“I’m glad to hear the insurgency is dying down,” General Yang said. “I will report that to Beijing. How are your provinces for food and munitions for the coming battle?” he inquired.
“We have munitions for a sustained six months of heavy combat — more than enough to last us to the conclusion of the battle. Either we will all be dead, or all the enemy soldiers will be dead before we run out of munitions. As to food, we have six months of food, pending we were unable to live off the land. I’m confident we’ll either inflict enough casualties on the Americans to convince them to leave the island, or die trying,” the major general explained, speaking with a confidence that verged on cockiness.
General Yang almost wished he would be able to stay there at Formosa and oversea the island personally. However, Beijing would never let him be in a position where he might be captured.
“Excellent report, General,” said Yang. “You’ve done a good job with the time and resources you’ve been given. Please continue to use the remaining time you have left until the Americans arrive. I’m not sure how much longer we may have to prepare now that Luzon has fallen, but you can be assured the Americans are going to have this place under heavy surveillance, identifying every possible stronghold. Do your best to incorporate our latest in camouflage technology. It’s imperative that we surprise the enemy when they land. The Americans are soft. If we can inflict enough casualties, they will lose their stomach for war and seek a peace with China… on our terms and not theirs.”
They discussed a number of other defensive strategies and ideas for a few more hours as the sun continued to climb into the sky. It was a beautiful view, and Yang wanted to enjoy it for as long as possible. In a few months, this area would be turned into a moonscape with the number of American bombs and missiles that would be launched at it. For the time being, he savored its serene beauty.
ANZACs
The air was hot and sticky as Lieutenant General Rick Campbell of the 1st Brigade of the Australian Army looked at his senior commanders. He was about to order them to carry out a very risky invasion, one that might help cement Australia’s relationship with the new Global Defense Force and give them a more prominent role in the postwar world that would be created in Asia.
General Campbell saw the men he needed to brief were all present and ready to get things going. “Good,” he thought. “There’s a lot to get done and not a lot of time to do it.”
Clearing his throat to get their attention, he stood and walked over to a large map displayed on the wall and removed the sheet he had placed on it earlier. He wanted to keep what he was about to talk about a secret until this discussion. Once he’d pulled the sheet down, the others suddenly sat up a little straighter, seeing the magnitude of what the map showed. They were going to invade the Island of Java directly and bypass a lot of the other Indonesian island garrisons.
“Two days ago, the Indonesian Army on Luzon surrendered to the American Marines. It is expected that the PLA ground forces will also surrender within the next couple of days. I spoke with General Roy Cutter, the American Marine Commander for the Pacific. He told me that his intention is to bypass the bulk of the Chinese and Indonesian forces on the remaining Philippine Islands. The Americans will turn their focus on Taiwan once Luzon has been fully liberated,” General Campbell explained.
“The surrender of so many Indonesian forces on Luzon, and the fact that many more of them are now going to be essentially trapped on the remaining islands, has given us a unique opportunity to deal a death blow to the Indonesian government and perhaps end their participation in the war. General Cutter told me that he will detail off one American carrier strike group and additional ground forces and landing ships to assist us in our invasion of Java. Our goal—” he said, pausing for effect, “—is to threaten Jakarta and force the government to surrender.”
Brigadier General Alan Morrison, the senior ground commander for the ANZAC force, interrupted to ask what they all wanted to know. “How in the heck are we going to invade Java? We don’t have the sealift capability to move our equipment and forces to assault a hostile landing like the Americans have been doing.”
The others in the room nodded their heads in agreement and mumbled a few words to that effect as well.
General Campbell held up his hand. “In addition to our two Canberra-class amphibious assault ships, and the HMAS Choules, the Americans are going to send twelve of their own amphibious assault ships with the carrier strike group. They’ll also be sending one Stryker brigade combat team to support our ground operation. With the Americans having substantially increasing the size of their brigade combat teams, we’ll have a total of 6,000 additional infantrymen for the invasion. With the American troops, it’ll bring our invasion force up to 31,000 soldiers, and the latest intelligence reports estimate the Indonesian Army has, at best, 9,000 soldiers spread across Java. Our forces will be landing with tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled Howitzers — more than enough of a force to deal with the remaining enemy troops on the island.”
For the next two hours, the group went over the plan and ironed out a lot of the details of which units would land first and secure the port city of Cirebon. Once the port was captured, the heavy roll-on, roll-off ships would be able to dock and offload the rest of their armored vehicles and the supplies needed to keep the army moving. The port city of Cirebon had been chosen for a few reasons. It was only 218 kilometers from the Indonesian capital, and it was a relatively small city of just a few hundred thousand people, unlike the other port cities, which had populations in excess of one million. A small population meant fewer potential problems. Together, they decided that this course of action would isolate the capital from the remaining forces the Chinese had on the island, giving them the best chance of a quick victory.
The coral reefs around the island of Karimunjawa were absolutely stunning. Had Major Jason Warden of the New Zealand Special Air Force not been toting all of his combat gear with him, he certainly would have enjoyed the rich reds, pinks, and other colors of the living reef and the sight of the colorful fish that darted in and out of their underwater village.
He and his men had been transported to a place a couple of miles away from the island by an American ballistic missile submarine that had been converted to fire cruise missiles and carry the American Navy’s elite SEALs. When the mission had been put together, Major Warden had inquired why this assignment wasn’t being carried out by one of the American SEAL teams. The captain of the USS Georgia had told him a large contingent of the SEALs in the Philippines, who normally would have carried out this mission, had been killed, so the mission had fallen to his squadron to complete. Fortunately, they did have a couple of SEAL members to help them use the equipment and guide them through the process of leaving the underwater boat. He had to admit — the submarine was a beast. It was enormous and could carry a plethora of underwater vehicles and special operators.
Major Jason Warden looked over his shoulder. Now that they’d arrived at their destination, the rest of his team was unpacking the SEAL delivery vehicle. They’d parked the underwater vehicles on the opposite side of a reef; they’d swim through the break in it to the shore, where they would conduct their mission.