The Sea Eagles by Steve Kingston

Author:Steve Kingston [Kingston, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RO:SF
Publisher: Sea Lion Press
Published: 2017-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

Canton, 24th December 1942

Henry Lafont’s squadron had re-equipped with the new Bloch 157 fighters. These were popular with the pilots, as they had a power and a range that was new, though in recent months they had had little to do, as they rarely saw Japanese aircraft these days. The Hanoi airfields had been repaired, and they occasionally carried out sweeps over Chinese territory; they were not co-operating very closely with the Chinese, however, as the word from on high was that the AdA were not much wanted. Henry had noted that there seemed to be some suspicion between Paris and Chungking.

However, there was something up today. The ground crews had fitted long-range drop tanks, and they went out roughly eastwards along the coast. They had been this way before, escorting raids on Hainan, but this time they held their course eastwards. At the estuary of the Huangmao River they turned north. They were heading for Canton, where the Chinese army had the Japanese bottled up, and were making steady progress towards retaking the city. They made a pass over the city to make their presence felt, then headed north to pass over Chinese-held territory. Lafont had the distinct feeling they were not here to fight but to make a propaganda point.

On the ground below, Chiang Wei-kuo had arrived at the HQ of 15th Army Group at Qingyuan, a red-painted, old-fashioned single-storey house on the outskirts of the city. He greeted its commander, General Xue Yue.

‘How close are we?’ he asked, after the formalities. ‘We do not want to fall for any tricks, or run the risk of encirclements.’ He realised that years of war had made him cautious, and it was hard to break the habits of defeat even now that they were winning. His political rivals in Chungking had been saying that the victory at Wuhan had been a fluke; the fall of Canton would silence them. Conversely, failure would be highly risky to him. It was no time for reverses.

‘They are collapsing,’ said the general. ‘They are practically eating dogs and rats in there. No ships have got in for weeks, and our artillery fire goes unanswered.’

That was satisfactory. ‘What aerial reconnaissance do we have?’

‘Our planes go over daily. We have not seen any of their motor transport for weeks.’ The general spoke lower, as though imparting knowledge too awful to speak out loud. ‘You know, sir, we have even started to receive a few deserters.’

‘Deserters? From the IJA? My God.’ Chiang paused to think. ‘This is more convincing than anything else you could say, general. I hate to think what it must be like for our own people in there, if the Japs are reduced to that level.’

‘Many of our people have escaped through the lines; we are managing to feed them, just. I doubt there are many of our people left alive in the city.’

Major Chiu entered the room. ‘The vehicles are here, sir,’ he said.

‘Thank you. You look familiar,’ added Chiang.

‘We met at Wuhan, sir,’ said the major.

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