The first explosion occurred less than six minutes later, on the port side forward. Yi was surprised to feel how much the deck shook and rolled. His big, beautiful, 6,000-ton ship heeled and shuddered like a wooden toy boat wallowing in a summer monsoon thunderstorm.
The civilians crowding the flight deck thought that the alarm bells were part of some demonstration or drill staged for their amusement, and so it seemed that no one was reacting to his orders. Crewmen tried to herd the civilians to stairwells, but they all stood around or moved closer to the helicopters, gun mounts, and access hatches, waiting to watch the new demonstration they thought was about to begin. He looked on with absolute horror as several children on the ski jump, bowled over by the force of the explosion, fell overboard — the deck-edge safety nets had been retracted into their stowed positions. He could not hear the children s screams over the clanging of the emergency alarm, but in his mind he could hear them all too plainly. Clouds of smoke began to billow out from the port side, completely obscuring the forward flight deck. Civilians were running everywhere in a panic, hampering the damage control party’s response. A second explosion erupted, just a few dozen meters aft of the first, also on the port side.
It had finally begun, the captain thought again as he raced for the bridge. It seemed a rather ignoble way to start such a glorious war of liberation and reunification, but nonetheless it was finally under way…
As soon as the crowds of confused civilians could be cleared away, four ex-Soviet Kamov-25 helicopters on the deck of the Mao began turning rotors and preparing to get under way; each helicopter was armed with two E40-79 air-dropped torpedoes. Also launching from the fantail of the carrier Mao was a Zhi-8 heavy shipboard helicopter, carrying a dipping sonar array for searching for submarines.
The five helicopters flew a precise course eastward in a tight formation. The crowd of civilians watched in fascination as the formation hovered less than five miles away. The large helicopter hovered close to the surface of the South China Sea and reeled out its sonar transducer at the end of a cable; it let it dangle in the ocean for several seconds before reeling it back in, flying several hundred yards away, then hovering and dunking again. After the second dunk, one Ka-25 helicopter zipped south a few hundred yards, and the crowd of onlookers could see the splashes as it released both its torpedoes.
Not every detail of the attack could be seen from the decks of the Mao, but as if they were hosting some kind of sporting event, a radio operator was giving a running commentary on the chase: “Search One has detected an unknown target, bearing one-niner-zero… Attack Two, transition south five hundred meters and stand by… Search One, target one bearing two-eight-three, Attack Two, do you copy…? Attack Two copies new target fix, stand by for weapons release… torpedoes away, torpedoes away, all units be advised, remain clear… torpedoes running, both torpedoes running… torpedoes going active, all units, new target bearing, mark, target data transmitting…” Moments later, the crowd screamed and shouted in surprise when two terrific explosions and huge geysers of water erupted from the ocean near where the helicopter had dropped its deadly load.
The attacks continued for nearly an hour, until all of the torpedoes had been exhausted. In the meantime, the carrier Mao had lifted anchor and had begun maneuvering toward where the helicopters were operating. The carrier was creeping toward them at minimum steerageway power until they received the news — the enemy submarine had been hit, and it was on its way up to the surface. Several minutes later, the crowd of civilians still on board the Mao was treated to an unusual sight: a crippled and smoking submarine bobbing on the surface. It was announced to all that it was a Dutch-designed Zwaardvis-class attack submarine, with a crew of 67 and a combat load of 28 wire-guided U.S.-made Mk 37 torpedoes.
It was also announced that the submarine was identified as the Hai Hu—an attack submarine owned and operated by the rebel Nationalist government on the island of Formosa.
It was without a doubt one of the most beautiful, yet one of the most dangerous outposts in all the world, Chung-Kuo KungChuan (Republic of China Air Force) C-130T transport pilot Captain Shen Hung-Ta thought. Once they got below the clouds, the islands looked so warm and inviting from the air — one might easily forget the dangers hidden nearby.
Air Force Captain Shen was just twenty miles out from Matsu Air Base, the northernmost military base belonging to the Republic of China. Matsu Air Base was on Pei-Kan-Tang Tao, one of a cluster of eight islands lying just ten miles off the coast of mainland China. Just forty miles to the west was the city of Fu-Chou, a city of one million residents, plus its air force, army, and naval coastal defense bases with another six to twelve thousand troops. The Matsu Islands had a grand total of fifteen thousand Taiwanese troops stationed here, mostly in underground bunkers and air and coastal defense sites — and that number probably included a few goats, Shen thought.
Whatever it was, the number didn’t matter. Matsu was officially a Taiwanese “coastal defense” outpost, with Taiwanese-made Hsiung Feng (Male Bee) anti-ship cruise missiles and U.S.-made Improved-HAWK antiaircraft missiles stationed there, along with one special forces group and a light infantry division. Unofficially, Taiwan had several sophisticated intelligence-gathering listening posts in the Matsu Islands, along with special communications systems, the National Security Bureau of Taiwan could tap into China’s telephone, telegraph, and telex network from the Matsu Islands, and a string of undersea sensors in the East China Sea were monitored from Matsu so Taiwan could remotely monitor the movement of Chinese ships north of Taiwan. Matsu also stationed a few S-2T Tracker submarine hunters there on occasion to search for Chinese and North Korean submarines cruising the Formosa Strait and East China Sea, and the main long-range radar array atop Matsu Mountain monitored the movement of Chinese ships and aircraft between the South and East Fleet headquarters.
“Matsu Approach, Transport One-Five, approaching intersection Bravo… now,” Shen reported as he flew his cargo plane inbound to Matsu North. Each phase of the approach into Matsu had to be carefully and exactly executed; any deviation could trigger an air defense alert from Matsu and also from Yixu Air Base in mainland China. Shen knew that almost one hundred Chinese fighters, mostly Chinese copies of Russian MiG-17, -19, and -21 interceptors, were based there, along with HQ-2 surface-to-air missiles and numerous antiaircraft artillery units. Shen’s approach into Matsu North Air Base put him only thirty miles east of Yixu Air Base in mainland China, well within radar and antiaircraft missile range.
“Transport One-Five, Matsu Approach, you are cleared to point Charlie.”
“Cleared to Charlie, One-Five, wilco,” Shen replied, using the American phrase “wilco” for “will comply”; American aviation slang was considered acceptable terminology to all ROC controllers, even in this very sensitive area so close to the mainland.
Along with electronic encoders and precise control of flight time and navigation, security checkpoints were established all along the approaches to the two airfields in the Matsu Islands; the checkpoint coordinates were changed with every inbound flight and issued to the crew prior to departure. Each checkpoint had to be reached within a quarter- mile and reported plus-or-minus one-tenth of a mile or the aircraft might be considered hostile. The final checkpoint was within visual range of ground spotters so positive visual identification could be made before final landing clearance was issued. Many times, Shen and his crew had to break off a picture-perfect approach because they forgot to report over a checkpoint.