Communist mortar fire badly damaged the port facilities including the pier and also scored direct hits on three large landing ships. Although the mortar rounds themselves were not powerful enough to completely destroy the landing ships which carried heavy weaponry and ammunition, the secondary explosions triggered by the direct hits by the PLA heavy mortars were enough to sink all three landing ships. Since the motorized junks with shallow draft were not severely affected by the wreckage, the Nationalists were still able to transport personnel onto the island via these junks, but ships carrying heavy weaponry were effectively blocked due to greater draft. The Nationalists, however, did not consider the problem to be serious because the defenders were mostly light infantry anyway, a mistake that they would later deeply regret. In addition to failing to realize the problem caused, the Nationalists were not able to take the highest point of the island from the Communists and although most of the PLA heavy mortars were knocked out with air support, the surviving ones did not stop shelling the Nationalists until the last round of ammunition had been exhausted.