First Taiwan Strait Crisis
Until 1955, the Dachen (Tachen) Islands were administered by the Republic of China (ROC), the government of which had been based in Taiwan ( south of the Dachen Islands) since major fighting ceased in the Chinese Civil War. As the People's Liberation Army advanced through Fujian Province in the late 1940s, the U.S.-supported Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang retreated to China’s offshore Islands. On 20 January 1955, the PLA's conquest of Yijiangshan led to the First Taiwan Strait Crisis. The Formosa Resolution of 1955 passed in Congress nine days later in the United States, leading to the orderly evacuation (Operation Pullback) of the Dachen Islands by the United States Navy in February. At the time, they served as the temporary capital of the Chekiang Province in exile. The U.S. Seventh Fleet used 132 boats and 400 aircraft to move 14,500 civilians, 10,000 Republic of China servicemen and 4,000 guerrilla fighters, along with 40,000 tons of military equipment and supplies from the island. Three days after the evacuation, the islands were taken by the People’s Liberation Army. Chiang Kai-shek grudgingly allowed the island to fall to the Communists so that the other offshore island groups, Kinmen and Matsu, could be successfully defended.