Word: quemoy
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...three weeks a quarter of a million rounds of Communist artillery fire had raked the island. Roads were slashed up. Entire rows of cedar trees were blasted away. Quemoy City, scarcely scathed when I left, bared its broken windows. Fewer civilians, more soldiers padded through the streets, and the cheerful horde of children was gone. Parents keep the kids indoors, and civilians, who once seemed amused at the sight of long-nosed foreigners, now pass quickly and silently. Since Aug. 23, Red shells have killed 65 civilians on Quemoy, wounded at least 200 others. Military casualties exceed...
...blown the head off 40-year-old Li Wen-pi as he tried to lead his horse to safety. Even in the late afternoon, when no shells were falling, Kuning-tou's deep, dank underground shelter was crowded. The Communists are calculating their artillery fire to harass Quemoy's nerves-there is always fire at mealtimes and just after bedtime. Any crossroads is an unhealthy place to pause...
Midnight Ride. As we drove in the moonlight down Green Valley, which is one of Quemoy's main targets, three air bursts from Red artillery exploded 200 yards to our left. Communist artillery was going over us to the beach, and behind us into Green Valley. The driver tramped on the gas, and soon our weapons carrier was careening down the blacked-out road at 55 m.p.h. Luckily, there was no one coming the other...
Alligators, Now & Later. For three days last week no Nationalist snips got through to Quemoy. The monsoons are coming on, and high seas in the Strait held back the convoys. But then the sea dropped, and the Nationalists punched through the Red blockade. On successive days and under a blizzard of shells, the amphibious LVT "alligators" waddled onto the beach from mother landing ships that stood four to six miles offshore. By also utilizing a big LSD (Landing Ship, Dock) to carry extra landing craft and supplies, the Nationalists put a record 790 tons on the beach...
Estimates are that Quemoy can hold out past Christmas unless the Reds drastically step up their bombardment. Vice Admiral Wallace M. Beakley, commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, declared last week that with the start of the monsoon season, the Reds have missed any chance to invade Quemoy this year. But the monsoon also hampers the effort to supply the island. And to the weary, frustrated defenders of Quemoy, even the arrival of all the alligators, oil drums, food cases and medicine packages in the Far East would not be a completely effective answer to the relentless fire from...