Battlefield Taiwan

Battle of Taipei

Sergeant Lin pulled another cigarette out of his pack of Pall Malls; he frowned when he realized the pack was now empty. Sitting against the wall of the corner café his group of soldiers had taken up residence in, he lit up his last cigarette, taking a deep breath in and filling his lungs with the smoke and nicotine. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to clear his mind for a few minutes while he enjoyed his last Pall Mall. He knew there would be more heavy fighting shortly, and he was taking a few minutes to enjoy one of the last luxuries he had, not knowing if he would live another day or if this would be his last. There were only nine members of his company left alive since the initial invasion. His brigade was more like the size of a reinforced battalion than a brigade. His unit had fought bitterly from one defensive position to another, eventually being pushed back to Taipei.

With no Taiwanese air support to speak of, the PLA had been pouring tens of thousands of soldiers a day onto the island, with no way of being able to stop the incoming storm. It was only a matter of time until the island was fully occupied.

Sergeant Lin wondered, “What exactly are we fighting for now? If we have no hope of winning, then why do we continue this conflict? How many civilians are being killed on a daily basis because the government wants to keep fighting? We are destroying this city block by block…”

Just as his private thoughts were starting to run amok, a familiar voice called out. It was Major Wu, one of the few officers from their battalion left alive. “Sergeant Lin, one of the scouts has spotted a mechanized infantry unit moving in our direction. I need you to get the antitank missiles moved to the upper rooms of the building and get ready to engage them once they get within range,” Wu ordered.

“Yes, Sir. We’ll set a nice trap for them,” replied Lin as he got up, grabbing his rifle and heading to the other room, where a lot of the soldiers were currently resting.

When Lin entered the room, he saw roughly thirty soldiers lying in various positions on the floor, trying desperately to catch up on some much-needed rest. The fighting the last few weeks had been fierce and nearly nonstop, exhausting them all. Lin kicked one of the soldier’s feet, causing him to stir.

“Everyone up!” he shouted. “We have enemy troops heading towards our position.” Sergeant Lin spoke in a loud authoritative voice, making sure everyone heard him and started to get moving right away.

The men started to rustle, getting to their feet a bit slowly. As they pulled their minds out of the sleepy fog, they started to put their body armor back on and grabbed their weapons.

“I need the fire teams to take up your defensive positions. The antitank soldiers need to grab their rockets and come with me. We are going up to some of the higher floors to get a better angle on the armor units,” he ordered.

Then Lin turned to his most senior sergeant left alive. “Sergeant Yang, you are in charge of the fire teams on this level. Understood?”

The sergeant nodded and started rounding up his group of soldiers, getting them moving to the various machine gun positions they had established. The group had strung together a series of machine gun positions that would provide them with interlocking fields of fire when the PLA ground forces made their advance.

Lately, the PLA had been using a lot of militia forces to bum-rush their positions, while the more experienced regular army units advanced behind them. This tactic had been working well for the PLA. While most of the militia units would get wiped out, they forced the Taiwanese soldiers to expend a lot of ammunition on them and give away their positions. This enabled the more experienced regular army soldiers to hit them hard with direct fire from tanks and indirect fire from artillery.

As Sergeant Lin trudged up to the emergency stairwell to the fourth-floor landing, he stopped for a minute while the soldiers below him caught up to him. He sent four soldiers into the fourth floor to set up their positions.

“Remember, don’t bunch up, and make your shots count. We only have so many of those rockets left,” he instructed. “Plus, once you fire from one position, make sure you move to a new spot because the enemy will likely send a tank round your direction, or at least some heavy machine gun fire.”

The soldiers nodded in response and proceeded to fan out on the fourth floor.

Lin led the rest of the soldiers up to the top floor, the seventh floor, which would also act as their observation point. He had twelve soldiers with him. Four soldiers carried antitank rockets, three were snipers, and the rest made up two heavy machine gun teams.

“All right, I want you guys to fan out and find a good position,” Sergeant Lin ordered the rocket-toting soldiers. “Make sure you have some cover and identify your next firing position and get those ready as well. I do not want you guys to sit in one position for too long.”

He then turned to face his next set of soldiers. “Snipers, I want you guys to set up a little way back in the building, so you are not easily spotted. Your primary target is the PLA officers. If you spot an officer or someone leading the soldiers forward, take them out.”

The soldiers immediately went to work, identifying where the best positions would be and figuring out what they could use for cover. This was the third such building they had taken over and would fight from in the past week, so they were getting better at figuring out what would work and what wouldn’t. If and when the fighting became too intense, they would be ordered to fall back to the next city block and take up another set of defensive positions.

The sounds of jet aircraft flying low and fast over the city echoed loudly through the shattered windows of the building. When they had moved into this building the day before, they had gone through and intentionally broken all of the windows, eliminating the glass as a potential source of shrapnel. It would also reduce the risk of giving away their firing positions when they started shooting.

Once the jets passed by overhead, they heard the thunderous booms of multiple explosions, not too far away. Then came the unmistakable sound of helicopters.

Lin looked to the soldier who was carrying their last two Stingers, signaling him to get the first one ready and move towards the blown-out window.

Thump, thump, thump. The helicopter blades grew louder as they echoed off the buildings of the city. Then they saw the first helicopter come into view. It was a CAIC Z-10 ground attack helicopter, similar to the American Apaches. As they watched the chopper move, it was clear that it was not headed directly for their position, but it was certainly advancing in their direction. They needed to neutralize that helicopter before it became a problem.

The young soldier prepped the Stinger and turned to Lin, signaling that he was ready. Then, he turned the surface-to-air missile towards the helicopter and activated the heat-seeking warhead. In seconds, the warbling tone from the launcher let the soldier know the warhead had acquired the target and was ready to be fired. As the soldier squeezed the trigger, the missile made a loud popping noise as it was ejected from the tube and the rocket motor ignited.

The missile streaked out of the building at lightning speed towards the Z-10. The helicopter immediately reacted to the threat and dispensed multiple flares in an attempt to throw the Stinger off. Unfortunately for the pilot of the Z-10, the Stingers the Americans had shipped to the Taiwanese days before the war had started were the newest, most advanced version of the missile. The seeker identified the flares and ignored them, directing the missile towards the helicopter as it desperately tried to seek cover by dipping down between buildings. In less than five seconds, the Stinger had closed the distance and detonated its warhead, spraying the chopper with its deadly shrapnel. The helicopter exploded a second later and crashed to the ground below.

Two more Z-10s appeared off in the horizon and headed towards their building now that they knew it was occupied. Sergeant Lin knew they had probably seen where the Stinger had come from and would likely try to lob a few rockets or missiles in their direction.

Lin immediately told the soldiers in his group, “Get down and be ready for impact!”

As he was about to hit the floor himself, out of the corner of his eye he spotted several Stingers racing towards the helicopters from a different building, several blocks away from them.

The helicopters immediately began to jink from side to side and dropped in altitude to get between the buildings and try to escape the Stingers heading towards them. One of the missiles slammed into a nearby building, missing the helicopters, but the second missile found its mark, obliterating another threat from the sky.

While the aerial attack was taking place, dozens upon dozens of enemy infantry fighting vehicles and tanks rumbled down the streets, heading towards them. The lead T-99 moved closer, until it was only two blocks away. Sergeant Lin’s soldiers held their fire as they had been instructed, letting the tanks get closer. As the tankers moved forward, so did densely packed units of PLA militia.

Sergeant Lin lifted the small radio to his mouth and relayed a set of orders to the soldiers on the fourth floor, who had eight American-made AT-4 rockets with them. In seconds, he saw three rockets fly out in the direction of the enemy tanks. The T-99’s self-defense systems immediately activated, destroying two of the rockets, while the third one plowed into the top of the turret’s roof, causing a small explosion. In less than a second, that small blast turned into a much larger detonation, blowing the turret completely off as the ammunition on board caught fire and exploded.

Lin watched several more rockets fly toward the enemy tanks from the floors below him. Two rockets were destroyed by the tanks’ defensive systems, but two more hit their marks, disabling the tanks they had hit.

Whistles blew, and suddenly the waves of militia units ran forward, right towards their positions. The machine gunners on Lin’s floor immediately opened fire, pouring hundreds of rounds into the wall of militia soldiers charging their position. Enemy soldiers were dropping to the ground like ragdolls from the barrage of bullets being fired at them. The machine gun positions on the lower floors of Lin’s building also added their fire to the melee, wiping out row after row of the militia soldiers.

“How can they just run into our machine guns like that and not break?” Lin asked himself as one of the machine guns near him began to reload. It was sickening how many enemy soldiers they were killing. It was like they were sheaves of wheat being cut down by a mighty scythe.

With nearly half a dozen tanks destroyed or disabled, several infantry fighting vehicles began to move around the wreckage and advance towards their positions. Suddenly, a loud ripping sound blasted Sergeant Lin’s senses and he instinctually dropped to the floor, just in time to see chunks of the brick wall flying inward. The room he was in was ripped apart by dozens of heavy-caliber machine guns. The armored vehicles had turned their 25mm and 30mm auto cannons towards their little fortress, systematically trying to shred them and suppress their fire while the militia forces advanced.

In seconds, nearly half of the soldiers on the floor with Lin were torn to pieces by the heavy-caliber rounds. One of the soldiers’ head simply exploded as a round tore right through one of the support beams the soldier had been hiding behind. Another soldier had both of his legs ripped off when he tried to move to a position further within the building; his cries of agony could be heard over the roar of the enemy machine guns.

Despite this deadly chaos, Sergeant Lin’s remaining machine gunners continued to pour their deadly fire down on the enemy soldiers advancing towards them. Just as Lin didn’t think they would be able to hold out any longer, one of the few remaining M60 Patton tanks emerged from an alleyway nearby and fired an antipersonnel round into the militia forces that were about to overrun their position.

The tank’s M1028 canister round was essentially a large shotgun round, spewing hundreds of steel ball bearings out the barrel at the charging enemy soldiers. As the tank’s gunner continued firing antipersonnel rounds into the human wave, attempting to overwhelm them, the Patton’s coax machine gun added its own fire, and so did the tank commander’s M2 .50 turret-mounted machine gun.

In less than fifteen seconds, the tank had wiped out nearly 200 enemy soldiers as the militia attack faltered. Then, the PLA regular army soldiers began to advance, along with several infantry fighting vehicles. The M60 Patton switched from firing antipersonnel rounds to their high-explosive anti-tank or HEAT rounds, targeting the enemy armored vehicles. In short order, two of the armored vehicles were destroyed in a blaze of glory.

Out of nowhere, a T-99 suddenly appeared from around a nearby corner and fired a HEAT round at the M60. The Taiwanese tank exploded from the impact, killing the crew instantly, but not before they had helped to blunt the enemy attack.

Sergeant Lin was just about to report what was going on when Major Wu came over the radio. “Sergeant, have your soldiers fall back to the next defensive position!” he ordered.

“Fall back! Fall back now!” Lin yelled at his men over the sounds of the nearby conflict.

His soldiers immediately followed his orders, picking up their gear and moving out. However, as Lin’s men took their gear and ran, the PLA soldiers noticed that the Taiwanese had stopped firing on them and tried to rush the positions that Sergeant Lin and his men were trying to vacate.

As Lin reached the ground floor, he pressed down on the detonator to the six Claymore mines they had daisy-chained together. The sudden roar and boom of the explosion rocked the building Lin was exiting and wiped out a company’s worth of enemy soldiers, who were just about to enter the building.

By the time Sergeant Lin’s thirty-eight-man force made it to the next defensive line, they were down to just twenty-one soldiers. Lin looked around at the tired, scared and dirty faces and thought, “We can’t keep fighting like this. There won’t be anyone left. Someone needs to talk about a surrender so some of us can survive this hellish war.”

Explosions continued to rock the city of Taipei as the Chinese air force and ground attack helicopters continued to hunt for enemy strong points and armored vehicles. Colonel Wang’s armored unit had been decimated during the past few weeks. While they’d had some initial success during the first day of the invasion, as the PLA had landed more tanks and their air cover and air defense systems had been systematically destroyed, his tanks were starting to get wiped out. When the order came down to fall back into the capital and prepare to fight block by block, he ordered his few remaining tanks to support the infantry as best they could.

Colonel Wang moved to one of the tanks in his unit to talk briefly with the tank commander. “How are you holding up, soldier?” he asked, genuine concern in his voice.

The tank commander, a young sergeant, looked down at Colonel Wang with tired yet determined eyes. “We are doing OK now that we’ve been given proper ammunition for this type of fighting.” The soldier paused for a second, looking up at the sky as another jet raced somewhere high above them.

Then he looked back at his brigade commander and asked, “Sir, how much longer are we going to fight? We can’t hold the city, and we are being systematically wiped out. If any of us are going to live through this, then we need to either withdraw from the city or surrender.” The sergeant did not care if he sounded like a defeatist; he was tired of fighting and tired of seeing his friends killed.

Colonel Wang felt pained by the soldier’s question. He had been pondering that same question for some time now. “I wish I had an answer for you, Sergeant. All I can say is we fight until we are told otherwise. Right now, division has not said anything about surrendering, and I am frankly not sure if we are going to surrender or fight until there is nothing left,” he replied. He knew this was not the answer the young sergeant was hoping for, but it was the best answer he could give.

The soldier nodded in reply and then readied his helmet and went back to the task of getting his crew and tank ready for the next round.

Wang felt he needed to get some sort of answer from his own chain of command on this very subject, so he went back into his command center and tried to locate the division commander.

Thirty minutes went by as one of his operations officers worked to track down the general. Finally, they received word that the division headquarters had been destroyed during an airstrike. The general and two other division commanders in charge of the city had been killed. After some initial confusion, the military leadership in the Heng Shan Military Command Center wanted to speak with Colonel Wang.

“Colonel, this is General Wong. Right now, you are the most senior army officer in the city. I need an assessment of how things are going on the ground there and if you believe the units left can continue to hold the city,” the general demanded.

Colonel Wang thought about this for a moment. There were three divisions fighting in Taipei; if he was the most senior guy left, then that meant a lot of the divisions had probably been wiped out or had suffered some serious casualties. “Before I can give you that assessment, Sir, I need to know what the situation is outside the city. I’ve been focused on using my armor units to support the infantry in their various fortresses they’ve been establishing throughout the city, but I have no idea what enemy forces we are facing or what the situation is around us,” he replied.

A short pause elapsed as the general was clearly talking with a few others nearby about something, perhaps gathering some of the information Wang had just requested.

“Colonel, I’m placing you on speaker so one of the other officers can provide you with that information.”

A second later, another voice who had not introduced himself spoke. “Colonel, during the past two hours, the PLA have completed their encirclement of the capital. We are not certain about the number of enemy forces you are facing, other than to say we know a lot of units that are landing at the ports and beaches are being ferried directly to your position.”

The voice paused for a second, perhaps trying to consider how much additional information they should provide him. “Right now, the island has been split in half. We estimate the PLA has probably landed around 200,000 militia forces and nearly 100,000 regular army forces, with more landing each day. We don’t have any additional reinforcements we can send you. The few operational units we have left are retreating to the countryside right now to begin setting up an insurgency operation—”

“—Colonel,” General Wong interrupted at this point, “do you believe your forces can hold the city for a few more days?”

Wang grunted at that request. “With all due respect General, hold the city for a few more days to accomplish what exactly? We’ve been fighting across the city for more than a week. We are systematically destroying the entire city in the process, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of civilians that are still trapped in the city and are being killed. I’m being inundated with civilian casualties seeking medical help, and now the uninjured are desperately asking for food and water. These are supplies that I can barely scrounge up for my own men, let alone the people trapped in the city.”

Angry, he passionately continued, “Can we hold the city for a few more days? Probably, but how many more civilians are going to die during this futile effort? I don’t know — probably thousands or even tens of thousands. The PLA has not exactly been careful with their artillery barrages or air strikes. I never wanted to be caught in this position, but I believe our best course of action at this point is to either try and break out of the city to the countryside or surrender.”

“There, I said it,” he thought. “It’s only what every soldier trapped in this city has been asking me for days. If the island is lost, then why continue to fight? Why should we continue dying for a lost cause?”

For what seemed like a long minute, there was no response from the other end of the line. Wang thought the call might have been disconnected when he finally heard General Wong’s voice. “I understand, Colonel. Your division has fought with great distinction. No one will ever say otherwise. You bring up a valid point about the civilian casualties. We never meant to turn Taipei into a street fight, but it just kind of happened, and unfortunately hundreds of thousands of people have been trapped in the city as a consequence.”

An audible sigh could be heard on the other end. “I give you permission to surrender the city, Colonel. You may choose the timing of this, but if you truly feel there is no chance to break out of the city, then you are authorized to surrender the remaining forces and end the fighting in Taipei,” General Wong said, finally acknowledging what everyone else already knew. The city just could not be held without completely destroying it and killing nearly everyone still trapped in it.

Colonel Wang responded, “Acknowledged, Sir. I will assess our ability to break out and get back to you within the next couple of hours.

When Wang terminated the secured communication link, the others in the command center looked at him, their eyes almost pleading with him not to order them to fight to the death. Many of them had families that still lived in the city or the surrounding areas. They just wanted to live through the war and see their loved ones again.

Within a few hours, it was clear to Wang that they did not have enough fuel, vehicles, or ammunition to mount much of an offensive to try and punch a hole in the PLA lines. The mountain tunnels to their east had been captured and closed off by PLA paratroopers, and the tunnels to the south had also been captured, leaving him no real options to break out. At that point, Colonel Wang made the decision that he would surrender the remaining forces in the city and put an end to some of the bloodiest street fighting since World War II.