Battlefield Pacific

Coming Storm

General Yang Yin sat in his office sipping on a cup of tea as he reviewed the latest casualty report from the Philippines. Following his success in the Vietnam campaign, General Yang had been given command of all PLA forces responsible for capturing the Philippines and Formosa. It was a daunting challenge, but one he thrived on.

Still, things hadn’t exactly been going his way lately. What Yang hadn’t predicted was the level of casualties the northern army group was taking. The “trap” they had laid for the American and ROK forces by allowing them to cross the Yalu River had been nothing short of disastrous. While the counteroffensive appeared to have worked when they’d lured the Americans across the border, the Americans’ ability to make use of their heavy bombers and the quick reassignment of the US Marine Force from Busan had ultimately doomed the offensive. The northern army group had sustained nearly 112,000 casualties over four weeks and at the end of the day, had been pushed out of Korea for the second time in four months.

As he read the papers in front of him, General Yang was happy to see that the 43rd Airborne had done a superb job in capturing key targets within the Philippines. However, the rest of Lieutenant General Sheng’s Army Group B, which consisted of the 20th Army and the 27th Army, hadn’t secured all their objectives yet. It was frustrating for Yang having to use General Sheng’s army group rather than his own. Yang’s Army Group A had been given the tasks of reuniting the renegade province of Formosa, which frankly had been consuming most of his time.

Looking up from his papers, Yang eyed General Sheng’s deputy, a brigadier general. “Why hasn’t General Sheng captured the remaining objectives yet? We’re under a strict timeline to secure the Philippines and begin fortifying them against the Americans. They’re going to invade soon, and your boss is failing to get the country secured,” Yang grilled.

Squirming in his seat a bit, the general did his best to respond. “As you can see, General, our forces are sustaining heavy casualties. The Filipinos are fighting more fiercely than we had anticipated. I know that the objectives we haven’t secured will be captured in the next couple of weeks. We ask for more time and reinforcements.”

Yang took a deep breath to stop himself from having a loud outburst over Sheng’s inability to complete his objectives. If he had his way, he would have replaced him. Unfortunately, General Sheng was politically well-connected, so removing him without sufficient cause would be difficult. “General, do you know how many casualties we sustained unifying Formosa?” Yang asked through gritted teeth.

The deputy’s face remained stoic and emotionless as he shook his head.

“During the first day of the invasion, we suffered 31,000 casualties. On the second day, we sustained another 18,000 casualties. To date, a total of 72,000 soldiers have been taken out of commission during this effort. During that same time, General Sheng has also lost nine thousand.”

General Sheng’s deputy now looked nervous as he realized their request for more reinforcements in light of the number of casualties being sustained on Formosa seemed trivial. Even during the Vietnam campaign, they hadn’t sustained that level of casualties.

Knowing he needed to try and save face for his commander, the deputy inquired, “Sir, is it possible for us to get some added ground-attack planes and additional landing crafts? Part of the problem we’re having is getting our various units to the many islands. Presently, we’re bypassing the smaller islands until we’ve secured the larger, more populated ones. We’ve prioritized the capture of the islands where the engineers have said they need the anti-ship missile batteries to be placed.”

General Yang grunted. “Tell General Sheng that I’ll order an additional squadron of ground-attack aircraft and additional troop landing ships to your command. I won’t give you more troops. The reinforcements we have available are being sent to reinforce Formosa and our forces in the north battling the Americans. I’m also giving you a hard deadline to complete your objectives. You have four weeks to finish securing the Philippines. No more delays, or there will be problems,” Yang said with a bit of heat in his voice. He didn’t have time to deal with incompetence, and his reputation was also on the line. The Americans were coming, and he was still not ready for them.

After dismissing Sheng’s deputy, he returned to the task at hand, getting Formosa ready to repel an American invasion. While his forces now controlled the eastern beachheads that would most likely be used, the challenge was building them up sufficiently to withstand the brutal assault the Americans would launch.

He signaled for his own deputy, Brigadier General Yi, to come join him. As soon as Yi entered the room, General Yang bluntly asked, “What is the status of the Yilan County beachheads? Are they ready to repel an invasion yet?”

Yilan County was a province with a large area of relatively flat lowlands and beaches on the eastern side of Taiwan. It was by far the most likely area the Americans would invade from. Aside from the low-lying area, which would make it easier to offload their heavy equipment and armored forces, it had a number of major road junctions the Americans would want to use as they looked to expand off the beaches.

Pulling some data up from his tablet, General Yi answered, “Yilan County is prepared to meet the Americans at the beaches, Sir. The engineers have built hundreds of small machine-gun bunkers, covering nearly every approach off the beaches. They have also completed dozens of hidden anti-ship bunkers several miles inland. Per your instruction, we have placed most of our antiaircraft guns and missile systems intermixed with the civilian population. If the Americans decide to attack them, then they will hit a lot of civilian structures.”

General Yang nodded and smiled. The Chinese all knew that the Americans were incredibly risk-averse when it came to collateral damage. They would sooner lose hundreds of soldiers taking an objective than accidentally kill a few dozen civilians — a trait the Chinese Army did not share.

“What about the Japanese Islands? Are they going to pose a threat to us?” asked Yang.

General Yang was still a bit angry that his senior leadership had ordered him to capture the Philippines before he had had a chance to secure the Yaeyama district, which was so close to Formosa. By the time they had finished their operation in the Philippines, the Japanese Defense Force had moved a large number of soldiers to those five islands. Invading them at this point would have been very costly, so the higher-ups had decided they would have to be invaded at a later date.

General Yi shook his head. “We’ve been hitting the islands with multiple short-range cruise and ballistic missiles for the past month. None of the airfields are currently operational, and we’ve hit the known military installations multiple times. It’s my assessment that the islands do not pose a significant threat to our occupation now, although that may change once the American Pacific Fleet moves into range of our forces.”

Yang nodded. “Excellent. Please continue to get the island ready to repel the Americans. It won’t be long until they arrive, and once they do, they’ll unleash everything they have on us.”

Vice Admiral Shen was getting anxious for the final battle of the Pacific to start. The loss of the Wuhan a couple of days ago had been a real blow to his plan. Unfortunately, he had too many moving parts going now to stop the attack. They had lured the American fleet into the Philippine Sea, and it was nearly time for him to spring his trap.

Despite this setback, Shen was not feeling completely hopeless. To gain entry into the Chinese bastion that was the South China Sea, the Americans really only had two viable options: they could maneuver south and slide between the southern Philippine Islands in the Celebes Sea, or they could move toward the northern side of the Philippines, which would also bring them close to Formosa, or Taiwan, as the Americans called it. Going south through the Celebes Sea would mean traveling through dozens upon dozens of small Indonesian islands where the PLA Navy had installed hundreds of anti-ship cruise missile batteries. Traveling north would bring them closer to the Filipino landmass of Luzon and the now-occupied province of Formosa, where, again, the PLA Navy had placed hundreds of anti-ship missile batteries.

Shen smiled as he remembered his secret weapon. Unbeknownst to the Americans, a small group of five Malaysian cargo ships had taken up position between the Island of Palau and Colonia, which was several hundred miles southwest of Guam.

During World War II, the German Kriegsmarine had operated a series of merchant raider vessels in the Pacific, which were essentially commercial ships that had been converted to operate as clandestine raiders. The commercial ships were often outfitted with a series of torpedo launchers and cannons, which were hidden by collapsible panels or other disguises, allowing the ships to sneak up on Allied freighters or convoys. Once the raider vessels were close enough to their prey, they would unveil their weapons and engage the convoys. In one case, the German raider Orion had sunk fourteen Allied ships before it was hunted down and sunk by the Royal Navy in 1945.

Pulling a page from history, Admiral Shen had had a series of cargo vessels converted to merchant raiders prior to the war, so they could be used in this elaborate trap he had set to destroy the American Pacific Fleet. The ships chosen for this special mission had originally been used for transporting grain or other dry goods in their cargo holds. Unlike the large container freighters, the upper decks of these cargo ship holds weren’t covered by shipping containers. This allowed the Chinese engineers to fill the cargo holds with vertical launch systems, or VLS. The newest PLA Navy destroyer, the Type 055 Renhai, packed 112 VLS missiles. The cargo ships were able to hold an astounding 600 VLS missiles.

The merchant raiders were equipped with 300 YJ-18A anti-ship cruise missiles with an operational range of 220 to 540 kilometers, and a 140- to 300-kilogram warhead that could reach speeds of Mach 0.8 when cruising and Mach 2.5–3.0 when in terminal attack mode. This gave the ships an incredible offensive reach. The raiders were also equipped with 200 YJ-100 long-range anti-ship cruise missiles. These missiles were particularly nasty, as they had an operating range of 1,500 kilometers and packed a 500-kilogram warhead. Between these raiders and the cruise missile batteries that awaited them, the Americans would not be able to approach them without some major losses.

For the past four hours, Shen and his staff had been monitoring the progress of the American fleet as it sailed toward the Philippines. They were eagerly waiting to see which direction the fleet would travel. If they headed south, then they would sail right into the merchant raider trap he had waiting for them near Palau. If they headed north, then the raiders would have to turn north and move at maximum speed to stay within range of the American fleet. That way, when the time came, they would be in range to add their missiles to the mix.

What Admiral Shen and the Chinese Navy had learned during the opening days of the Second Korean War was that the American fleet was vulnerable to a missile swarm attack. While the American Aegis system was still far superior to their own system, it lacked enough ships with sufficient missiles to shoot down the incoming threats. Had the PLA Navy leadership listened to Shen’s original request and converted ten merchant raiders, they would have had enough anti-ship missiles to completely wipe out the American Seventh Fleet. Instead, they had only converted five ships to fit this role, and he had to keep those five ships situated with him, since his naval counterpart in the north didn’t share his same vision of how these ships could change the outcome of the war.

Finally, there was some perceptible movement in the blinking lights on the map display. “Ugh, they are turning north,” thought Shen.

Admiral Shen turned to one of his communications officers. “Send a flash message to the merchant fleet for them to execute Operation Lightning Wind.” With that simple coded message, the merchant fleet would move quickly to their preplanned attack position. They would hold off on launching their missiles until they received their final targeting data from the Pacific radar ocean reconnaissance satellites.

The officer nodded, typed out the message and hit Send. While the message made its way through the ether, the entirety of the South China Sea’s fleet moved at flank speed toward the Americans for what would arguably be the largest naval battle since World War II.