15th Airborne Corps - History

History

The 15th Airborne Corps traces its lineage to an infantry army in the Forth Field Army. There is a common misconception that the 15th Airborne Corps originally belonged to an infantry army in Deng Xiaoping's Second Field Army, owing to the fact that the 15th Army was transferred to the Second Field Army in 1950. The unit was involved the Chinese Civil War and performed anti-bandit operations in southern Sichuan before entering Korea in February 1951. Upon joining the Korean War, the 15th Army was involved in the Chinese Fifth Phase Offensive as part of the 3rd Army Group in April 1951. The 15th Army later earned famed during the Battle of Triangle Hill in November 1952, and it was considered to be one of the elite unit in PLA due to its performance in battle.

On July 26, 1950, the PLAAF's Airborne Troops began when the Central Military Commission established the PLAAF 1st Marine Division in Shanghai, using the Third Field Army's 30th Army's 89th Division as a basis. On August 1, the brigade's Headquarters moved to Kaifeng, Henan Province, which were designated as the division's training bases. On September 17, the PLA formed a PLAAF 1st Airborne Brigade by recruiting six thousand battle hardened soldiers across the 40 Armies of PLA. Following the Soviet practice, this airborne brigade was assigned to the 1st Marine Division, which eventually became an airborne division. Training of the PLAAF 1st Marine Brigade immediately begun and after merely eleven days of intensive training, on September 29, 1950, its soldiers made their first jump. Cui Hanqing (崔汉卿), the commander of the 1st Airborne Battalion led the way and became the first paratrooper of PLA when he jumped first. Thereafter, the unit's designation changed several times, becoming the Air Force Marine 1st Division, the Paratroops Division of the Air Force, then the Airborne Division. In May 1961, the Military Commission changed the Army's 15th Army, which had fought during the Korean War, into the PLAAF 15th Airborne Army, and subordinated the PLAAF's original airborne division to this new Army. All of the PLA's paratroop units belongs to the PLAAF.

In the 1960s when the commander of the PLAAF, General Liu Yalou was asked to create an airborne army, he picked the 15th Army because he had been impressed by its performance in Korea.

During the restructuring of the PLA in 1985, the 15th Army was reduced to three brigades. In the 1990s, the PLA's concept of People's War was replaced by the Limited High-Intensity War concept. This in turn resulted in a return to a divisional structure with an all-over increase of 25% in the 15th Army's strength. It is now more appropriately referring to it as the 15th Airborne Corps.

In 1985, most of the soldiers in the 15th Army were ordinary paratroopers trained for general supporting duties in a combined army campaign. Only 17 percent of them were specialized paratroopers. However, this percentage has now risen to 43 percent and ordinary paratroopers have dropped from 53 percent to 23 percent. The purpose of this increase in the percentage of specialized paratroopers was to make the 15th Airborne Corps into a combined arms force rather than just a mobile infantry force. Thus making it more capable of conducting independent operations in a limited but highly technological focused conflict.