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It was the largest assembly of Chinese warships since the Korean Conflict, all concentrated within ten miles of the city of Davao — and they were ready to begin their assault.

The assault group was split into two groups, each led by a People’s Liberation Army Navy destroyer. North of Samar International Airport in Bangoy Bay was the destroyer Dalian, with six patrol boats as escorts, in overall command of five ex-United States LST-1-class tank-landing ships, each with two hundred and fifty People’s Liberation Army Marines, ten light tanks, and twenty armored personnel carriers; and four Yukan-class landing ships, each with over four hundred Marines and one thousand tons of cargo and equipment. Each amphibious assault ship had several smaller landing craft that would each drop thirty Marine engineers ashore to clear wires or traps and soften up beach defenses; then the landing ships themselves would drive to shore, beach themselves, and disgorge their fighting men in massive waves. Helicopters from the Yukan-class ships would then begin to drop Marines and artillery pieces nearby, and the whole company would fan out across the countryside, secure the coastal inlands north of the airport, then drive south.

The main attack force was four miles south of Davao, in Davao Gulf itself. Led by the destroyer Yinchuan, its amphibious assault force had ten LST-1-class tank-landing ships and eight Yukan-class landing ships, plus numerous smaller landing craft, minesweepers, and support ships. This group had the responsibility of securing the highlands west of Davao, encircling the city itself, and then linking up with the northern group to help secure the airport.

By 0135 hours, two hours ahead of schedule, the two Luda-class destroyers had moved to within eight miles of the landing area and opened up with their 130-millimeter cannons, peppering the beach and treelines near the intended landing zones with one round every second per vessel. The rounds were of all different types — most were standard shells weighing fifty pounds and carrying eight pounds of high- explosives, but some were shells that carried infrared sensors that homed in on heat sources such as vehicles or machine gun nests, incendiary warheads that spattered napalm to set buildings or heavy brush afire, or bomblets that spread out over a wide area to increase the destruction of each shell. Helicopters with infrared spotting scopes were used to spot targets for some of the guns, but mostly the Chinese were content to bombard the area without regard to specific targets. The destroyer Yinchuan turned a few of its rounds on the area surrounding Samar International Airport, hoping to scatter some of the defenders that were certainly waiting for the Chinese to come ashore.

After twenty minutes of continuous bombardment, the Chinese assault ships began launching wave after wave of small landing craft with Marine engineers and security guards to clear a way for the assault ships to beach themselves. The gunfire from the destroyers became much more selective, targeting and hitting a few large-caliber shore-gun emplacements to provide covering fire for the landing craft. While raking the shore with 37- and 25-millimeter gunfire, the landing craft dropped some frogmen overboard to search for water traps or mines, while the others went ashore to begin hunting for minefields and to suppress heavy gun emplacements on shore. Except for a few widely scattered mines, they encountered almost no resistance. It took the first waves of landing craft less than ten minutes to reach the beach.

After twenty-five minutes of bombardment, each 130-millimeter gun on the destroyers had expended one-third of the rated life for its barrels, so the heavy shelling ceased and the search began for attacks against the landing craft. They found a few snipers and encountered light resistance from hit-and-run grenade attacks, but the Chinese Marines sustained only a few casualties.

“Sir, report from Rear Admiral Yanlai,” Captain Sun Ji Guoming, the chief of staff for Admiral Yin Po L’un’s flag staff, said. “The amphibious assault has gone better than he expected. The first landing craft are ashore with few casual-

ties; the second wave will land in a few minutes. No heavy resistance is being encountered from Samar’s forces.”

A tremendous weight seemed to be lifted from Admiral Yin’s shoulders. Ever since Captain Sun and a few of his other advisers had recommended against Marine landing until the American Air Battle Force was dealt with, he had been worried that his decision to proceed with the assault was a bad one — now it seemed to be remarkably prescient. “Does Admiral Yanlai have any suggestions?”

“No, sir,” Sun replied. “He is proceeding with the planned operation.”