Thousands of North Koreans, refugees from their own government, moved to islands off the west coast. The situation was an opportunity for our forces to establish bases for reconnaissance missions well behind enemy lines. At most, however, only small units of South Korean troops were positioned there, since UN command considered resupply too difficult.
The CCF subsequently occupied a number of those many small islands. One such action, according to the caption on this Chinese photo,was at Dachua-do. This caption says this was an opposed assault.
Of tactical interest, these were the first Chinese assaults where they used air-ground support, presumably with Stormovik piston aircraft. Another Chinese photo claims to be of one such plane and pilot which they say shot down one jet and damaged three others.
