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Retired air defenders recall tense
1958 Taiwan mission Sep. 11, 2008 --EL PASO -- A half century ago, soldiers in Fort Bliss' 2nd Missile Battalion were sent on a top-secret mission in a superpower showdown on the other side of the world that threatened to unleash the nation's nuclear arsenal. "All of a sudden, the government said, ... 'You're going to Taiwan on a classified move,'" said retired Col. Robert Douglas, 79, a 13-year El Paso resident. Douglas was assigned to command a battery in the 2nd Missile Battalion, which was part of the 71st Artillery Regiment, just after the orders came in. About 100 of the battalion's soldiers and family members will be holding their 50th anniversary reunion at the Radisson Hotel starting Thursday and extending through the weekend. In the late 1950s, before the confrontation, Douglas was training air defense soldiers on Fort Bliss' McGregor Training Range and was involved in test and evaluation of the Army newest air defense weapon, the Nike-Hercules missile. It was the Nike-Hercules -- with twice the range of the Nike-Ajax missile it was replacing -- that was called into service on Taiwan as tensions grew between the Nationalist Chinese, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and mainland Communist China run by Chairman Mao Zedong. The missiles were "said to have a tremendous fragmentation effect that can blast entire formations of enemy planes out of the sky," according to a 1958 Associated Press story that ran in the El Paso Times. The missile also was capable of carrying nuclear warheads, a fact that was widely reported. "It had surface-to-surface capabilities also," Douglas said. "It was the most accurate field artillery weapon we had." At the time, U.S. President Dwight David Eisenhower issued a statement supporting the Republic of China, which claimed the island of Taiwan just off the coast of mainland China. He also rejected a suggestion from Russian leader Nikita Krushchev that the United States should not get involved. In August of 1958, Communist Chinese forces began artillery shelling of the nearby islands of Matsu and Quemoy, also claimed by the Republic of China. The Communist Chinese had reportedly announced the shelling was the first step toward reclaiming Taiwan, also known as Formosa. "It is as certain as can be that the shooting which the Chinese Communists started on August 23rd had as its purpose not just the taking of the island of Quemoy," Eisenhower said in the statement. "It is part of what is indeed an ambitious plan of armed conquest. "This plan would liquidate all of the free-world positions in the western Pacific area and bring them under captive governments which would be hostile to the United States and the free world. Thus the Chinese and Russian Communists would come to dominate at least the western half of the now friendly Pacific Ocean." The Communist Chinese were aware of the battalion's presence, said retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 Robert Jarrell, an El Paso resident since 1970, who was stationed on the south end of Taiwan. Although Jarrell didn't know specifically what type of aircraft they were tracking -- the Chinese were using Russian-designed MiGs at the time -- he said the pilots would fly right up to the line dividing the Formosa Strait down the middle between Taiwan and mainland China and then turn 90 degrees "just like there was a wall there." "We had authorization to shoot" if they flew over that line, Douglas added. The closest call for Jarrell, however, wasn't with the enemy. It involved a CIA spy plane flown by Francis Gary Powers, who two years later would be shot down in Russian territory and convicted of espionage by the Soviets. Jarrell was the duty officer on that day in 1958 and his battery had identified an incoming target. "It was heading straight for us as fast as it could go," Jarrell said. "I was just ready to push the fire switch." He waited seconds longer than he was supposed to -- still maintaining the ability to successfully engage the target -- and finally received the order to stand down. If he had pushed the switch, he said, the missile almost certainly would have destroyed the U2 aircraft and its pilot, which he later learned was Powers. "Technically, I violated the rules," he said. "It sure as the devil makes you nervous." Adding to the tension, Nationalist Chinese officers were goading the air defenders to fire at just about any activity on the Chinese mainland. "We would track a ship in the straits docking on the mainland," Douglas said, "and he (the nationalist Chinese officer) would say, 'Why don't you shoot it? It's your enemy.' (The officer) said, 'Can't you hit it?' and he looked at me. I told that if we can track it we can hit it." U.S. air defenders nonetheless were impressed with work done by the nationalist Chinese and the Taiwanese -- they worked through rain to lay in city-block sized concrete pads for the missile emplacements that remained crack-free throughout the deployment. They weren't as enamoured of the Republic of China's approach to civil rights. "If you fell asleep on guard duty, that was a death sentence," said retired Sgt. 1st Class Lloyd Saylor, 69, an El Paso resident since 1961. His unit was responsible for keeping all the U.S. military vehicles on the island running. "Chiang Kai-shek didn't play around with nobody," he said. In one case, an old man had crossed into a posted "off limits" area and was detained by nationalist Chinese soldiers. A U.S. soldier came running to report, "They're going to shoot him," Jarrell said. Soldiers in Jarrell's unit rescued the old man and put him in a truck to take him into a nearby village where he was turned over to the police. A short time later, a Chinese policeman from the village arrived at the U.S. emplacement asking to report to Jarrell. "He told me the man we had caught 'has been eliminated,'" Jarrell said. And nationalist Chinese troops who got too close to U.S. soldiers and the American way often were sent to re-indoctrination camps, Douglas said, where they were assured that the "lavish" lifestyle they observed was the product of a decadent capitalist system. Despite the rising tensions and frayed nerves, there were no incidents to escalate the hostilities and a ceasefire was called about a month and a half after the Communist Chinese began shelling Quemoy. Although there were rumors of nuclear warheads being shipped to Okinawa, none of the three veteran air defenders ever saw any evidence of their presence in Taiwan. After the mission was completed, the 2nd Missile Battalion was disbanded, but many, including Douglas and Jarrell, stayed on for a year to train their nationalist Chinese counterparts on the Nike-Hercules system. In August of 1959, a Reuters story reported that the Nationalist Chinese Army officially took over 16 missile launchers deployed during the crisis.
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