Happy with where he placed the last shot, Peña only slightly adjusted his aim to compensate for the just pivoted tank and yelled, “On the way!” as he pulled the trigger.
The American long rod penetrater poked its way through the Chinese armor and completely wrecked the interior of the enemy tank. A few seconds later the ammo started cooking off, confirming the kill before the American tank crew wasted another round on the tank.
Alexander felt bone tired, “Let’s get out of here before his friends show up or the artillery starts falling. Hunting will be safer tonight.” He grabbed the handheld commercial radio, “Sidewinder, Thunderbolt.”
“You all right Thunderbolt? I heard some serious shootin’ a few seconds ago.” Mundell’s southern accent was measure of home in a strange land.
“Yea, one of the tanks wasn’t quite dead yet. You have those EPWs secured, over?”
“Roger. We even have our medics tending to them, over.”
“Right, get your scouts out and cover the bridges. We need to conduct some maintenance.” Alexander clicked off the transmitter and switched to the intercom, “Hernandez, take us back to the airport via the route under the bridge by the river. Move out fast.”
The tankers closed on the airport. Alexander ordered Hernandez to pull Traveller into an aircraft hangar near the ACE dozer. The crew got out and stretched. Dan noticed a large wet spot on Peña’s crotch, “So, the Chinese scared the piss out of you, eh?”
Peña looked down. Hernandez and Jones crowded to look at him. The gruff old sergeant said, “Oh, no sir! I spilled my canteen during that last engagement!”
Hernandez ribbed his senior NCO, “Sure, Sarge, we know you wet yourself…” he turned to the colonel, “Sir, does this mean he doesn’t get any medals?”
Jones finally smiled, “If he doesn’t get any, can I have his?”
Peña laughed, “Okay, okay, I pissed my pants — but tell anyone and I’ll rip your heart out!”
Everyone laughed hard, then got to work preparing Traveller for a long night of work.
26
Ghosts
It was Sunday morning, July 22. Commercial and military Chinese aircraft had been landing follow-on forces at CKS for 22 hours now. Where only a battalion of commandos were the day before, some 34,000 infantry and 10,000 People’s Armed Police paramilitaries were now concentrated.
The ROC Air Force was nowhere in sight. The one feeble air strike the Taiwanese did try to mount was detected by one of the new Chinese airborne early warning aircraft (featuring an Israeli Elta Phalcon phased array radar on a Russian-built Il-76 cargo aircraft). The Chinese AWACS vectored fighter aircraft to intercept and destroy the attackers.
The only moments of true concern occurred a few hours before when the airport began to receive some artillery fire. PLA artillery and American-built counter battery radar systems rapidly answered the enemy and silenced his artillery.
In spite of all this success, Lieutenant Colonel Chu Dugen felt little consolation. Instead of soaring at the height of his professional military career, Dugen’s thoughts returned to his father and mother. His father: dead. His mother: languishing in a jail, probably in Lipu County. He thought of the reasons why his mother was in jail — his father’s brave, but foolish stand against the Party’s corruption and his mother’s silent faith in something larger than herself, the Communist Party, or even China. He had never attended church with his mother — he never even knew she was a Christian until she told him during his last, brief visit home (although, in retrospect, he had his suspicions). Dugen pondered the words of the regimental political officer before he left for Hong Kong, “Do well in Taiwan and the State may show your mother leniency.” He knew his mother and the God she held so dear would not approve of his actions — and yet, he had his military duty and honor to uphold. And, if the State wished to spare his mother because he simply did his duty to the best of his abilities, then so be it.
Dugen sighed and reported in to 10th Group Army headquarters in the basement of the modern CKS terminal. “Lieutenant Colonel Chu of Jia Commando Battalion reporting for orders.” He announced himself in the operations center, saluting the senior colonel seated behind a commandeered civilian office desk. He glanced over the colonel, trying to observe one of the situation maps. A major general and a civilian, no doubt a Party official by the looks of his grooming, partially blocked his view.
The colonel stood up, and smiling, took Dugen’s hand. Dugen was taken aback as the colonel shook his hand and said, “Excellent! Well done, Colonel Chu. I have orders here promoting you to colonel!” The senior colonel reached into his pocket and pulled out two new colonel’s epaulettes, their three stars almost filling the length of the small pieces of cloth (the senior colonel’s own four stars looked cramped for space by comparison). He then unbuttoned Dugen’s epaulettes and replaced them with the new rank insignia.
“I was just performing my job, sir.” Dugen felt a rush of conflicting emotions. He hadn’t even been shot at and now he was getting promoted.
The major general by the map tapped the civilian on the shoulder and pointed at Dugen. Dugen was growing increasingly uncomfortable. He simply wanted to get his new orders and get back to his men.
The civilian stepped forward. “Congratulations Colonel…” he stopped, looking for the nametag which wasn’t on the commando’s uniform.
“Chu, sir. Colonel Chu.”
The man paused briefly, “Congratulations Colonel Chu. I am Fu Zemin, the Senior Party Representative on Taiwan. On behalf of China and the Chinese Communist Party, I thank you for your commendable efforts.”
“Thank you Comrade Fu. I will personally convey your thanks and the thanks of the Party to my men.”
Fu and Dugen both thought of each other’s last names. They both dismissed as highly improbable that they could be somehow connected by their fathers: counter-revolutionary assassin and heroic victim, aggrieved farmer and corrupt Party boss. Fu Zemin smiled, turned on his heels and went back to the map. Dugen exhaled.
“Sir, my orders?” Colonel Chu was now completely focused on the present.
A few minutes later Dugen had received an overview of the situation around Taipei (better than he thought it would be at this point in the campaign) as well as his mission. Using “requisitioned” civilian vehicles from the CKS International Airport parking lot his commandos would drive as far to the east as Taishan, securing key road junctions along the way. Taishan was a bedroom community of Taipei. It was situated on a low lying ridge only nine kilometers from the Tamsui Ho River which marked the western boundary of Taipei. From there Jia Battalion would report back to headquarters, take up defensive positions, and await further orders.
Dugen returned to his assembled battalion at the baggage claim area. He looked forward to the mental concentration required by military operations. Soon he would forget about his mother and the nagging doubts he had about his purpose in life.
Colonel Flint’s Marines were exhausted and battered, but not defeated. After a full day of intense action, they dealt out more than enough punishment to make the enemy wish they never saw another U.S. Marine again. More importantly, they happened to be in the right place at the right time to completely frustrate China’s finely tuned invasion plans — at least in the region around Kaohsiung.
The Marines’ success in blunting China’s early efforts at taking Taiwan’s largest port gave the local defenders valuable time to recover. That night they launched a determined attack and retook the beaches from the Mainlanders. By the morning light, only sporadic pockets of Chinese resistance remained to be cleaned up. China still owned the skies and had made headway at three other ports to the north, but at least in the south, the threat was beaten back.