The Fluke That Thwarted an Invasion
So, how accurate is this narrative of the PLA invasion of Taiwan being delayed by parasitic invasion led to the survival of the ROC? And could such a delay likewise have saved Hainan from being taken over by communist forces?
In that summer of 1949, the Communists began preparing the People’s Liberation Army for an invasion of the island, moving tens of thousands of troops to the southern mainland, eager to finally eradicate the Nationalists. The attack on Taiwan would, of course, be an amphibious assault, but the island’s lack of ports presented a slight logistical obstacle to the immense task of landing an army’s worth of troops.
The solution? Soldiers would board wooden junks, cross the strait, and then, the island within view, fling their bodies into the ocean and swim the short distance to the shores of Taiwan (3). The Communists immediately commenced swimming lessons for their landlubber troops, using streams and irrigation canals throughout the southeast provinces of Chekiang and Fukien as their training grounds (4).
There was only one problem: unbeknownst to the P.L.A., they had begun training deep in the territory of an unknown enemy, as those aquatic sites had already been laid claim to by a dreary looking species of snail and its parasite, Schistosoma japonicum.
Schistosoma japonicum, found throughout China, Japan, the Philippines, and Indochina, prefers to infect the veins that drain nutrient-rich blood from the intestines and deliver it to the liver.
The adult worms release their eggs, lodging in blood vessels and organs and provoking an immune response that includes intense inflammation and scarring. An acute infection results in severe flu-like symptoms including fever, chills, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Long-term complications caused by this species can be serious, consisting of severe intestinal and liver scarring, leading to profound hypertension that results in bowel obstruction, malfunctioning liver, vomiting of blood, and death (5).
Schistosoma japonicum reaches the organs of the body through an anatomical shortcut, bypassing the traditional infectious routes of oral ingestion or a breathy intake of infectious particles. The parasite’s larvae, found in rivers and dams, penetrate the skin of hapless humans fishing, bathing, laundering, or swimming in water. Infected humans go on to spread the infection by defecating or urinating into the same freshwater sources, preserving the parasite’s life cycle.
At the end of the WWII, an estimated ten million people were infected with schistosomiasis in mainland China (7).
But in 1949, as the Communists were on the verge of absolutely annihilating General Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalists, this hidden enemy struck, this “unknown unknown” laying in wait among the stream-dwelling snails of southeast China.
Just a few weeks following the initiation of swimming exercises, soldiers began falling ill with skin rashes, fever, and severe cramping. Military training grew increasingly inefficient as more and more men sought medical treatment. Army barracks were transformed into wards for the ill, however physicians were stumped by the odd constellation of symptoms (8). It would be two more months before the order to halt swimming lessons in the People’s Liberation Army would come through. By then, the world’s largest acute epidemic of schistosomiasis, infecting between thirty to fifty thousand soldiers, was already well in effect.
It would be another six months before the troops of the Chinese army would regain their strength and, by then, US warships had entered the China Straits (6). There would be no invasion. The opportunity to destroy the Nationalists had been lost.
So, how accurate is this narrative of the PLA invasion of Taiwan being delayed by parasitic invasion led to the survival of the ROC? And could such a delay likewise have saved Hainan from being taken over by communist forces?