Military History | 大陳一村, 花蓮 — The Islands That Were Emptied

A war can end for a place by removing the place. In January 1955 the PLA took 一江山島 in about two days, and the 大陳列島 off the Zhejiang coast, still held by ROC forces, became untenable. Between 8 and 11 February the islands were emptied: not the garrison alone, but everyone. The operation ran as 金剛計畫, Operation King Kong, under escort by the US Seventh Fleet; 國家文化記憶庫 records six American transports and two ROC landing ships carrying the first group into 基隆港 on 9 February.

How many civilians left is given differently depending on who is counting. 花蓮縣政府 says about 17,000; 宜蘭縣政府文化局 says more than 18,000; a 行政院新聞局 caption written at the time says over ten thousand. What the accounts agree on is that the civilian population went in its entirety.

They arrived as 大陳義胞 in the government's language, were housed in temporary shelters, and were then distributed into roughly 35 purpose-built settlements, called 大陳新村, across twelve counties. 國家文化記憶庫 records that the dialect did not match, the available work did not match, and the government ran retraining programmes.

花蓮's 大陳一村 sits in 民意里, north of the city centre off 府前路, and 花蓮市's own account of the village says the allocated houses ran six to ten ping according to family size. Since 2015 the second floor of a building shared with three neighbourhood offices has held 大陳故事館, a small free museum put together by 花蓮市公所: the geography of the islands they left, the crossing, the household objects, and the food — a flour soup that stands for the family staying whole, and 大陳年糕 made from ordinary rice rather than glutinous rice.

The allocated houses are still there at their original size, on streets people still live on.

📸 Cover: the first group of 大陳 residents coming ashore at 基隆港, 9 February 1955; the armband marks a reception worker. Photograph by 行政院新聞局, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Not a view of the Hualien village.