Statements of the Participants of Operation Shi Lang (21st September)
'Operation Shi Lang' refers to the liberation of Taiwan, named after the Chinese admiral who conquered Taiwan for the Great Qing in 1683. Plans for the operation began in 1919 and the military was designed accordingly, with the Air Force and the Navy being given special focus in development. The government continued the previous regime's plans to expand the Navy, buying several battleships from foreign powers and incorporating their design elements into new Chinese ships and experimenting with submarines. The Air Force was equipped with a special naval branch for the purpose of attacking enemy ships in support of the naval invasion.
Now, that the operation is underway, employees from the Board of Information have been attached to members of the armed services to acquire their points of view and experiences on the operation. Normally stringent censorship regulations have been eased to encourage candid discussions.
"I absolutely dreaded the day when war would break out between China and Japan. Ever since the establishment of the Imperial Air Force, we were based near Xiamen and we were educated on our assigned tasks when the time would come. When the time came, I found it hard to swallow as our commander assigned us our area of operations. When the spearhead entered into Korea, the order came down for the liberation of Taiwan to begin.
I felt sorry for the bastards in the infantry. They were crammed into these small boats that barely looked big enough to fit animals into. They were then dragged out to sea by frigates. Our job was to protect the ships and boats until they got to Taiwan, so we were sent up first. We had a mission to find the enemy's 2nd Fleet, which we knew to be operating in the area.
We expected harsh weather, but it was surprisingly clear, all things considered. We flew four at a time in a V formation to protect the three bombers. I was looking at my watch when bullets started striking my frame. We had encountered enemy spotters, three of them. I don't know what's going on on the other side, but these spotters had no weapons. All it took to bring them down was some precise flying and hitting their tail fins. We found the fleet, which was only three cruisers[1] and a carrier, sitting just off the coast of Zhejiang Province. We swarmed the carrier, machine gunning the crewmen on the flight decks and just as I directed my craft upwards, the bomber dropped it's payload on the lower and uppermost flight decks. There was smoke pluming from the wrecked runways. That bomber crew had rendered them useless.
The other two bombers had the job of striking the bridges of any warships they could find. The ships had 20 centimetre guns, so they weren't much of a threat to the bomber. One of the cruisers got a lucky shot and blew a bomber's wing off as it was about to bomb the first ship, but the bomber landed right on the smokestacks of the ship. There was a massive explosion. I think the bomber may have hit the enemy's boiler.
Our main objectives were to render the carrier useless and destroy at least one of the cruisers. We achieved both objectives, so we retreated.
The aircraft carrier wrecked by our air forces. The enemy calls it the Akagi.
Imperial Chinese Army
Private Deng Xiao, 1st Taiwan Army
We must've caught the enemy in the middle of digging trenches because storming Makung was easier than we thought it would be. All four boats rammed aground and the Japanese began shooting at us as soon as our feet touched the sand, blazing us with their machine guns. The soldier in front of me was filled with lead and he fell backwards towards me, but I pushed his body forward, to use it as a shield against the bullets. One of the boats contained one of our mortar teams and two of them had their faces blown off before they could get off the boat. The survivors set up their 50 pound mortars from inside the boat and blew the trenches sky high and made the enemy run for their everlasting lives.
As we were the advance guard, we had to wait an hour, for the rest of the invasion force to be offloaded onto the beaches. We pressed on outwards to seize the rest of the tiny island. We established our forward operating base there and set up our heavy field guns to pummel the West Coast of Taiwan. We did this for three days straight and when we landed on the West Coast, there were dead Japanese bodies and craters everywehre. We had landed, just as the enemy had in 1895, in Gonglio while the secondary force had landed further downwards at Fangliao.
We then sought to link up at Tainan. We pushed towards the administrative building and then the Japanese threw themselves at us with banzai charges. Nothing a machine gun couldn't fix. We found their commanding officer in his tent, with a knife in his stomach. He had slit the throat of his comfort woman. We found half a dozen comfort women locked in the building's basement, butt naked and terrified. Fucking savages.
Tomorrow, we are going to take the fight to Taipei.
The artillery utilized on Makung
Imperial Chinese Navy
Xi Xiaoping, ICS Xiezhi
As a sailor, I was quite pleased to hear that war had been declared. The August and Blessed Government had been modernizing the Navy, including building new destroyers and expanding my pride and joy, the submarine. We were finally going to get some use out of them.
My submarine had the job of interdicting Japanese reinforcements to Taiwan's southern coast alongside the Hai Chi. We stationed ourselves in the Pacific. The enemy had let the garrison decay somewhat in previous years and we intended for that to continue. We weren't given permission to take quarter.
Our first sinking of the night occurred not long after we approached our position. I identified it through the periscope as a frigate and the captain immediately ordered it sunk. The ship sunk in less than two minutes. Another frigate entered my sight. That one took one minute.
Through the periscope, I could see the oil slicks starting to form on the ocean. The moonlight made them glisten on the water. I then noticed a growing number of Japanese sailors in lifeboats. I reported this to the captain. He thought about this for a minute, but decided to leave them alone. "We're sailors, not killers", he said. He even allowed us to come up alongside the lifeboats and throw them some food. I think aside from the Army, the Navy is the branch that allows you to be the most human. All the Air Force does is go around and bomb things to hell and back. I don't hate the Japanese people, but I do hate the Japanese military for putting us in a position where we had to sink these men's ships. These sailors were pawns. Their Emperor is not a god, but they are taught to kill themselves for him if necessary. These sailors were young boys too. They told me in Mandarin that they were either midshipmen or ensigns,
We rejoiced when news came over the wire that we had troops on Taiwan and the Imperial High Command even gave us a special mention for 'giving the enemy nothing to drink but oil and nothing to eat but shells'.
A sailor records the sinking of a Japanese ship
Now, that the operation is underway, employees from the Board of Information have been attached to members of the armed services to acquire their points of view and experiences on the operation. Normally stringent censorship regulations have been eased to encourage candid discussions.
Imperial Air Force
Chiang Wang, 1st Naval Squadron
Chiang Wang, 1st Naval Squadron
"I absolutely dreaded the day when war would break out between China and Japan. Ever since the establishment of the Imperial Air Force, we were based near Xiamen and we were educated on our assigned tasks when the time would come. When the time came, I found it hard to swallow as our commander assigned us our area of operations. When the spearhead entered into Korea, the order came down for the liberation of Taiwan to begin.
I felt sorry for the bastards in the infantry. They were crammed into these small boats that barely looked big enough to fit animals into. They were then dragged out to sea by frigates. Our job was to protect the ships and boats until they got to Taiwan, so we were sent up first. We had a mission to find the enemy's 2nd Fleet, which we knew to be operating in the area.
We expected harsh weather, but it was surprisingly clear, all things considered. We flew four at a time in a V formation to protect the three bombers. I was looking at my watch when bullets started striking my frame. We had encountered enemy spotters, three of them. I don't know what's going on on the other side, but these spotters had no weapons. All it took to bring them down was some precise flying and hitting their tail fins. We found the fleet, which was only three cruisers[1] and a carrier, sitting just off the coast of Zhejiang Province. We swarmed the carrier, machine gunning the crewmen on the flight decks and just as I directed my craft upwards, the bomber dropped it's payload on the lower and uppermost flight decks. There was smoke pluming from the wrecked runways. That bomber crew had rendered them useless.
The other two bombers had the job of striking the bridges of any warships they could find. The ships had 20 centimetre guns, so they weren't much of a threat to the bomber. One of the cruisers got a lucky shot and blew a bomber's wing off as it was about to bomb the first ship, but the bomber landed right on the smokestacks of the ship. There was a massive explosion. I think the bomber may have hit the enemy's boiler.
Our main objectives were to render the carrier useless and destroy at least one of the cruisers. We achieved both objectives, so we retreated.
The aircraft carrier wrecked by our air forces. The enemy calls it the Akagi.
Imperial Chinese Army
Private Deng Xiao, 1st Taiwan Army
We must've caught the enemy in the middle of digging trenches because storming Makung was easier than we thought it would be. All four boats rammed aground and the Japanese began shooting at us as soon as our feet touched the sand, blazing us with their machine guns. The soldier in front of me was filled with lead and he fell backwards towards me, but I pushed his body forward, to use it as a shield against the bullets. One of the boats contained one of our mortar teams and two of them had their faces blown off before they could get off the boat. The survivors set up their 50 pound mortars from inside the boat and blew the trenches sky high and made the enemy run for their everlasting lives.
As we were the advance guard, we had to wait an hour, for the rest of the invasion force to be offloaded onto the beaches. We pressed on outwards to seize the rest of the tiny island. We established our forward operating base there and set up our heavy field guns to pummel the West Coast of Taiwan. We did this for three days straight and when we landed on the West Coast, there were dead Japanese bodies and craters everywehre. We had landed, just as the enemy had in 1895, in Gonglio while the secondary force had landed further downwards at Fangliao.
We then sought to link up at Tainan. We pushed towards the administrative building and then the Japanese threw themselves at us with banzai charges. Nothing a machine gun couldn't fix. We found their commanding officer in his tent, with a knife in his stomach. He had slit the throat of his comfort woman. We found half a dozen comfort women locked in the building's basement, butt naked and terrified. Fucking savages.
Tomorrow, we are going to take the fight to Taipei.
The artillery utilized on Makung
Imperial Chinese Navy
Xi Xiaoping, ICS Xiezhi
As a sailor, I was quite pleased to hear that war had been declared. The August and Blessed Government had been modernizing the Navy, including building new destroyers and expanding my pride and joy, the submarine. We were finally going to get some use out of them.
My submarine had the job of interdicting Japanese reinforcements to Taiwan's southern coast alongside the Hai Chi. We stationed ourselves in the Pacific. The enemy had let the garrison decay somewhat in previous years and we intended for that to continue. We weren't given permission to take quarter.
Our first sinking of the night occurred not long after we approached our position. I identified it through the periscope as a frigate and the captain immediately ordered it sunk. The ship sunk in less than two minutes. Another frigate entered my sight. That one took one minute.
Through the periscope, I could see the oil slicks starting to form on the ocean. The moonlight made them glisten on the water. I then noticed a growing number of Japanese sailors in lifeboats. I reported this to the captain. He thought about this for a minute, but decided to leave them alone. "We're sailors, not killers", he said. He even allowed us to come up alongside the lifeboats and throw them some food. I think aside from the Army, the Navy is the branch that allows you to be the most human. All the Air Force does is go around and bomb things to hell and back. I don't hate the Japanese people, but I do hate the Japanese military for putting us in a position where we had to sink these men's ships. These sailors were pawns. Their Emperor is not a god, but they are taught to kill themselves for him if necessary. These sailors were young boys too. They told me in Mandarin that they were either midshipmen or ensigns,
We rejoiced when news came over the wire that we had troops on Taiwan and the Imperial High Command even gave us a special mention for 'giving the enemy nothing to drink but oil and nothing to eat but shells'.
A sailor records the sinking of a Japanese ship
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