Since the landings, over 23,000 Taiwanese troops had been killed or wounded in the land battles. PLA losses were twice that number but with the constant barrage of missiles on Taiwan’s town and cities, the civilian casualties evened the score. The night attacks by the PRC army and air force had ceased at midnight although the monotonous rumble of detonating missiles on the capital had continued unabated and unchallenged. The few surviving Patriot sites had run out of missiles two days before.
At two minutes to twelve a missile landed in the filthy waters of Taipei harbour, exploding close enough to drench the captain and crewmen of a submarine as they waited on the last boatloads of members of the government going into exile, but causing no damage other than to nerves already frayed. Forty miles to the south the ROCs prepared for the promised attack that the PRC boasted would overwhelm them, and at that distance the detonation in the harbour did not reach them as those that struck land had.
At 1213hrs the last of the passengers were clambering up the sides of the conning towers and the citizens of Taipei were bracing themselves for the next high explosive warhead to land. Taiwan shook and the skies to the north and south lit up with the unbearable brightness of five-megaton warhead's air bursting at an altitude of 10,000’.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Farman was born in Cheshire, England in 1956 into a close family of servicemen and servicewomen who at that time were serving or who had served in the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and British Army.
As a 'Pad brat' he was brought up on whichever RAF base his Father was posted to.
In 1972 Andy joined the British Army as an Infantry Junior Leader at the tender age of 15, serving in the Coldstream Guards on ceremonial duties at the Royal Palaces, flying the flag in Africa, and on operations in both Ulster and on the UK mainland.
Swapping his green suit for a blue one Andy joined the Metropolitan Police in 1981.
With volunteer reservist service in both the Wessex Regiment and 253 Provost Company, Royal Military Police (V) he spent twenty four years in front line policing, both in uniform and plain clothes. The final six years as a police officer were served in a London inner city borough and wearing two hats, those of an operation planner, and liaison officer with the television and film industry.
His first literary work to be published was that of a poem about life as a soldier in Ulster, sold with all rights to a now defunct writers monthly in Dublin for the princely sum of £11 (less the price of the stamp on the envelope that the cheque arrived in.)
The 'Armageddon's Song' trilogy began as a mental exercise to pass the mornings whilst engaged on a surveillance operation on a drug dealer who never got out of bed until the mid-afternoon.
On retirement he emigrated with his wife to the Philippines where he relaxes by distance jogging with the famous ‘IGAT Runners’.