Miracle campaign: The liberation of Hainan Island

At the memorial hall of the Hainan Island Liberation Park in Lin'gao, a wall featuring bronze-framed fingerprints and the footprints of soldiers who once fought in cross-sea battles and who are still alive, is eye-catching and evokes memories of those arduous yet heroic days of war.

The Lin'gao headlands stick out like a paddle from the western coast of Hainan island, jutting into the Qiongzhou Strait, which separates the tropical island from the Chinese mainland. The waters are a natural wonder: The eastern side often sees wild, roaring waves, while the western side remains calm, rippling and sparkling, making it an ideal place for landing small boats.

And this was one of the major locations on Hainan Island where a mass landing of 25,000 People's Liberation Army troops took place 71 years ago.

Landing of the PLA main troops at Lin'gao headlands on April 17, 1950, about five months after the founding of the People's Republic of China, made the coastal site an appropriate place to create a national education base — Hainan Island Liberation Park — which attracts crowds of visitors daily.