The Admiral, still wondering where the next torpedo would come from, recalled the LA-Class submarines from deep water out to the southwest, bringing in one destroyer and a frigate for a close ASW hunt near the carrier.
The signal being sent to Pearl Harbor was as shocking to the communications room as the Japanese attack had been to the Naval staff 66 years previously:
“212155MAY07. Position 24.20N 124.02E. To CINCPACFLT from U.S. carrier John F. Kennedy. Hit by two torpedoes, passive homing unknown origin. Two explosions in shaft area. Three shafts out of action. One shaft remains serviceable. Max speed available 10 knots. Fixed-wing flying not feasible in less than 25-knot headwind. Initial assessment damage severity: requires early docking.”
Admiral Alan Dixon was aghast. But the signal from CINCPACFLT Headquarters left no room for doubt. The Republic of China had unquestionably fired two torpedoes at a U.S. carrier, 125 miles off the east coast of Taiwan. Worse yet, they’d both hit, and the carrier had been powerless to stop them, and, so far, take any form of retaliatory action. Further attacks had to be expected but had not yet materialized.
Admiral Dixon decided that if the Chinese could torpedo the ship, they could also bomb it, and he ordered the immediate evacuation of all aircraft currently stationed on the carrier. Whatever crew could be spared and moved to Okinawa should go, too. All other manpower surplus to the essential running of the crippled ship should be removed to the JFK’s accompanying destroyers and frigates.
And now he hit the secure line to Admiral Morgan and broke the news to the incredulous, but thoughtful, National Security Adviser. “The thing is, Arnie, I am going to get the carrier back to Pearl — might have to tow her. Sounds too big for Okinawa. Anyway, she’s effectively out of action.”
“Yes. That’s a big ship to try to fix, so far from a major U.S. base,” replied Admiral Morgan. “Anyhow, I guess you better get over here…bring all the information you have and we’ll try to decide what the hell to do.”
“Well, Jicai, very satisfactory,” purred Zhang Yushu. “That’s all of them, I believe. The Roosevelt, the Truman, the Constellation, and the John C. Stennis all so very busy seven thousand miles away in the Strait of Hormuz. The Ronald Reagan stranded nearly nine thousand miles away in San Diego. The John F. Kennedy out of action. Which leaves us entirely free to conduct some local business of our own.”
And at 2200 on the clear, moonlit evening of Tuesday, May 22, 2007, deploying the most massive display of military power since the UN’s 1991 advance on Saddam Hussein, the People’s Republic of China attacked Taiwan.
8
It was too quick even for STRONG NET, the brand-new multibillion-dollar air defense early-warning network. Taiwan’s Hawk surface-to-air missiles remained in their launchers as the Chinese onslaught came in. And there was not a bleep out of the new ultrasensitive Tien Kung medium-to-long-range system based on the old U.S. Patriot, and deployed around Taipei.
Everything about the attack from the mainland was utterly unexpected. Even the target was essentially way out in right field. But in the small hours of May 22, China was undeniably bombarding, presumably with a view to capture, the picturesque archipelago of the Penghu Islands, which sit 60 miles off Taiwan’s western shores.
Of course, the Penghus are not entirely picturesque. Taiwan maintains a 17,000-strong offshore island command army on Penghu. There is an airport, and outside the city of Makung a big Navy base, home of the 154th Fast Attack Squadron.
Now, at these midocean marks, China was literally hurling short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), launched into the night from the opposite shore from bases in Fujian and Jiangxi Provinces. And high above the Taiwan Strait an armada of China’s newly built B-6/BADGER long-range bomber aircraft, laden with land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs), was preparing to strike the Penghu Naval Base.
It was six minutes before Taiwan could respond, by which time the Makung shipyard was ablaze, with two 3,000-ton Knox-Class guided-missile frigates, the Chin Yang and the Ning Yang, burning ferociously alongside the jetties.
Taiwan launched her opening batteries of Tien Kung missiles from the west coast of the main island, straight at the incoming BADGERs and downed nine of them in 15 minutes. But they could not prevent the first wave of SRBMs from screaming into the outskirts of Makung, almost demolishing the entire Hsintien Road to the north of the base, in the process reducing both the Martyrs’ Shrine and the Confucian temple to rubble.
The precision bombardment hit the airfield, blitzed the telephone company at the north end of the main Chungching Road and the main downtown post office.
Within 10 more minutes Taiwan had a squadron of U.S.-built F-16 fighters in the air howling out of the night in pursuit of the BADGERs, which were no match for them, and the U.S.-supplied deadly accurate Sidewinder missile blew eight more of them out of the sky.
Below the opening air battle, a big flotilla of Chinese warships was moving in on the Penghus, led by the second of their Russian-built Sovremenny destroyers, in company with four Jangwei-Class guided-missile frigates and six of the smaller heavily gunned Jianghu Class, which had been conducting regular fleet exercises in the strait for the past five days.
Shortly after midnight they opened fire with a long-range shelling assault on the tiny islands of Paisha and Hsi, obliterating the three-mile-long bridge that joins them. They slammed two missiles into Hsi’s spectacular Qing Dynasty Hsitai Fort from which, on a clear day, you can see the mountains of both Taiwan and China. Then they turned southwest and battered the islands of Wang’an, Huching and Tongpan.
The Taiwan High Command in Taipei was forced to the opinion that China was in the process of capturing all 64 of the Penghu Islands, with their historic 147 temples, mostly dedicated to Matsu, the goddess of the sea, who would always protect the islanders but who was not having that much effect right now.
The Penghus have been for centuries permanent home mostly to fishermen and farmers. Walls of coral, built to protect large crops of peanuts, sweet potatoes and sorghum, form a unique landscape. The endless beaches and blue waters have made the Penghus one of the great tourist attractions in the East.
However, at this precise moment the beautiful Lintou Beach, on the seaward side of Makung, resembled Dunkirk, 1940, more than anywhere else. Batteries of China’s CSS-X7 missiles — a new version of the Russian-designed M-11 with a 500-kilogram warhead — were detonating everywhere. Oceanfront bars and restaurants were flattened, huge spouts of salt water and sand blasted over the city.
In Taipei, the President, in conference with the Premier and his military Chiefs of Staff, ordered an immediate defense of the islands, “before the Chinese attempt a landing.”
Lieutenant General Chi-Chiang Gan, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, ordered 25,000 troops from all military bases on the northeast coast to head south by road and rail. At 0200, the government commandeered every fast train on the electrified west coast line, particularly the Ziqiang and Zuguang expresses. The General ordered an airlift of 20,000 troops from the Taipei area to the big southern Navy base at Kaohsiung.