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Kills & Convoy. In the midst of all this preparation for a big war, the nasty little war went on unabated. Thanks to new convoy tactics, things were looking up on the cratered beaches of besieged Quemoy. Every day but one last week at least one Nationalist LST lumbered out from southern Formosa to the waters off Quemoy, there disgorged a flock of amphibious LVTs (Landing Vehicles, Tracked), which churned into the beach and quickly unloaded their cargoes. Small and elusive, the LVTs moved through the inevitable Communist artillery barrage with relative impunity.
¶ At midweek the Reds made their first serious effort to counter the new system, sent four fast torpedo boats out to intercept a pair of Nationalist LSTs. Before the Communist craft could reach their prey, Nationalist Sabre jets flashed down with cannon roaring and, by Taipei's count, sank three of the four. Angrily, the Communists hurled two waves of 16 MIGs apiece out to punish the Sabres. In the swirling dogfights that followed, four Nationalist pilots knocked down at least five MIGs, sent the rest hightailing home. The kills brought the Nationalist total to 17 MIGs in three weeks.
The Undelivered Challenge. Pentagon planners began to talk optimistically of "an eventual solution" to the problem of supplying Quemoy. In their optimism, they seemed to be forgetting that while a conventionally loaded LST can carry 1,300 tons of cargo, it can carry at most 17 LVTs—and each LVT has room for only 2^ tons of cargo. Cold fact was that daily deliveries of supplies to Quemoy last week ranged at best from 50 to 150 tons, but to survive in fighting trim, Que-moy's 150,000 soldiers and civilians need a minimum of almost 700 tons of supplies a day.
If the Communists should decide to convert their harassment of Quemoy into a no-holds-barred war, the U.S. was ready. Last week the disparate units and individuals on Formosa were reorganized into a unified combat command under Vice Admiral Roland Smoot. Between them, the new Formosa Defense Command and the Seventh Fleet's Task Force 77 could hammer China with a destructive power unequalled in the previous history of warfare. But, barring an almost incredible improvement in supply techniques, the Chinese Communists held Quemoy in a vise so tight that they need never challenge the mighty force that the U.S. has assembled on Formosa.