209 American servicemen died when the Chinese navy penetrated the defences of the USS Harry S. Truman carrier group and sank the guided-missile destroyer USS Oscar Austin. The ship was first hit by three surface-to-surface Sunburn missiles fired from the Liu Huaqing, which was 100 kilometres north-east of the Paracel Islands. She was less than twelve hours out of base. Then two of her 533mm torpedoes ripped through the crippled ship's hull, causing explosions and fires. Attack aircraft scrambled from the USS Harry S. Truman, and within minutes their air-to-surface missiles and laser-guided bombs were unleashed upon the Chinese frigate. But like over Woody Island the day before, the Americans were up against Soviet Cold War technology. The first wave of missiles and bombs was seduced away from the ship by decoy chaff launchers. Three Hornets were shot down by surface-to-air missiles. The crew failed to eject. Two Tomcats were also hit. One returned safely to the carrier. The other crashed into the sea and the pilot was picked up. As the escort vessels moved in towards the Oscar Austin to rescue survivors, an undetected Romeo submarine fired two straight-running torpedoes at the oiler USS Willamette. Only one torpedo hit and the damage was contained. Ten of the 135 crew died. Twenty were injured. Like the Ming which attacked the USS Peleliu, the Romeo headed into the rescue area, where the commander knew he would be safe from attack. Three hours later the attack submarine the USS Cheyenne, trailing the Liu Huaqing from behind and remaining undetected, fired three wire-guided Mk48 torpedoes. All hit the frigate, sinking her. The Romeo which attacked the USS Willamette escaped.
The President's light supper, which had been arranged to brief senators, broke up early when the Xinhua dispatch came through. Bradlay called in Weinstein, the National Security Adviser, Collins, the Defense Secretary, Kuhnert, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Gillchrest, the Secretary of State. The problem put forward by the President was whether the Allies should now attack mainland Chinese military bases, particularly those known to hold nuclear weapons. Kuhnert quoted the time-honoured nuclear adage: `Use them, or lose them.' He said if the Chinese were now only bluffing they would be motivated to open up their nuclear arsenal if it were under threat. He believed that within the next twelve hours the Allied forces would have secured the South China Sea and China would have lost any aspirations of power projection. To bomb the mainland would rub their noses in it and make them a more dangerous animal to deal with in the future. The Secretary of State noted the political problems facing Britain in deciding whether or not to attack the Argentine mainland during the Falklands War in 1982.
`We would lose the support of the ethnic Chinese community around the world,' he said. `The South-East Asian nations which are now neutral might turn against us. It would be more an act of symbolism than of military practicality. We might hit a handful of warheads, but there are others they could launch. And there's bound to be allegations accompanied by television pictures of civilian casualties. Indeed, there would be civilian casualties.' He said that America's policy objective was to safeguard the trade routes between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and to protect the lives of American citizens. That was being done. Vietnam's objective was to protect its territory from further air and naval strikes, which gave it justification for air strikes on mainland bases. They were already being helped by Western intelligence. Perhaps, if military planners believed further mainland attacks were necessary, they should be carried out by the Japanese in their new role as a military regional power.
NSA Weinstein said that the main Chinese nuclear threat came from mobile launchers which could be transported by road or rail. They could be moved at night and hidden during the day. He had brought a folder containing two sets of 8 10 colour photographs taken along the rail track between Shenyang and Harbin in northern China. The ability of America's eyes in the sky to spy on the world below was nothing short of astonishing, and it astounded the President every time such photographs were placed before him. They had been gathered by Big Bird satellites orbiting only about 180 to 290 kilometres above the Earth. Because of their miniaturized rocketry they were highly manoeuvrable. The satellites were fitted with image-forming systems with multiple arrays of tiny electro-optical detectors. Each detector produced an electrical signal proportional to the amount of light falling on it. When put together, the information collected by the thousands of detectors mounted on the satellite produced an image of the terrain below. The resolution was extraordinary. It was so good that individuals could be identified. Moreover the satellites were programmed to transmit only pictures that they had been instructed to notice, such as missile silos, submarines, military aircraft. If the analyst who was viewing the pictures on his computer screen wanted to take a closer look at some unusual terrestrial phenomenon, the satellite responded. After Big Bird's onboard computer digitized the photographic data it was transmitted to a relay satellite in geosynchronous orbit and in constant view of its ground-receiving station at the National Security Agency, outside Washington.
The first set of photographs the President viewed that evening had been taken at 0848 Beijing standard time, the second fifteen minutes later at 0903, and the others at further fifteen-minute intervals. They showed a series of railway cars, carrying container-like boxes, except far longer and clearly not made of metal, because on one the front end looked torn with a missile head pointing out.
`These are mobile launchers, Mr President,' said Marty Weinstein. `They are being moved outside of their usual exercise pattern. Liaoning is the base for unit 80301 of the Second Artillery, the regiment which handles China's ballistic missile programme. We believe the train is heading towards Harbin. But we lost it after dark. The weather didn't help.'
`Can they launch from this?' asked Bradlay.
`If they fired enough, one would work. But there's something else. In May 1995 the Second Artillery finished building a network of modern missile-launching positions which now covers the whole country. It took them fifteen years to do it and they call it the Great Wall Project because of its role in defending Chinese territory.' The NSA opened another folder. `These are truck-launched missiles being moved out of the Second Artillery's base in Huangshan in Anhui Province. Unit 80302.' He shuffled through to another set of photographs. `Here's more truck-launched missiles coming from Unit 80303 in Kunming in Yunnan. They are almost certainly being targeted on Vietnam. And look at this. Unit 80306 at Xining in the north-west desert area where it's more difficult to hide. No forests or built-up areas. This launch site is in the open and look at the elevation. These could go any minute and they're aimed at Western Europe. The ones in Anhui could hit Japan. In Liaoning they could hit Japan or continental America.'