Float the Political Boat

No airlines in Taiwan in the 1950s-whether they celebrate or resent it-can escape the CIA shadow.  With the CIA investment in 1951, the Civil Air Transport, Inc. was expanded to 10 C-46s, two C-47s, and four Cessna 195s from a stressed fleet.  In 1959 its special operation branch became the Air America.  After the CIA and Taiwan backing Anti-Sukano Permista guerrilla failed in Indonesia, loads of supplied were diverted to India by CAT to support Tibetan revolt.  Mar 30, the CIA trained Khampa guerrillas also failed, Dalai Lama and his 600 retinue fled to India with the help of the CIA’s Special Activities Division.

Yet the success of its DC-4 and DC-6 fleet, the CAT’s sole Boeing 727 jetliner crashed before landing at Taipei on Feb 16, 1968.  Weakened by declining CIA activity, beset with the B-908 (C-46-CU) and B-1018 (B-727) disasters, the Civil Aeronautics Administration took steps to distance CAT from Taiwan.  Soon the China Airlines with just two PBY-5Bs replace it as the ROC’s flag carrier.  Meanwhile, another Catalina twin of the TransAsia (Foshing) Airways hired out to the Defense Ministry, and frequently to Matsu and Dongyin outpost, HQ of the tight secret Anti-Communist Salvation Army.  Eventually this air charter turned out to be the life line of TNA, during the Cold War and ACSA’s hopeless fighting over a hollow ideology.

As a Hump veteran and VP of the China National Aviation Corporation, Moon Fun Chin went to Taiwan after the CNAC and CATC defected to the Communist China.  With two PBYs worth US$40,000, Chin found the TNA on May 2, 1951.  In the early retrocession days in Taiwan, air traveling was wildly unaffordable, the startup then became a military charter for survival.  Jun 27, 1955, his B-1402 “Blue Swan” with a CIA passenger onboard, closely escaped a MiG-15 predator, nonetheless it reached safety at Songshan airport.  Oct 1, 1958, Taipei-bound 02 took off at 1745 from Matsu, with four crewmen, three officers of the Penghu Defense Command, and four CIA agents onboard.  Proceeded on a 130° course at 1000’, 80 nm from TPE, it made a last contact at 1810, then blasted by a MiG-17 and lost without a trace.  After this sinister loss, TransAsia ceased to trade.

China Airlines in Action

Under the code name Southern Star (南星計畫), the China Airlines Ltd. and its CAF counterpart Black Bat Sqn. had conducted a special warfare over North Vietnam for 14 years.  In 1960 the president of Republic of Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem requested a military cooperation with ROC, and triggered a long CAL clandestine operation in Vietnam War under the ROC Military Assistance Advisory Group.

The CAL started in Dec 1959; its twin PBY Catalinas, 26 staff and few support equipments all came from its big brother CAF.  In struggling, the new startup joined Vietnam War for cash flow via international alliance.  With a strict engagement ban over north latitude 17° imposed on the USAAF, the US asked ROC to take over the secret airdrop into North Vietnam.  Using two mothballed CAF’s C-46s with newly-purchased R-2800 engines installed, the CAL launched its Southern Star No.1 in 1962-63.  During a prolonged overflight for identifying drop zone, a C-46 exposed its course to the Vietnam People’s Army.  This DZ info leaks caused the second Commando shot down in the next sortie, all its crews killed.

South Star No.1 merged into No.2 then 3, its profit began beefing up CAL’s vigor, the buildup was the arrival of Douglas DC-4/C-54, Lockheed L-1049, Nihon Aircraft YS-11, Boeing B-727, etc.  But their baptism of fire was costly, 14 aircraft lost and 49 crewmen perished.  30 Apr, 1975, the last CAL charter plane arrived Tan Son Nhat airport for urgent evacuation, ground crews must removed the cabin seats to squeeze all the panic ROC aliens.  Under the VPA crossfire and bullets riddled the empennage, the overloaded transport took into the Saigon air by its war-hardened pilots.  Soon after the ROV capital was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

Texan in a Desert Storm

From the 1930s Xinjiang Province in western China was under escalating USSR intervention, which resulted in a short-lived Russian-backed East Turkestan Republic (ETR) began as a Muslin rebellion (伊寧事變) at Ili, Tarbaghatai and Altai in late 1944.  Aimed at preventing more massacre to the ethnic Chinese by the Uighur, Kazakh and White Russian soldiers, the Central Aviation Committee set up a North American Detachment equipped with armed AT-6Ds in support of the advancing army.  This was the first close-in anti-insurgency operation by the CAF trainer fleet.

To have much hope alleviate remote desert, any redoubled effort from the impoverished China needed Western help, e.g. the Eurasia (a subsidiary of the Lufthansa) Ju-52 tri-motor’s regular flight to Kumul since 1935.  Though the struggle the Nationalists centre offering add up to a credible operation, but Stalin tend to progress in unexpected ways under Mao’s “New China”.  Merely the tip of an iceberg, the ETR was omen of a much worse Soviet ambition to split China.

Under the PROC, Outer Mongolia was erased from the Chinese map on Oct 1, 1949, in collaboration with this area was annexed by USSR.  Feb 14, 1950, Mao and Stalin signed the inequitable Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, in Moscow Mao declared unconditionally supporting Mongol separation.  At this pivotal point of division of China, by comparison the PROC spiral into turmoil, the ROC in Taiwan enjoyed some unanticipated peace.  Its trainer asset still used the line of North American, namely AT-6 Texan, AT-16 Harvard IIB and top-of-the-line T-28 Trojan.

Military Aid Program

Throughout the Cold War era, of the thirty two US MAP recipients examined the four success stories were the Free China (Taiwan), Greece, South Korea and Turkey.  Operational since Apr, 1951, the United States Taiwan Defense Command was a planning HQs stationed in Taipei for the defense of Taiwan, Quemoy and Matsu (Pescadores).  The Military Assistance Advisory Group (美軍顧問團) under the USTDC, commanded by Army Major General William C. Chase, was authorized 63 Air Force, 67 Army and 4 Navy personnel.

Until the MAAG’s withdrawal in Dec 1978, the huge figure for US military and economic aid to ROC circa 1946-79 was US$5.6 billion.  At the peak of its existence in 1957, there were 10,000 Americans in Taiwan, the great majority being military personnel, CIA and their families. Under the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, American advisers were tasked with providing arms, assisting with island forces training doctrine, maintaining military contacts, and restricting ROC offensive operations.  As its air component commander, the USAAF 327^th Air Division’s CO directed and coordinated the air force program as well made recommendations.

With the MAP standardization of warplane, the CAF combat groups used all US front-line types.  Though a 1953 story about Canada supplied Taiwan with 58 new Canuck Mk. IIIs, which the CAF operated as first-line interceptors until 1956.  When the IIIs began to be replaced by Vs, they remained in reserve service until 1972…In fact the CAF was never a user of the Avro CF-100 Clunk.  However, both in the democratic camp during the Cold War, the CAF and RCAF operated several common US types, e.g. F-101 Voodoo, F-104 Starfighter, F-5 Freedom Fighter and KDA-4 Firebee target drone, which is under the Lancaster’s pylons in my drawing.  Hereby authentic illustrated, these warplanes show life of their won.

Canadian Wooden Wonders

One 1948 photo about a Mosquito wreck at a Chinese airfield circulated within aviation circles for years, it’s how this Mossie ended after the RCAF instructor John H. Turnbull blew a tire on T.O. at Hankou.  Many ex-RCAF Wooden Wonders went to China for the Nationalist’s war with the Commies, for political sensitivity the Canadian government was closemouthed about the deal.  All but a few available De Havilland DH.98s were sold to China, this order worth between $10-12 million.

Training of CAF 1^st, 3^rd, and 4^th Sqn personnel commenced at Hankou on Apr 12, 1948, by a small RCAF pilots and DHC technical support team.  It was hastily made up and dispatched in this short-lived, extreme operation.  In the fall most FB.26 fighter-bombers, T.27/29 trainers were assembled at a plant near Shanghai.  Before it was forced to close on Nov 18, 144 had been test-flown by 4 Dec.  With the advancing Reds prevailed, the Canadian support team scurried for home on 17 Dec.  As a bit of mercenaries, some people made a fortune from the escapade, leaving the Chinese struggled to survive off the alien Mossie on their own.

Still, as the major foreign recipient of the legendary Wooden Wonder, in Oct 1949 the CAF 1^st BG made good use of it in the first defensive victory at Quemoy (古寧頭戰役), an outpost islet of Taiwan.  Unlike the war worn China then, Canada has already reached the promised land of near-zero war, a longed-for place where satisfaction of developments can be achieved.  Soon the DHC's superior technology with molded wood structure expanded to the DH.98’s successor, DH.103 Sea Hornet, and Canada's first operational jet, DH.100 Vampire.