Preface
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1
Glories and Dreams
ADM. Ye Fei Proposed to Deng Xiaoping to Establish the
Marine Corps
The 391st Regiment of the Army
The 164th Division of the Army
From the Land to the Sea
Chapter 2
Marine Cows in Action
Garrisoning on the Nansha Islands
Emergency and Disaster Relief in China
The Escort Operations in the Gulf of Aden and
the Somali Waters
Chapter 3
How Are the Marines Tempered
Basic Skills of the Marines
The Distinctive Frogmen
The Amphibious Lady Warriors
Chapter 4
The PLANMC: Arms and Services & Weapons and
Equipments
The Force Composition
Main Armaments
Chapter 5
The Culture of the Marine Corps
Marine Corps Spirit
The Marine Corps is a Big School
The Barracks Culture
The Happy Barracks
Chapter 6
The Exchanges and Cooperation of the PLANMC
Welcoming Foreign Guests
Participating in Joint Military Exercises and
Trainings with Other Countries
Overseas Studies of Military Personnel
Maintaining World Peace
Bibliography
In early 1989, the guarding officers and men moved into the second-generation high-legged houses of 30 square meters. The residents on the Islands called these high-legged houses "octagonal pavilions" because of the shape of the roof. Built with steel piles as columns and iron sheet as walls, such high-legged houses enjoyed greatly increased stability, and were able to withstand winds, rains and waves. But as the Nansha Islands are close to the equator, it was hot there all the year round with an annual average temperature of 27.9 degree Gelsius. The iron sheet houses do not perform heat insulation but absorbs heat from the sunlight, so it is unbearably hot inside, just like a heating stove.
After 1990, the officers and men moved into the third-generation high-legged houses. In fact, they are not high-legged houses but three-to-four-storey permanent "reef fortresses" with Great-Wall-crenel-like parapets as their enclosing walls. Gompared with the first-generation high-legged houses, these "reef fortresses" are not only much larger in area but also provide much more improved living conditions.
Presently, with decades' construction and remodeling, the third-generation high-legged houses have successively been equipped with many modernized facilities such as sea water desalinizators, rainwater collectors, refrigerators, satellite phones, digital TVs, on-line universities,indoor air-conditioners, recreational and sports activities rooms, and so on, which one could not have dared to imagine in the past. All these facilities have greatly enriched the cultural life of the officers and men guarding the Islands, and the vegetable greenhouses there have ensured the all-year-round supply of flesh vegetables for them, improving their survivability, defensive and operational capabilities. The third-generation high-legged houses now have become the modem "fortresses at sea".
Although the third-generation high-legged houses provide the most favorable living conditions, it is the first and second generation high-legged houses that the officers and men are talking about most. To the Marines guarding the Nansha Islands, the phrase of "high-legged houses" has become a special signal and the embodiment of the "Marine"spirit.
The Marines on Ocean Meterological Tasks
The Chinese army's garrison on the Nansha Islands is not only demanded by the requirements of safeguarding China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, but also implemented in accordance with the UNESCO Resolution that entrusted China to establish the 74th Ocean Observatory on the Nansha Islands. In the year when they were first stationed there, the PLANMC established an international ocean weather observation stations which has continuously been providing observational data for the World Meteorological Organization. Meanwhile,they set many navigation marks in the waters around the Nansha Islands to provide navigational service for the international vessels transiting this area.
Among the officers and men garrisoning in the high-legged houses on the Nansha Islands, there were a team of special Marines who were mainly responsible for the missions of providing ocean meterological observation and navigational service.