My story

My Story (10) - Battle of Dachen (2) Break at Nanji On May 29th, 1954, the ship sailed to Nanji ( 南麂 )Island. The island is about 82 nautical miles south of Dachen ( 大陳 ) , a journey about seven to eight hours for our slow moving ship. It was an en route stopover to Matchu ( 馬祖 ), one of the islands near the mainland that was firmly held by the Nationalists, even until now. The excuse to go there was to re-supply, but the real reason was to take a breather from the breathless tension of battle field. W ater sources on that small island were very limited, and hardly any vegetables could be grown in its infertile soil. For agriculture, the arid farm land could only grow sweet potatoes. For fishing, they could only catch a kind of very tiny kind called Ding-Xiang Fish, similar to small herring, 1-to-2 inch long with the thickness of a chopstick. These were dried under the sun and stored to make the island people's staple food year round. As a political officer, I also was r...