Battle of Nanpēng Archipelago

Part of the Chinese Civil War

Date	September 20, 1952 – October 20, 1952
Location	Nanpeng Archipelago, Nan'ao County, Eastern Guangdong province, China
Result	Communist victory

Belligerents

National Revolutionary Army

People's Liberation Army

Commanders and leaders

Huang Songsheng † (黄颂声)

Liu Cunzhi (刘存智)
Zhang Wannian

Strength

> 150

around 400

Casualties and losses

106 killed
40+ captured

89 killed
300+ wounded

The Battle of Nanpēng Archipelago was a battle fought between the Chinese nationalists and the communists over the islands of the Nanpeng Archipelago off the Cantonese coast during the Chinese Civil War that resulted in communist victory. The Nanpēng Archipelago is a small island chain in Nan'ao County off the coast of Shantou, and is named after the largest island, Nanpēng island (Nanpēng Dao, 南澎岛), home to a fishing community of more than 400 people. The archipelago was deemed not important for most of the Chinese Civil War and the nationalists therefore did not deploy any troops on the island, and when Guangdong fell into the communist hands, the archipelago also fell. The communists believed the same thing the nationalists had believed and did not deploy any troops to the archipelago either after the nationalists withdrew, but small patrol teams of 2 to 3 were regularly sent to many of the islands.

As the nationalists launched their insurgent strikes against the communists, the nationalist strategists believed that archipelago may serve as a steppingstone to launch assaults against the mainland and decided to take the archipelago. On September 20, 1952, over 150 nationalist strike force members riding in four large speedboats launched a surprise attack on Nanpēng island. The token communist force patrolling the island consisted of only three members: a deputy naval infantry platoon commander with last name Zhang (张), who was the patrol team leader, a sailor named Qiu An (邱安), and a militiaman named Lin Xiaofa (林小发). After a futile resistance, all three were killed by the overwhelming enemy force.

The communists would not let the nationalists have the opportunity to set up a forward base at their doorstep and immediately began to plan a counterattack. However, due to the urgent defense needs from other parts of the vast coastal regions, the job of retaking the archipelago was given to the ground force, and a strengthened battalion of the communist 41st Army was assigned the mission. However, it was soon discovered that the unit was ill prepared for an amphibious landing and as a result, the schedule had to be pushed back to first allow more than 20 days of training to be completed.

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