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The Dongshan Island Campaign () was a battle fought on Dongshan Island,
Fujian Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ca ...
between the
Nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: T ...
and the Communists during the Chinese Civil War when the Nationalists unsuccessfully attempted to retake the island from the Communists. The campaign was the last and largest battle between the two sides after the Nationalists retreated to
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
. After this defeat, the Nationalists realized that it would never be practical to launch a large scale counterattack against the mainland on a similar scale again. Instead, the Nationalist strikes against
mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
were reduced to limited infiltration and skirmishes.


Order of battle

*Attackers: Republic of China Army (ROC Army) **Two army divisions **One paratroop division (with two brigades totaling 2,000 men) **13 naval vessels **30+ motorized
junks A junk (Chinese: 船, ''chuán'') is a type of Chinese sailing ship with fully battened sails. There are two types of junk in China: northern junk, which developed from Chinese river boats, and southern junk, which developed from Austronesian ...
*Defenders: People's Liberation Army (PLA) **The 80th Public Security Regiment and militia (1,200 men) **The 272nd Regiment of the 31st Army **A regiment of the 28th Army **A regiment of the 41st Army **The 91st Division of the 31st Army


Prelude

Shortly before dawn on 16 July 1953, the Nationalist commander Hu Lien (胡琏) sailed with his troops in 13 naval vessels and more than 30 motorized
junks A junk (Chinese: 船, ''chuán'') is a type of Chinese sailing ship with fully battened sails. There are two types of junk in China: northern junk, which developed from Chinese river boats, and southern junk, which developed from Austronesian ...
toward Dongshan Island,
Fujian Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ca ...
, attempting to retake the island from the Communists who took the island from the Nationalists three years earlier in the Battle of Dongshan Island. In addition to two regular army divisions, an elite paratroop division totaling 2,000 personnel in two brigades was deployed for the mission. The total Nationalist force committed was just over 10,000. The Nationalists had hoped to turn the island into a stronghold near the enemy and use it as a steppingstone to launch strikes against the mainland, but many capable Nationalist commanders (including the commander of the operation,
Hu Lien Hu Lien (; 1907–1977) was a Chinese Nationalist general who participated in the Northern Expedition, anti-communist Encirclement Campaigns, Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War. Whampoa Military Academy He graduated alongside Lin ...
) were highly doubtful this would ever succeed. After fierce debate, a compromise was reached: a much more moderate objective of striking the island to gain a political and morale boost and then a quick withdrawal before the enemy could reinforce the island. Later, when the situation permitted, the original plan to turn the island into a stronghold would be implemented. The Communist local defense, consisting of the 80th Public Security Regiment and militia totaling 1,200 men, was obviously outnumbered, so the Communist commander
Ye Fei Ye Fei (; 7 May 1914 – 18 April 1999) was a Philippine-born Chinese military general and politician of the People's Republic of China. Born Sixto Mercado Tiongco in the Philippines to a Chinese father and a Filipino mother, he joined the Chi ...
instructed the local garrison commander You Meiyao (游梅耀) to decide what was best, giving him the option of withdrawing if necessary and counterattacking later. You Meiyao, a staff officer of Chen Yi during the
Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific The ...
, refused to withdraw because that would allow the Nationalists to occupy the Communist fortifications on the island, making future attempts to dislodge the Nationalists very difficult. You Meiyao suggested that while reinforcements were organized as quickly as possible, the local garrison would use the terrain and fortifications on the island to slow the enemy down by inflicting as many casualties as possible. Once the attackers were exhausted, the defenders would counterattack with reinforcements.


First stage

The first shot of the campaign was fired at 5:00 AM on July 16, 1953, when a Nationalist division landed on the island. After three hours of fierce fighting, the Communists' first line of defense was breached, and the Nationalists had succeeded in forcing them into their second line of defense. By the end of the day, the Nationalists had successfully taken the largest port on the island and controlled most of the island. However, the Communist resistance in the few remaining isolated pockets proved to be much stronger than anticipated. Communist mortar fire badly damaged the port facilities including the pier and also scored direct hits on three large
landing ship An amphibious warfare ship (or amphib) is an amphibious vehicle warship employed to land and support ground forces, such as marines, on enemy territory during an amphibious assault. Specialized shipping can be divided into two types, most crud ...
s. Although the mortar rounds themselves were not powerful enough to completely destroy the landing ships which carried heavy weaponry and ammunition, the secondary explosions triggered by the direct hits by the PLA heavy mortars were enough to sink all three landing ships. Since the motorized
junks A junk (Chinese: 船, ''chuán'') is a type of Chinese sailing ship with fully battened sails. There are two types of junk in China: northern junk, which developed from Chinese river boats, and southern junk, which developed from Austronesian ...
with shallow draft were not severely affected by the wreckage, the Nationalists were still able to transport personnel onto the island via these junks, but ships carrying heavy weaponry were effectively blocked due to greater draft. The Nationalists, however, did not consider the problem to be serious because the defenders were mostly light infantry anyway, a mistake that they would later deeply regret. In addition to failing to realize the problem caused, the Nationalists were not able to take the highest point of the island from the Communists and although most of the PLA heavy mortars were knocked out with air support, the surviving ones did not stop shelling the Nationalists until the last round of ammunition had been exhausted. The other Communist stronghold left on the island was in the region of Eight Feet Gate (Ba Chi Men, 八尺门), which faced the mainland, defended by a single company of Communist naval infantry. The strongly fortified position included a pier and thus was the critical steppingstone for Communist reinforcement from the mainland. The Nationalists had correctly identified this serious threat and had also correctly decided to eliminate this threat early on, so the entire American trained paratroop division which reached the island first was devoted to the mission. However, the lightly armed paratroopers proved to be no match for the enemy in heavily fortified positions on the terrain that strongly favored the defenders. Despite repeated assaults, the elite paratroopers not only failed to achieve their original objective but suffered heavy losses, with several hundred killed and wounded. The lack of heavy weaponry was the main cause of the Nationalist failure to take this very important position, which paved the way for the eventual Nationalist defeat in the campaign. Unable to take either of the two remaining Communist strongholds on the island, the Nationalist advance halted.


Second stage

Communist units on the mainland reacted rapidly by mobilizing all available vehicles to transport troops to the front. The Communist 272nd Regiment of the 31st Army at
Zhangpu County Zhangpu County () is a county of Zhangzhou prefecture-level city in far southern Fujian province, People's Republic of China. The county seat is located in the town of Sui'an (). Zhangpu is bordered by the Longhai City in the north, the counties ...
was first to respond: by 5:50 AM, less than an hour after the first shot of the campaign was fired, the advance guard of the regiment was already on its way to the front in the few military vehicles available, while the rest of the regiment commandeered every civilian vehicle on the road. By 9:00 AM, the entire regiment had reached the Eight Feet Gate (Ba Chi Men, 八尺门) pier of the Eastern Mountain (Dongshan, 东山) Island. With the help of the newly arrived reinforcements, the Communist naval infantry company at Eight Feet Gate managed to force the attacking Nationalist paratroopers into retreat. Two regiments of the Communist 28th Army and 41st Army arrived soon afterward. The Communist commander You Meiyao, building on his initial success in repelling the attacking Nationalist paratroopers, successfully counterattacked before the Nationalists had time to regroup. As the Nationalists were forced back by the counterattack, the Communist 91st Division of the 31st Army landed on the island under the commander of the 31st Army, Zhou Zhijian (周志坚). The Nationalist commander of the operation,
Hu Lien Hu Lien (; 1907–1977) was a Chinese Nationalist general who participated in the Northern Expedition, anti-communist Encirclement Campaigns, Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War. Whampoa Military Academy He graduated alongside Lin ...
, initially did not believe that the Communists could reinforce the island on such a large scale and in such short time, since the vital Nine Dragons Bridge ( Jiulong Jiang Daqiao, 九龙江大桥) was already destroyed by the Nationalist air force. Realizing that his force was now outnumbered and outgunned, Hu Lien chose to withdraw before any more enemy reinforcements arrived. The Communists, in turn, seeing that they were successfully forcing the Nationalists off the island, did not pursue and stopped sending reinforcements. The campaign came to an end on July 18, 1953, after the island was secured by the defenders.


Outcome

The Dongshan Island Campaign was the last large scale Nationalist counterattack against the mainland. Nationalist dead recovered by the Communists on land and in the coastal waters totaled 2,664, and another 715 were captured, while the number of wounded was uncertain because most of them were successfully evacuated by the Nationalists themselves. In addition, two tanks were destroyed, three landing ships sunk and two aircraft were also lost. The
Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
went too far to maintain the secrecy of the mission. Even their own troops were not informed about the mission until they were already on their way to the island. Many captured Nationalist officers felt that they had been handicapped by inadequate briefing. Had they been better informed, they would have postponed the attack to better train their troops. The poor Nationalist inter-service communication caused by the excessive secrecy also resulted in the Nationalist landing ships unloading in the largest port on the island, which was within range of the PLA heavy mortar positions. The slow landing ships loaded with heavy weaponry became sitting ducks as they were being unloaded, and in addition to three being sunk, the pier was also badly damaged by the accurate mortar fire. Another serious blunder committed by the attacking Nationalist force was the failure to cut the communications link between the defenders and the mainland. Despite the fact that every single telephone line pole was cut down, nobody bothered to cut the actual line, or to wiretap the enemy's telephone line. As a result, the defenders were able to maintain communications with the mainland and the Communist commanders were much more aware of the situation than their Nationalist counterparts. The attacking Nationalist forces underestimated the speed and size of the Communist response. Although the Nationalist order of battle included three divisions, none of them were full strength, and the elite paratrooper division comprised two brigades totaling only 2,000 men, which was the usual strength of a single brigade. Furthermore, due to the sinking of three landing ships at the port and the destruction of the port by enemy heavy mortar fire, most landing forces became light infantry without firepower superior to that of their opponents. This problem was further compounded by the incorrect use of the paratroopers by ordering them to attack the strongly fortified Communist positions at Eight Feet Gate Pier, resulting in more than 500 paratroopers killed, a staggering 25% of the total paratroop force devoted to the campaign. After losing their superiority in firepower with the destruction of their heavy weapons at the port, the Nationalists lost their superiority in numbers as the Communists reinforced their garrison from the mainland. In addition to underestimating how quickly the Communists would send reinforcements, the Nationalists also underestimated how quickly the Communists would repair the damage caused by airstrikes to the vital Nine Dragons Bridge. Nationalist intelligence estimated it would take at least two days, but in reality, the Communists had the bridge repaired in only two hours. As the news reached the surprised Nationalists, it was obvious that the mission was over and the Nationalists chose to withdraw from the island.


See also

* List of Battles of Chinese Civil War * Project National Glory *
National Revolutionary Army The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in China ...
*
History of the People's Liberation Army The history of the People's Liberation Army began in 1927 with the start of the Chinese Civil War and spans to the present, having developed from a peasant guerrilla force into the largest armed force in the world. Historical background Thr ...
* Chinese Civil War


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Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and ...
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Shijiazhuang Shijiazhuang (; ; Mandarin: ), formerly known as Shimen and romanized as Shihkiachwang, is the capital and most populous city of China’s North China's Hebei Province. Administratively a prefecture-level city, it is about southwest of Beijin ...
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Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...
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Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, zh, 中国人民政治协商会议), also known as the People's PCC (, ) or simply the PCC (), is a political advisory body in the People's Republic of China and a central part of ...
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