by Chuck DeVore
Colonel Flint had established a command post in a well-lit (windows and skylights) office of a small hangar with cement walls at Kaohsiung International Airport. The airport was virtually empty and no one complained when they moved in. The war’s opening moves must have unnerved the airport personnel and passengers and sent them scurrying for cover in the city.
The Lieutenant Colonel Burl assembled the staff for a quick situation briefing. The S-2, Major Ramirez, kicked it off. “We expect the weather to become increasingly cloudy today with possible bands of thundershowers beginning in the late afternoon from the typhoon to our south. The high today will be about 88 degrees, the low tonight about 82. Humidity will increase from 90% today to over 95% tomorrow. Without ‘met’ support from the Navy, this will be the last weather report we’ll have until we can develop alternate sources.” Rez looked at the assembled staff in the hastily prepared command post. He nodded towards the map recently pinned to a wall. Surprisingly, there was even a roll of acetate over the map with the MEU’s graphic control measures on it (graphic control measures are the military’s version of a football play’s Xs and Os). “The enemy situation is as follows. Elements of an unknown PLA force of at least battalion size have landed in Kaohsiung’s harbor. Our Harriers have engaged this force, but we don’t have any BDA (battle damage assessment) yet. The enemy downed one of our Harriers with a laser-guided SAM of an unknown type. In addition, when Golf Company secured the building next to this hangar they captured a probable PLA operative. He was dressed in a ROC Army uniform. He doesn’t speak English. We found these on him.” Rez held up a portable SATCOM phone, a GPS receiver, two pistols, three knives and a piano wire garrote. “He was dialing the phone when we found him. His leg was injured too. I think he may have parachuted in. As soon as we link up with someone who speaks Chinese and English, we’ll interrogate the man.” Rez drew in a breath and began the most critical part of his briefing, “The enemy’s probable courses of action are obvious. . .”
Flint loved the way his S-2 was sure of his analysis. A wimpy S-2 who provided too many caveats to cover his ass was worthless to a commander. Rez always stuck his neck out. If his analysis was wrong he’d be the first to correct it, rather than proudly sticking by a faulty prediction.
“. . .First, he is trying to seize Taiwan by force. This means he must destroy Taiwan’s army, then take Taiwan’s center of gravity—in this case, the capital: Taipei. Given the distance between Kaohsiung and Taipei, we are only seeing the enemy’s supporting attack. At Kaohsiung, the enemy will seek to engage the Taiwanese army and take away its freedom of action. The PLA must tie down Taiwanese reserves and disrupt their mobilization process. For that reason, I see only infantry and airborne troops being employed on the attack at Kaohsiung. The initial objective will be to seize the harbor, the city and the international airport. Two infantry divisions ought to be sufficient for this task. We’ll probably see up to one battalion of airborne dropped on the airport and at least an infantry regiment in the initial assault on the beach. Because the Chinese lack sufficient amphibious assault capacity to lift all they need, I expect that the forces committed to the supporting attack will use improvised transport such as commercial vessels and ferries. To support this attack, the Chinese will have to concentrate air power and missile strikes. We will probably see the use of chemical weapons in the attack. . .”
Flint broke in, “Let’s go to MOPP-2 right now.” (Mission Oriented Protective Posture-2 would place the Marines into their charcoal-lined chemical protective suits with rubber overshoes, but leave the masks and rubber gloves off—in a hot and humid climate, the suit is extremely uncomfortable to wear.)
“. . .I think it is unlikely that we will see additional use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield now that the Chinese are committing their troops to the battle. If there are no questions, I will be followed by the S-3.”
Lieutenant Colonel Cook nodded to Rez and took his place by the map, “We have established Echo and Foxtrot Companies at the airport with the Tank Platoon and sections of the Heavy Weapons Company in support. Golf Company and the Amphibious Assault Company remain at the landing site with the remainder of the Heavy Weapons Company. Two sections of the Armored Recon Platoon are in place with the Recon Platoon on the dominating hill mass at Shoushan Park. We have excellent comms with them as long as the couple of working radios they have hold up. The Whiskey Cobras are supporting the recon mission and should return to the airport to refuel shortly. The SEAL team made it out alive with most of their equipment by hitching a ride on the ARG’s Bullfrogs. They’re at the beach. The Two recommends sending them into harbor to check on the ship that fired on the Harriers. They received the mission about ten minutes ago. We have four Harriers remaining. Two of them are on stand-by here at the airport. The other two have refueled and are currently conducting reconnaissance and anti-shipping patrols in coordination with the Curtis Wilbur to our west. The rest of the ACE is involved in lifting surviving Marines off the remnants of the ARG.”
Flint inwardly winced at the word “surviving”—it was accurate, but it smacked of defeat. He’d have a private talk with the Three afterward.
“. . .We have 18 Sea Knights and nine Super Stallions in the operation. We sent one Huey to coordinate the operation. Priority of pickup is the artillery battery, then any CSS (Combat Service Support) assets we can find. All five LCACs remain operational too. If there are no questions, I will be followed by the S-4.”
The S-4 (Logistics Officer), Major Vine walked briskly up. “The good news is, most of the BLT’s personnel made it to shore. The bad news is, I can’t sustain them for shit. The only asset I have on shore right now is one tactical bulk fuel delivery system. I can fuel the aircraft and the tanks for a day. Fortunately, we’re not in East Timor and the level of local support ought to be sufficient to provide us fuel and food. My CSS priority is ammunition, then fuel, then spare parts. The Germantown’s damaged well deck and stern door is going to make additional equipment recovery tough. I only have very limited CSS personnel assets on shore. I have one section each of the Communications Platoon, the Landing Support Platoon and the Medical Platoon. Most of the Service Support Group and our supplies were on board the Belleau Wood when it went down. That’s all I have right now. . .”
There was a ruckus at the door to the CP. Flint heard a man’s voice say in heavily accented English, “I must see your commander!” Flint motioned to Rez to check on the situation while the S-1 (Personnel Officer or Adjutant) began his portion of the briefing. “We can account for 1,099 Marines and 55 Navy personnel. Captain Hill is our only confirmed casualty. Until the recovery operations are complete, I’m listing all other personnel as missing. . .”
Rez poked his head inside the door and motioned for Colonel Flint to step outside into the hallway. Flint began to head for the door, then turned to his staff and said, “You have 30 minutes to work on a plan to repel an airborne assault on this airport, protect Kaohsiung Harbor, and defeat an amphibious assault within a zone ten kilometers south of the southern harbor entrance.”
The man who disrupted the meeting was a small, uniformed Taiwanese officer about 50 years old. The officer was weak and coughing constantly. “Sir,” Rez said, “This is Major Heng. He is the XO of the 3rd Light Infantry Battalion, 150th Regiment of the Taiwanese Army Reserve. Major Heng, this is Colonel Flint of the United States Marine Corps, the commander of the Marines in the Kaohsiung area.”
The officer coughed violently, regained his composure, and bowed. Flint, having been stationed in Okinawa for years, bowed back. The officer said he lived nearby, and was sick in bed watching TV when the electricity went out. He found his phone dead too. When he saw the PLAAF fighters overhead, he knew the Chinese were attacking. He put on his uniform and found a member of his unit who was well enough to begin alerting the battalion of reservists by face-to-face contact. He was pleased to report that most of the reservists healthy enough to walk had reported in to the battalion’s mobilizat
ion station on their own when they saw and heard the Chinese attack. His battalion’s standing orders in a national emergency were the defense of Kaohsiung International Airport. “I would be honored,” he labored to say, “If the American Marines would participate in the defense of the airport and my homeland. I will send a liaison officer to coordinate our mutual defense plans.”
Flint smiled reassuringly at the officer, “Yes, Major Heng, we would be honored as well to work together. Our only request is that we control the seaward side of the airport. It will make it easier to maintain our lines of communications with our outlying units. We also recommend that your soldiers wear their chemical protective clothing.”
“That is our plan.” The officer turned to go.
“Before you leave. We have a man in custody who is wearing the uniform of the Republic of China. We think he is a spy. Can you send someone over here to interrogate him?”
“Yes, of course. I should tell you we have already seen PLA motorcycle scouts in the city. Pardon me, I need to go.” As if to punctuate the end of the conversation, a series of sonic booms followed by the distant sound of jets was heard. The officer slipped out and weakly mounted the back of a motor scooter. A boy no older than 15 was the driver. The boy smiled broadly at the Marines and waved as he drove off.
Flint waved at them from the door and turned to his Intel officer, “Do you think they’ll help or hurt our defense in the short term?”
“I don’t think we have a choice, it’s their country. If we clearly divide the airport—I suggest straight down the main runway, and send liaisons familiar with the unit’s plans to each other’s headquarters we ought to be okay. . .”
“Hey,” Flint’s eyes sparkled, “I think I have just the job for Colonel Burl.”
Rez looked back down the empty hallway, then cocked his head at his commander, “Sir, you are more devious than you look.”
“Thank you, sometimes this job can be fun.”
Just outside Flint and Ramirez heard the shouting of a Marine sergeant barking a command. Three seconds later the heavy rhythmic beat of a .50 cal machine gun echoed down the hall from outside.
Major Ramirez drew his 9mm pistol and poked his head outside. The firing “Ma Deuce” was on the roof of the building that stood next to the hangar. The machine gun was pointed skyward. Rez squinted as his eyes adjusted to the cloudy but bright sky. “Sir!” he yelled, “I see parachutes. At least. . .” he stopped to count, “. . .at least a company’s wor. . .” The cement pad in front of the major’s feet spit chips and white dust. He ducked back inside, “Sheee-it! Mother! Sir, alert the staff! I was right again, we’re under attack by airborne!”
Flint was already halfway down the hall, “Worthless prediction, ‘Two’. Doesn’t count—you never said when the enemy was going to attack!”
Major Ramirez didn’t have time for a retort—he was emptying half of his 14-round clip at a just-landed paratrooper whose body armor made him one tough hombre to kill. It took Rez three shots to the chest before he realized that the airborne soldier had a Kevlar vest. The Marine’s 9mm pistol rounds knocked the just-landed man off-balance. The fourth shot hit the enemy’s right forearm just as he was bringing his folding-stock assault rifle to his hip to fire. He went to his knees with a wild look of panic in his eyes. As an intelligence officer, Major Ramirez had never killed anyone before. (He had always joked that if he had to kill someone in combat it was a sure sign that his intelligence skills failed miserably.) Fortunately, as a Marine, he was trained to kill. Rez’s fifth shot hit his adversary in the face, knocking the man to the ground on his back where he lay surrounded by equipment, a shimmering drab olive parachute, and dozens of strands of nylon suspension lines.
Rez didn’t know whether to retreat into the building to get reinforcements, stay where he was to observe, or get to a roof where he might be able to help other the Marines already positioned. His indecision was answered by 60-plus tons of M1A1 tank that whined and clanked by the doorway at 25 mph.
Boom! The tank’s 120mm main gun let loose a round. A moment later there was an answering two-part blast and ball of fire capped by an inky black cloud about 200 meters away visible to the right side of the now stationary tank.
Rez’s curiosity got the best of him and he maneuvered himself in the doorway to better see the tank’s recent target without making himself a good target. The fire and smoke made it difficult to make out what the vehicle was. Two seconds later, however, there was no doubt.
Just above the burning mystery vehicle Rez saw a Russian-made BMD-3 strapped to a pallet dangling off a huge parachute heading earthward at an alarming rate. About 40 feet off the ground the underside of the pallet erupted with four giant jets of orange flame, burning the formerly wet and green grass underneath. The retro-rocket pallet slowed the vehicle and it landed gently, the released parachute billowing up and towards the Marine tank, blocking its view.
The BMD-3 is a tracked airborne combat vehicle weighing about 15 tons and armed to the teeth with no less than two machine guns, a 30mm automatic grenade launcher, an anti-tank rocket launcher and a 30mm rapid-fire cannon main gun. It has a track commander/gunner and a driver. An airborne infantry team (half a squad) of five operate its other weapons or can dismount for close assault. The lightly armored BMD-3 was vulnerable to .50 cal fire from any angle other than the direct front, but the people who used it counted on surprise and shock to overwhelm their enemies before they could mount an effective defense. This is why the Russians developed the retro-rocket pallet—it enabled the armored airborne infantry to drop into combat inside their vehicles, ready to go as soon as they hit the ground. The system was not without its problems, however; sometimes the rockets failed to ignite leaving the crew either dead or with broken backs. Other times not all of the solid-fueled rockets would ignite. When this happened, the pallet would turn cartwheels in the air before landing, usually upside-down. Needless to say, making a training jump in such a contraption was not viewed as a good use of highly trained airborne soldiers—even by the PLA. Making such a jump in combat was a different story. The PLA generals calculated that the extra dead crew or two was well worth the minutes shaved off the time needed to get into the fight.
Rez decided he had to see more of the situation. An intelligence officer is useless without some data to process. He burst out of the building at a low crouch and kneeled next to the tank. His knee sank into something soft. The officer looked down. He was kneeling on the thigh of the airborne troop he killed not a minute before. The tank had run over the head and shoulders of the corpse and blood oozed through its wide metal tracks. Rez didn’t have time to get sick. He looked left and right and up—nothing, the tank blocked the view of the battlefield.
Major Ramirez was about to stand up to peer around the tank when he heard Colonel Flint’s voice, “What the hell’s going on?”
“Airborne! They’re dropping armor too! Soviet BMDs!” (Every officer who entered the military before 1991 had a hard time saying, “Russian” when referring to equipment designed and built by the old Soviet empire.) Just as Rez turned his head back towards the tank, the turbine’s pitch increased and the tanked lurched ahead leaving him in the open. For split second, just enough to take in the view of most of the airport’s runway, Rez had a perfect understanding of the battle. The PLA was in the process of landing at least a battalion of airborne supported by probably a company of BMDs (about 450 soldiers and ten armored vehicles). If the Chinese could seize the airport then air-landing forces couldn’t be far behind. The Marines had to defend the airport or all was lost.
Rez ducked, spun around on his heels, and dove for the doorframe just as the BMD charged out from behind its settling parachute. Colonel Flint could see gun flashes from the right bow side of the vehicle. Two holes the size of cantaloupes were blown through the cement wall to the right of the door frame. Rez landed between the colonel’s legs. An instant later, the tank, which had rapidly driven off to the right to acquire the small a
irborne vehicle, fired. A large ball of superheated gas exploded out of the tank’s main gun. Not 100 meters away the BMD erupted in a ball of fire. The BMD’s small, frying pan-shaped turret went flying skyward along with pieces of something human. Flint stood just three feet inside the doorway, concealed by shadow, gaping at the horribly awesome sight. The turret arced up, spinning slowly like an oblong Frisbee due to the off-center mass of its 30mm gun. The sight was so fantastic, Flint couldn’t help but to watch as the turret sailed down and crashed into the cement not 20 feet away from the door. It bounced once, flipping upside-down, and landed on the body of the paratrooper Rez shot two minutes before. Only the man’s legs were sticking out from under the smoking turret.
Backing up, Flint burst out, “Shit!”
Rez just lay on the ground for a few seconds, panting.
The opening battle for Kaohsiung International Airport wasn’t a fair fight. Most military professionals would rather wage an unfair fight. Their aim is not to go head-to-head with the enemy’s strength, but rather to hit him in a fashion that makes it difficult if not impossible for the enemy to hit back. In short order the Marines of the 31st MEU employed four M1A1 tanks, two Whiskey Cobra gunships, and two rifle companies supported by five .50 cal heavy machine guns and four 81mm mortars against the enemy parachute battalion. The result was predictable. The airborne troops, told only an hour before by their recon that the airport was clear, were cut down or taken prisoner (their scout was captured by the suddenly arriving Marines before he could provide headquarters with a situation update). The PLA lost all ten BMDs, two supporting helicopter gunships that flew across the Taiwan Strait to support the assault, 264 men killed and 103 captured. Of the 448 elite PLA paratroopers who made the drop, only 81 escaped to disperse around the light industrial buildings near the airport. Colonel Flint would ask the soon to arrive ROC Army reserve unit to hunt these men down to reduce the likelihood that any might report on the airport defender’s dispositions. In short, the PLA brought a knife to a gunfight.
