Having known how these were used, especially during the Korean War, one thing has always bothered me: how were they able to get so many soldiers to suppress their survival instincts and go to almost certain death? I doubt the Chinese Communist Party would have promised them immortality.

From the wikipedia article:

It is widely believed that such tactics were employed widely and successfully by People's Volunteer Army during the Korean War, because to the UN troops, the enemy seemed to be everywhere, for example at the battles of the Chosin Reservoir and the Imjin River.

However, while massed infantry attacks were used, what the Chinese forces actually used is more aptly described as infiltration assault, honed by their guerrilla background with the Nationalist forces in the Chinese Civil war. With UN air superiority, any concentration of Chinese armor or artillery, to support the infantry, would have invited instant air attack and almost instant annihilation. The Chinese employed infiltration tactics to mitigate their inferiority in terms of available artillery and air support, finding it necessary to bypass their enemies' forward lines and complete an encirclement before heavy fighting began. By beginning their attacks at night and only when in close proximity to their targets, they rendered the UN unable to use its artillery and air power without endangering its own troops.

...The Chinese generally attacked at night and tried to close in on a small troop position — generally a platoon — and then attacked it with local superiority in numbers. The usual method was to infiltrate small units, from a platoon of fifty men to a company of 200, split into separate detachments. While one team cut off the escape route of the Americans, the others struck both the front and the flanks in concerted assaults. —Bevin Alexander, How Wars Are Won

SCOTT

I have a close friend who was in the Chosin Resevoir with 5th Marines. He recalls many "bonzai attacks" "just like in WWII" he also relates stories of a particular occasion where "We were stretched thin...There were many suicide attacks, and we always knew because they would ring gongs very loudly as they attacked." "We used enemy bodies as "sandbags" and they froze solid in the cold." We survived but there were so many that I walked to the next position almost 200 yards away and my feet almost never touched the ground" [ because of enemy dead]

I don't know what that means other than the level of their dedication...

Hellbent

I have an excellent documentary of the Australian Army's involvement in the Korean war .

Although based on the Australian experience, I don't think the Chinese discriminated against its enemy so it can be relevant to those studying the US military operation too. It is very informative on Chinese human wave attacks.

The doco is called:

"Australians at War", Beyond Productions and Mullion Creek Productions. Can be purchased from ABC stores.


Opp... that's not the first time I've seen an enormous suicidal charge mistaken for a small harmless plant.

Chas