Chapter 2949
Although the performance of the Manila Battalion in attacking Kalibo Town was not ideal, compared with the Subic Battalion attacking Roxas Town at the same time, it was at least quite satisfactory. However, during the battle in Roxas Town, the Subic Battalion fully exposed its shortcomings. Measured by the standards of the Haihan Army, its performance could not even be classified as passing.
The Subic Battalion mainly uses Luzon's indigenous Tagalogs and Negritos as its soldiers, and uses their adaptability to the local environment to build an indigenous force. This is an important attempt by the Fourth Army Division in troop organization. If successful, the Luzon Region will no longer have to rely on the limited Han population for recruitment in the future, and can greatly speed up recruitment and expand the scale of the local armed forces.
Like the Bangui Battalion, the Subic Battalion, which had little actual combat experience to speak of, was also entrusted with the important task of attacking Roxas Town alone.
However, the indigenous soldiers in Subic Camp probably went out to sea for training too little on weekdays. When they arrived at their destination, many of them had not yet gotten rid of seasickness. This greatly affected their performance during the landing process, and some soldiers even suffered injuries. An accident in which he was swept away by waves and drowned while going ashore.
There are many rivers flowing into the sea near Roxas Town. Affected by the diversion of rivers and the change of dry and rainy seasons, the flow and direction of these rivers are not reflected in detail on the map provided by the Military Intelligence Bureau. As a result, the Subic Battalion had to land at Then spend time revising the action plan.
In order to gain time, some companies had to temporarily cut down trees to make ferries and bridges, so that the marching route could be shortened as much as possible. But when the vanguard arrived at the outskirts of Roxas Town, it was already five or six hours behind schedule.
This gave the Spaniards in Roxas Town plenty of time to organize resistance. Their impatience and exhaustion prevented the vanguard from carefully scouting the surrounding environment, and ran into the ambush circle set by the Spaniards near the town.
By the time the follow-up troops arrived at the battle site and fought off the Spaniards, more than half of the leading platoon had been killed or wounded. At this time, it was already dark, and the Subic Battalion, which did not have the ability to fight at night, did not dare to rush into the town again and had to stop for rest. This also provided the Spaniards in the town with greater room to respond. .
Fortunately, the casualties did not affect the morale of the Subic camp, but instead inspired the bloody spirit of the indigenous soldiers. In the attack launched early the next morning, the soldiers, who had suppressed their anger, quickly defeated the Spanish defense line and rushed into the town of Roxas with the advantage of their weapons.
But they soon discovered that there were very few residents left in the town. It was obvious that the Spaniards seized the precious buffer time and allowed most of the residents to evacuate Roxas Town at night and fled further inland. .
In addition to capturing the area, the mission of the Subic Battalion also needs to capture most of the local residents and bring them under their control. Only in this way can Haihan achieve complete control of the area. From this perspective, the performance of the Subic Battalion in Roxas Town was almost catastrophic.
After paying the price of ten deaths and twenty-three injuries, the Subic Battalion finally completed the occupation of Roxas Town. This was also the largest number of casualties for the Haihan Army since the beginning of this operation.
Although the Subic Battalion killed hundreds of resistance elements during the battle, the battle damage ratio and the number of kills could not make up for its own losses, and the post-war military merit assessment was also very likely to be affected.
If it ends here, at least the merits and demerits are barely offset, but the poor performance of the Subic Battalion is not over yet.
The night after the battle, many soldiers took advantage of their duty to plunder the town. Although the local residents took away most of their belongings when they fled, there were still many things that could not be transported away, such as as many as a hundred barrels of rum in the two breweries in the town. The main industries in Roxas Town are fishing and sugar cane cultivation. In addition to sugar production, another major use of sugar cane is wine making. Although these crudely processed rums are far inferior to Haihan's own products, for soldiers fighting overseas, they are like seeing a delicious sweet spring in the desert.
The indigenous soldiers are far less observant of military discipline and orders than the Han soldiers. For most of them, now that the combat mission has been completed, it is time to relax and enjoy themselves. So after hearing the news, many soldiers rushed to the wine cellar and got drunk without hesitation.
By the time the battalion commander arrived with the gendarmerie, the drunken soldiers had begun to do whatever they wanted out of control.
Arson incidents occurred in at least three places in the town. Considering that the few Spanish prisoners were escorted to gather outside the town, it was obviously very likely that some soldiers who had drunk too much were responsible for such things.
Fortunately, several fires were discovered and extinguished in time without causing a fire. Otherwise, if Roxas Town is burned to the ground, it will be contrary to the original intention of occupying and retaining this place.
But the matter was not over yet. The drunken soldiers had a sudden idea and shouted to avenge their dead and wounded comrades. So a large group of people rushed into the yard where the resistance elements were detained, and captured all the more than 40 Spaniards. Pull it out and kill it. If the military police had not arrived and stopped them, these people even planned to transport the body to the church door in the town and hang it in public.
The only good thing is that when things got to such an extent, the officers finally gathered their troops and temporarily confiscated the weapons from the drunken soldiers, preventing the situation from deteriorating to the point of mutiny.
Because there were so many soldiers involved in the rebellion, it was difficult for the Subic camp to deal with it on the spot, and it could only wait until after the war to slowly settle the accounts. But at this point, before taking the next step, the Subic Battalion obviously needs to stop and reorganize, and once again emphasize the importance of military discipline to these indigenous soldiers who have caused trouble.
The headquarters had to adjust its subsequent combat arrangements, and the Bangui Camp, hundreds of miles away, was also affected by this, and had an extra night of rest time out of thin air.
The commander of Bangui Battalion couldn't help but look shocked after hearing the situation introduced by Feng Xingbang and Juan. Who would have thought that Subic Battalion, which had high hopes from the division before the war, would cause such a big mess in the first battle.
"It seems...the proportion of indigenous soldiers in the army cannot be too high!" The battalion commander was not in a good mood to slander friendly troops in front of these staff officers, so he thought for a long time before he came up with a relatively neutral comment.
Feng Xingbang did not have so many scruples, and his evaluation was much more pungent: "This proves that Subic Camp is a complete failure. Allowing indigenous soldiers to be the main body of the army will only lead to lax military discipline and disobedience to commands. . After this operation is over, Subic Battalion will probably be disbanded and reorganized.”
(End of chapter)