QUEMOY 1958:
The most important cold-war textbook lesson of the year is a step-by-step analysis of last autumn’s Quemoy crisis prepared by U.S. military and diplomatic agencies in recent weeks. Its gist:
THE Battle of Quemoy 1958 began early last August, when Chinese Nationalist reconnaissance pilots flying RF-84 jets over the Formosa Strait spotted Communist MIGs on two previously unoccupied airfields at Cheng-hai and Lien-cheng facing Formosa and the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu. The evaluation: Red China, locked up inside its borders since the Formosa Strait crisis of 1954-55, was once more on the move in Asia. The confirmation: Red China’s air force opened up a careful reconnaissance of Quemoy.
After Mao Tse-tung wound up his secret talks with Khrushchev in Peking, Radio Peking formally proclaimed that Quemoy-Matsu would be assaulted as a prelude to an attack against Formosa. U.S. and Chinese Nationalist intelligence officers measured known strengths. Red China’s army numbered a vast 2,500,000 men—200,000 in action stations facing the Formosa Strait—and its air force of 400 tactical bombers and 1,600 jet fighters was backed up by the 2,300 planes of the U.S.S.R.’s Far East command. The Chinese Nationalists could muster only 400,000 troops—including 90,000 on Quemoy, 25,000 on Matsu—and an air force of 400 jet fighters spearheaded by F-86 Sabre jet interceptors of Korean-war vintage. The U.S. had in the area the 100-ship, 300-or-so-plane Seventh Fleet, the Fifth Air Force in Japan, the Thirteenth Air Force in the Philippines.
The Growing Threat
On Aug. 18 the Communists fired 100 shells at Quemoy, overflew Quemoy with MIG-17 jet fighters, dropped no bombs. On Aug. 23 the Communists laid down a tremendous artillery bombardment of 50,000 rounds. On Aug. 24 the Communists fired 40,000 rounds, went into a daily average of 10,000 rounds per day for five days, again held back airpower. On Aug. 29 the Communists kicked off their propaganda onslaught by warning the free world that landing is imminent,” warned the Quemoy garrison “to withdraw.” Then, two days later, the Communists made a big—and unanticipated—move to scare the U.S. out of involvement in Quemoy. The Kremlin warned the U.S. that the U.S.S.R. intended to give Red China “necessary moral and material aid in the just struggle for the liberation of Formosa” and that “any aggression by the U.S. in the Far East will . . . lead to spreading the war.”
But Washington decided to stand firm at Quemoy. The Joint Chiefs sent a Tactical Air Command task force of scores of medium jet bombers and supersonic jet interceptors to Formosa, sent carriers Essex and Midway to reinforce the four carriers in the Seventh Fleet, ordered the Seventh Fleet to escort Chinese Nationalist supply convoys to within three miles of Quemoy. A week later the President, in a speech from the White House, capped the U.S. effort: “A Western Pacific Munich would not buy us peace. There is not going to be any appeasement.”
The Three Battles
In three characteristic phases of a cold-war limited conflict, the battle of Quemoy was now joined.
AIR BATTLE: The Communists held back their big air force from Quemoy-Matsu, but flew out over the Formosa Strait. Result: bitter dogfights between Red MIG-17s and slower Nationalist F-86 Sabres. The MIGs have a capability of 60,000 ft. and 635 knots with afterburner. The Sabres have a top altitude of 48,000 ft. and speed of 600 knots. Yet the Nationalists routed the MIGs. The big difference lay in pilot quality: the Nationalist airmen were eager and carefully trained—their flying time in Sabres alone ranged from 300 to 1,400 hours. The Communists appeared inexperienced and indecisive, poor in gunnery and teamwork: The U.S. Air Force air-transported its newest F-104 Starfighters from the U.S. to Formosa in a matter of days, got them airborne and onto Red radar screens at 1,400 m.p.h.
ARTILLERY BATTLE : Communist China’s gunners laid down on Quemoy one of the most intense and longest-sustained artillery bombardments ever directed against a single objective. High point: the Communists fired 60,000 rounds from 300 guns on Sept. 11. The bombardment caused serious disruption on the supply beaches, smashed up two Chinese Nationalist airstrips, outgunned Nationalist artillerymen—but it had little effect on the morale of the dug-in Nationalist troops, many of them Formosans. As bombardment wore on, the Nationalists got emergency schooling from U.S. officers and noncoms on fast unloading techniques, deployed underwater demolition teams to blast out new beach approaches, used small LVTs pouring out of big LST transports, and C46 airdrop teams escorted by U.S. Marine Corps night fighters to win the supply battle.
PROPAGANDA BATTLE: The Communists keyed their bombardment to a ceaseless propaganda attack, listed 40 specific charges of U.S. aggression in the Formosa Strait, whipped up a homeside hate campaign by accusing Chinese Nationalists of using poison-gas shells. By loudspeakers and leaflet shells the Communists offered the Quemoy garrison attractive surrender terms; by letters routed through Hong Kong, they offered top Nationalists big bribes if they would desert. At the same time they beat on the theme that with the U.S. elections due on Nov. 4, there could be no support in the U.S. for helping Nationalist President Chiang Kaishek. But as the U.S. position held firm, and as the Red China military bogged down, the Communists shifted to a new line. The Russians said they had been misunderstood, would never enter a “civil war.” Peking radio called no more for “liberation” of Formosa and the offshore islands by force: instead it talked of resolving differences between “Chinese brothers” by discussions and amalgamation.
The Lessons
By September’s end it was clear to Red China that there would be no cheap victory at Quemoy. On Oct. 6 the Communists declared their first cease-fire—”out of humanitarian considerations,” as they put it. The Nationalists coolly used the letup to unload tens of thousands of tons on Quemoy. On Oct. 20 the Communists canceled the ceasefire, laid down erratic shellfire until Nov. 3, when they put down about 40,000 shells in a bombardment that had so little military meaning that U.S. observers conclude it must have been aimed at U.S. voters on the eve of the congressional elections of Nov. 4. Red China announced its weird off-day ceasefire, also announced the replacement of Red Army Chief of Staff Su Yu.
No specific book of rules can be written out of the Formosa experience, since the Communists can mix their efforts into whatever formula they feel will best serve their designs. But Quemoy proved the success of certain U.S. policies. For one, the U.S. established the cold-war value of anti-Communist Asian forces ready to fight for what they have. Military-assistance investments of many years were justified and paid out in the Quemoy crisis of 1958. The second and never-to-be-forgotten lesson is that the Communist intentions remain as they have been in the past—to eliminate the U.S., all its forces and influences from Asia, and gradually blot up the small countries. If they are ever successful in this fundamental objective of causing U.S. withdrawal, the map of the world can be remade in weeks.
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