troops in the city.
The Japanese airport was in chaos, and the anti-aircraft machine guns on the watchtowers began to fire. Japanese garrison troops also entered the position to prevent the enemy from continuing to approach.
The officers and soldiers of the guerrillas saw the fierce firepower of the Japanese anti-aircraft machine guns and slowed down the attack.
In order to reduce casualties, the team members jumped off their horses and spread out to approach the Japanese airport.
The Japanese airport commander saw the large number of enemy troops and was gradually approaching the airport.
He was very anxious and kept calling to urge reinforcements to arrive as soon as possible.
Just seven minutes after the battle started, a large number of motorcycles arrived from the direction of Yucheng, fully loaded with Japanese officers and soldiers.
The Japanese defenders at the airport were very happy to see the reinforcements coming and hurriedly opened the door to let the Japanese reinforcements enter the airport.
The Japanese motorcycle fleet quickly drove into the airport and dispersed after entering the airport.
The commander of the Japanese airport saw from the tower that the actions of these new Japanese troops were a bit strange. They did not go to the forward position to the east to reinforce the Japanese garrison, but they dispersed and moved towards the airport tower and the aircraft on the tarmac. Opened over.
The squadron leader of the Japanese army guarding the airport saw the reinforcements coming. He ran over to greet the reinforcements and prepared to assign guard tasks to them. Seeing this situation, he became a little confused.
At this moment, the Japanese officers and soldiers who came to the motorcycle in front of the Japanese squadron leader fired at him with a light machine gun. The squadron leader was killed on the spot.
The Japanese officers and soldiers on the three motorcycles that finally entered the gate opened fire on the guards at the gate. They first killed the guards standing guard at the gate and threw grenades into the Japanese machine gun bunkers. Then several team members came from the watchtower. He rushed into the watchtower through the back door and eliminated the Japanese troops inside.
Of course, these people are the members of the Mawushan Guerrilla Motorcycle Squadron, and their captain is Wang Pao.
Since the last time he was in combat, his calf was injured, the bullet damaged the bone, and he walked with a slight limp. It was no longer convenient to be an infantry squadron leader.
Xu Dalong let him choose by himself. He felt that motorcycles were more comfortable for him than riding horses, so he became the squadron leader of the motorcycle squadron.
According to the pre-established combat plan, Wang Pao led more than 30 guerrillas and rushed into the Japanese airport command tower to eliminate the Japanese airport command personnel inside. Some guerrillas attacked the Japanese defensive positions from behind, and some The guerrillas were dedicated to destroying the Japanese anti-aircraft machine gun positions.
It only took Wang Pao and others two minutes to eliminate the Japanese troops on the ground floor of the airport control tower. Then they installed explosives behind the stairs of the control tower, lit the fuse, and then exited the command tower and rushed towards the Japanese troops on the landing pad. airplane.
Arriving under the Japanese aircraft, they tied the grenades that had already been tied to the rope above the landing gear near the belly of the aircraft, and then quickly evacuated.
A few seconds later, a violent explosion occurred at the airport, the command tower was completely flattened, and more than 30 Japanese aircraft were blown up.
Wang Pao and others were not reluctant to fight. They got on their motorcycles and immediately rushed out of the airport gate to meet Xu Dalong and others. The entire battle was timed very accurately and only took less than 15 minutes.
At this time, the damage caused to the Japanese airport was already very serious, but Xu Dalong was not reconciled.
At this time, the Japanese army no longer had anti-aircraft machine guns. Xu Dalong commanded the guerrillas to seize the time and advance the Type 92 infantry gun 500m forward. Under his personal command, it fired fiercely in the direction of the Japanese army's oil depot and ammunition depot.
They fired more than 20 shells in a row, and finally ignited the airport's oil depot. Fire shot into the sky, and then there was an explosion. The entire airport building complex turned into a sea of flames.
Xu Dalong had already seen the Japanese reinforcements approaching from a distance. He immediately directed the guerrillas to mount the artillery on horseback and evacuate quickly.
A few minutes after they ran out, there was another huge explosion at the airport.
This was after the Japanese army's oil depot caught fire. The oil ignited the Japanese army's ammunition depot, detonating the ammunition inside. The explosion of the ammunition destroyed the aircraft in the hangar.
In this way, the entire airport was completely destroyed.
A large group of Japanese troops arrived at the airport and were furious when they saw the tragic situation at the airport.
Some Japanese officers and soldiers riding motorcycles pursued the guerrillas in the direction of retreat.
After Xu Dalong and others ran for a while, they suddenly stopped and turned around to attack the pursuing Japanese troops.
The Japanese officers and soldiers were enthusiastic at first and must catch up with the escaping guerrillas.
When they saw the guerrillas stop, they realized that they were far away from the Japanese infantry brigade. There were only nine motorcycles and less than 30 people in total, while the enemy numbered hundreds.
The Japanese commander was dumbfounded and immediately ordered a retreat.
Unfortunately, it was too late. They were not on a road at this time. Although the terrain was flat, it was still full of potholes and the motorcycle could not run at all.
Such terrain was like smooth ground for the guerrilla cavalry, and they quickly surrounded the Japanese army.
After a short battle, the Japanese army was completely wiped out and seven intact motorcycles were seized.
This time the guerrillas attacked the airport and consumed a lot of ammunition. The time was short and nothing was captured. With these motorcycles and the weapons and ammunition of the Japanese soldiers, they finally made up for some losses.
Xu Dalong and others quickly evacuated, and after getting out of sight of the Japanese army, they took a big detour to the direction of Jincheng, preparing to attack the Japanese troops who were replenishing the 32nd Division.
Xu Dalong, Li Changshui and others stopped briefly during the march to report the destruction of the Japanese airport and sent a telegram to the brigade commander.
On the defensive position of the Eighth Route Army in Taihang Mountain, Li Yunlong, Zhao Gang and others were in a bad mood.
In the past few days, they had repelled more than a dozen Japanese attacks. Today's independent regiments have replaced shotguns with cannons. They are well-equipped and have sufficient ammunition. However, their casualties are still very high. The main casualties are not caused by enemy attacks, but by Japanese bombers. ,
They had no anti-aircraft weapons and could only disperse and avoid being bombed by enemy planes.
However, the Japanese commanders were very cunning. In order to force the officers and soldiers of the Independent Regiment to stay on the position, they launched an attack on the Independent Regiment's position while the Japanese planes were bombing, regardless of the possibility of being accidentally injured by Japanese bombers.
