by Chris Glatte
“You said to get down.” As if to punctuate that thought, there was a ripping from their right side. Carver risked a look over the hole and saw the beautiful sight of a gull-winged Marine corps Corsair swooping in, guns blazing. The ground below erupted as the big slugs pounded into the advancing Japanese line. Before Carver ducked back he saw Japanese soldiers being torn apart, thrown back down the hill. He leaned against the back of the hole and looked at Dunphy’s searching eyes. He smiled, “They’re knocking the shit out of ‘em. Stay down, there’s three more coming.”
The first Corsair pulled up and shot into the blue sky. Another was lining up on the now hunkered Japanese soldiers. Captain Malone lined up his sights on the settling dust in front of him. He could see soldiers diving for cover. He held steady, then depressed the trigger on the yoke. The heavy thumping of his six, fifty caliber machine guns shook the Corsair. He used the rudder pedals to swing the Corsair side to side in a yawing motion, spreading out his deadly fire. He saw soldiers being ripped to pieces as his bullets found their marks. The pass only lasted six seconds, but he expended five hundred rounds of high velocity, fifty caliber bullets.
At the end of his pass he pulled up sharply and looked over his shoulder. He could see the dust and jungle foliage floating back to earth. He could see the next Corsair, Lt. Hawkins starting his run. He climbed away and leveled out behind Lt. Emmit. He’d let Emmit lead the attack to gain some much-needed experience. When the final Corsair was through with its strafing run and climbing to join up, he keyed his mike, “Nice shooting guys. This time were getting rid of our two hundred pounders. Remember there are friendlies down there, so keep it tight. If you’re not absolutely sure of your shot, don’t take it.” He got “rogers” from the others and pulled in front of Lt. Emmit. He waved as he went by, “I’ll lead the bombing run. Remember to keep your interval.”
He got a terse “Roger,” from Emmit. He could tell the kid thought he was being coddled too much. Tough shit.
Sergeant Carver slowly brought his head up and looked down the hill. Nothing was moving. The dirt and dust was settling, but the Japanese had disappeared. He knew better than to think they’d all bought it. He called to his men. “Everyone back on your guns, they ain’t finished yet, I guarantee it.”
Dunphy crawled from the bottom of the hole and gave a low whistle, “I don’t see anyone alive down there, Sarge.”
“Get on the gun and be ready. They’ll be coming again.” He heard the radio crackle to life. He brushed the dirt off and acknowledged the flyboys calling.
Captain Malone’s voice was cool and calm, “we’re coming in with two hundred pounders. Stay deep in your holes, Army.”
Sergeant Carver looked at the growing dots off to the south. He yelled to his men. “Flyboys are coming in with some heavy eggs. Stay down.”
Welch realized the gunfire from the ridge wasn’t the heavy sound of a Japanese Arisaka rifle, but the popping of the M1 Carbines the Americans had brought. He wondered if the men on the ridge were the same one’s he’d spent the last few weeks with.
After the initial surprise of being fired on, he was happy to see the Japanese troops rallying. From the incoming fire it was obvious there weren’t many soldiers on the ridge. He risked poking his head up and wasn’t shot at. Most of the fire was being directed towards the advancing soldiers. He watched as one of the men running forward suddenly fell to the ground. He didn’t move. The Americans were few, but deadly.
He heard Lt. Kogi yell for his men to cover from the right. Every rifle on the right side seemed to fire at once. Immediately the volume of fire from the ridge subsided. When the Nambu machine gun opened up along with the rifles, the Americans were effectively suppressed. Lieutenant Kogi stood up and exhorted the men around him to advance. The entire left side stood as one and started leaping forward, trying to gain as much ground as possible while there was no incoming fire.
Welch heard the sound of another Nambu machine gun opening up, but this one was shooting down on them. The Americans were using their own weapons against them. The thought enraged him and he went to a knee and fired his pistol towards the ridge. He had no chance of hitting anything at that range, but it made him feel better. He saw better cover to his front, a depression with a medium sized black rock in front of it. It seemed almost custom made for him. He stood and ran to the hole, diving in headfirst. He rolled onto his back, rubbing his shoulder. He’d landed hard. The pain brought his rage under control and he took a deep breath. He thought, don’t get involved. Let the soldiers take care of it. You’re too valuable to get killed charging a machine gun nest.
He noticed the American machine gun had stopped firing. He hoped the shooter had been shot and was dead in his hole. He risked a glance around the rock and saw Kogi’s men making great strides to the top; they’d overrun the Americans in another minute. Then the only fire was coming from the Japanese. He wondered if the Americans were trying to make a break for it.
He caught the flash of something out of the corner of his eye, right before the world erupted in violent explosions of sound and debris. He fell to his stomach and heard the ripping sound of a heavy caliber machine gun and the roar of an airplane. He covered up as best he could as the ground in front of him was literally shredded. He heard the screaming and tearing of dying men. It lasted only seconds, but it seemed a lifetime. He was just bringing his head up when another fighter slashed down and strafed. The bullets sliced and whizzed off rocks. He curled into the smallest ball he could and screamed. Two more planes strafed, then it was silent, his ears ringing in the silence.
His screams had descended to whimpers. In the silence he wondered if he were dead. How could anyone survive? But the pain in his shoulder returned and he realized he was alive. He came to a crouch behind the rock and peeked around the side. The scene before him was carnage. Men and parts of men were spread across the slope. The white dust was settling over the dead, giving them a ghostly quality. He looked to where Lt. Kogi had been leading his men. He couldn’t see anyone alive. He looked to the left and saw men cowering. No one was moving.
He shook off the fear and realized they had to get off the slope. The planes would be back for another pass to finish them off. Was Kogi alive? It would be a miracle if he were. He took a deep breath and tried to give a command, but it came out as a squeak. His mouth was too dry to speak. He coughed and gagged and took a drink from his canteen. The briny water coated his throat and tongue and he felt his voice return. He yelled. “Fall back, fall back to the jungle line, now!”
He didn’t wait for them to comply. He took off, bounding down the hill away from the ridge. He heard the grunts and breathing of the men following him. He didn’t stop until he was safely under the canopy of the jungle. twenty men were breathing hard around him, some vomiting and hacking. A sergeant came up to him and said, “Sir, what are your orders?” Welch stood to his full height and turned to the sergeant, who recoiled. “You? I thought you were Lieutenant Kogi. You made us retreat against our orders. You cowardly gaijin.” He swung his machine pistol in an upper cut motion, but Welch was ready. He dodged the blow and brought the butt of his own pistol down hard on the sergeant’s shoulder. He grunted and dropped to one knee, but he wasn’t done yet. He lunged forward trying to get the bigger man off his feet. Welch met his lunge with his knee coming up hard into the sergeants’ chin. He crumpled to the jungle floor just as the position they’d retreated from exploded in a rumbling firestorm.
The men instinctively dropped to the ground and watched their old position engulfed as the four Corsairs dropped their two hundred-pound bombs.
When the ground stopped shaking they stood and looked up the hill. Another sergeant stepped up to Welch and saluted. “What are your orders, sir?”
Welch looked at the men who were now cowed by the realization that he’d saved their lives. Welch understood these men weren’t afraid to die and would rather die than be dishonored. There was only one thing he could say. “We attack the ridge
and kill the Americans, but we do it my way.”
Sergeant Murata looked to the ridge. It was still smoking and smoldering. There was no movement from the men who’d been attacking. He had no recourse, but to assume Lt. Kogi was incinerated somewhere up the hill. Welch wasn’t a Japanese officer, but he was a personal friend of the colonel’s, which gave him automatic rank in Sergeant Murata’s eyes. He also seemed to know his way around the jungle and this ridge. He made his decision to follow his orders, for now.
27
The strafing run had devastated the advancing Japanese troops. Sergeant Carver looked out over the slope, then back to the blue dots lining up for their bombing run. He thought the bombs would be enough to kill any remaining Japanese. He heard yelling coming from the slope and as he looked, he saw men starting to recover, beginning to stagger back to their feet. If they rushed they would overrun them, but the Corsairs would be there with their deadly bombs in seconds. The Japanese didn’t have a chance. He heard more yelling and saw the entire left side of the Japanese line retreating down the hill at a dead run. He raised his Arisaka, but the planes were too close. He yelled for his men to get down and threw himself into the bottom of the hole on top of Dunphy.
Captain Malone was leading the bombing run. He knew the planes would be spread out behind him at ten-second intervals, plenty of time to keep out of the bomb blast of the previous plane.
He angled the Corsair down five degrees, but kept his speed steady at two hundred knots. He was slow, but he needed to be precise to keep from hitting friendlies. He timed the drop perfectly, releasing the two-hundred-pound bomb. His Corsair leaped into the sky with the sudden release of weight. He put in full military power and scratched for altitude. He felt, more than heard the air shimmer with the impact of his bomb. He turned to starboard and glanced at the fireball subsiding on the slope. Bullseye, he thought. He saw the next plane in line coming in on the same track. There’d be nothing left of the Japs when they were through.
Lieutenant Emmit was the last plane. He was still feeling the intense adrenalin rush from leading the strafing run. Now he was tail-end Charlie, flying through smoke and debris to get to the target. He slowed the Corsair, feeling the controls getting sluggish. He couldn’t see much, but he looked to his instruments, trusting them to keep him on course. When he thought he was in the right spot he held his thumb over the pickle. He swore he felt the plane shift to the right in turbulence, but his instruments remained steady. He put in some slight aileron to correct what he felt and released his two hundred pounder.
He pulled away out of the smoke and immediately felt sick. He was flying directly along the ridge. He looked back searching for his bomb strike, praying he hadn’t just bombed his own troops.
On the ground, the first three bombs struck the slope and sent carnage in all directions. The ground shook and the holes the men were cowering in collapsed all along the upper edges. The vibration shook the men down to their bones. Each man was curled into a tight ball, eyes closed hard, teeth gritted. Without realizing it, they were screaming. Their insides felt like they’d shake to jelly or their bones would break.
There was a longer pause before the fourth and final bomb was dropped. It was released late so it overshot their position, but it slammed into the ridge and exploded only thirty yards from Cpl. Hooper’s hole. When the dust settled, the men slowly dug themselves out of their half-buried state. Private Dunphy felt like he’d been in the worst boxing match of his life. Every muscle ached, every joint screamed for attention. He sat on the edge of his collapsed hole and looked out at the charred, smoking slope. Nothing could have survived. Carver stood up and walked to the next hole, checking on O'Connor who was bleeding from his ears, but was otherwise okay. Then he checked Hooper.
He wasn’t responding. He’d been closest to the final bomb. Sergeant Carver pulled him out of the dirt thinking he was only staying down, but he still didn’t move. He knelt beside his splayed body and slapped his face, “Wake up, Hooper.” Nothing. He felt for a pulse on his neck. Nothing. He lifted his eye lids and looked into his lifeless eyes. He ripped his shirt open looking for the wound that killed him, but he was intact. Sergeant Carver started to pound on his chest trying to restart his heart. He yelled and cussed and pounded on the lifeless body.
After a minute, O'Connor put his hand on his shoulder and pulled him away. Carver looked at him with seething eyes. He went back to compressions, savagely pushing and thumping. O'Connor pulled him away and yelled, “He’s dead, sarge. He’s fucking gone. Stop.”
Carver gave one last look at Hooper’s staring eyes, stood and strode away, muttering, “Stupid eye-tie mother-fucker.” He went thirty yards and sat down hard on the edge of the small cliff. He yelled, “You motherfuckers! you motherfucking sons-of-bitches!”
O'Connor and Dunphy stared, never having seen their hard-assed sergeant lose it. It gave them pause. If this hard, combat professional was cracking, they had no chance.
Carver stared down the slope for another minute, trying to get control of himself. He’d lost most of his men. The men who’d entrusted him with their lives were gone, blown to bits or shot full of holes. He’d let them all down. He’d killed his entire squad.
He heard O'Connor call, “Sarge? You okay?” No, he hadn’t killed them all, not yet. He still had O'Connor and Dunphy and he still had a job to do. He shook himself and stood. He closed his eyes hard and squeezed his fists until they were bright white. He’d lost it momentarily and the thought of it drove him mad. There was something about seeing Corporal Hooper dead that had turned something inside him. He’d felt an overpowering sadness, then an overarching rage, then sadness again. He’d seen more death in this war than most men would see in four lifetimes and he’d never been bothered. Not like this. What was it about Hooper that set him off? He couldn’t begin to know, but he’d have to pull it together if he wanted to get what was left of his unit through the next few hours.
He yelled, “Dunphy get me the radio, it’s in our hole.” He pointed at O'Connor, “Find the machine gun that was with Hooper. See if it’s still operational. If not find the ammo, and anything else we can use to kill Japs.”
Seconds later Dunphy ran up holding the radio in two pieces. “Radio’s fucked. It must have shaken apart or something. It’s useless.”
Sergeant Carver held the two pieces. How do I continue the mission without a radio? He let it drop out of his hands and it shattered on a rock. Dunphy looked at him wondering the same thing. Carver motioned with his head towards O'Connor. “Help him recover whatever you can. Don’t think the Japs are done with us yet.”
Dunphy looked down the slope and saw it was still smoldering. The only evidence he could see of Japanese soldiers were smoking bits and pieces. “Don’t think we need to worry ‘bout them, sarge.”
Carver’s voice was gruff, “Saw a bunch running down towards the jungle just before the bombs dropped. They might have made it in time.” Dunphy looked down the hill and ducked down. “Keep watch, but help out O'Connor. If they come they’ll come from a different direction.”
Ten minutes later they were huddled on the ridge going over what they had left. One Nambu machine gun with three hundred rounds, six grenades, 12 rounds for the knee mortar, three M1 carbines with fifteen clips and the Arisaka rifle. It was enough to inflict damage if the Japanese came again, but with only three of them it might be a short last stand.
O'Connor said what was on all their minds. “What are we gonna do, sarge? Without a radio we can’t complete our mission. There’s no reason to stay up here and die.”
Carver looked at the guns and ammo, then looked each man in the eye. “If we don’t take out those guns tomorrow morning a lot of G.I.’s are gonna die. Hell, we may lose the island. You wanna be left here?”
Dunphy spoke, “But what can we do? We can’t call in a strike without a radio and besides, we don’t know where the guns are.”
Sergeant Carver looked to the west. “Division thinks the guns are on o
ne of those ridges, overlooking the main Jap forces. If we move that way, we’ll see their smoke when they fire and we can hit them with everything we’ve got.” Dunphy and O'Connor were silent.
O'Connor scuffed the dirt with his foot. “Gotta have at least a platoon protecting those guns, sarge.”
Carver continued, “We could use the knee mortar to confuse ‘em, hit ‘em with grenades and the Nambu, maybe disrupt ‘em enough to give our guys a fighting chance. Once they’re in the Jap lines they’ll stop the arty.” Carver wasn’t sure about that last bit. The Japs tended to sacrifice their own soldiers more easily than their American counterparts. “Look, I’m not gonna order you to do this. You’re right; it’s got all the makings of a one-way trip, but it’s our only chance to complete the mission and maybe save some G.I.’s.”
Dunphy looked at O'Connor who was staring back at him. He grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve come this far on this fucked up patrol, might as well finish it.”
O'Connor nodded, “screw it, let’s do it.”
28
Welch found himself an undamaged Arisaka rifle the previous owner no longer had a use for. He led the surviving Japanese soldiers through the jungle to the west of the ridge. The jungle canopy was thick above them, the undergrowth sparse, making for easy walking. They moved carefully hoping to keep themselves hidden from the Americans. Welch hoped they thought they were all killed in the bombing. He’d have surprise on his side and he’d roll up their defenses before they knew what hit them.
Three hours later Welch held up the men and brought his two surviving sergeants to the front. Sergeant Murata was a stocky, thick chested man with a flat nose and yellowed teeth. He’d been in almost constant combat for the past three years, a veteran of many jungle fights. He was also an educated man. Welch knew he’d been sent to England in his youth to study at one of the more prestigious military schools. He’d spent three years there before his father, a Colonel, had fallen from the graces of the military and been discharged in shame. His family suffered and the young Murata was returned home in dishonor. He never spoke English, but Welch assumed he was fluent.