The fighters of the PLA Air Force provide air support to the liberation campaign of the Yijiangshan Island. (PLA Daily file photo)

　　On January 18, 1955, the army, the navy and the air force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) concentrated their advantaged strength to launch an attack on the Kuomintang army defending on the Yijiangshan Island of the East China Sea and the island was liberated soon. This is the only joint landing combat of the three services in the history of the PLA.

　　Although it lasted for only 3 hours, the campaign fought 54 years ago is of profound historical influence. The victory of the campaign forced the Kuomintang troops stationed on the nearby islands to flee pell-mell before the PLA. The coastal islands in Zhejiang and Fujian provinces were liberated soon after and Chiang Kai-shek’s dream to “counterattack the Chinese mainland” was shattered from then on.

　　According to Zhang Shujing, curator of the Memorial of the Yijiangshan Island Landing campaign, more than 50，000 people came to the cemetery to recall the martyrs on the Tomb-sweeping Day this year, and more than 13，000 people bought ticket to visit the memorial on the very day of July 1, including many elders, servicemen and students who are entitled to visit free of charge. Many schools, enterprises and institutions and troop units regarded the memorial a base for patriotic education.

　　In front of a fighter model, Zhao Chunlin, directer of the publicity section of an aviation division under the East China Sea Fleet of the PLA Navy who accompanied the reporter in the interview, said, “Two regiments of our division participated in the campaign 54 years ago.”

　　When we came to the history hall of the division, an old photo illustrating the fighters cooperating with the brother troops to scramble for the domination of the air over the Yijiangshan Island was put up in a conspicuous position. Wei Huabin, commander of the division said, “During the campaign to liberate the Yijiangshan Island, the fighters the PLA used were subsonic ones, but today our fighters have been upgraded into ultrasonic ones. The joint operation has become an information-based one with the involvement of the army, the navy and the air force, as well as space and electromagnetic elements. Only by hard training, can we fulfill our mission and inherit the honor of the predecessors.

　　By Xu Wenyao and Hou Rui