Thread: youtube-3.14 Sea battle in Spratly Islands,1988

This is the truth about what happened in that videoclip:

"In the early months of 1988, the Chinese Navy had landed troops on five reefs and atolls of the Spratly Islands -The whole spratly Islands belong to Vietnam according to reliable historical proofs. Three of them lie quite near the large islands of which Vietnam owns. The Vietnamese Navy then ferried supplies and equipment to six other reefs and atolls. They successfully gained control of them and prevented the Chinese Navy from extending their occupied zone into the other islands. In early March, the High Command of Vietnamese navy decided to take control over other three reefs because they were part of the Spratly Island and form an open chain of reefs around Sin Cowe island that were in control of Vietnam. On March 13th, in the late evening three transport ships of Vietnam arrived in time at those reefs and set up the flags to present Vietnam’s sovereignty over them. However, some hours after the Vietnamese transport ships had reached the target, four large Chinese warships got close to the Vietnamese and switched on the warning loudspeaker. They were equipped with advanced 100mm guns, missiles and torpedoes. Despite threat from Chinese warships, the Vietnamese transport ships patiently kept anchoring beside the reefs. They were not powerful enough to confront with the Chinese navy and did not want to escalate the conflict. The strain continued until early morning when the Chinese floated the boats and caused more conflicts for the battle to break out. All the Chinese, especially soldiers, are taught that the ocean area of the Spratly islands with hundreds islands, reefs and atolls belongs to China, although it lies at a distance of over 1000 km far from the undermost Chinese coast at Hainan island. The Chinese continued being ordered to take an oath before every floating boat that carried many armed marines.
The Chinese boats rushed straight towards the reefs and approached the Vietnamese transport ships. Standing on the reefs where the water level covered the half of their bodies, the Vietnamese sailors set up commanding positions along the edge of the reefs to lay the defending lines and try to prevent the enemy from advancing forward. Seen from the air, they formed a circle. The Vietnamese defenders were absolutely outnumbered by Chinese troops and also were threatened to retreat from the reefs on which the flags were already planted as a reaffirmation of sovereignty. Just because the Vietnamese navy refused to withdraw from the reef, the Chinese used battleships for firing with 37 mm directly at the unarmed and light armed Vietnamese sailors on the reefs who were not able to attack them from their defending positions. They also fired with 100mm gun at the three Vietnamese transport ships and seriously damaged them, until two of them sank.64 Vietnamese sailors and officers lost their lives, among them were only 3 corpses were found after the end of the battle,61 other persons were still missing and reputedly dead. Eventually, Vietnam defended successfully its sovereignty over two reefs on that day. China has occupied the other ones since that incident.

Nowadays, although living under constant threat and provocation from the Chinese navy, smiling atmosphere and the living standard of the Vietnamese sailors and civilians in the Spratly Islands are improving gradually. Vietnam reaffirms continuously its sovereignty over the Spratly Islands. In the middle of the ocean, which is 300km far from the Vietnam coast, they stand together and unite together as one to protect the sea territory of their motherland"

You can watch the clip that was made by a Vietnamese here: YouTube - China invaded Spratly islands of Vietnam (real footage 1988)

Thank you for your reading and watching.