by Dale Brown
three-zero-zero. "
The captain closed his eyes. It had begun. Although not as
he would have envisioned the Battle For Chinese Reunification
to commence, it had finally happened. "Sound general quar-
ters," he ordered. The ship-wide mechanical alarm bells began
ringing immediately. "Clear the flight deck, launch the ASW
helicopters, prepare to retaliate against the rebel submarine.
Haul anchor and prepare to get under way. Warn the rest of
the fleet that we will be maneuvering for ASW air combat
operations and ready all submarine countermeasures. Send a
flash satellite emergency message to Eastern and South China
Sea Fleet headquarters and advise them that the Mao carrier
group is under attack by Taiwanese submarine forces."
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
FATAL TER RAI N 225
mounts, and access hatches, waiting to watch the new dem-
onstration 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edge safety nets had been retracted into their stowed positions.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 arty'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 brid ge. 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 Se
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 dunk-'
ing 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, bear-
ing one-niner-zero ... Attack Two, transition south five hun-
dred 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 ... torpe-
does away, torpedoes away, all units be advised, remain clear
_M
226 DALE BROWN
... tor@edoes 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 gey-
sers 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 -re-
ceived 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.-made Mk 37 tor-
pedoes.
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.
OVER PEI-KAN-T'ANG ISLAND, 90 MILES
NORTHWEST OF TAIPEI, TAIWAN'
THURSDAY, 19 JUNE i997, 0807 HOURS LOCAL
(WEDNESDAY, IS JUNE, 2007 HOURS ET)
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-T'ang
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
FATAL T ER RAI N 227
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 of-
ficially a Taiwanese "coastal defense" outpost, with Taiwa-
nese-made Hsiung Feng (Male Bee) anti-ship cruise missiles
and U.-made Improved-HAWK antiaircraft missiles sta-
tioned there, along with one special forces group and a light
infantry division. Unofficially, Taiwan had several sophisti-
cated intelligence-gathering listening posts in the Matsu Is-
lands, along with special communic
ations systems, the
National Security Bureau of Taiwan could tap into China's
telephone, telegraph, and telex network from the.Matsu Is-
lands, 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 oc-
casion 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 inter-
section 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 de-
viation 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 Rus-
sian MiG-17,49, 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
228 DALE BROWN
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 check-
point 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.
But such serious errors were fortunately rare, and in general
flying so close to the mainland, so close to the enormous mil-
itary might of the People's Republic of China, was very rou-
tine, almost mundane. The key was in a careful cross-check.
Captain Shen double-checked that the proper tower control
frequency was set-it was. Double-check the ILS (Instrument
Landing System) frequency, get a good Morse code ident-
got it. Double-check the inbound course set-got it. Double-
check the NDB (Non-Directional Beacon) frequency set, get a
good ident, then check that the marker beacon lights were
working-got it. Gyro heading indicators checked with the
11 whiskey" compass-done, both within five degrees, which
was a lot but acceptable. Double-check the ILS, with the VOR
(Very-high-frequency Oranidirectional Receiver) on the copi-
lot's side, in case the glideslope went out-done. If there was
any big deviation, the copilot would call it out and they'd
decide as a crew which approach to use. In this weather, losing
the ILS might mean returning back to Taipei because the VOR
was never as accurate as the ILS, but both appeared to be
working fine. Shen wished he had a GPS (Global Positioning
System) satellite navigation receiver, but this old transport
wasn't slated to get one for several weeks.
Now the business of shooting a "no shit" instrument ap-
proach got under way. For any pilot, even one with as many
hours as Shen, flying totally on instruments, without one single
reference outside the cockpit, was always tension-filled. The
C-430's autopilot was a simple heading-hold system, not cou-
FATAL TERRAIN 229
pled to the ILS, So Shen was hand-flying it on this approach.
It was like playing a video game, maneuvering the sixty-
thousand-pound plane in order to keep two needles on the HSI
(Horizontal Situation Indicator) forming a perfect cross in the
center of the instrument. The needles' movement got more
sensitive as they got closer to the field, so Shen's inputs had
to be more careful, more delicate. But if he kept those needles
centered perfectly, at just the right airs eed, he would be lined
up perfectly on the runway, in positi P
without any gross turns or dives. on to execute a landing
"Coming up on point Charlie," the copilot announced.
"Approach flaps," Shen ordered, and the copilot put in
twenty degrees of flaps, which slowed the big transport down
nicely to just below approach speed, they'd get back u to
approach speed as they started down the glideslope, the invis-
ible electronic "ramp" that would take them to the runway.
Shen now focused all his attention on the instruments, per-
forrning a careful scan of the four primary flight instruments-
the Copilot would look after the engine instruments and other
indicators. The HSI in the center of the instrument panel in
front of the pilot was a combination gyro compass, omni bear-
ing indicator, and ILS indicator, SO that was the central instru-
ment to watch; next was the artificial horizon, back to the HSI,
then out to the airspeed indicator, back to the HSI, out to the
altimeter, back to the HSI, out to the vertical velocity indicator,
back to the HSI, then perhaps a quick scan Of the engine in-
struments, and a peek out the cockpit windscreen before start-
ing the scan all over again.
"Point Charlie. .. now," the copilot said, resting his hand
on the gear handle. "Glideslope alive.- When the glideslope
needle on the HSI reached five degrees above center, Shen
ordered the Copilot to lower the landing gear. "Gear down,"
t@e copilot repeated, as he put the handle down. A red light in
the handle illuminated, meaning the gear was unlocked, and
the three gear-position indicators moved from up to black and
white stripes, indicating the gear was in an intermediate po-
sition. "Gear moving. . ." One by one the gear indicators
showed DOWN, and seconds later the red light in the gear han-
dle went out. "Three down and locked, red light out,,, the
copilot said. He reached over and moved an indicator bug on
the altimeter. "Decision height, two-forty.-
"Roger," Shen said. He lowered the nose, reduced power,
230 DALE BROWN
and transitioned smoothly onto the glideslope. There was a
pretty good crosswind from the west, and Shen banked left to
center the localizer needle.
"Transport One-Five, contact tower," they heard on the ra-
dio. Right on time. The transmission was a bit scratchy-a
storm was brewing, Shen thought, a big thunderstorm. Hope-
fully they'd be on the ground well before it reached the air-
field.
"One-Five going to tower," the copilot acknowledged, then
switched channels and announced, "Matsu Tower, Transport
One-Five point Charlie inbound on the ILS."
There was a scratchy, barely readable "Roger, One-Five,"
then a garbled "Clear to land," and the copilot acknowledged
the clearance and reported the clearance to Shen as he set up
the ground control frequency.'The ground spotters had issued
the landing clearance early, considering the cloud cover-
maybe it wasn't as thick as it looked from up here, Shen
thought.
Needles centered perfectly, airspeed right on the dot-this
approach was going well. A bit more crosswind correction,
left wing down - - - "Two thousand to go," the copilot said.
"Engines look good," the engineer, sitting behind the co-
pilot, said. He looked at the forward instrument panel, triple-
checking the indications prior to landing. "Gear, flaps, lights,
all check." He made a quick announcement on intercom to
the passengers in the back, ordering them to check that their
seat belts were on. "Before-landing check complete."
Bit more left-there, needles centered again, right on the
glideslope. The Doppler was not locked on-it commonly did
not lock on over water-but even without it he knew he had
some pretty hellacious west winds. No sweat, he could handle
it.
One thousand above," the copilot said.
"Doppler's OTL,- the flight engineer said, meaning "out
to lunch," "mag compass ... it's OTL too." The flight en-
gineer quickly checked the engine and flight systems, looking
for any sign of trouble.
"Looking good, a little hot," the copilot said. Shen was
fight on the glideslope, so he pulled the throttles back slightly
to get back on the proper airspeed. That should be his last
correction, he reminded himself-any more corrections this
close to the airfield and he'd be "chasing" the ILS needles,