Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan (15 page)

The Vigorous Dragons continued to drive on their target.
 
Contrails erupted from their canards, as the
pilots pulled their machines into an abrupt climb.
 
With afterburners ablaze, they lobbed their
big bombs at their aim point: Hill 112’s bunker entrance.
 
Hill 112’s Super Bat spit its last few
rounds.
 
The explosive projectiles bit
into another Chinese transport.

“Incoming,” Li screamed.
 
The Taiwanese dropped to the bunker floor and hugged whatever furniture
and equipment they could grab.
 
Hill
112’s army platoon scurried inside, huddled near the ground, and awaited the
inevitable.
 
Twin, massive explosions
drove the bunker into blackness.
 
Half
the structure collapsed with a sickly tearing sound.
 
Everyone inside not instantly killed was left
bleeding and unconscious.

Senior Master Sergeant Li awakened to a mouth full of
grit.
 
Dry blood crusted his ears and
nose.
 
Even with his arm broken, he was
luckier than the poor mangled fellow lying next to him.
 
Crafting a splint for his twisted arm, Li
touched his aching head and felt the large bump under his greasy, matted
hair.
 
He stood and swayed, and then grabbed
for the steadiness of a wall.
 
He shuffled
along it as he checked on his groaning men.
 
The hum of enemy transports infiltrated the bunker’s bent door.

Flying in ‘vics’—inverted v-formations of three planes each—the
Candids and Cubs filled the sky, casting shadows that snaked over Taipei’s
buildings, parks, and streets.
 
Coordinators peeked out the nose windows of their transports and alerted
jumpmasters that landmarks had been spotted.
 
The aircrafts’ side doors opened.
 
Jumpmasters, whipped by the slipstream, spotted the memorized curve of
the river and the appropriate marker bridge.
 
They turned to their cargo of nervous men.

“Stand in door,” a Cub’s jumpmaster barked.
 
The paratroopers stood and lined up.
 
Each attached his parachute’s static line to a
cabin rail before they waddled into position.
 
A green light flashed, and then stayed lit.

“Go,” the jumpmaster said, smacking the back of the lead man,
who hurled himself out, arms and legs splayed.
 
The static line yanked the parachute from its bag, deploying it to drift
like a jellyfish caught in the current.
 
The roar of Candids that also arrived over the area drowned the Cub’s
whirring propellers.

The big jets lined up with Songshan’s single east-west
runway and sank rapidly toward its expanse.
 
Forming a long line, the Candids configured for landing, deployed huge
flaps, and dropped multi-wheeled landing gear trucks.
 
Around Songshan Airport, Chinese paratroopers
hit the ground, cleared their parachute harnesses, and went to their gear.
 
Little groups assembled around weapons
canisters, and the Chinese paratroops got fully armed and dangerous, spreading
out to establish a security perimeter.
 
The first Candid flared and settled its bulk on the concrete.

The Candid carried the first of the Chinese mechanized
forces: tracked Chariot infantry fighting vehicles that carried an anti-tank
missile launcher, 30-millimeter cannon, and a squad of troopers.
 
Other Candids swooped over Songshan and flew parallel
to the runway at low altitude.
 
Tail
ramps yawned open and drogue chutes yanked cargo pallets from inside.
 
Chinese Dragon Turtle light tanks with
half-egg shaped turrets deplaned first.

Main chutes deployed, decelerated the loads, and the pallets
bounced along the ground and skidded to a halt on the runway’s grass
apron.
 
Paratroopers ran to their tanks,
freed them from restraints, crawled through hatches, and started them up billowing
curls of black exhaust smoke.
 
A fuel
truck drove up to the armored congregation and gassed everything up, as a
flatbed truck moved about, dispensing ammunition with its integral crane.

Chinese paratroopers swept through Songshan’s passenger
terminal.
 
In the ticketing area, next to
a bar and bookstore, Taipei Police and a small contingent of soldiers made a
brief stand, but were quickly quieted by concentrated gunfire and tossed
grenades.
 
The infantry fighting vehicles
and light tanks moved to the airport’s fence line to cover the airlifters that
continued to land and disgorge cargo before turning right around for scramble take-offs.
 
One big Chinese transporter landed and taxied
to an isolated corner of the tarmac, its ramp lowered and under heavy guard. A
truck bearing a large wooden crate sped for one of Songshan’s remote hangars.
 
With the airhead firmly established, the
airborne forces expanded their perimeter.

An anti-air warfare team set up next to Songshan’s flight
line.
 
Snipers established overlooks on airport
building rooftops.
 
Atop the terminal,
two paratroopers paid out wire from a spindle, unfolded a small satellite dish,
adjusted it to a specific point in the sky, and attached the wire.
 
A squad took up residence on the terminal’s
overhang and erected a tripod to steady their Red Arrow anti-tank missile
launcher. A heavy machinegun crew settled in behind a wall of newly placed
sandbags, training their weapon on the airport boulevard.
 
Chariot infantry fighting vehicles and
paratroopers fanned out to the airport’s fence line while Dragon Turtle light
tanks assembled on the tarmac.
 
Chinese
fighter jets circled overhead as the last of the big transports climbed out
from Songshan, and a double-deck jetliner broke from behind Taipei’s northern
hills.

The four-engine wide body showed its livery: Air China, and
displayed the calligraphic phoenix of the national carrier on its giant
tail.
 
The jet executed a high-speed bank
and lined up on Songshan’s runway.
 
It sank
fast and kicked up smoke when 20 tires met the ground.
 
The double-decker’s weight settled and the
nose dropped, putting the front wheels down with a screech.
 
Spoilers flipped up.
 
With a deafening roar of reverse thrust, the
jet raced to the end of the runway, turned around, and stopped.
 
Two airport staircase tractors raced over and
aligned with the airliner’s lower cabin exits.
 
Doors swung open and Chinese soldiers disembarked in two long
lines.
 
When the last man stepped off,
the staircase tractors backed away and the airplane’s running turbofans spun
back up.
 
The airliner’s doors were still
swinging closed when it started to roll again.

Two companies of People’s Liberation Army regulars formed up
on Songshan’s flight line.
 
Dividing into
platoons, they scattered to reinforce the several hundred paratroopers already
manning the outer fence.
 
Another jetliner—a
‘China Eastern’ twin-engine wide-body—came out of the northwest, a dedicated
Flanker on its wing.
 
The airliner carried
General Zhen, his squad of bodyguards, and teams of special forces.

Zhen pressed his face to the airplane’s small oval
windows.
 
It was the first time he had
seen the urban expanse of Taipei.
 
He
watched vortexes swirl off the descending airplane’s winglets.
 
As the fighter escort pulled up and away,
Zhen buckled his belt and squirmed like an excited child on a first flight.

◊◊◊◊

South of Songshan Airport, Taiwanese Brave Tiger main battle
tanks rumbled up Min Quan Road and marshaled for a counterattack.
 
Souped-up Vietnam-era American Pattons, the
Brave Tigers belonged to the army’s 542
^nd
Armored Brigade.
 
The Taiwanese tanks held shy of the airport,
hiding in nearby alleys and parking lots as they awaited infantry support.

“They’re late,” the Taiwanese tank commander again checked
his watch.
 
When they get here, he mentally
planned, we will break through the airport fence and destroy the enemy aircraft
and armor on the airfield.
 
The infantry
will then swarm the airfield and secure key objectives around the property.
 
Every moment the tank commander waited exposed
his tanks to ambush, and the longer the Chinese held Songshan, the more
equipment and men they could deliver.
 
The tank commander looked at his watch again and got on the radio to
plead for infantry.
 
His face betrayed
disappointment as he put down the headset.

“They’re not coming,” he said to the gunner who squirmed in
the confines of the Brave Tiger’s hull.
 
“They were caught in the open by enemy aircraft and cut down in the
street.”
 
The tank commander took a deep
breath and scratched his crew cut.
 
“It’s
up to us.”
 
The gunner swallowed
hard.
 
Changing the radio to the
formation’s frequency, the Taiwanese commander transmitted to the other
tanks.
 
Silence ensued as the Taiwanese
tankers shared a moment of collective doubt.
 
Despite quality of machine and advanced training, they knew that to
attack without infantry support would be very risky.
 
“Start up,” the commander broadcasted.

On rubber treads as quiet as paws, the Brave Tigers emerged
from hiding, and lined up on the road.
 
Scanning the area with his fire control imaging system, the tank
commander swiveled the turret and main gun.

“Now,” he ordered.
 
The driver leaned on his throttle and lurched the lead tank into a
charge.
 
The rest of the Brave Tigers
followed.
 
Shadows moved on Songshan’s
terminal roof as the Taiwanese tanks materialized on the airport’s main
boulevard.
 
A flash emanated from the
terminal’s overhang.

A Chinese Red Arrow anti-tank missile arrived and hit the
lead Taiwanese tank between turret and hull, stopping the tank dead.
 
A second Red Arrow flew into another
Taiwanese tank, penetrating and detonating stored ammunition and fuel, and incinerating
the crew and machine in a multi-colored blaze.
 
A third Red Arrow reached out to the next Brave Tiger, impacted, and
shredded its track.
 
Despite being
immobilized, the tank’s turret swung toward the missile’s source and fired its
cannon.

The shell ripped into the airport terminal roof, with the
impact and explosion sending up a cloud of brick shards and concrete dust.
 
The tank’s hatch clanked open, and, burnt and
bleeding, a Taiwanese soldier shimmied out.
 
He cocked the pintle-mounted machinegun, and sprayed the airport fence
with bullets.
 
A final anti-tank missile
arrived to perform the coup de grâce on the crippled man and his machine.
 
The remaining Taiwanese tanks escaped the
killing ground.
 
They retreated for the
cover of nearby shops and apartment buildings, but were then ambushed and
slaughtered a block away by Chinese paratroopers armed with rocket-propelled
grenades. Thick black smoke from the burning Taiwanese tanks screened Chinese
movements at Songshan.

Chinese Chariot infantry fighting vehicles massed near the
main gate as Dragon Turtle light tanks joined up with infantry on the airport’s
tarmac.
 
General Zhen strutted around the
congregation, motivating and/or filling with fear those he approached. He went
to the airport tarmac where an officer called the men to attention and saluted
the approaching general.
 
Zhen climbed
onto an ammo crate.

“My sons, you have your objectives,” he boomed.
 
Zhen jumped down and strode to an
antenna-covered armored infantry fighting vehicle, entered the rear hatch, settled
inside, and strapped himself in.
 
For the
umpteenth time, he studied a map of east Taipei, as he pondered tactics and
fretted over the urban terrain that precluded the launching of a single thrust
toward the civic center.
 
Against better judgment, I must divide my
force
, he posited.
 
I will
send one column south and another to the southwest to seize the
objective.
 
The Chariots will speed
ahead, survey routes, and provide information and reconnaissance for the slower
infantry.
 
The Dragon Turtles will follow
the infantry fighting vehicles and overwhelm any enemy resistance
.

The rail terminal, Presidential Building, Legislative Yuan,
and Ministry of National Defense had all been circled in red.
 
Objectives
I will soon hold
, Zhen judged.
 
The
ground trembled as the machines started up.
 
The Chinese infantry fighting vehicles departed first, speeding south
down freshly paved Dun Hua Road and followed by a cavalcade of 3,000 Chinese
paratroopers and soldiers led by light tanks.
 
As the procession made its way through the streets of Taipei, those
Taiwanese brave enough to peek from windows received only polite salutes.