Kill Loss Ratio 31:1

The first combat use of the air-to-air missile was on Sep 24, 1958, with the Republic of China Air Force when the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis  came to flare-up.  The Red China had pursued invading Taiwan since 1949, 1958 Mao kicked it into high gear again.  During the conflict, CAF F-86 Sabres were routinely engaged in air battles with swarms of MiG-17.  In a top secret effort, an Aviation Ordnance Team of one pilot and five techies from the USMC 323 Fighter Squadron delivered 40 GAR-8 Sidewinders to CAF 11^th FG on Aug 18, and modify their North American jets to carry the GAR-8.  Under a direct order from the U.S. Pacific Command, the operation was supervised by the Military Assistance Advisory Group.  Though the GAR-8 transfer from the sole missile-equipped Naval FJ-4 unit (323 Sqn), the 7^th Fleet was bypassed.  The project: rearmed Sabre to suppress the more agile MiG-17, and developed new missile tactics to prevail over future threats.

After one week, five staffers came up with innovative missile launcher based on the original F-86F’s high velocity aircraft rocket system.  In the test flight, pilot Ray Robbins fired a HVAR from his left wing pylon, then it was successfully blasted by a chasing GAR-8 from his right wing pylon.  In the next two weeks, CAF mechanics upgraded 20 F-86s under the AOT guidance, each plane carried two GAR-8s.  Chinese pilots kept up change fast, especially the limitations of this heat-seeking missile, i.e. relative position of sun, fire range, search angle, and operational ceiling.  Meanwhile, their new tactics was sharpened via mock combat with CAF F-100 as an “aggressor aircraft”.

Facing a massive foe, the smaller CAF was more than holding its own; its strength lay in pilot’s quality and advanced weaponry.  To specify the Communist’s intention of non-stop bombardment, CAF launched a large scale recon along mainland coast on Sep 24, with four retrofitted F-86s as core flight in the escort groups.  In the first encounter, the Sabre quad wiped out six unaware MiG-17s in a climbing ambush.  The MiGs broke formation and dived to the altitude of the Sabres in swirling dogfights, six more was destroyed by 50 calibers.  After the total kill loss rate of 31:1 in Taiwan Strait Crisis, Red’s short live air dominance had gone dark for decades.

Nukes in Taiwan

Known as the 1958 second Taiwan Strait crisis, the Red’s shelling of Kinmen was primarily a political blitzkrieg rather than a military invasion.  After the outpost islet was obscured by the dust of exploding volleys, the U.S. 7^th Fleet escort dumped the ROC Navy’s landing craft and escaped from the scene.  As such, Mao Zedong clarified that the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty for Taiwan was simply a half-assed US ploy to later pave the way for 1979 US-China normalization.  However, the crisis aftermath was a subtle win-win situation for both ROC and PROC, while ROC refused to retreat from Kinmen under the US pressure.  Kinmen remained a geopolitical link between the mainland and Taiwan and Chinese on both sides successfully shunned the US’s China-splitting policy.

Hard pressed to withstand the Red’s onslaught, the first three newly-arrived M-55 self-propelled howitzers roared to life on September 26, and immediately their 8-inch guns overwhelmed the enemy shellfire.  After the conflict, the cross-strait barrage became the Chinese Civil War’s longest running battle, though both sides merely exchanged desultory harassing fire on odd days of the month, then used pamphlet shells only.  It also bears remembering that in 1958 Kinmen was bleak and the casualties were over 7,000 in the series of battles from Aug. 23 to Oct. 5, but by then the ROC serviceman were not made of fine China.  They were very good at their job, and luckily the islet saw the urgent deployment of twelve 8-inch guns that were decisive in the 8.23 Barrage Battle.

The Reds unleashed the shelling at the height of the Cold War, and ever since the US nukes had stayed in Taiwan until 1974 with the US Matador cruise missile standing ready at Tainan Air Base when the crisis erupted.  In storage on the revetments adjacent to the Tainan AFB flight line, the Matador TM-61Cs were operated by the 868^th Tactical Missile Squadron, and supported by the 6214^th Air Base Group.    In 1959, surface-to-surface nuclear warheads were deployed, the Matador could deliver a 20 kt W5 warhead to a range of 965 km from Tainan.  On Okinawa and Guam, three types of nukes - Mk.6 (only Guam), Mk.36 Mod 1, and Mk.39 Mod 0 - were available to defeat the possible attacking PROC forces.  Unsurpringly, in 1978 the US recognized the PROC as the sole legal government of China, also ended official relations and its defense treaty with Taiwan.

The View from the Top

Affected by the previous amphibious landing on Dachen incurring of heavy casualties, Mao ZeDong rejected the PLA’s both proposals of air raid and amphibious assault on Kinmen.  His barrage-only insistence was based on the considerations: First, poor air ground coordination was still the soft belly of PLA; a barrage battle was political and diplomatic oriented, for identifying US’s specific intent without being beleaguered.  Second, taking fortress-like Kinmen held by six divisions would be suicidal, leaving it as a geopolitical link was more beneficial to Chinese interest.  Third, Taiwan’s retaliation thrusting into coastal area was fully expected, even a dangerous confrontation with the US if PLAAF bombed Kinmen.  Fourth, an expensive amphibious attack’s outcome had never been in question while Taiwan had the air superiority.  His strategy worked, it has the effect of making the obvious seem complex.       

Accessed the real US attitude, China managed to reopen the 1954 Geneva Conference in Warsaw, in order to delapidate the US support to Taiwan.  After the last major barrage on Jan. 7, 1959, 30 240mm howitzer M-1 were transferred to Kinmen and Matsu to guard against potential Reds aggression, ever since these big guns were in active service but not surprisingly, never came into action.  And the ferocious M-55 self-propelled howitzers were replaced by 8” towed gun M-115s.  Went into hiatus, both sides merely exchanged desultory fire on odd days of the month, shunned military targets and villages.  Listened to the supersized loudspeakers of broadcasting station in Kinmen, the Red’s artillery walked shells up the rise paddy if they mistakenly hit the road.  

The massive US aid was given significant credit for air and counter-barrage victories, it also accelerated the ROC Army into missile age.  For re-enforcing the medium and high-altitude long-range air defense over northern Taiwan, in 1958 a SAM-A-25 heavy surface-to-air missile battalion was urgent deployed at Lingkou from Anchorage, Alaska.  As one of the five Nike Hercules export recipients, the complete battalion equipment was transferred to the ROCA on Aug. 15, 1959.  In 1971 the second Nike battalion with a conventional warhead was received from Texas, which stationed at Gangshan in southern Taiwan.  All twelve Nike companies were deactivated in 1997, without ever being fired in anger.