Miracle campaign: The liberation of Hainan Island

The swings used by PLA soldiers to overcome seasickness. [Photo by Ma Zhiping/chinadaily.com.cn]

Lu Xiangyun, deputy platoon leader of the 28th division of the 43rd Army, encountered a Kuomintang warship with seven soldiers during a night of sea training. The warship fired at Lu's small wooden boat, but soon escaped when Lu suddenly ordered his soldiers to throw grenades. Their heroic deed — fighting a warship with a wooden boat — greatly enhanced the soldiers' confidence in the coming sea-crossing operation, said a guide at the Memorial Hall for Cross-Sea Battles to Liberate Hainan Island at the Hainan Liberation Park in Lin'gao.

"My father was sent there and stayed for about two months training the soldiers how to operate a boat," said Wan Ridong, son of Wang Xiaojing, a former soldier of the Qiongya Column, who died in 2020 at age 96.

"He returned on March 5, 1950 with the first group of the PLA, secretly crossing the sea and landing at Baimajing on the western coast. He joined the fight on the island," said Wan, adding that his father often told his grandchildren stories of how the soldiers had fought bravely on the island.

To coordinate with the field army in the sea-crossing battles, the Party committee of the Qiongya Column — using the former name of Hainan Island — organized support teams consisting of more than 60,000 people from the island. Meanwhile, the "one yuan" and "one bucket of rice" campaigns were launched to encourage the residents across the island to donate money and food to support the PLA's operations.

In two months, more than 3 million kilograms of grain was collected, along with more than 170 wooden sailboats. More than 400 boatmen were mobilized. The force broke through the enemy's heavy blockades and sailed in batches to Leizhou Peninsula on the opposite side of Qiongzhou Strait, which is about 11 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point. They reported promptly to the sea-crossing corps about the situation of the defensive forces, including hydrological and meteorological information about the ports and coastline of Hainan, according to documents displayed at the museum.

The liberation campaign started with small-scale secret sea-crossing operations. From March 5 to 26, 1950, more than 8,500 soldiers secretly crossed the Qiongzhou Strait in two groups and landed successfully with the strong cooperation of the Qiongya Column, breaching some points of the Kuomintang's island wide defense system that included 50 warships and more than 40 airplanes.

Their land strengthened the power of the Qiongya forces and provided valuable experience for coordinating a large-scale landing of the main body of troops, said Huang Hua, an official with the CPC history research office of the Danzhou CPC city committee.

Large-scale battles on the island began on April 17 with landing of the main force. While the sea-crossing operations were nothing but sailing and full of dangers and challenges, the land battles were a matter of life and death engagements with the enemy. The 40th and 43rd Corps of the Fourth Field Army, led by Han Xianchu and Li Zuopeng, respectively, fought side by side and achieved an unprecedented success, according to the memorial hall.