Initial Landing
To strengthen the island's defense, the nationalist troops on the island were devoted to eradication campaigns against the Qiongya Column on the island, which severely weakened the coastal defense on both the eastern and western flanks. The PLA exploited this opportunity by launching small scale landings to probe and infiltrate the coastal defenses. The two selected landing spots were the region of White Horse Well (Baimajing, 白马井) in the northwest and Red Water Port (Chishui, 赤水) in the northeast. At 7:00 PM on March 5, 1950, a regimental sized battalion, totalling over eight hundred troops from the 118th Division of the communist 40th Army in a total of thirteen junks, sailed from Cape Lighthouse (Dengloujiao, 灯楼角) at the southwestern tip of the Leizhou Peninsula, under the cover of darkness.
Several junks of one company made the same navigational error and landed directly on the beach where the nationalist coastal defenses were the strongest, and most of them were killed while the survivors committed suicides by blowing themselves up with hand grenades. However, this mistake produced an unexpected benefit for the attackers by making the defenders erroneously believe this would be the main spot of future landings. The NRA redeployed their forces to boost its defenses, leaving other places vulnerable. At 2:00 PM on March 6, 1950, the bulk of the landing force successfully landed in the region of Chaotouxu (超头圩), to the south of the region of White Horse Well, linked up with the 9th Regiment of the 1st Division of the Qiongya Column. A regimental sized battalion, totalling over a thousand troops from the 128th Division and the 43rd Division sailed at 1:00 PM on March 10, 1950 in twenty-one junks from Naozhou Island (硇洲) located to the southeast of Zhanjiang. After more than twenty hours and a hundred and ten nautical miles, these forces successfully landed in the region stretched from Red River Port to Cupper Drum Ridge (Tongguling, 铜鼓岭) at 9:00 AM the next day.
The high command of the XV Corps ordered its 40th and 43rd Army to organize further small scale channel crossings. On March 26, 1950, four regimental sized battalion (over three thousand troops of the 118th Division and the 40th Army) sailed in eighty-one junks from Cape Lighthouse at 7:00 PM. Although the distance was only twenty-two nautical miles, the landing force failed to reach their destination on time due to the changes of tide and wind. It was not until 8:00 AM the next day that the scattered landing force landed in a 20 km stretch region centered at Yubao Port(玉包). Fortunately, the 1st Division reached the area in time and linked up with the landing forces. On March 21, 1950, four regimental sized battalions from the 127th Division of the communist 43rd Army (more than thirty-seven hundred troops in eighty-eight junks) sailed at 10:00 PM from Boshe Port (博赊) at the southeastern side of the Leizhou Peninsula, and after sailing around twenty-two nautical miles, successfully landed at Beichuang Port (北创) at 5:00 AM the next day. They linked up with an independent regiment and the 11th Regiment of the Qiongya Column.
Read more about this topic: Landing Operation On Hainan Island
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