Communists: A Sino-Soviet Shooting Script

The last hour before another chilly Siberian dawn has arrived, and the Soviet sentries on the snow-covered Ussuri River island of Damansky are nodding slightly. Suddenly, with a blare of bugles and raucous shouts of "Mao Tse-tung!" white-cloaked Chinese Communist troops hurl themselves across the ice toward the Russian positions. Mortars and heavy artillery pour flaming metal onto the defenders. The Russians fight back bravely, but they are quickly overwhelmed. Within an hour, the Chinese occupy the island they call Chen Pao.

From the permanent Soviet border post at Nizhne-Mikhailovka, four miles...