Virginia Review of Asian Studies

LAST STRUGGLE OF THE CHINESE CIVIL WAR: THE BATTLES ON QUEMOY AND DENGBU, 1949

Hsiang-Wang Liu[1]

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Thebattles on Quemoy and Dengbu in 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War have received little attention from scholars. Only recently did two books began to discuss them. The Chinese Civil War: Decisive Encounters by Odd Arne Westad in 2003 mentioned them on one page. A 2008 study by Michael Szonyi, Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line has more pages of description, but it is a work of social history. Both provide few details on the nature of the war.[2]

These two battles have become political symbols nowadays for the two regimes across the Taiwan Strait. The battle of Quemoy was especially emphasized by them during last two decades for it almost saved the Nationalist regime on Taiwan whereas the communist in Beijing failed to take it. This war on the offshore islands was unique in various ways.. Very few contemporary records were recorded about both battles. The basic U.S. governmental documents like The Foreign Relations of the United States is quite silent on this topic.

Before the battles, the Nationalists controlled almost every archipelago along China’s coast. In the north, they took the Changshan archipelagos to blockade the Bohai Gulf. In the east, the Zhoushan islands were to watch Shanghai, almost closing off the exit for the Yangtze. The rest of islands, from the East China Sea to the South China Sea, Quemoy/Amoy, Wanshan, and Hainan were still well protected in 1949.

Among all, the Changshan was the least significant, simply because it was unable to close off the sea route to North China. It was too distant in the remote north, difficult for the Nationalists on Taiwan to reach. The Nationalists garrisoned only about 1,700 soldiers there, too small to survive. The troops eventually collapsed in August of 1949 when North China was completely lost to the Nationalists.

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The rest of the islands, however, were defended with stronger forces and effectively blockaded South China from the Yangtze to the South China Sea. Taiwan, geographically separated from the mainland by about one hundred miles and in the center of this island-chain, became the central base for these offshore islands. Chiang Kai-Shek, the Nationalist leader, regarded Taiwan as his last base for a long time. In the wake of the Huaihai Campaign of late 1948, he had reorganized the government on Taiwan. When the situation on mainland was worsening, he elevated the status of Taiwan. In May, 1949, Shanghai was lost. Taiwan began to flank the mainland. One month later, Chiang in Taiwan declared a blockade all Chinese coast and harbors.[3]

Chiang’s strategic plan then was to keep Southern Fujian including Amoy and Quemoy as the front for Taiwan.[4] These two islands, Amoy and Quemoy, were traditionally the gateway between Taiwan and the mainland. He deployed considerable forces there. Amoy, the island city,was especially the economic and political center of Southern Fujian. From Amoy the Nationalists stretched into the continental interior, and on the right to some offshore islands like Pingtan and Matsu to threaten Northern Fujian from the sea. Taiwan was the base behind to aid Southern Fujian. The Taiwan Strait in this sense was the Nationalist lake.

The Nationalists exerted their remaining naval and air forces to cruise that lake. The People Liberation Army(PLA) simply could not ship troops from Shanghai to invade Fujian or Canton by sea, but ratherhad to rely on movement by foot through inland to attack those areas. Though some islands were far closer to the mainland and exposed to the PLA’s artillery firepower, the Nationalist major island bases were safe enough by geographical distance. This enabled the Nationalists to land their troops on mainland at will. They never worried about any threats from the sea. They controlled all sea routes. It might be termed as a kind of sea power against the land power of the Communists. The land power was totally confined in the continent.

This sea power by nature is a forward advancing. While the Taiwan Strait was a Nationalist lake, the mainland coastal bases were logically their advancing positions. But to maintain the sea power is not easy. In late 1949, Chiang’s reliable navy was only less than 40 armed ships and his small air forces were comprised of less than one hundred effective airplanes. This firepower was clearly not enough to maintain his forward policy.[5] Chiang needed strong fleets to maintain effective control. Small-scale or occasional operations to protect interests on the mainland only provided a temporary superiority. Once the PLA’s modern firepower grew to a sufficient level, the Nationalist sea power would vanish soon.

So was Chiang’s strategy offensive in nature, but it was limited due to his feeble sea power. Those islands he occupied did not have much defensive value for long. They were scattered, near the mainland, and far away from Taiwan. Shipping supplies from Taiwan was expensive. The danger from the mainland was always imminent, especially when the Communists shelled. The Zhoushan Islands alone had consumed half of the revenue of Taiwan.[6] For other islands, it was impossible to expect to be fully supplied; thus, they were in a very dangerous position that, when the Communists were ready to attack, they could not effectively resist. They became, in fact, extravagant burdens.

But for Chiang, these islands were not only to be the bases to “recover” China in the future, but also were political in nature for the goal of anti-communist war. As the Communists conquered the mainland, the United States saw the importance of the island regime to blockade Beijing. Chiang’s hold of the offshore islands demonstrated his determination and dovetailed with American interests over Asia a lot. The significance of holding the islands was more political than military at this sense.[7] Domestically, this political nature was more evident that Chiang’s holding of the islands and the forward coastal bases not only protected Taiwan, but also legitimized his regime.

Facing such a situation, the Communists only relied on their ground troops to wage war against those bases. The attacking forces were part of PLA 3rd Field Army, which much outnumbered the Nationalists in Southern Fujian with firepower and soldiers.[8] Attacking the continental Fujian did not seem difficult to them..

Prelude of the war: Amoy

In the late summer of 1949, the PLA 10th Army Group (AG) launched autumn attacks on southern Fujian. The Communists’ aim was to capture Amoy and Quemoy in the end. With more than 100,000 troops, the PLA 10th AG dispatched one-third of them along the coast, sailing from Northern Fujian to take over Pingtan Island, the largest island along Southeast China’s coast, lying 50 miles or so north of Quemoy. At the same time, most of the troops came down the mainland to attack Southern Fujian.[9]

The Communists first took Pingtan island, but their victory in the battle of Pingtan was basically accidental. On September 13, they shelled the neighboring islands, then boarded junks for Pingtan. An unexpected typhoon hit the areas then, almost destroying their junks. Only a few thousand soldiers landed on Pingtan where a small group of Communist guerrillas joined with them. Together, they attacked the Nationalists on Pingtan, but the Nationalists gave up the island and transferred to Matsu, another group of islands farther away from the continent, where later became one of the most crucial offshore island bases, second only to Quemoy, for Taiwan.[10]

The other Communist forces were expected to take over Southern Fujian easily. Some 30,000 Nationalists who defended the area were very demoralized. Most of them were the defeated troops from the Yangtze. They were very vulnerable to invasion. Chiang shipped some minimal supplies from Taiwan to them, but this did not improve the situation.[11] On September 19, the PLA 10th AG swiftly destroyed the Nationalists there, occupying all of Southern Fujian coast except for the two main islands of Amoy and Quemoy. The entire continental Southern Fujian was lost without significant resistances.

Amoy, an urban island situated in a gulf surrounded by continent, was the center of Southern Fujian. To the west of it was a tiny island, Gulangyu, once a Western concession, and to the east, the island of Quemoy, another Nationalist base in the area. Quemoy then was the rear, watching the sea. After taking Southern Fujian, the PLA spent one month to prepare next attack against the two island bases. The main problem was to acquire ships to cross the narrow ocean waters there. The PLA levied junks from surrounding fishing villages, but most of the junks were not good for an ocean crossing. The ships’ flat bottoms made them unsafe to maneuver through turbulent waves. Only in calm weather, they were useful to cross the seas.[12] On September 26, the PLA 10th AG was set to take both islands, Amoy and Quemoy at one time. However, it could not gather enough junks to ship all troops at a time. By early October, the PLA had only 630 junks available and was able to ship only 15,000 soldiers at a time. The invading troops, therefore, could not attack Amoy and Quemoy simultaneously. They had to choose only one target.

The PLA chose Amoy first. Quemoy was then a secondaryplace, far poorer than Amoy. The Nationalist main body was on Amoy. If taking Quemoy first, the PLA would likely miss a chance to destroy the Nationalist main body which might flee from Amoy to Taiwan. It would be better off not to let them go. Amoy, moreover, was the center in the areas and was geographically very close to the continent. Taking it was more easily and it would mean to destroy the Nationalist defensive net of the region. The PLA expected that, should it “liberate” Amoy, Quemoy would follow suit or the Nationalists on Quemoy would flee to Taiwan. It would be only regrettable that it could not at the same time to destroy the other smaller group on Quemoy.[13]

Chiang did not ignore the imminent danger on Amoy. On October 6, he sailed from Taiwan to Amoy to encourage the Nationalist troops and to forge an alliance with local dignitaries together against the Communists. He also ordered the 12th AG of the Nationalists in East Guangdong to come to the area as the reinforcement. But the 12th AG came too late. Since lacking transportation carriers, it did not join the battle for Amoy in time, but arrived on Quemoy in late October, just as the battle commenced there.[14]

With only some 30,000 soldiers, the Nationalists on Amoy were in an absolutely weaker position. Though building bulwarks and a variety of defensive barriers, they remained unable to resist the PLA’s heavy artillery. The Nationalists had no artillery to hold the city-base.[15] The troops were the same soldiers who fled from Southern Fujian in an extremely lower morale. All these contributed their failure of the defense.

On October 15, the PLA troops launched a flank attack against Gulangyu Island. However, it ended up being a disaster for the Communists. With the powerful gun fire, they first shelled the island, nearly destroying the Nationalists’ bulwarks, but the junks carrying the Communist soldiers lost control and, facing a strong ocean tide, the PLA were unable to reach the island. Only a few Communist troops eventually landed and were completely annihilated by the Nationalists. The Nationalists actually scored a victory on thattiny island, but this did not change the bigger picture.[16]

The battle for Amoy Island, however, netted a different result. With the aid of a strong monsoon, PLA’s junks crossed the water at night. On October 16, the PLA successfully landed northern Amoy and swiftly set up the first beach head. The Nationalists fiercely counterattacked. It was a hard battle for the Communist landing troops. Many were forced to fight in the water, causing dramatic casualties. The situation was improved until all forces landed on the coast and the returning junks carried the second wave of troops to the island, leading to their hold of northern Amoy. The Nationalists hence could not stop the PLA’s advance.

To try to reverse the situation, the Nationalists reinforced from southern Amoy. But the darkness of the night impeded the relief troops’ advance. Failing to arrive at the battlefield on time, they missed the chance to save the situation. By then, the PLA had consolidated their northern bases and further expanded into central Amoy, where serious clashes took place. After counterattacking in vain, the Nationalists withdrew to southern Amoy. On the 17th, they abandoned Amoy and retreated to Quemoy, but they had already suffered a heavy loss.[17]

The Communists won, but all these victories made them ignore the many warning signs that were already revealed on theseoffshore island battles. In the first battle on Pingtan, the PLA troops had encountered an unpredictable typhoon that hampered their advance. It is that the Nationalists abandoned Pingtan island and the Communists got it. That is very much by sheer luck. However, they dismissed the accidental nature of the victory, and continued to approach Amoy and its neighboring areas without much caution.[18]

The next attack on Gulangyu island had been a failure, and it is the victory on Amoy that concealed this misfortune. They did not understand that nature. One more lesson was that the first attack on Amoy was almost unsustainable, but they survived and succeeded by the second wave of reinforcement. Had their relief forces not come in time and their junks not returned back with more forces to comeor had the Nationalists boldly counterattacked enough, it would be hard to say who would have triumphed. The island battle requires a safe supply by sea to the battlefield. The PLA’s junk-fleet risked too much, making it vulnerable to modern weapons from land, sea, and air.[19] Geographically, Quemoy was farther away from the mainland. Unlike the situation on Amoy, the junk-fleet would have found it more difficult to reach that designated landing site.

The Battle for Quemoy Island

Strategically, Quemoy was the last Nationalist base in the area. Without it, the Nationalists could not control Taiwan Strait and Taiwan would be exposed to the PLA threat. They could not lose it. The distance from Quemoy eastward to the Pescadores in the Taiwan Strait was 82 miles, to southern Taiwan, 150 miles, and to north, 100 miles. The Nationalists were not unfamiliar with the story of Koxinga to take over Taiwan from Southern Fujian in 1661. The Qing emperor, Kangxi, later repeated the history through there to capture Taiwan in 1683. Chiang urged to hold the island.

Quemoy is 164 square kilometers, a little larger than Amoy. Its shape is like a dumbbell with the thinnest part in the center. To the east is a hilly region; the west a decline to the sea. On the tip of the northwest of the island is a peninsula, Guningtou, with many cliffs. Generally, the eastern part of the island is difficult to land on, since enormous reefs scatter in the sea, and the western part is sandy beach, much easier to land on. However, only the northern side in the center faces the mainland and very close to it. Therefore, if any operations from the mainland were taken, it would be convenient and logical for the PLA to land only on the northern beach near Guningtou.

In the island, located in the interior were houses built with thick dirt. Almost every house could be used as a stronghold in war. It was a poor island, with no modern buildings and very few well-to-do people, only fishermen and farmers in a population of around 40,000 people, most crowded in the southwest corner, the capital city of Quemoy. To them, any political change was insignificant. They were indifferent to the struggle between the Nationalists and the Communists. It was impossible for the Communists to stir up a peasant uprising, or, for that matter, for the Nationalists to organize an anti-Communist movement.

After taking Amoy, the soldiers of the PLA 10th AG relaxed their guard. Their headquarters was now moved into Amoy and it was urgent to resolve famine on Amoy first.[20] They were not much worried with the next battle on Quemoy. With a population of more than 200,000 in Amoy, food and fuel became scarce then. Inhabitants even had to tear doors as fuel for warmth, and famine had already spread over the island. The PLAtroops hurried to supply two million kg of rice to resolve the problem, temporarily relieving the situation.[21] It certainly took more time for the economy to recover.