by Dale Brown
to begin their assault. The assault group was split into two groups,
each led by a People's Liberation Army Navy destroyer. North of Samar
International Airport in Bangoy Bay was the destroyer Dalian, with six
patrol boats as escorts, in overall command of five ex-United States
LST- I -class tank-landing ships, each with two hundred and fifty
People's Liberation Army Marines, ten light tanks, and twenty armored
personnel carriers; and four Yukan- class landing ships, each with over
four hundred Marines and one thousand tons of cargo and equipment. Each
amphibious assault ship had several smaller landing craft that would
each drop thirty Marine engineers ashore to clear wires or traps and
soften up beach defenses; then the landing ships themselves would drive
to shore, beach themselves, and disgorge their fighting men in massive
waves. Helicopters from the Yukan-class ships would then begin to drop
Marines and artillery pieces nearby, and the whole company would fan out
across the countryside, secure the coastal inlands north of the airport,
then drive south. The main attack force was four miles south of Davao,
in Davao Gulf itself. Led by the destroyer Yinchuan, its amphibious
assault force had ten LST-I-class tank-landing ships and eight
Yukan-class landing ships, plus numerous smaller landing craft,
minesweepers, and support ships. This group had the responsibility of
securing the highlands west of Davao, encircling the city itself, and
then linking up with the northern group to help secure the airport. By
0135 hours, two hours ahead of schedule, the two Ludaclass destroyers
had moved to within eight miles of the landing area and opened up with
their I 30-millimeter cannons, peppering the beach and treelines near
the intended landing zones with one round every second per vessel. The
rounds were of all different types-most were standard shells weighing
fifty pounds and carrying eight pounds of high-explosives, but some were
shells that carried infrared sensors that horned in on heat sources such
as vehicles or machine gun nests, incendiary warheads that spattered
napalm to set buildings or heavy brush afire, or bomblets that spread
out over a wide area to increase the destruction of each shell.
Helicopters with infrared spotting scopes were used to spot targets for
some of the guns, but mostly the Chinese were content to bombard the
area without regard to specific targets. The destroyer Yinchuan turned
a few of its rounds on the area surrounding Samar International Airport,
hoping to scatter some of the defenders that were certainly waiting for
the Chinese to come ashore. After twenty minutes of continuous
bombardment, the Chinese assault ships began launching wave after wave
of small landing craft with Marine engineers and security guards to
clear a way for the assault ships to beach themselves. The gunfire from
the destroyers became much more selective, targeting and hitting a few
large-caliber shore-gun emplacements to provide covering fire for the
landing craft. While raking the shore with 37- and 25-millimeter
gunfire, the landing craft dropped some frogmen overboard to search for
water traps or mines, while the others went ashore to begin hunting for
minefields and to suppress heavy gun emplacements on shore. Except for
a few widely scattered mines, they encountered almost no resistance. It
took the first waves of landing craft less than ten minutes to reach the
beach. After twenty-five minutes of bombardment, each 1 30-millimeter
gun on the destroyers had expended one-third of the rated life for its
barrels, so the heavy shelling ceased and the search began for attacks
against the landing craft. They found a few snipers and encountered
light resistance from hit-and run grenade attacks, but the Chinese
Marines sustained only a few casualties. "Sir, report from Rear Admiral
Yanlai, " Captain Sun Ji Guoming, the chief of staff for Admiral Yin Po
L'un's flag staff, said. "The amphibious assault has gone better than he
expected. The first landing craft are ashore with few casualties; the
second wave will land in a few minutes. No heavy resistance is being
encountered from Samar's forces." A tremendous weight seemed to be
lifted from Admiral Yin's shoulders. Ever since Captain Sun and a few
of his other advisers had recommended against Marine landing until the
American Air Battle Force was dealt with, he had been worried that his
decision to proceed with the assault was a bad one-now it seemed to be
remarkably prescient. "Does Admiral Yanlai have any suggestions?"
"No, sir, " Sun replied. "He is proceeding with the planned operation."
"The plan supposed Samar's usual stiff guerrilla resistance to the
landing forces, " Yin said. "Samar has obviously fled. It is time to
step up the attack-with the American force nearby, it is essential.
Order Admiral Yanlai to land the LSTs and troop-landing ships after the
second wave of Marines ashore." The flag staff turned toward Yin in
complete shock, and Captain Sun could not help but blink at his
commanding officer in surprise. "But. . . sir, in only two
landing-craft waves, we have less than three hundred troops ashore, and
most of those are lightly armed engineers and Marines. They don't have
the equipment or strength to conduct a thorough search and destroy
operation. In daylight hours they can hardly proceed faster than a
half-mile inland-at night they may be on the beach for hours, easily
until daylight. They have not even begun to probe the area for
resistance. It would be madn- I beg your pardon, sir, in my opinion it
would be unwise to send in the large landing ships until we can be sure
the area is free of resistance." Captain Sun sustained Yin's furious
glare with uneasy fear. He had come very close to total insubordination
by calling Yin's order "madness, " and only Sun's long-standing relation
ship with Yin, as well as the fact that they were in the middle of a
war, prevented hiln from being dismissed right then and there. "As you
were, Captain, " Yin growled. "Our plans and normal operating
procedures are based on the level of resistance and the greatest threat
facing our forces. The resistance so far is low, and the threat from
American bombers is very high. Those ships are vulnerable. The more
men we can get off those ships and safely on land, the better. Order
the landing ships ashore immediately." By using a Mode Two interrogator,
which broadcast a short, coded signal to other American aircraft in the
area commanding the other aircraft's beacons to emit a short
identification signal in reply, Patrick McLanahan could discover where
other aircraft in the strike force were located and display it on the
God's-eye view on his Super Multi Function Display-in turn, this would
be transmitted to the EB-52C escorts in the other strike packages so
they could update their situational displays. The data would also be
transmitted via NIRTSat communications satellites to the Joint Task
Force commander on Guam and to the National Military Command Center at
the Pentagon. The Mode Two tol
d a horrifying story-they had already lost
one B-52 and one B-2, and they were still hundreds of miles from the
Chinese amphibious assault force. McLanahan found his throat dry and
his forehead hot and moist, and he found he could not control the slight
trembling in his fingers-the trembling of real fear. He felt alone up
here, and he felt as if every enemy vessel on that SMFD could see him
and was waiting to kill him. After spending weeks with these men at the
Strategic Warfare Center-swapping stories, techniques, and complaints;
mission planning and debriefing until late at night at the 0-Club or at
the Black Hills Saloon until being tossed out; and learning how to fight
as a unit instead of as lone penetrators-it was as if a bit of his own
soul had disappeared with each missing icon on that screen. They were
dead, quickly and suddenly-and the toughest part of the mission was
still ahead. The faces of the crew dogs that manned the missing bombers
floated unbidden before his eyes, and burning drips of sweat that rolled
into his eyes couldn't blur those horrible images. Patrick had seen
combat, had seen men close to him die, but this was harder than he ever
imagined. All those faces, all those names-this morning they were all
together, and now they were never coming back. Just like that... "What
do you got, Patrick?" McLanahan shook himself out of reverie and focused
his eyes past the ghostly faces he saw in the SMFD and concentrated
again on the situation. The faces did not haunt himthey seemed to help
him, seemed to encourage him to continue... "Patrick.. Patrick looked
over at Cobb and nodded. "I'm all right, Henry.. ." Cobb had glanced
at his partner briefly, waiting to see if he would get back into the
fight, before resuming his usual stone-still stance. The faces had moved
away from the SMFD-they felt as if they were looking over his shoulder
now, marveling at the technology McLanahan commanded and waiting for him
to continue the fight-and that made him feel much better. "We are twenty
miles from the coastline near Kiaponga, " Patrick said. "The B-52s
behind us are joining up with Carter's EB-52. There's a destroyer
battle group in the mouth of the Davao Gulf, and I think Carter and his
B-52s from the south group are going after it. The number-two east
strike group will follow-they're all intact with all six B-52s."
"Where are the Tomahawks?" Cobb asked. McLanahan touched an icon on
his SMFD, and several blinking objects and a short data list appeared on
the God's-eye view. The Tomahawk cruise missiles could be interrogated
just like a manned aircraft. "About ten miles ahead of the B-52s and
not far behind us. We'll go feet-dry, turn west, and let the Tomahawks
go past us as they head inland; when they get ahead of us, we'll head
north and proceed to our targets." McLanahan studied the display for a
moment, then ceased his Mode-2 interrogations-even though the Mode-2
signals were encoded and transmitted in very short bursts, the enemy
could still track an aircraft from them. "Looks like about half the
Tomahawks are still with us."
"Good, " Cobb said. "I'd just as soon let those puppies beat the bushes
for us. ABOARD THE DESTROYER HONG LUNG The grease-board plotting
technician drew a line from a frigate icon near the mouth of Davao Gulf
to near the tiny village of Kiaponga. Out of all the other dots,
circles, icons, and lines on the board, that one line commanded Admiral
Yin's attention. "What is that?" he asked. "Sir, frigate Xiamen
reports a weak UHF signal along this bearing, " the situation officer
replied. "Several microburst transmissions. Computer projection calling
it a possible aircraft, airspeed eight hundred kilometers per hour,
heading northwest." Yin seemed to be transfixed by this line. "Any
primary radar target? Altitude readout?"
"No, sir." "Do they have an analysis of the signal itself?"
"Not yet, sir." Captain Sun was completely perplexed-a destroyer and a
frigate were coming under attack, but Yin was wondering about a
microburst radio transmission. "Sir, Jinan is under attack by antiship
missiles again-he cannot hold out much longer. We must assist him. I
recommend ordering him to withdraw to the west so we can provide
surface-to-air missile coverage for him. And we should head farther to
the northeast to provide similar coverage for Xiamen-he is tracking
numerous Tomahawk cruise missiles heading in his direction as well as
the B-52 bombers... "I want to know what that signal was, Captain."
"Very well, sir, " Sun replied. "And as for Jinan and Xiamen... ?"
"Steer Hong Lung northeast to cover Davao Gulf as much as possible,
but/inan will hold its position, " Yin said with a hint of exasperation
in his voice. "They have almost as much fire power as we do, and they
have more escorts. I will not allow my ship commanders to start running
all over the Celebes Sea at the first sign of trouble. I also want a
report on our fighter coverage-I have not seen one fighter on that board
since the first group of J-7s and Q-5s were engaged." A few moments
later a new manual plotting technician took over on the vertical-plot
greaseboard, and he began filling in icons for a group of fighters just
west of Mount Apo. "Sir, fighter groups fourteen, with six total
Jianjiji-7 fighters, and composite fighter-attack group two, with three
Qiangjiji-5 fighters and three A-5K fighter-bombers, are thirty-seven
kilometers west of Mount Apo, " Captain Sun reported. "They will be on
station over Davao Gulf in three minutes." Yin slammed a fist down on
the table before him and hissed, "That is not good enough! We're
supposed to have a hundred fighters available to us on this operation,
and there are only twelve? I had better see two more groups airborne
immediately. I want all available J-7 and Q-5 fighters airborne
immediately to attack the inbound bombers. "It will be done immediately,
sir... but I must remind you that it leaves no Q-5 fighters available
for close air support for our Marines, " Sun said. "The Q-5 and the A-5
are the only planes we have that can aerial refuel. Also, few of these
aircraft are equipped for night combat "We will have no Marines to
provide close air support for if we do not stop these bombers!" Yin
shouted. "Launch all available fighters now! And I want two fighters
dispatched to search along the projected trackline of that microburst
transmission. I want nothing to get past our defenses and strike our
Marines... nothing!" The updated NIRTSat data feed came in just as Cobb
and McLanahan's B-2 crossed the coastline south of Kiaponga. Cobb had
reactivated the terrain-comparison COLA computer, and they were snaking
just two hundred feet above the lush coastal hills and valleys of the
Sarangani Peninsula of southern Mindanao. On his Super Multi Function
Display, McLanahan could see the updated positions of three Tomahawk
cruise missiles that were to go in ahead of his B-2 Black Knight bomber;
the computer used the missile's last reported heading and speed, along
with a knowledge of the missile's pre-programmed f
light plan, to
estimate the missile's position. "We'll be ready for a turn in about
sixty seconds, " McLanahan told Cobb. The aircraft commander clicked
his mike in response. The terrain sloped up steeply from the eastern
cliffs facing the Celebes Sea in the Glan River Valley; the valley was
at least six miles wide and did not rise as steeply on the west side.
"Stay on the west slope of the coastal hills, on the 'military crest, '"
McLanahan said. "It's not the best place to be, but it's better than
getting trapped down in the valley. The hills should shield us from the
warships off the coast as well." Another double click in response as
Cobb banked the B-2 gently right and began flying north-northeast along
the western side of the coastal hills, not flying too high but not
diving too deeply into the valley. McLanahan expanded his SMFD out to
sixty miles' range. At the top of the north-up display was their
primary target, the radar site on Mount Apo. A yellow-colored dome
surrounded the point, representing the range of the Chinese radar site
operating there-that was their target. The edge of the yellow dome did
not quite touch the B-2 icon-not because they were out of the radar's
range, but because the energy levels being recorded from the radar were
less than those required to get a radar return off the stealth bomber.
From that radar site the Chinese could vector in fighters against every
American bomber in the strike package. McLanahan immediately designated
the top of the mountain as the target for two SLAM missiles, programming
in evasive turnpoints and data-link activation points and checking the
Global Position System satellite signal for good navigational data feed
to the missiles. He had to program in a terminal "pop-up" maneuver for
the missiles in order to hit the radar domes from above rather than from
the side. The one deficiency with the SLAM missile system over land was
that the aircraft that was to steer the missile onto its target needed
to have a clear line-of-sight radio signal between the two-that meant
climbing away from the radar-clutter sanctu ary of the terrain, which
could expose the launch aircraft to enemy radar. The navigation-missile
