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  Screams for corpsmen pierced the air as the wounded called out for help. Looking back to the beach, Captain Long saw dozens upon dozens of explosions rocking the beach where his Marines had just been ten minutes earlier. Several of the LCACs that had zoomed in to land their armored vehicles had been hit on their way off the beach and now lay in the shallow waters as burning wrecks.

  Some of the tanks that had made it ashore trained their main guns on the bunkers that were firing on the beach, sending well-aimed shots right back at the enemy. Several of the bunkers—the ones with artillery guns hidden in them—were starting to be blown up by the Marine tanks.

  Knowing his Marines couldn’t stay where they were, Captain Long yelled, “Everyone, move forward!” They needed to get closer in to the hills and the mountains if they were to escape the deadly artillery fire that was still raining down on them.

  Steadily, Captain Long’s Marines made their way through the now torn and destroyed seaside city to the rolling hills at the base of the mountain range that separated the island. When they reached the edge of the city, they were met by yet another nasty surprise. One of the fireteams ran to the base of the first hill, only to be ripped apart by machine-gun fire. The weapon of death that shredded them to pieces was one of the Chinese Hua Qing miniguns, which launched 7.62×54mm rounds from its multiple barrels so quickly that the soldiers were decimated before they even knew what had happened. This fearsome weapon then turned toward the rest of his company of Marines, and they immediately dove for cover in the mounting rubble of the city.

  Captain Long grabbed his radio receiver and contacted his heavy weapons platoon. “Lieutenant Lightman, get your mortars set up and start pounding those bunkers up here!” he shouted.

  Raising his own rifle to his shoulder, Long took aim at the machine-gun bunker with the Hua Qing minigun in it and fired several rounds at the location where he thought the gunner must have been. For a few seconds, the gun stopped firing, and Captain Long thought he might have been successful in his efforts. Then the shooting picked back up again.

  “Crap!” thought Long.

  Green tracer rounds zipped over his head and stitched up the buildings and anything else his men were using for cover. Aiming for the same spot he had just sent a few rounds into, Captain Long squeezed off another four or five rounds. The gun went silent again. This time, one of his Marines fired off an AT-4 rocket, which hit just below the gun slit, throwing a lot of shrapnel and fire into the bunker.

  Just as another fireteam charged forward, two more hidden machine-gun bunkers opened fire, killing two of the Marines outright and wounding the others. Several of his Marines ran out there to help drag the wounded to cover, only to be cut down by the PLA soldiers, who were now going to use those wounded Marines as bait to kill more of his men. Before Captain Long could say anything, a handful of mortar rounds hit the area around the bunker.

  A moment later, Long’s radio crackled. “Pit Bull Six, this is Dog Catcher Six. How copy?” He recognized the voice on the other end as Colonel Tilman, his regiment commander.

  Slouching down behind the half-destroyed wall of the building he had taken cover in, Captain Long hit the talk button on his radio. “This is Pit Bull Six. Send,” he responded.

  “Is the path to the base of the mountain clear?” asked Tilman.

  “Negative, Dog Catcher. We’ve encountered several lines of well-camouflaged machine-gun bunkers protecting the base of the mountain. Some of the bunkers are equipped with miniguns, which are tearing us up. I’ve got dozens of wounded up here,” he replied.

  Long heard a sigh on the other end. He knew that Tilman would not be happy. The guys on the beach were probably getting pounded. He’d probably hoped that if they could push through to the base of the mountain, they might be able to get some reprieve from the enemy artillery fire.

  “Copy that, Pit Bull,” Tilman said after a slight pause. “We have fast movers inbound from the fleet. Their call sign is Angel Eight. Use them to clear out those bunkers in front of your position and advance to the base of the mountain. We need to clear a path off this godforsaken beach. How copy?” Colonel Tilman shouted to be heard over the explosions in the background.

  “That’s a good copy, Dog Catcher,” replied Long. “I’ll contact you once we’re past this line of machine-gun bunkers.”

  He put down his receiver and turned to his radio operator, who had a separate UHF radio that was designated for air support. Sadly, the ground forces operated on one set of radio frequencies and radio system, while the Air Force and naval aircraft operated on a different system entirely, which required the ground forces to have either two radios or a forward air controller who could speak directly to the fighters overhead. The battalion and regiment had a FAC, but not the individual companies.

  Once his radioman had set the right frequency in place, he handed the handset to Captain Long, who proceeded to make contact with the F/A-18s that had just been assigned to him.

  “Angel Eight, this is Pit Bull Six. We have troops in contact,” he began. “Requesting danger close mission at grid TA 5764 4765, enemy machine-gun bunker. How copy?”

  There was a short silence. “Pit Bull Six, that’s a good copy,” the pilot responded. “How many targets do you have for us?”

  “Angel Eight, I estimate at least five enemy bunkers to our immediate front,” explained Long. “However, I have eyes on at least twelve bunkers nestled into the mountains that are hitting the beach with artillery fire. What type of ordnance do you have?”

  After another brief pause, the pilot’s radio had caught up. “We have a mix of 500-pound and 2,000-pound JDAMs. We’ll drop the 500-pounders near your position and save the big boys for the mountain bunkers. Send us the coordinates for the other bunkers, and we’ll hit them on our next pass across the island.” The pilot’s voice sounded so nonchalant from the safety of his high-altitude perch.

  Five more minutes went by as they fed the planes somewhere above them the coordinates to seventeen separate targets. Then, one by one, the bunkers were hit. Many of them were completely blown apart. Within seconds of the bombs landing, more than half of the artillery fire that was devastating the beachhead ceased. The machine-gun bunkers directly in front of his company front had also been destroyed. By this time, another company of Marines had pushed through the enemy artillery fire to reach their position. With the bunkers destroyed, or at least temporarily taken offline, the Marines charged forward, quickly overrunning the enemy positions as they pushed their way to the base of the mountain.

  The fight to liberate Taiwan was on, and it was going to be another bloody campaign before it was over.

  *******

  East Coast of Taiwan

  High above the coastal city of Toucheng, there was an old Buddhist temple that sat just off the Fudekeng Industrial Road, halfway up the mountain that divided the Island of Formosa. It was at this little piece of paradise that Brigadier General Lee Jinping and Major General Xian Loa were observing the American fleet advancing toward them.

  “It won’t be long until they begin to land their Marines,” General Xian thought in anticipation as he looked at the ships approaching the coast.

  “When do you want our anti-ship missile batteries to start attacking the American warships?” inquired General Lee.

  Xian lowered his binoculars and examined General Lee’s face. He seemed eager to put his fortifications to the test. “Soon,” General Xian responded. “Right now, the Americans have no idea what we have waiting for them. We want to let them deploy their ships, offload their ground force and then hammer their ships. What I want our forces to do right now is to be patient. We must wait for the Americans to land a substantial ground force. Then, when they are lulled into thinking we have abandoned the coasts to them, we unleash everything we have. We will sink their ships off the coast and pummel their ground forces. By the end of today, the Americans will accept that they can’t recapture Formosa from us, and they will withdraw.”

 
; Xian, who had been given command of the 41st and 42nd Armies by General Yang, was thoroughly confident in Lee’s work and in his men. They had laid an elaborate trap for the Americans, and now they just had to stay patient and let it play out.

  For the next hour, jets roared overhead. He listened to a myriad of precision-guided munitions and cruise missiles hit targets near the coast, along with a few positions further up on the mountain fortress. Most of the targets that had been hit were actually elaborate decoys. The Chinese knew the Americans would be hunting for targets, so they gave them a plethora of marks to hit. It was part of their strategy to deceive the Americans and to camouflage their true intentions. For now, the Americans would be led to believe they were crippling the island’s air defenses and destroying key bunkers and strongholds. When they were satisfied, they would send in their ground force, and then the real fight would begin.

  *******

  10 Miles from Taitung

  “My butt is killing me, and this rigging is tearing into my back and shoulders,” reflected Staff Sergeant Conrad Price. He tried unsuccessfully to shift positions for what must have been the hundredth time since they boarded the flying deathtrap of a C-17 nearly seven hours ago.

  “We’re five minutes out! Everyone, stand up for equipment check!” shouted the jump master, who was standing near the exit of the plane.

  “Finally!” Sergeant Price thought, barely keeping himself from exclaiming aloud.

  Standing up, Price checked the man in front of him to make sure his equipment was properly set up and ready. He could feel the guy behind him doing the same to his gear and then felt the familiar pat on his shoulders letting him know he was good to go. With these formalities taken care of, the jump master yelled out a string of additional commands as they prepared to jump.

  Catching a glance out the window, Price could see the sun was starting to break through the evening sky. Soft yellow, red, and blue hues were ever so slowly trying to push the blackness of the night away, bringing with it a new day. However, this would be a day filled with sheer terror, excitement, and uncertainty.

  A couple of minutes went by, and then the lights inside the cabin turned from a light blue to red. Seconds later, the two side doors they’d be jumping out of were opened. The chilly, humid air buffeted their faces as it quickly circulated throughout the cargo hold of the plane.

  To Sergeant Price, the aircraft looked like it was still too low for them to jump. The water whipping past them looked practically close enough for them to land on.

  “Man, these pilots aren’t messing around,” he realized.

  Without warning, the aircraft’s engines decreased power and the plane shifted sharply upward in altitude, forcing the paratroopers to grab for anything they could to keep themselves from falling over onto each other.

  “A little warning would have been nice,” Price grumbled to himself.

  Seconds later, the plane leveled out and the jump light turned from red to green. The jump master started screaming, “Everyone, get off the aircraft as fast as possible!”

  Not knowing if the plane was about to be blown up, the Rangers practically shoved each other out the jump door to try and get on the ground.

  Following the lead of the soldiers in front of him, Sergeant Price quickly made his way out the door to the wild blue yonder below. Less than a second after exiting the plane, his chute opened, jerking him hard and preventing him from becoming a six-foot lawn dart. Looking around, Price saw strings of green tracer fire reaching out for the planes that were now flying across the runway of the airfield, dropping Rangers as fast as humanly possible.

  With the sun not fully up just yet, they could easily spot the illumination flares going off several thousand meters above the air base, which further illuminated the paratroopers who were dangling from their parachutes and the planes delivering them. The AC-130 Spector gunship loitered above and behind them, then suddenly opened fire on the enemy antiaircraft guns that had shown themselves, silencing several of them before they could down any of the American aircraft.

  Craning his neck to his left, Sergeant Price saw what appeared to be three ZU-23 antiaircraft guns that the gunship had not silenced yet. A dizzying rate of fire crisscrossed the sky above the runway. One string of rounds tore into one of the C-17s, causing it to explode before its human cargo had a chance to jump.

  “Holy crap. That was two platoons’ worth of Rangers,” Price thought in horror.

  Seconds later, the AC-130 gunship obliterated the gun positions, but the damage had already been done.

  A minute later, Price found himself quickly approaching the ground and positioned himself to tuck and roll just as he had done in dozens of practice jumps. Before he knew it, he was on the ground, and his body had instinctively done what it had been trained to do.

  Once on the ground, he quickly brought his weapon to bear. He’d spotted a machine-gun position that a handful of PLA soldiers were running to, and he wanted to take them out before they could start mowing down his fellow Rangers. Just as Sergeant Price was about to fire, a hail of bullets rained down from the sky and the running figures evaporated, cut to pieces by a five-barrel 25mm Equalizer cannon, which spat out thousands of rounds a minute. With the immediate threats neutralized, Price went to work on getting his pack strapped to his back and rounding up his squad.

  Glancing back up toward the sky, Price saw the horizon continue to fill up with parachutes as the rest of the battalion arrived. He also spotted two smoke trails streaking up nearby and watched as missiles headed straight for the gunship that had been providing them with direct fire support. The AC-130 turned hard to one side as it spat out flares at a high rate of speed as it quickly changing altitude and revved its engines. Then, one missile successfully impacted against the plane, and one of the engines exploded and caught fire. The second missile was diverted by one of the flares and detonated harmlessly away from its intended target. However, the gunship was now trailing smoke with an engine out as it lumbered out of view. Price wasn’t sure what happened to it, but he knew he needed to get his squad moving to their next objective. He could contemplate what had happened to the Spector gunship later.

  Seeing the other members of his squad unstrapping their parachutes and grabbing their packs and weapons, Price shouted, “On me!”

  He swiftly led them toward the opposite side of the base. Their objective now was to clear the munition bunkers and then press on to secure the western edge of the base perimeter before expanding out further up the ridgeline that overlooked the base.

  As they approached the road that led to the munition farm, his squad nearly ran straight into an enemy machine-gun position, which appeared to have been hastily manned, since the Chinese soldiers there were still feeding a belt of ammo into the gun.

  At once, Price brought his rifle to his shoulder and fired at them. He was quickly joined by the members of his squad, killing the four enemy soldiers before they were able to react to their presence. With the enemy gun position taken out, they pressed on, now joined by at least two other squads of soldiers.

  They continued unhindered until they reached the building that led to the entrance of a massive bunker complex. The relative silence was broken by a fuselage of enemy machine-gun fire.

  Zip, zip, zang. BOOM.

  Bullets and grenade explosions struck everywhere as the two sides fought it out in relatively close quarters.

  “Frag out!” yelled Price. He threw one of his grenades at a cluster of enemy soldiers that had just arrived from deeper in the bunker complex.

  BOOM.

  “On me!” he shouted. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired a string of shots into the gun slit on the bunker, then charged.

  Bang, bang, bang!

  The sounds of his rifle echoed off the surrounding cement walls of the bunker system. Price slammed his body against the cement wall just to the left of the gun slit, then reached down and grabbed another grenade from his vest.

  “Frag ou
t!” he shouted as he tossed the second grenade inside the bunker. He had held the grenade for a couple of seconds before he threw it in, trying to cook down the timer. This would give the soldiers inside very little time to react to it.

  BOOM!

  Dust, air, and flame rapidly blew out the gun slit. Then a few cries of pain and agony groaned out, indicating the fragmentation grenade had found its mark. Price dropped his now-empty magazine, placing it in his drop bag, and pulled another out of the front pouch of his vest. Once he loaded the fresh thirty-round magazine, he slapped the bolt shut, loading the next round. Then he flicked the selector switch from semiauto to full-auto. Sergeant Price placed the barrel of his M4A1 into the gun slit and proceeded to empty his thirty-round magazine into the compartment. Pulling back against the wall, he dropped the empty magazine and slammed a fresh one in place.

  “Damn good assault, Sergeant Price,” he heard from behind him. He glanced back to see Lieutenant Rafael Martinez, his platoon leader. More men were stacking up against the bunker wall his fireteam had formed up on.

  Price nodded in acknowledgment, then turned to his squad, signaling with his hands that they were going to breach the bunker. Once they had finished stacking against the wall next to the bunker entrance, one of his soldiers pulled the door open slightly, throwing a grenade in and slamming the door shut. A second later, the grenade went off, and the private opened the door again, allowing the team to rush in and begin clearing the first room.

  That first area of the bunker complex turned out to be the gun room, so they scarfed up some additional weapons before moving to the next entrance. Before they moved down the hallway and deeper into the complex, they threw a hand grenade down the hall and waited for the explosion. They rushed through the entrance, weapons at the ready, and found the next room. The other members of their platoon weren’t far behind Sergeant Price’s team. Together they would clear the complex much more quickly. Ten minutes went by. Aside from two enemy soldiers who had surrendered, they didn’t meet any further resistance.