UN partisan operations in Korea began more by chance than from planning. During the retreat in Nov-Dec 1950, thousands of anti-Communist North Korean citizens were left behind to fend for themselves. Facing almost certain death at the hands of the communist invaders, these people fought their way to North Korea's west coast and sailed to offshore islands where they prepared to fight a last ditch battle. The US 8th army eventually learned that friendly North Koreans still held the offshore islands. In January, the Guerilla Section, Eighth Army G-3 Miscellaneous, came into being.