“Comm, report enemy aircraft contact to Eastern Fleet headquarters,” the ops officer ordered.
“Yes, sir,” the communications officer responded. They had no satellite communications link; all long-range communications had to be done by shortwave, so it took a lot of time. Finally: “Eastern Fleet headquarters acknowledges contact and replies, ‘continue patrol as ordered.’ End of message.”
“Very well,” the operations officer said.
There was a slight pause, during which the ops officer could see several heads turn in his direction in some confusion. Finally, the senior controller asked, “Sir, would you like us to vector in air defense units on the attackers? We have units of the 112th Air Army, two flights of J-8 fighters, four planes per flight, within intercept range.” There was a very long, uncomfortable pause. The senior controller repeated, “Sir, the rebel attackers will be over our airspace in less than five minutes. What are your orders?”
“Have one flight of J-8s stay behind to guard this aircraft,” the ops officer finally responded. “You may send any available J-6 fighter units to intercept.”
“But the J-6s are not certified for night intercepts.”
“That is why they haveyoz/ to guide them,” the ops officer responded. “The J-8s stay with us. Send any J-6s you feel have the nerve to fight the Nationalists.”
“Yes, sir,” the controller replied. He assigned the task of guarding the 11–76 to one of his best intercept officers, then ordered another controller to call up two flights of J-6 fighters from Fuzhou to intercept the attackers. “Sir, we count at least four flights of attackers,” the senior controller reported. “If the rebels follow their standard attack plan, that means at least sixteen hostiles. Shall we call for more defenders?”
“Negative,” the ops officer replied. “You will protect this radar plane with all air assets available to you. Do not let any rebel fighters near this plane.”
“But, sir, if this is a complete attack formation — uh, sir, sixteen bombers would cripple Juidongshan.”
“You have your orders, senior controller,” the operations officer said. “Not one enemy fighter gets within fifty miles of this plane, or I will have your stars. See to it.” The senior controller had no choice but to comply.
Without a threat from Chinese air defense fighters, the Taiwanese attack went off without a hitch. It was a full strike package, with all sixteen Republic of China Air Force F-16s equipped with Falcon Eye imaging infrared targeting and attack sensors and loaded with attack munitions. First to go in were four F-16s carrying four CBU-87 cluster bombs each, targeting the Chinese CSS-N-2 Silkworm coastal anti-ship missile installations and air defense missile and artillery sites — these were easy prey for the cluster bombs. The Mk 7 cluster bomb dispensers carried a variety of anti-personnel, anti-armor, and anti-vehicle bomblets, scattering destruction over a very wide area of the naval base with good precision and devastating results.
While the first wave of F-16s pulled off to assume a combat air patrol over the target area, using their wingtip-mounted Sidewinder missiles and internal 20-millimeter cannon, the second wave of eight F-16s moved in with four Mk 84 high-drag general-purpose bombs, targeting the submarine maintenance pens, headquarters buildings, fuel storage, and communications facilities. Coming in at low altitude — some pilots shoved their prized F-16 Fighting Falcons right down to two hundred feet, almost grazing the tops of antennas and trees — the attacks were very effective. Some pilots even spotted several ES3B-class diesel-electric attack subs at the piers and secured beside sub tenders and attacked them with great success, using their 20-millimeter cannons in strafing mode. With freedom to roam the skies and the base’s air defenses all but neutralized, any F-16 that missed a target could circle around and come in again, so every assigned target was hit, along with a few important targets of opportunity.
The third wave of F-16 fighters never crossed the shoreline, but their attacks were just as successful. These attackers carried four Mk 55 bottom mines per plane, scattering them in precise patterns near the submarine pens and in nearby Dongshan Harbor, covering most of the sea approaches to the naval base. The Mk 55 mine moored itself to the bottom of the harbor and waited. When it detected a large magnetic presence, such as a ship or submarine, it would detach itself from the bottom and start for the surface, then explode when it sensed itself near its target.
As the Nationalist fighters started their withdrawal, twelve J-6 fighters from Fuzhou Army Air Base to the north moved into attack formation and tried to jump them. The fight was over in a matter of seconds. Without even dropping their external fuel tanks, the Taiwanese F-16 fighter-bombers were able to maneuver clear of the Chinese fighters’ lethal cone of fire, and in an instant the hunted would become the hunters. The Chinese PL-2 air-to-air missiles could only lock onto a target from the rear, where it had a clear look at the “hot dot” of a fighter’s jet exhaust, which meant every move a Chinese pilot was going to make was already known by every Taiwanese pilot. It was a simple exercise to wait for a Chinese pilot to commit to a rear attack, then jump him from above or from the side, where the American-made Sidewinder missiles were still effective. In less than two minutes, nine Chinese J-6 fighters had been shot down; the other three merely launched missiles at the slightest detection indication — they didn’t even know if it was friend or foe— then did a fast one-eighty and bugged out.
The senior controller aboard the 11–76 radar plane watched the attack on his radar screen in sheer horror. Juidongshan Naval Base had just been attacked by rebel Nationalist fighter-bombers, and they had just sat back and watched without doing a thing! In a fit of rage, he whipped off his headphones and dashed over to the operations officer’s console in the front curtained-off section of the cabin. A young marine guard tried to block the officer’s path, but the controller pushed him aside. “What in blazes do you think you are doing?” the senior controller shouted angrily. “Juidongshan has been hit hard by the Nationalists, and you sit here doing nothing!”
“I am following orders, Captain,” the operations officer replied calmly. He paused, then waved for the marine guard to step into the rear cabin, out of earshot. “The Nationalists’ attack was expected.”
“Expected? What do you mean?”
“Our subs were evacuated hours ago,” the ops officer said. “Only a few decoy ships remained, enough to whet the rebel bomber’s appetites and waste their bombs. Base personnel were sent into air raid shelters. The only ones still aboveground on that base are TV reporters.”
“TV reporters? We allowed our base to be bombed simply for a propaganda ploy? What is going on here?”
“That is none of your concern, nor mine,” the operations officer responded. “It is all part of some strange plan coming from Beijing. Return to your post and continue monitoring for other attacks in our sector. This is supposedly part of a large attack plan by the Nationalists, so we can expect more attacks tonight.”
The next wave of Taiwanese fighter-bomber attacks occurred just minutes after the senior controller returned to his console. “Attention, attention, enemy fighters detected, crossing into restricted airspace seven- zero miles east of Xiamen Air Base, heading west,” one of his controllers reported. “Two large formations, estimating sixteen to thirty enemy aircraft.”
The senior controller gasped inwardly as he called up the radar plot on his display. If it was two cells of sixteen aircraft attacking Xiamen, this meant that the Nationalists had committed their entire fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons to this attack. “Comm, notify Fuzhou, scramble every plane they have,” the senior controller ordered. Fie knew Fuzhou had almost one hundred fighters based there, perhaps one-third of them armed, fueled, and on ready five alert, with another ten or twenty capable of launching and escaping before the rebel fighters arrived overhead; that force might be able to hold off the rebels until the remaining force could be launched or moved and the base personnel evacuated. Unlike Juidongshan, the senior controller knew that Xiamen had not been evacuated. “Get me a report on how many fighters can launch. I want—”