by Andy Farman
“Mind your language and help him on board!”
Muttering under his breath he secured the painter to a cleat and extended his hand to the American, helping him onto the deck. It took two attempts to assist the weakened Nikki aboard and the elderly lady left the wheel to hurry forward, where she fussed over her and hustled her below. Sandy brought with him their meagre supplies and the seawater still before the raft was cast adrift.
“I suppose you’re a bloody yank an ‘all?” was his greeting from the sailor.
“No I’m not, I’m Scottish.” He replied with a friendly smile, but if he thought his rescuer would be pleased he was mistaken.
“Another bloody foreigner, the best thing about Scotland is the road out of it…do any of you speak Chinese, there’s one of them lot on board too?”
Philippines: 1100hrs, same day
On April 27th 1521, at a place now called Puerto (or Punta) Engaño in a wide bay on the north of the low lying island of Mactan, Fernao de Magalhaes or to give him his Spanish name, Ferdinand Magellan, the great Portuguese explorer in the pay of the Spanish crown, had attempted to land and take the island by conquest. The local chieftain, a warrior by the name of Rajah (Chief) Lapu-Lapu had been kept abreast of Magellan’s activities by spies and messengers; he had no intention of being delivered unto Christianity and a Catholic God by way of a sharp edge across the back of the neck.
Apart from gunpowder, the other piece of high technology of the day that gave the invaders military superiority was armour plate, helmets, back and breastplates that protected vital organs. Lapu-Lapu and his men had only native Kampilan’s, Kalis and Daga’s, spears, broadswords, daggers and loin cloths along with their skill in the art of Kali and the Kun Tao way, a form of martial art. However, Lapu-Lapu may have been a primitive heathen in the eyes of the European invaders, but he had a warrior’s eye for tactics and a keen mind.
The spot that the boats from the Trinidad, Concepción, and Victoria headed for is no longer a sandy shore, Mangrove has long since choked off easy access from the sea, but it was here that Lapu-Lapu and his men lay in wait for the Spanish and their Portuguese leader.
When the Europeans jumped from their ships boats into water it came up to their chests in some cases. Both protected and hampered by helmets, arm and torso armour they had left off the plate that protected ham strings, knees and thighs because full armour and deep water are a bad combination for the wearer. Lapu-Lapu and his men attacked, unburdened by the heavy steel plate that weighed down their enemy wading ashore. Lapu-Lapu himself is said to have slain Magellan by stabbing him in both inner thighs before he could reach dry land and the first wave of invaders were routed, with the remainder forced to retire.
481 years later, on the afternoon of April 4th the invaders were Chinese and they also chose to land in the same bay, now named the Bay of Magellan. By landing there they had but a short haul to the joint civil and military airbase. Not much further away to the southwest lay the two road bridges spanning the Opon Channel, beyond that channel lay the larger island known as ‘The Princess of the South’, Cebu.
The only usable strip on Cebu for aircraft had been built by the Philippine Army Air Corps in 1941 at Lahug Field, Cebu City. It was overrun by heavily armed Japanese marines who’d been landed by seaplane in 1941, retaken by the Americans in 1945 before falling once more to Japanese in business suits in the mid-1990’s, who promptly built a shopping Mall and business park on the land. It may not have been conquest in accordance with the Bushido code, but it did far better on the stock markets.
A successful military occupation of Cebu as a base of operations required the use of all-weather tarmac runways, and Mactan had the only one.
With the Philippines Navy fully engaged off the islands of Luzon to the north and Palawan to the west in harassing other Chinese landings, it fell to the army to defend Cebu and Mactan.
The PRC had no paratroops available to seize the airport and so it had been left unmolested by their navy and air force as they needed it undamaged and operational almost immediately upon capture.
Colonel Lucio Villiarin was the commander of Philippine forces on Cebu and Mactan, an infantryman by trade and the son of a fisherman; he had spent almost his entire career fighting Muslim extremists on the southern islands. He knew he couldn’t keep the enemy from landing, he strongly doubted he could prevent the airfield from falling into their hands, but he was going to bleed them every yard of the way before withdrawing into the hills to fight on guerrilla style.
Once he had been informed that Chinese forces were heading for the Philippines he had set to work utilising whatever lay at hand, local shipping, and the construction teams at the airport who were expanding the airport facilities and buildings, and Cebu’s quarries and bottling plants.
Colonel Villiarin had few forces on Mactan; the barracks next to the airport at Benito Ebuen Air Base was empty and rigged for demolition. What he did have, aside from airbase defence troops, were OPs covering the shoreline all along the coast.
The colonel had read the situation well and had done his combat appreciation. The southeast shoreline was the territory of the tourist resorts with their palm trees and white sand beaches, all of it was suitable for a seaborne invasion, but the not-so pristine beaches to the north were equally ideal and far closer to the bridges and the airport.
All the airbases C-130 Hercules had left the previous day to move troops and supplies on Luzon, as had the smaller Caribou transports and helicopters. They had huge quantities of aviation fuel at the airport for the military aircraft and civil airliners, but the field was now bare of aircraft with the exception of a China Sea-Pacific Airlines A318-100 Airbus, grounded by an electrical fault.
A fleet of vehicles had carried barrels of aviation fuel to Cebu harbour where they had been loaded along with barrels of diesel fuel aboard the numerous rotting and rusting hulks that inhabit any port in the world. From there the hulks had been towed to designated sites and their sea cocks opened, once demolition engineers had finished preparing them.
Captain Timothy Yukomata of CSP Airlines had slept aboard the aircraft for the past two nights whilst he awaited the arrival of a technician to fix the fault on the aircraft. No technician had arrived and the manager of the airline office in Cebu had left the decision with him, whether or not to fly the aircraft to safety in Australia. He killed the time by listening into the local military radio traffic and watching the army engineers and civilian construction workers. As a hole was dug an angle grinder cut a shallow groove from it to the buildings and after half an hours’ activity in the hole, it and the grooves were sealed with poured concrete and then smoothed over.
He had been on the Sydney to Manila run although the aircraft had few passengers on the trip, mainly Filipinos anxious to return to their families or eager to fight. The airline was part owned by the Philippines government so it was not much of a surprise to Timothy that he was also carrying items described as ‘machine parts’ as freight. It was hardly an original ploy but they obviously sought to get as much ordinance to the island as they could, by any and all means before air traffic their ceased. Carry munitions and passengers was definitely a no-no under civil aviation rules, but he would bet good money that for the past few days every inch of space on all aircraft landing in the Philippines had been packed with similarly described cargo. When ATC had broadcast the news that Okinawa was being invaded and Luzon was under air attack, they had been only a half-hour from Manila, therefore in danger of being attacked. He had turned the aircraft around with the intention of landing his passengers at Davao on the second largest island in the Philippines, Mindanao. The engine fire warning light had prompted an emergency landing at the nearer Mactan International, even though it was patently obvious on the flight deck that the port engine was fine. Regulations stated that the aircraft could not be flown until the fault was rectified but there were no Airbus qualified maintenance crews at Mactan and they were ordered to wait for them to arrive from A
ustralia. However, no civilian airliners landed at Mactan as it was now within the war zone and the passengers left the island by ship, along with the rest of the crew the next day. Timothy had contacted the local military command centre, desperate for news of Okinawa and he had gone bearing gifts, the freight that had been intended for Manila. In return for the ‘machine parts’, which incidentally turned out to be of the shoulder fired, armour-piercing variety, they had shown him US satellite photos. It took him a minute to realise that what he was looking at was not an old aerial photo of the Somme battlefield. Rocket artillery and fuel air munitions had obliterated his village from the map along with the neighbouring town of Naha, where their parents lived. He knew in his heart that his family had been home when the Chinese attack had begun, so he chose to remain with the aircraft and the solitude that the duty brought, left alone with his thoughts.
The PLAN landings were supposed to have taken place before dawn, but a problem had arisen with the engines of the older of the two amphibious assault vessels taking part. The shallow draft Yukan class landing ship had gotten underway again, taking station behind the smaller but deeper drafted Yuting class Xux. It was late morning before the assault ships and their escort of two frigates, a destroyer and three fast attack boats were sighted by a fishing boat, one of many acting as early warning pickets lying out of sight of the islands.
Aboard the fishing boat, the skipper checked his charts and GPS before sending a clear and precise sighting report by radio. Colonel Villiarin was in his command post on a hillside above Cebu City when the fisherman’s report was received. The skipper was a retired bosuns mate with twenty years’ service in the Philippines Navy behind him. Villiarin listened admiringly as the number of ships and types, position, course and speed of the invaders was sent over and over. After a minutes worth of transmission, gunfire could be heard in the background but the skippers voice remained calm and clear until the first hits by a rapid firing cannon began to rake his vessel. There was silence in the CP as all present stared at the speaker on the man-portable RT set, the fishing boat skipper merely raised his voice to be heard above the noise of exploding 30mm cannon shells as he carried on reporting until suddenly the transmission ended in mid-sentence.
The three OPs covering the Bay of Magellan had been dug by JCBs operated by the airport’s construction crews. Timber, concrete slabs and sandbags protected them from the coming storm, after which sand and earth had been smoothed over, camouflaging them from prying eyes. The soldiers’ manning the OPs stared out across the open waters of the bay where only fishermen’s buoys bobbed on the waves. The enemy ships were still below the horizon when the roar of aircraft engines broke the quiet of the bay and the large shadow of an airliner were cast upon the sea, heading northeast.
The lookouts aboard the PLAN amphibious assault ship Xux were alert and scanning the horizon for periscopes, ships and aircraft. Emcon was in force
Despite the loss of nights covering shroud, and although they knew the location of all Philippine Navy vessels, a satellite pass had caught several Singaporean surface combat units transiting the Sulu Sea, presumably enroute to Australia. At this moment those vessels could be anywhere within a 100-mile radius of their last known position and contact with them could wreck the planned landings.
Rock from the islands quarries had been loaded into the Cebu fishing boats hold and its mast removed, creating low visual and radar profiles. Hastily applied blue paint added to the reason that the small vessel went undetected by the lookouts. Once her radio had begun transmitting however, the PLAN had her position locked down to within six feet.
The fast attack boats had closed rapidly on the tiny unarmed vessel which they had sunk within three minutes of opening fire, but not before her skipper had reported troop carrying helicopters onboard the larger vessels spooling up and crewmen aboard the assault ships, hastily operating the ships large derricks, swinging outboard the hovercraft that occupied their fore decks.
The PLAN task force carried two battalions of marines, two light tanks, two BMP-80s and the means to deliver them ashore by helicopter, hovercraft and LC (T), landing craft (tank). As the defenders probably knew where they now were, they lost no time in putting the first stage of the assault into operation. Two Hokum attack helicopters raced towards the horizon whilst six troop carriers followed on, destination Mactan International airport.
A hundred marines were packed aboard the Ming Tz assault hovercraft, the noise of the turbofan engines reverberated across the water but inside their armoured hulls the troops had only been aware of the crush of their neighbours as they held themselves upright by gripping the rails welded to the cabin roof in the troop compartment. There had been no room to sit and no seating even if there had been for the men were packed in like sardines. Four of the five rotating gun turrets housed twin mounted 7.62mm machine guns, set at each corner of the rectangular hulls. A 23mm cannon occupied the fifth, set slightly forward of the centreline, above the cockpit.
Heading southwest at forty-nine knots the gunners had scant moments to register the civilian airliner that passed 50’ above their heads, heading northeast at three hundred and eighty knots.
Timothy Yukomata had at least been able to silence the audible engine fire warning, but he had to remind himself that he had not long to endure the constant chatter from Nagging Nellie, scolding him in a digitally created voice that he was too low.
A quick warning was broadcast to the task force from one of the three fast attack boats that preceded the hovercraft, but the Airbus had arrived before completion of the message, ploughing into the Xux at full throttle.
The Hokum’s had arrived over the airport with little or no warning and made short work of dispatching the pair of .5 calibre machine guns in a sandbagged emplacement atop the arrivals terminal. Six other bunkers about the airfield were chewed up by their cannon, but they saw no troops on the ground. To all intents and purposes the facility bore every sign of having been abandoned in haste. The runway-widening project the helicopter crews had been told of appeared to have reached the point where the hardcore in the foundations awaited its first covering of concrete. The extension to the existing departures lounge was at the concrete and cinder block shell stage but no construction workers or airport personnel were to be seen.
The troop carriers followed the plan for an unopposed landing; the major in command of this phase had sneered in contempt that the Filipinos had not even attempted to block the runway before running away.
Three of his helicopters dropped off marines about the perimeter and once done the major ordered his own and the two remaining helicopters to land on the hard standing before the arrivals and departures buildings. Intent as he had been on looking for enemy points of resistance he had not noticed the colour and texture of concrete was not uniform. As he sprinted across the concrete towards the airport buildings he had in fact noticed, then dismissed, that the marine in front of him had left depressions in a five foot square patch of concrete that had not quite dried, as he ran across it.
The troop carriers had begun to lift off again to add the firepower of their door guns to that of the Hokum gunships when a Filipino combat engineer turned a handle that completed the firing circuit.
Far away in his hillside CP, Colonel Villiarin had watched with satisfaction through a telescope as heavy demolition charges destroyed the hard standing, buildings, tower, barracks, fuel dump and finally the runway where they had tunnelled at an angle below its foundations to place them. He had been too far away to distinguish individuals but the specks of four helicopters, one of them a gunship, had been swallowed by the fountaining concrete, rock and tarmac.
The Filipino troops in their OPs heard the hovercraft before they came into view, they were built for speed rather than stealth and the powerful engine plants, which pushed their bulks over the waves, could not be muted without losing efficiency. Even whilst the debris was still falling to earth, the airbase defence company had emerged from their camouflaged
holes and waded into the surviving Chinese marines.
The first enemy vessels that hove into view were the fast attack boats, like greyhounds in line astern they’d entered the bay, pouring cannon and machine gun fire into likely cover, venturing to within 80’ of the shore as they did so.
Aside from reporting by landline the OPs took no further action, they had only one other task to perform before un-assing and bugging out.
Crewmen aboard the three fast craft saw the sea heave up to seaward of them and reported to the task force that the enemy had heavy artillery.
The troops in the OPs had been briefed that they needed to have line of sight to the fishermen’s buoys with their attached short range HF receivers, but with the fast attack boats churned up the waters, it had set the buoys bobbing wildly so it took over a minute of frantic button pressing before all the charges in the sunken hulks went off, rupturing barrels of Avgas and diesel, releasing their lighter than water contents. They had waited for the hovercraft to enter the bay before depressing a second switch, which detonated the incendiary bombs, affixed to the buoys radio receivers.
Hovercraft are lifted by cushions of air retained within the vessels skirts, which are usually made of rubber or similar, plastic based derivatives. The engines that produce the air cushion also provide propulsion, drawing in air in the case of the Chinese craft, through air scoops set in the hull.
To the pilots of the two craft when they eventually approached, the unobstructed view of the beach was replaced by flame and black oily smoke. Although they had already throttled back to 30 knots, they had plunged into the holocaust before they could sheer off. One pilot had slammed the throttles forward and held his course whilst the other threw the controls to the left, seeking to escape back out to sea. Neither action had saved the craft because starved of air and with the air scoops filters clogging with soot, their engines had at first laboured and then stalled.