Admiral Feng-Shiang Hu, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, ordered the 66th Marine Division based in Kaohsiung to embark and sail immediately to reinforce the island garrison at Makung. He put three Newport-Class troop landing ships and a 9,000-ton Cabildo-Class LSD on four hours battle notice. The Cheng Hai docks down three small Japanese-built LSUs, each capable of carrying 300 men right into the beaches.
In the small hours of the morning, the Taiwan High Command desperately signaled the U.S. Seventh Fleet HQ requesting immediate military assistance, informing the United States that Taiwan was under attack from the forces of mainland China. Admiral Feng-Shiang personally told Admiral Dick Greening, Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT) in Pearl Harbor, that he feared for his country’s existence, that right now an air battle was raging over the Taiwan Strait, and that his pilots were winning it. But on the sea, China had a major flotilla of warships both bombarding and preparing to land on the strategically important Penghu Islands, which everyone knew China had always wanted to own.
“We badly need a carrier battle group, anything to get them away.” Admiral Feng-Shiang was almost pleading. But there was nothing CINCPACFLT could do. Nothing anyone could do. The United States did not have a CVBG available except in the Middle East, which was nearly two weeks away from the Taiwan Strait. And anyway, it could scarcely be spared.
Powerless in Pearl Harbor, the Admiral knew now why Big John had been hit in such a brutal and unexplained manner. “Holy shit,” breathed Admiral Greening. “The bastards are gonna take Taiwan. And as far as I can see there’s not a damn thing we can do about it — we don’t even have the hardware to attack China.”
He promised to get right back to the distraught Taiwanese Admiral, but right now he had to call Washington and inform Alan Dixon about precisely what was happening.
They patched him through to the White House, where the CNO was with Arnold Morgan. Kathy put the secure call on the conference line, and both Washington-based Admirals listened aghast as Admiral Greening informed them that China had militarily invaded Taiwan. At the conclusion of the call, Admiral Dixon requested 30 minutes to thoroughly appreciate the situation.
But Arnold Morgan stood up, and there was a strange smile on his face. He shook his head, over and over, and kept saying, “Those little bastards…those cunning little pricks.”
Finally he turned back to the CNO, and he said, “Alan, old buddy, did you ever hear the term ‘checkmate’?”
“Guess so.”
“Good. Because we’re in it.”
Every piece of information he had absorbed in the past several months, every twist and turn of the plot in the Gulf of Hormuz, sprang now, miraculously, into place. Right back to that moment when Lt. Ramshawe had called him in the restaurant. Arnold Morgan could remember the young Lieutenant’s words verbatim: “It is my opinion that there may be a serious minefield out there, maybe running from the Omani coast, place called Ra’s Qabr al Hindi, right across to Iran. And I think we ought to find out.”
The Admiral was talking aloud now. “Jimmy was right. And he ought to be promoted for brilliance. Borden is going to be relieved of command at Fort Meade. George Morris is gonna get better in the next twenty minutes or he’s fired too, so are all his fucking doctors. And I’m about to admit I’ve been outwitted by the goddamned Chinese pricks. They never wanted to screw up the oil, never gave a flying fuck about the oil, they just wanted to tie us up, at least tie up the carriers, thousands of miles from the South China Sea.
“I guess we threw ’em a curve when we diverted the JFK back to Taiwan. So by some damn clever means they crippled her. And then there were none…. Hours later they attack Taiwan, knowing beyond any doubt there is nothing on earth we can do about it, save for starting World War Three with nuclear missiles. And even Taiwan ain’t worth that.”
“Holy shit,” breathed Alan Dixon. “You mean there’s nothing we could do to save her?”
“There’s plenty we could do. But not in time. Taiwan will fall inside two weeks. That’s how long it would take the Truman Group or the Roosevelt Group to get there. The fight would be all over before they could get out of the Indian Ocean.”
“But so far they’ve only taken a few shots at the Penghu Islands.”
“Alan, that news is gonna be so out of date by tomorrow morning it’ll make the Washington Monument look like Stonehenge.”
Admiral Morgan checked his watch. It was already 1700 hours—0600 hours the following morning over the Penghu Islands, where, suddenly, the rumble of battle grew steadily more faint, and the surviving Chinese bombers swung back toward the mainland. The flotilla of warships ceased their bombardment but closed rapidly, effecting a complete blockade of the islands. Anyone wanting to get in would have to fight the Chinese Navy.
With half the armed forces of Taiwan already well on their way south, Admiral Zhang, who had assumed command of the entire operation, moved to Phase Two. And as the sun rose bloodred out of the Pacific Ocean, he unleashed the massive missile bombardment of the west coast of Taiwan he had been planning for six months.
It started in the north with Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, the powerful SRBMs blasting craters in the runways, but surprisingly taking out only the air-traffic control tower. The regular passenger terminals were not targeted.
Zhang’s ballistic missiles slammed into the road system, blasting huge chunks out of the coastal highway. They hit the town of Chungli, where the main south-running freeway crosses Route 1. They obliterated that junction and took out 400 yards of the railroad track.
They blew apart a freeway road bridge west of Hainchu. They hit the Mingte Dam, west of Miaoli, and three times more they knocked serious hunks out of the south-running roads, freeways and railroads before they reached the majestic bridges that span the estuary of the Choshui River.
And there, with a withering salvo of missiles, the Chinese took out all four of them, blasting steel and masonry into the water, stopping Route 17 in its tracks, ending the long winding path of Route 19, splitting asunder the great north-south freeway, and closing down the south-running railroad.
The entire transportation system that crosses the pancake-flat, rice-growing plains of west-central Taiwan was in ruins. And that was before the Chinese missiles reached the southwestern city of Tainan, Taiwan’s provincial capital for more than 200 years until 1885.
Zhang’s missiles completely destroyed every runway on the airport. They hammered Routes 17 and 19 north of the river and blasted yet again the main highway south. There were three massive separate hits on the most important road-freight artery in the country as it swept west of the city toward the port of Kaohsiung, 30 miles farther south.
At that point it was just about impossible to move troops or anything else back to the north. Admiral Zhang’s brilliant feint to the Penghu Islands had drawn half the Taiwanese army 235 miles away from his main objective, Taipei.
And the Chinese warlord had not even begun. Again he launched his remaining 120 B-6/BADGER aircraft, and they headed out over the coast in three great waves of 40, again loaded with the new land-attack cruise missiles. This time their targets were strictly military, Taiwan’s air-defense installations, Air Force runways and Naval bases, places the PLAN had been watching and checking for years.
The BADGERs were accompanied by Air Force fighters, the Q-5B Fantan and more bombers, the newer JH-7s and the SU-30MKKs. Air-superiority aircraft, J-10 and J-11 Flankers, flew sortie after sortie, trying to protect the bomber force and downing several Taiwanese fighter aircraft in a sustained attempt to gain air superiority over the strait.