The 8th Bomber Division recruited ground support personnel from the 504th and 510th PLAGF infantry regiments and recent graduates of the 1st and 2nd Air Force Aviation Schools.

British second lieutenant Leo S. Adams-Acton organized a complex defense of the southernmost island of Taehwa-do principally involving the destroyer HMS Cossack and a sizable contingent of US Air Force fighters.

[4] The 8th Bomber Division had conducted relentless nighttime bombing campaigns against the defenses on Taehwa-do in an attempt to soften the resistance to their upcoming invasion.

[5][6] Following the catastrophic November 1951 loss, the Chinese Air Force made no attempts to conduct daylight raids in the Korean War.

[1][8][9] In August 1958, regiments of the 8th Bomber Division were called to Fujian Province to bolster the PLA's blockade to 'dispel the nationalist enemy from the Kinmen Islands' in the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis.

With a new headquarters in Leiyang City, Hunan Province, 8th Bomber Division was assigned to the Guangzhou Military Region Air Force.

[16] The second batch of H-6Ks, also approximately twenty, jointed the PLAAF's 10th Bomber Division in mid-2013 with a focus on Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea.

[19][20] In 2015, a pilot of the 8th Bomber Division unintentionally achieved the unit's first low-visibility landing in an H-6K after encountering inclement weather returning from a combat patrol mission in the South China Sea.

[21] Following the Permanent Court of Arbitration's July 2016 decision to favor Philippine sovereignty in the South China Sea and during United States Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson's visit to Beijing to discuss the issue, the Chinese Communist Party sought a show of force over the South China Sea, tasking elements of the 8th Bomber Division to patrol the disputed South China Sea territories of Fiery Cross Reef, Scarborough Shoal, Mischief Reef, Livock Reef, and Woody Island.

"[23][25] On 13 July 2017, the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) scrambled jets from Okinawa, intercepted, and photographed six Chinese H-6K bombers conducting long-range drills over the Bashi Channel and Miyako Strait through the Taiwanese, East China Sea, and Japanese Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ).

A PLA spokesperson told Chinese news service CGTN that the aircraft were "testing actual battle capabilities over the sea" as part of "routine exercises".

[26][27] Similarly, on 25 May 2018, the JASDF joined F-16 fighter jets of Taiwanese Air Force in intercepting and photographing two H-6K bombers looping around Taiwan Island through the Bashi Channel and Miyako Strait.

In a summer 2021 attempt to demonstrate British commitment to freedom of maritime navigation and challenging Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea, the HMS Queen Elizabeth Carrier Strike Group, despite warnings by Chinese Communist Party press, sailed through international waters in the South China Sea.