Steadily, Captain Long’s Marines made their way through the now torn and destroyed seaside city to the rolling hills at the base of the mountain range that separated the island. When they reached the edge of the city, they were met by yet another nasty surprise. One of the fireteams ran to the base of the first hill, only to be ripped apart by machine-gun fire. The weapon of death that shredded them to pieces was one of the Chinese Hua Qing miniguns, which launched 7.62×54mm rounds from its multiple barrels so quickly that the soldiers were decimated before they even knew what had happened. This fearsome weapon then turned toward the rest of his company of Marines, and they immediately dove for cover in the mounting rubble of the city.
Captain Long grabbed his radio receiver and contacted his heavy weapons platoon. “Lieutenant Lightman, get your mortars set up and start pounding those bunkers up here!” he shouted.
Raising his own rifle to his shoulder, Long took aim at the machine-gun bunker with the Hua Qing minigun in it and fired several rounds at the location where he thought the gunner must have been. For a few seconds, the gun stopped firing, and Captain Long thought he might have been successful in his efforts. Then the shooting picked back up again.
“Crap!” thought Long.
Green tracer rounds zipped over his head and stitched up the buildings and anything else his men were using for cover. Aiming for the same spot he had just sent a few rounds into, Captain Long squeezed off another four or five rounds. The gun went silent again. This time, one of his Marines fired off an AT-4 rocket, which hit just below the gun slit, throwing a lot of shrapnel and fire into the bunker.
Just as another fireteam charged forward, two more hidden machine-gun bunkers opened fire, killing two of the Marines outright and wounding the others. Several of his Marines ran out there to help drag the wounded to cover, only to be cut down by the PLA soldiers, who were now going to use those wounded Marines as bait to kill more of his men. Before Captain Long could say anything, a handful of mortar rounds hit the area around the bunker.
A moment later, Long’s radio crackled. “Pit Bull Six, this is Dog Catcher Six. How copy?” He recognized the voice on the other end as Colonel Tilman, his regiment commander.
Slouching down behind the half-destroyed wall of the building he had taken cover in, Captain Long hit the talk button on his radio. “This is Pit Bull Six. Send,” he responded.
“Is the path to the base of the mountain clear?” asked Tilman.
“Negative, Dog Catcher. We’ve encountered several lines of well-camouflaged machine-gun bunkers protecting the base of the mountain. Some of the bunkers are equipped with miniguns, which are tearing us up. I’ve got dozens of wounded up here,” he replied.
Long heard a sigh on the other end. He knew that Tilman would not be happy. The guys on the beach were probably getting pounded. He’d probably hoped that if they could push through to the base of the mountain, they might be able to get some reprieve from the enemy artillery fire.
“Copy that, Pit Bull,” Tilman said after a slight pause. “We have fast movers inbound from the fleet. Their call sign is Angel Eight. Use them to clear out those bunkers in front of your position and advance to the base of the mountain. We need to clear a path off this godforsaken beach. How copy?” Colonel Tilman shouted to be heard over the explosions in the background.
“That’s a good copy, Dog Catcher,” replied Long. “I’ll contact you once we’re past this line of machine-gun bunkers.”
He put down his receiver and turned to his radio operator, who had a separate UHF radio that was designated for air support. Sadly, the ground forces operated on one set of radio frequencies and radio system, while the Air Force and naval aircraft operated on a different system entirely, which required the ground forces to have either two radios or a forward air controller who could speak directly to the fighters overhead. The battalion and regiment had a FAC, but not the individual companies.
Once his radioman had set the right frequency in place, he handed the handset to Captain Long, who proceeded to make contact with the F/A-18s that had just been assigned to him.
“Angel Eight, this is Pit Bull Six. We have troops in contact,” he began. “Requesting danger close mission at grid TA 5764 4765, enemy machine-gun bunker. How copy?”
There was a short silence. “Pit Bull Six, that’s a good copy,” the pilot responded. “How many targets do you have for us?”
“Angel Eight, I estimate at least five enemy bunkers to our immediate front,” explained Long. “However, I have eyes on at least twelve bunkers nestled into the mountains that are hitting the beach with artillery fire. What type of ordnance do you have?”
After another brief pause, the pilot’s radio had caught up. “We have a mix of 500-pound and 2,000-pound JDAMs. We’ll drop the 500-pounders near your position and save the big boys for the mountain bunkers. Send us the coordinates for the other bunkers, and we’ll hit them on our next pass across the island.” The pilot’s voice sounded so nonchalant from the safety of his high-altitude perch.
Five more minutes went by as they fed the planes somewhere above them the coordinates to seventeen separate targets. Then, one by one, the bunkers were hit. Many of them were completely blown apart. Within seconds of the bombs landing, more than half of the artillery fire that was devastating the beachhead ceased. The machine-gun bunkers directly in front of his company front had also been destroyed. By this time, another company of Marines had pushed through the enemy artillery fire to reach their position. With the bunkers destroyed, or at least temporarily taken offline, the Marines charged forward, quickly overrunning the enemy positions as they pushed their way to the base of the mountain.
The fight to liberate Taiwan was on, and it was going to be another bloody campaign before it was over.
High above the coastal city of Toucheng, there was an old Buddhist temple that sat just off the Fudekeng Industrial Road, halfway up the mountain that divided the Island of Formosa. It was at this little piece of paradise that Brigadier General Lee Jinping and Major General Xian Loa were observing the American fleet advancing toward them.
“It won’t be long until they begin to land their Marines,” General Xian thought in anticipation as he looked at the ships approaching the coast.
“When do you want our anti-ship missile batteries to start attacking the American warships?” inquired General Lee.
Xian lowered his binoculars and examined General Lee’s face. He seemed eager to put his fortifications to the test. “Soon,” General Xian responded. “Right now, the Americans have no idea what we have waiting for them. We want to let them deploy their ships, offload their ground force and then hammer their ships. What I want our forces to do right now is to be patient. We must wait for the Americans to land a substantial ground force. Then, when they are lulled into thinking we have abandoned the coasts to them, we unleash everything we have. We will sink their ships off the coast and pummel their ground forces. By the end of today, the Americans will accept that they can’t recapture Formosa from us, and they will withdraw.”
Xian, who had been given command of the 41st and 42nd Armies by General Yang, was thoroughly confident in Lee’s work and in his men. They had laid an elaborate trap for the Americans, and now they just had to stay patient and let it play out.
For the next hour, jets roared overhead. He listened to a myriad of precision-guided munitions and cruise missiles hit targets near the coast, along with a few positions further up on the mountain fortress. Most of the targets that had been hit were actually elaborate decoys. The Chinese knew the Americans would be hunting for targets, so they gave them a plethora of marks to hit. It was part of their strategy to deceive the Americans and to camouflage their true intentions. For now, the Americans would be led to believe they were crippling the island’s air defenses and destroying key bunkers and strongholds. When they were satisfied, they would send in their ground force, and then the real fight would begin.