In recent years, there have been many movies about the Volunteer Army. I believe many friends were deeply impressed by the scene in "Changjin Lake" in which the Volunteer Army soldiers gnawed cold potatoes. The conditions of the Volunteer Army were indeed very difficult at that time. Since we did not have Air supremacy and the difficulty of transporting supplies to the front line made it very difficult for the volunteers to provide supplies and food in the early days.

What did the volunteers eat at that time?

In the beginning, all we ate was fried noodles. The soldiers often stuffed a handful of fried noodles with a mouthful of ice and snow into their mouths. Because there would be smoke when cooking rice in a pot, it was easy to be bombed, so eating fried noodles became a The soldiers had to eat food to replenish their strength.

The emergence of fried noodles

Our army entered North Korea in the winter of 1950. At that time, the volunteers faced not only well-equipped US troops, but also extremely low temperatures. In order to win, The volunteer soldiers can only resist the extremely cold weather with their strong will.

Of course, in addition to military supplies, the best way to resist the cold is to have food that generates a lot of heat. However, in order for our army to fight quickly, the volunteer soldiers themselves carried very little food and no supplies. It was delivered so quickly, and there was no air control, and there was no way to bury the pot to make rice to avoid exposing the target. Therefore, in order to develop a food that was easy to carry and could be eaten at any time, it became a matter that the military supplies department at that time needed to consider.

Finally, the Northeast Military Region tried to make fried noodles by frying and mixing 70% wheat, 30% soybeans, corn or sorghum and then adding salt.

This kind of fried noodles is easy to store, transport and eat. Therefore, it was very popular among the soldiers after it was delivered to the front line. Mr. Peng was very satisfied after seeing the samples and requested that they be included in the rations prepared for the volunteers. Serve one-third of the chow mein noodles.

Fried Noodles for All

However, at that time, the Volunteer Army needed 14.82 million jins of fried noodles every month. At that time, the Northeast region could not meet the demand and could only provide 10 million jins of fried noodles. There was a huge gap. Premier Zhou listened. After talking about it, other regions were asked to provide the remaining gaps, so every household in the Northeast and other regions, men, women, old and young, started a craze for fried noodles. Even Premier Zhou fried noodles with other cadres after their busy schedule.

Fried noodles make meritorious service

Since fried noodles entered the front line, soldiers no longer have to bury pots to make rice and expose their targets. With fried noodles, soldiers can carry them with them when fighting. A bag of fried noodles. When you are hungry, just grab a handful of fried noodles and stuff it in your mouth. Just grab a few mouthfuls of snow on the ground and you can continue to fight on the battlefield. Because fried noodles greatly solved the ration problem of the soldiers, many soldiers shouted The slogan "Contribute to Chow Mein" came out.

From the winter of 1950 to June 1951, the country transported more than 30,000 tons of fried noodles to the frontline soldiers. These fried noodles basically satisfied the minimum survival of the soldiers.

Difficulties in running out of food

Although the Volunteer Army has fried noodles, fried noodles are what the Volunteer Army soldiers can eat if they want, because the enemy carried out crazy bombings on the Volunteer Army’s supply lines and warehouses, causing the Volunteer Army to Supplies became a big problem.

Although the rear areas are constantly being transported to the front line, 40% of the supplies will be blown up during transportation, and less than 60% of the supplies will be transported to the front line.

Therefore, many troops cannot eat a hot meal every day because the dry food they carry with them has to be taken to the front line. In order to maintain their strength at the front line, the soldiers dare not eat it easily and can only dig some wild vegetables and add it. They had to walk four to two meters to ensure a day's food. Unfortunately, many soldiers contracted enteritis and dysentery and lost their fighting ability.

What was the supply standard at that time?

Each person in the front-line troops is given one pound per day, while the corps agency is given eight taels per day (actually half a pound). Even this standard is difficult to achieve even if there is time.

Therefore, the frontline troops are inevitably in crisis of lack of food. Some soldiers have no food and can only eat a local plant called "tractor grass" as food. After eating, some soldiers have diarrhea. Soldiers with nosebleeds and no grass even fainted from extreme hunger and even died on the battlefield.

(Due to enemy bombing on April 8, 1951, 84 trains of supplies were burned in our reservoir area, including 2.87 million kilograms of grain, 330,000 kilograms of grain and oil, 408,000 sets of clothes, and 280,000 pairs of shoes. , and a large number of other supplies)

At that time, US military aircraft were flying in the sky every day. In order to avoid exposing their targets, frontline troops strictly controlled the use of fire. Without fire, there would naturally be no hot meals and no hot water. Sometimes When there was no fried noodles to eat, the soldiers could only eat frozen potatoes to satisfy their hunger.

At that time, soldiers would carry dry food bags on their backs. Due to the supply conditions of the volunteers, all kinds of supplies and ammunition needed by the soldiers had to be carried by themselves, but no matter how much a person carried, he could only carry at most It is enough for seven days, so after a week of support, the Volunteer Army's offensive will stop. This scenario is called the "Worship Offensive" by the US military.

What were the volunteer soldiers like at that time?

Everyone will carry a dry food bag with five or six kilograms of sorghum rice in it, but it is basically all eaten on the battlefield. When supplies are received later, some potatoes and fried noodles will be packed, but in When the weather is 30 to 40 degrees below zero, the potatoes freeze into "hard rocks" and cannot be chewed. The frozen potatoes are bitter and hard. Even so, it is not enough to eat the first meal.

Compared to frozen potatoes, the soldiers preferred fried noodles, but fried noodles should be eaten and drank at the same time, otherwise they would choke and be unable to swallow.

In fact, shortly after liberation, our army began to research field food. The first compressed dry food produced was made of cooked flour, cooked bean powder, peanuts, egg yolk powder, dried date powder, carrot powder, and sugar. It is made of , salt and vegetable oil and compressed into blocks by machinery. The first people to put it into use were volunteer soldiers.

Starting from the second half of 1951, the Volunteer Army began to use compressed dry rations in addition to fried noodles. By the first half of 1952, compressed dry rations basically replaced fried noodles. However, compressed dry rations were relatively hard. At that time, many young soldiers Due to the lack of nutrition, the teeth are loose, so teeth may be knocked out, but the nutrition is much better than simple fried noodles.

However, the nutrition of the frontline soldiers was still not enough. Many soldiers had night blindness. When Chairman Mao heard about it, he said that the frontline soldiers should be given one egg a day. However, although the eggs were available, they were not transported to The front line is very difficult. Long-distance transportation is not only broken up, but also bombed by the enemy. Transportation to the front line is very rare.

However, the night blindness of the soldiers still had to be solved, so the logistics began to transport peanuts, soybeans, egg powder, vegetables and animal livers to solve the problem of night blindness of the soldiers. At the same time, local people said that night blindness was cured. The local methods include boiling pine needle soup and eating tadpoles raw. Through local methods and improved logistics, the soldiers' night blindness has been cured well.

After the fifth battle, the war entered positional warfare. Compared with the early mobile warfare, the food for the volunteer soldiers was greatly improved during positional warfare.

After the battle line was basically stabilized, in order to ensure that the soldiers could eat hot meals, the frontline troops changed the previous practice of delivering meals from the tunnels and asked the cooking squad to set up kitchens at the entrance of the Kang Road, and then dispersed the cooking. This ensures that the soldiers have a hot meal.

However, the troops in the rear can eat hot meals, but the front-line troops still cannot light fires. Except for the cooks who will deliver hot meals at night, they can eat dry food to satisfy their hunger during the rest of the time.

When you have a little more money, you can make dumplings in the tunnel, improve the food, and let the soldiers feel the flavor of their hometown.

Of course, in addition to the above situations, some troops who have the conditions will also plant some vegetables in the tunnels. For example, seeds transported from China have planted shallots, cabbages, green vegetables, etc. in the tunnels. Solved The problem of soldiers not having enough vegetables to eat. Even the cooks of the 39th Army planted bean sprouts in the tunnels and ground a small amount of soy milk.

The supplies of the volunteers are incomparable to those of the US military. The US military can still eat turkey and lunch meat until they vomit on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

< p> Although fighting is all about logistics, morale is always the most important. Volunteer soldiers are not afraid of hardship or fatigue, so what if they are enemies armed to the teeth? They were beaten down anyway, because they have a patriotic heart and they are the cutest people.