As Captain Ma Qiliang sat in the dimly lit bay of the plane, he could feel the pitch in the aircraft's engines change as they made one final turn, lining themselves up for the big drop.
The jumpmaster called out, “Everyone stand up! It’s almost time to jump.”
The paratroopers dutifully listened and went through their prejump checks of each other’s equipment. A few minutes later, the doors on the side of the aircraft opened. Cool air quickly swirled around the cargo bay, adding to the excitement and thrill of yet another combat jump for this battle-hardened battalion.
Less than a minute after that, the jump light turned from red to green, and the men shuffled out the door for what was now their fourth combat jump since the start of the war. Ma surged forward with the men around him. After hours and hours of being cooped up in the plane with all their equipment tightly packed on their bodies, he was eager to jump and get back on the ground.
As Captain Ma Qiliang leaped from the aircraft, he marveled at the beauty of the morning sun, which had finally crept above the horizon. The air buffeted his face as he flew steadily toward the ground. Seconds later, he felt the sudden jerk as his chute fully opened, and he began a much more leisurely descent to the earth below. Looking around him, Ma could see that all the men in his transport had exited safely and were likewise dangling below their parachutes, traveling toward the airport below.
Captain Ma smiled. Everything was going according to plan. An hour before his paratroopers had entered Philippine airspace, the PLA Air Force and Navy launched a surprise attack, hitting many of the country’s air and naval bases in preparation for the invasion. While those assaults were underway, the three Chinese carriers operating in the South China Sea had launched their own fighters, to clear the skies of potential threats to the airborne forces. Ma’s crew had anxiously listened for updates while waiting to jump, and so far, everything had gone off without a hitch. Once his men had secured the airports, hundreds of Chinese civilian airliners would ferry tens of thousands of PLA soldiers to the Philippines. Captain Ma felt a surge of pride in being a part of this mission.
As the runway got closer, Ma could see five commercial airliners docked at the terminal. Otherwise, the airport appeared quiet. Either there were no flights this early in the day, or they had been grounded once the airport had been made aware of the Chinese invasion. Once Captain Ma reached the ground, he rushed to retrieve his drop bag. He and his fellow soldiers moved to assemble their equipment, and then they were ready to capture their assigned targets.
Ma’s unit had been charged with securing the runways and establishing a one-kilometer perimeter on the east side of the airport. He had been told in no uncertain terms that his group had to complete their mission within three hours, because then the civilian airliners would start arriving with all of the PLA troops. They needed to get as many soldiers in place in the Philippines as possible, before the Allies found a way to intervene and interrupt their plans.
Two hours went by uneventfully. Captain Ma’s company hadn’t met any real resistance. There had been some initial shooting near the terminal, but that had ended just as quickly as it started. Touring his unit’s positions had been a challenge on foot, since his soldiers were spread across a very long perimeter. However, from what he had seen up to that point, he was impressed with how quickly they had set up the fighting positions.
“Good, they’re preparing for the worst,” he thought. He felt that they were prepared to repel any potential attack against the airport.
As Ma was halfway finished with his tour, he heard a truck heading toward him. As it approached, he saw one of his sergeants behind the steering wheel.
“Captain Ma!” the soldier shouted out to him. “I saw this truck had the keys still in it, so I grabbed it. I figured you could use it to check the perimeter more easily.”
Ma grinned. “Now that’s a sergeant who is going to go far,” he thought.
“Excellent idea,” Captain Ma answered. “Good thinking, sergeant. Why don’t you drive us to the next position in our new vehicle?” He climbed in, and the two of them drove on down the perimeter.
A few hours later, Major General Hu, the commander of the PLA’s 43rd Airborne Corps, scanned the horizon above Clark International Airport with his binoculars. A smile spread across his face as he spotted a long line of Shaanxi Y-9 heavy-lift transports on final approach.
“Excellent. My light-armored vehicles and tanks are finally arriving,” he thought.
He turned to his deputy, Colonel Lei. “When our armored vehicles get offloaded, I want them moved to the perimeter at once,” he ordered. “Once those scout jeeps are ready, send them out to the various positions we’d discussed earlier. I want some eyes and ears out on the roads as far out a possible. No surprises, gentlemen. Get it done!”
Colonel Lei and the others within earshot responded, “Yes, Sir!” and rushed off to fulfill their orders.
Steadily, the line of transports landed and then quickly taxied to the parking apron, where they offloaded their vehicles and added supplies. As the transports were emptied of their cargo and refueled, they lined back up on the taxiway and got back into the air, just as quickly as they could. Now that the airport had been captured, the gravy train of supply planes was on its way.
Major General Hu was pleased with the overall progress of this mission so far. Once he had been read on to Operation Red Storm last year, he had felt an intense burden transferred onto his shoulders — he had to lead and train his corps to be on par with the vaunted American XVIII Airborne Corps. So far, the 43rd had been a successful branch of his legacy as they fulfilled their role as the lead element in the annexation of Mongolia, and the invasions of Taiwan, Vietnam, and now the Philippines.
In preparing for these operations, Hu knew a critical ingredient to their success would be increasing their heavy-lift capability. The introduction of the Y-20 was a huge step in the right direction. It pained him that he had only had twenty-four of them at the start of the war. Fortunately, they hadn’t lost any in combat up to this point. To his amazement, the manufacturers were now producing an astounding twenty new planes a month, which had already bolstered his starting force to sixty of the planned four hundred aircraft.
Prior to this mission, General Hu had positioned a multitude of aircraft and supplies on Hainan Island, which was a four-hour-and-ten-minute flight away for his cargo aircraft. He calculated that this air-supply bridge would allow roughly two full loads of cargo and troops a day. In addition to the troops the aircraft would be bringing in, they would bring in a vital haul of munitions, food, jeeps, antitank weapons, light-armored tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.
Two hours went by, and General Hu happily watched as aircraft after aircraft brought in reinforcements. Eventually, one of Hu’s aides walked up to him. “General, Colonel Tian reports his unit is ready to move. Shall I tell him to proceed?” he asked, holding the radio handset to his chest.
General Hu turned to the young officer. “Have we heard from the aviation squadron yet?” he asked. “Are the helicopters ready to support them?”