The Merlin flared up hard, dropping the ramp to just meters above the ground as the pilot pulled the nose up to bleed off their high-speed run to the island. Just fractions of a second later, the helicopter thudded on the ground, tall grass swirling all around them from the rotor wash as the crew chief screamed at them, “Get off!”
“Follow me, boys!” shouted Evans. He charged off the ramp, ready to conquer China on his own.
Racing off the ramp of the helicopter, Evans moved maybe fifteen meters away from the helicopters before he suddenly realized there were strings of green tracers zipping right past him and all around him. His body instinctively hit the dirt.
A loud scream pierced the air as one of the Marines screamed for a corpsman. Another Marine yelled out that he’d been hit as well.
Ratatat, ratatat, ratatat, pop, pop, pop.
His Marines returned fire at the enemy that now had them well-bracketed. Looking behind him, Sergeant Evans saw the Merlin they had just left do its best to lift off and gain altitude. It turned back toward the sea from which they had come. One of the door gunners fired a long burst of machine-gun fire at the enemy, his red tracers looking like a laser show as they reached out to hit the PLA soldiers who were doing their best to shoot them down from the sky.
“They’ve got machine guns set up on that bluff and in those buildings over there!” shouted one of the corporals. Evans looked to see what the young man was pointing at.
Bbbzzzzzz. One of the Apache gunships’ 30mm chain gun tore into the enemy machine-gun bunker on the top of the bluff. As the attack helicopter flew over them, its machine gun still spitting death, Sergeant Evans and his Marines were blanketed with the red-hot spent shell casings. A second Apache fired a series of rockets right into the multistory buildings adjacent to the field where they had just landed, silencing a couple of the gun positions.
Several of the remaining enemy machine-gun positions then turned their attention to the attack helicopters, giving Evans’s Marines a chance to advance. While they ran to attack the enemy positions, a missile streaked out of one of the building’s windows, slamming into one of the Apaches before its defensive systems had time to react. As soon the flames ignited the chopper’s fuel bladder, the entire helicopter burst into one spectacular orange firework.
Evans and his men reorganized and continued to return fire at the numerous enemy positions that threatened them. While he aimed and made several well-placed shots, Sergeant Evans overheard a helicopter’s blades nearing him. He paused for a moment and saw that the Apache that had flown over them had circled back around. He caught sight of it just in time to watch the chopper unload a series of rockets right into the building.
The Apache continued along its flight path, over the carnage it had just unleashed. Two missiles suddenly flew toward it, launched from the remaining buildings. The chopper spat out flares and chaff canisters, while the pilot deftly banked the helicopter hard to one side. The first missile went right for the countermeasures, exploding harmlessly. The pilot banked hard. The second missile was a few seconds behind and seemed to recognize the change in direction, altitude, and speed made by the pilot; its trajectory adjusted accordingly. It met its mark and slammed into the tail rotor of the Apache, blowing it cleanly off.
The pilot fought hard as the helicopter almost slid in the air. He quickly lost control and altitude, and the chopper slammed into the side of the bluff, a hundred meters in front of Evans’s men.
When Evans didn’t see any flame or visible smoke billowing from the downed helicopter, he yelled out to his Marines, “Follow me!” and they ran to go check on the crew.
Bullets continued to zip and snap all around him as he ran forward, his eyes searching for a target he could take his frustrations out on. His men were roughly 300 meters from the perimeter of the housing area near the port, where most of the enemy fire was coming from. The bluff ahead of them was still smoldering from the attention the Apaches had given it, and for the time being, it was not a threat.
Sergeant Evans looked back. The other platoons were already bounding forward, attacking the condo complex. “God speed,” he thought. He continued his dash forward.
In minutes, half of Evans’s men had secured the crash site and were pulling the pilot and his gunner out of the helicopter. When that task was completed, the rest of his men maneuvered to get in closer to the condo complex where the enemy was still firing away at the charging Marines.
Evans turned to his radioman. “Try and raise the fleet,” he ordered. “I want to see if we can’t get some air support out here to help flatten those buildings.”
The field the Navy had dropped them off in was a superb piece of real estate to offload a few hundred Marines, but it was also wide open, with little in the way of cover for them to hide behind once the PLA had made themselves known.
While he waited for additional support to arrive, Sergeant Evans lifted his SA80 to his shoulder and fired several shots at one of the windows where a machine gun was shooting from. He watched as the PLA gunner shifted his fire from one group of Marines to another cluster that was charging forward. Evans saw three of the four Marines get cut to pieces by the enemy machine gunner, tracer rounds ripping through their bodies, impacting the ground around and behind them as they fell to the dirt. The fourth Marine made it to the boulder they had been running toward unscathed.
Aiming again at the window, Evans calmed his breathing and squeezed the trigger methodically, placing round after round into the window. After his third shot, the machine gun stopped firing, at least for a few moments. More Marines rushed forward during the reprieve. They sprinted across the ground quickly, unsure if that same machine gun would start to spit more death in their direction.
In the distance, Evans heard the thumping sound of more helicopters. He turned and saw the second wave of choppers coming in to drop off the next batch of Royal Marines. Several attack helicopters sped ahead of them, flying straight for the condo complex. Not waiting to be shot at, the two attack helicopters unleashed their antitank missiles and their rocket pods on the remaining structures. Explosions pockmarked the buildings, blowing out windows and throwing shrapnel from the façades swirling at lightning speeds toward the ground.
Once the debris stopped its violent trajectory downward, the first batch of Marines Evans had landed with rushed forward, into the rubble. They swept for what remained of the enemy soldiers; it didn’t take them long to clear the position.
Seeing that his squad of Marines was closest to the bluff where the helicopter had been downed, Evans led his group to the top to make sure no PLA soldiers were playing possum there. When they got to the crest, they saw nearly a dozen PLA soldiers shot to pieces, bodies torn, limbs separated from their owners. Next to their eviscerated remains were two heavy machine guns and a couple of light machine guns.
“Clearly, the PLA had planned on making this a hornet’s nest to attack us,” Sergeant Evans said, speaking mostly to himself. “It’s a good thing those Apache gunships came through here, or they would have caused a lot of casualties for us from up here.”
Looking down at the gunship below him and the medic tending to the two pilots, Evans felt mighty glad they’d survived. He determined he’d like to buy them a pint one day for all the Marines they’d invariably saved.
The immediate threat neutralized, Sergeant Evans looked around the island and realized for the first time what an amazing view he and his men had there of the island and the port. A few columns of black smoke were rising from the location of the battle, but otherwise, it looked like the island was peaceful.