news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

We know that in the later period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Kuomintang army organized a youth army. The original plan was to organize it into the 201st to the 210th Divisions, but it actually formed 9 divisions and two regiments. Later, the two extra regiments were allocated to the 208th and 209th Divisions respectively.

Although the Youth Army had better manpower, weapons and treatment than ordinary troops, they did not actually go to the Anti-Japanese battlefield to fight.

After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, most of the above-mentioned Youth Army divisions were demobilized, but they were merged and reorganized into new Youth Army units based on the original division structure, including the 202nd Division, the 203rd Division, the 205th Division, the 206th Division, the 207th Division, and the 208th Division.

Among these divisions, the situation of the 207th Division was rather special, because the division was assigned to the New 6th Army very early, thus separating from the Youth Army system; subsequently, the 207th Division followed the New 6th Army to the Northeast battlefield, and was the first unit among all the Youth Army divisions to fight against our army.

The existence of this division is very special because it originally only had three infantry regiments under its jurisdiction. In fact, it was the structure of a standard division with a total strength of more than 10,000 people.

Because most of the Kuomintang troops in Northeast China at that time were American-equipped troops, the earliest 207th Division was actually not very conspicuous.

However, the 207th Division subsequently developed in the direction of a reorganized division. It was first expanded into a two-brigade division, and later changed to a three-brigade and nine-regiment reorganized division.

Its special feature is that the Kuomintang troops on the Northeast battlefield were basically organized into army-divisions, and did not go through the reorganization of divisions like the battlefields in East China, Central Plains, and Northwest China.

Even on the above-mentioned battlefields, the reorganized divisions were reorganized from the original armies.

But the 207th Division of the Youth Army was actually expanded from a standard division into a fully-staffed army-level reorganized division.

It was able to both obtain weapons by relying on the system of the Northeast Kuomintang Army and obtain treatment by relying on the name of the Youth Army, so the division had relatively sufficient manpower and equipment. Some sources claim that its number of troops once reached 35,000.

In terms of weapons and equipment, the 207th Division was also very well-equipped. For example, a statistic in the fall of 1947 showed that the division was equipped with 1,114 light machine guns of various types; 366 of them were 30/303 caliber and 748 were 79 caliber.

Obviously, the former were the original light machine guns of the 207th Division before its expansion; the latter were newly allocated after the expansion, which might be the domestically-made Type 79 light machine gun or the Type 79 Bolan.

So how were these more than 1,100 light machine guns distributed?

First of all, according to the basic configuration, the Kuomintang army's regular troops at that time equipped light machine guns to the squad, that is, each infantry squad was equipped with a light machine gun.

An infantry company consists of 3 infantry platoons and 9 infantry squads, that is, equipped with 9 light machine guns.

An infantry regiment has 3 infantry battalions and 9 infantry companies, so it needs 81 light machine guns.

At that time, the 207th Division of the Youth Army had been expanded to 3 brigades and 9 infantry regiments, so the light machine gun demand for the infantry companies of the entire division was 729.

But as we can see above, its actual number of light machine guns reached 1,114, which was 385 more than the previous number.

Where are these light machine guns equipped?

The initial organization of the Youth Army was modeled after the Indian Army, and this feature did not change much during the later expansion process, and remained basically consistent with the American-equipped troops in the Northeast.

The characteristic of American-equipped troops is that a considerable number of light machine guns are also equipped in technical and service units.

The 207th Division of the Youth Army has a large number of direct-affiliated troops. Each of its three brigades has brigade-affiliated troops. In addition, the regimental-level direct-affiliated teams are also equipped with light machine guns.

In other words, this is one division-affiliated team, three brigade-affiliated teams and nine regiment-affiliated teams, with dozens of auxiliary battalions and companies behind them.

Each auxiliary battalion and company can be equipped with a few light machine guns to absorb the extra 385 light machine guns.

As a result, a single division of the Northeast Kuomintang Army was equipped with more than a thousand light machine guns.

Moreover, this situation is unique in the entire Northeastern Nationalist Army system. After all, other troops are organized into normal army-division organizations!

In the Liaoshen Campaign of 1948, a brigade of the 207th Division followed Liao Yaoxiang's Corps and was wiped out in western Liaoning; the main force of the division remained in Shenyang and was subsequently annihilated in the Shenyang Campaign.

With the annihilation of the 207th Division, the thousands of machine guns it was equipped with were seized by our army and added to the East China Field Army, playing a role in the subsequent Liberation War.