Yankee Doodle Dady

During the Cold War, the Red China knew about the terrific seapower of the 7^th Fleet surrounding Taiwan, that’s what kept the Reds starting invasion.  When they suddenly launched heavy bombardment of Quemoy outpost in 1958, the 7^th’s flagship Helena and carrier Lexington were both ready for action by the islet at 8 Am the next morning.  Three 8” selfpropelled howitzers were secretly ferried from Okinawa to Quemoy, M-55’s firepower was the major factor in putting out the 44 days Red’s barrage.  Among the four 7^th‘s Task Forces, only the TF 72 was responsible for Formosa (Taiwan) Patrol.  Inversely, it also prohibited any cross-strait operation under Reclaim the Mainland policy from the Nationalist Chinese.

The U.S. Army also deployed ground units in Taiwan, consisting of the MGM-1 Matador Tactical Missile Squadrons stationed at Tainan.  The Martin Matador was the first U.S. operational surface-to-surface cruise missile, which armed with the W5 nuclear warhead.  In 1962 the Tainan squadrons were decommissioned with the last phased-out Matadors in South Korea and West Germany.  After having the warheads removed from fuselage, the bulkhead attachment points were cut off by axes, then the non-flyable airframes were sold as scrap locally.  Meanwhile most of the inactivated support vehicles were dismantled, mainly 2 1/2-ton and 5-ton trucks.

Under the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, ROC forces’ were re-armed for island defense. Equipped with all defensive fighters, the powerful F-4 Phantom had always been CAF’s ultimate dream weapon.  The Air Asia’s maintenance hangars at Tainan were constantly filled with warbirds, e.g. F-4s from the Vietnam Theater, and a F-4 flight visited the CAF Academy in 1969.  However, silver linings finally among the political clouds.  1970, U.S. DoD approved to supply F-4D to Taiwan, and CAF crewmen started their WSO training on the back seat.  But CAF pilots had never used the front seat, the U.S. Congress rejected the deal to avoid China’s frustration.  One 1973 afternoon, I and my buddy were among the enthusiastic local folks, waiting for boarding the visiting 7^th’s cruiser Oklahoma City cruiser (CL-91).  Right after the harbor gate opened, crowd squeezed in like mob, and speaker announced immediately “tour canceled”.  Anyone mess with dominator will have a problem.

The Truth Hurts

By the time the Republic of China was revitalized in Taiwan, more than 60 million Chinese “unnatural died” in mainland China.  In 1949-61, though the Commies was putting the energy into Building New China, this totalitarian regime’s technique was endless political purge, it’s essence is brutality, and a core part of it is its Mao-ness.  In order to waste no time during the political straitjacket sent PROC into chaos, Chiang Kai-Shek escalated his Reclaim the Mainland in April 1961.  Code named Nation Light (SL 國光計劃), Ministry of National Defense (MND) started planning cross-strait strike, amphibious landing, counter-offensive, special operation, and counter-insurgency.  For the air force’s part, a Atlas Team with command, plan, audit, and FOC officers worked round the clock in a restricted MND office.

Under the US military/economic aid and Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, ROC forces’ were re-armed for offshore coastal defense.  All CAF prop powered fighters were upgraded to defensive jets, and the Atlas Team processed endless top-secret red-cover folders.  In 10 years totally 26 assault operations under five-folded NL were proposed, and the Atlas Team conducted 97 presidential briefings.  In retrospect, then no one considered the risks outweighed cross-strait power projection.  All in all, challenging the autocratic leadership was risky, questioning Chiang’s policies was disastrous.  At the height of the war game, June 1965, five LVTs sunk and killed dozens marines in a landing maneuver.  Followed by two failed sea battles in August and November, respectively, revealed that supporting an amphibious campaign was simply unachievable for the ROC Navy.

As the NL finally exposed to the United States Taiwan Defense Command, it had another different agendas working at odds with this unwinnable plan.  Leaving aside flawed calculation, strategically-it’s just not going to work.  The USTDC pointed out the PLA forces were waiting behind the coastal area, this clearing out battlefield would be a graveyard for the over-stretched invaders with questionable re-supply.  And the mainland featured a tight array of uncertain loyalties and hostility, it’s impossible to decamp the PLA troops.  The Americans, couldn’t be more bullish, their refusal was effectively a slap in the face to Chiang officialdom.  July 1972, his Reclaim the Mainland which fuss the Far East’s stability was forced to abort by the US.  Ever since the ROC’s annual massive military parade-a FOC review-was indefinitely shelved, so did a dream with inexcusable consequences.

China's Wrong Turn

As one of the only two Northrop Black Widows still in existence, a P-61B is the centerpiece aircraft of the Beijing Air and Space Museum.  1944, it had been transfer from 10^th Air Force, India, to China under the Chinese American Composite Wing for B-29 escort.  Facing the advancing Communists, 1949, all the P-61 starboard wings were made non-flyable by chopping out the outer panels, and these advanced night fighters became inactivated crap when they fell in the wrong hands.  Some Chinese Air Force personnel in urgent retreat to Taiwan still remembered that chaos.   Right after touch down, secret police singled out Commie suspects, and shot them on the spot.

CAF was enjoying a equipment windfall around 1946.  Though a mammoth army backed up by a mighty air force equipped with hundreds of U.S. planes, its slow-burn strike and drip-feed supply was not causing havoc for People’s War by air campaigns.  The difficult was the complexity of the situation on the ground, the battlefield features a shifting array of friends and foes.  Using aerial surveillance to assess targets had proven notoriously inadequate; without trustful air-ground coordination, once a whole infantry battalion was wiped out under B-24 air raid.  In 1946-49, 43 aircraft defected to the Reds, including L-5, AT-6, PT-17, P-51, C-46, C-47, and B-24.  In late 1948, the U.S. 7^th Fleet moved its homeport from Qingdao to the Philippines, and the Reds were using the truce to push their own agenda.

The reality by 1948 was about 30% of People’s Liberation Army was ex-centre influx, and this ratio approached 80% in 1949.  In addition to the various units defected to the PLA, some 400 million centre POWs became its cannon fodder.  PLA depended on fat trophies from the Nationalists to keep their arsenal a sudden spike in the US weaponry.  When the unwinding of its servicemen occurred, it sent shock waves throughout China.  Outraged by the Red’s insurgency, more and more of centre sovereignty was slipping into the Red’s hands.  A less-motivated army not backed up by leadership and aerial support, an unstoppable spiral into collapse.  China was proclaimed a communist state on Oct 1, 1949, 17 ex-CAF aircraft formation overflew Tiananmen Square to salute Mao and his ilk.

Empire Without Sunset?

Mar 17, 1946, the C-47 VIP transport (CAF s/n 222) exploded in the mid-air near Nanking, none of the 11 on-board survived, included the Nationalist intelligence chief Dai Li (戴笠).  Amidst four factions struggled for dominance of the post-WWII Chinese Navy, Britphobic Dai was the figurehead of the pro-American faction led by Chiang Kai-Shek.  Chiang’s regime had already been hopelessly infested by Red’s spies, right under Dai counterintelligence’s nose.  Even Dai’s arch enemy, Mao ZeDong, was not a de facto inheritor of his death.  An unproven theory suggested the C-47 s/n 222 was blasted by a incendiary device planted by the British M-16, carried aboard by the unaware pilot. Di’s mysterious crash was only beneficial to the sunset empire for paving the way for its reclaim to China.

As wishful thinking to restore its pre-war imperial adventures, the British invested a flotilla for rebuilding the Chinese Navy and trained its cadets at Portsmouth in 1946.  Facing a huge US naval aid to China, the Royal Navy reluctantly proposed one light cruiser, two corvettes, and two T-class submarines as gift to the exhausted Chinese Navy.  However, most of the bubble flotilla were delayed then canceled under various excuses.  Furthermore, when one of the corvette (靈甫)- which had already been operated by the Chinese Navy- refueled in Hong Kong in April, 1949, UK simply confiscated it.  Eventually this ex-HMS Mendip ended up in Israel as Haifa.

Despite facing unavoidable setbacks in China, the UK had relentlessly pursued its impulsive agenda to Far East from Hong Kong.  Since Malayan “Emergency”  began, the Sunderland flying boat patrol bomber squadron transfer from Hong Kong carried out hundreds of sorties over Malaya.  During the guerrilla war in 1948-60 the Chinese freedom fighters-who were treated as disposable trash after their community had borne the brunt of fighting the Japanese occupation-were painted as Communist insurgency by UK and overprivileged Malaysian.  The anti-British liberation war draws the Commonwealth forces and British Special Air Service into the fight against jungle fighters, they were eventually crushed under the colonial force’s modern fire firepower and war crimes.  Just like Britain assisted Japanese building its navy and air power, backing up Hitler in the Munich Conference, exporting jet engine to Stalin, provocateur always backfired its self.