by Len Levinson
“The lieutenant says roll.”
“Everybody ready?” Butsko asked.
The men nodded.
“You know what you gotta do?” Butsko asked Shaw.
“Yup.”
“Okay,” Butsko said. “This is it. One—two—three—go!”
The men jumped up and charged the side of the bunker; meanwhile the Third Squad was charging the other side. The Japs inside the bunker heard the pounding of feet, but there wasn't anything they could do about it. Each Jap felt like running out the back door, but there were too many sandbags to take out of the way and their honor wouldn't let them do it anyway. The Second Squad blasted them with bullets, and mortars exploded everywhere.
The First Squad sped through the jungle and approached the side of the bunker. Butsko spun around and landed with his back against the wall of the bunker, and the others crouched on both sides of him. Shaw was the last one to arrive, the seventy-pound flamethrower apparatus bouncing up and down on his back.
Bannon looked behind the bunker and saw the Third Squad rushing through the woods to cover the door.
“Cameron's here!” he yelled to Butsko above the roar of gunfire.
From in front of the bunker Lieutenant Breckenridge was watching everything through his binoculars. He'd ordered his mortar sections to stop firing as soon as the First Squad was near the bunker, and now everything was up to Butsko.
“Keep your fire tight on the front of the bunker!” Lieutenant Breckenridge told the men from the Second Squad. “I'll tell you when to stop!”
At the side of the bunker Butsko took a deep breath. “Everybody set?”
They all said that they were.
Butsko looked at Shaw. “Stay behind me.”
Shaw nodded, his lips pale.
“Go!” yelled Butsko.
The First Squad charged around the corner and shot at the tiny opening in front of the bunker. Butsko pulled a hand grenade from his lapel, yanked the pin, and let the handle fly away. He counted to three, then lobbed the grenade into the hole.
All the Japanese soldiers in the bunker saw the hand grenade fly through die opening. Private Kanda and Private Ebara tried to catch it, but they collided with each other while Sergeant Ryufuku looked on in horror. The grenade dropped to the ground and the two Japanese soldiers fell on top of it.
The grenade exploded violently, but its full blast was muffled by the bodies of the two soldiers, who were blown to bits. The concussion burst Sergeant Ryufuku's eardrums, and he was covered with the blood and guts of the two soldiers. Dazed, he stood behind the machine gun and pressed the palms of his hands against his ears. All thoughts of the Emperor and the glory of a soldier's death were submerged in the terrible head pain, and then he turned around to see a black tube intruding into the opening of the bunker. The tube roared and spat flame, and Sergeant Ryufuku was on fire. Shrieking, he fell to the floor and rolled around, trying to smother the flames that cooked him alive. His skin sizzled and blistered as the gobs of burning petroleum jelly ate him up.
He went into shock and the pain was gone. The flames continued to cook him, burning away his skin and charring his bones. His brains boiled inside his head, and the air inside the bunker smelled like charred meat.
Meanwhile the First and Third squads were at the rear of the bunker, and Butsko aimed his M 1 at the door. He pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession, blowing away the lock. Then he and Bannon rammed their shoulders against the door, pushing it open slightly, but sandbags prevented the door from being opened more.
“Nobody's alive in there,” Bannon said. “Fuck ‘em.”
“We gotta make sure,” Butsko said. “Everybody stand back.”
The men retreated into the jungle as Butsko pulled another grenade from his lapel. He looked around to make sure everybody was safe, pulled the pin, and lay the grenade against the door. Releasing his grip, the lever popped off the grenade, and Butsko ran toward the jungle. He dived into the foliage and got behind a tree.
The grenade blew, shattering the door and ripping up the sandbags. The First and Third squads charged the rear of the bunker, and everybody had his rifle ready just in case. Smoke trailed into the sky from openings in the door, and Butsko kicked down the slats. The odor of burnt flesh from inside almost knocked him out. He kicked down the sandbags and jumped into the bunker with Bannon behind him and the rest of the men following.
Butsko landed on Sergeant Ryufuku's stomach, broke through the crispy charred skin, and went up to his ankles in steaming guts. Choking with revulsion, he leaped away, the gory mess clinging to his boots.
The others looked around at the shattered bodies. There were no escape hatches, no hidden trapdoors. The bunker had been put out of action. Butsko found some Japanese clothing in a corner and wiped off his boots.
“Hart,” he said, “call the lieutenant and tell him we've got the bunker.”
THREE . . .
The Twenty-third Infantry Regiment's command post was set up in the jungle about three-quarters of a mile from the bunker that the recon platoon had put out of the war. Colonel Stockton sat underneath a tree, his maps spread out on the ground around him. He made marks on the overlay with a pencil, indicating where his companies were and where he wanted them to go.
Next to him sat Private Levinson, carrying the backpack radio, and Private Nick Bombasino, the colonel's jeep driver and gofer. Nearby were Lieutenant Harper, the colonel's aide, and Major Cobb, the regimental operations officer. In the distance they could hear shells bursting and bullets being fired. American airplanes bombed the Japanese airfield on Munda Point, and Japanese fighter planes from Rabaul tried to force the American planes to return to Guadalcanal.
“Sir,” said Private Levinson, “Captain Unger reports that he can see the outer runways of the Jap airfield from his position!”
Colonel Stockton's ears perked up, because this was the first contact his regiment made with the airfield. “Get me his coordinates.”
“Yes, sir.” Private Levinson obtained them from Captain Unger and relayed them to Colonel Stockton, who marked the position on his map.
“Get me General Hawkins,” Colonel Stockton said.
Private Levinson pressed the buttons and spoke the code words for the headquarters of General Clyde Hawkins, commanding officer of the Eighty-first Division. It took a few minutes to get through, and then he handed the headset to Colonel Stockton.
“Sir,” said Colonel Stockton, “we've made contact with the Jap airfield. Should I keep going or stop?”
General Hawkins thought for a few moments. “Bring your regiment up to the airfield and hold them in place. I'll tell you when and how to attack. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Over and out.”
Colonel Stockton handed the headset back to Private Levinson and then looked at his map, planning the ways he could bring all of his units to the airfield. “Levinson,” he said, “tell all the commanders to stop and dig in as soon as they can see the airfield.”
“Yes, sir.”
Private Levinson called the commander of the First Battalion. Meanwhile Colonel Stockton continued to draw lines on his map.
“Lieutenant Harper!” Colonel Stockton said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Have my tent set up over here.”
“Yes, sir.”
The recon platoon had stopped for chow, while nearby the destroyed Japanese bunker continued to reek. Lieutenant Breckenridge had sent out listening posts to make sure no Japs would sneak up on them, and they dug into their cans of cold C rations.
They ate silently, because they were too tired to talk. They didn't think much, either, because their minds were numb. Insufficient sleep, constant anxiety, and a steady diet of greasy C rations was taking its toll. When they finished eating they took out cigarettes and lit up, hoping they could have a long rest but knowing they'd have to move out again soon.
Lieutenant Breckenridge's helmet was off, and the bandage
on his head was caked with muck and dried blood. He lay on the ground and puffed his cigarette, looking up at the sunlight peeking through openings in the leaves and branches of the trees.
Private Gundy, the medic, walked toward him. “Sir, why don't you let me change that bandage.”
“Go ahead.”
Private Gundy peeled the old bandage away as Lieutenant Breckenridge took a deep drag on his cigarette. He thought Gundy was one of the more interesting men in the recon platoon, since Gundy was a conscientious objector who'd refused to carry a gun but consented to be a combat medic. Gundy evidently was no coward; he just didn't want to kill anybody.
“How's it look?” Lieutenant Breckenridge asked.
Gundy wrinkled his short freckled nose as he examined the wound. “It's coming along okay. If it was someplace else you could let the air get at it, but since your helmet would chafe against it, I'd better put another bandage on.”
“Anything you say, Doc.”
Gundy opened his haversack and took out a pack of gauze. He tore off a piece, covered it with antiseptic, and cleaned the wound.
“Ouch,” said Lieutenant Breckenridge.
“Got to do it,” said Gundy.
“Go ahead and do it.” Lieutenant Breckenridge sucked smoke into his lungs and looked at his cigarette. Only an inch was left, and he wondered whether he should light up another one right away. “Hey, Gundy,” he said, “what would you do if a Jap with a bayonet attacked you and you saw a rifle lying on the ground. Would you pick up the rifle and kill the Jap?”
Gundy looked thoughtful as he applied the fresh bandage. “I really don't know. I hope I never have to find out.”
“I hope so, too, but tell me something: Wouldn't you rather fight for your life than get killed?”
“Like I said, sir, I don't know. All I can tell you is that I don't want to kill anybody. I think I'd rather die myself than kill somebody. I think the pain of getting killed would be easier for me than the pain of killing somebody else.”
“Even if the somebody else was evil.”
“It's for God to decide who's evil and who isn't. Christ said that we're not supposed to judge other people.”
Lieutenant Breckenridge recalled that Gundy had been in a Trappist monastery before he'd joined the Army. The war broke out before he'd taken his solemn vows, and he had left the monastery to become a combat medic.
“Do you ever miss the monastery, Gundy?”
Gundy smiled. “All the time.”
“Ever wish you'd stayed there?”
“Every day.”
“You mean you're sorry you joined the Army?”
“No.”
“Well, you can't be in both places at once, Gundy.”
“I know,” Gundy replied, applying the adhesive tape to the area of Lieutenant Breckenridge's skull that had been shaved. “I think this is where I'm supposed to be, but I wish I could be back at the monastery.”
“You'll go back after the war is over?”
“If I'm alive.” Gundy looked at the bandage. “Well,, that ought to hold you for a while, sir.”
Gundy slung his haversack over his shoulder and walked away. Lieutenant Breckenridge lit a new cigarette with the butt of his old one and watched Gundy kneel down next to Bannon, whose hands had been cut by a Japanese sword in the bitter hand-to-hand fighting that had followed the initial landings on New Georgia.
Lieutenant Breckenridge watched Gundy through narrow eyes. Gundy had ended up in the recon platoon because his antiwar attitudes had grated on the nerves of officers and men in the other outfits he'd been in. He was considered an eight ball, and all the eight balls were transferred to the recon platoon sooner or later. Maybe that's why I'm here. Lieutenant Breckenridge thought. The eight-ball platoon needed an eight-ball officer, and I guess I'm it.
In the evening a meeting was held in the Eighty-first Division CP tent. General Hawkins presided, along with his staff officers, and all the regimental commanders, with their staff officers, attended.
They gathered around a topographical map of the Japanese airfield on Munda Point. Wooden markers indicated the positions of the division's units near the field and in the jungles nearby.
“You can see where we stand,” General Hawkins said in his Arkansas drawl. “We're on top of our objective and we're going to hit it hard. I want to get this campaign finished so we can all take a rest.” He took a deep breath and pointed at the map with his swagger stick, a varnished rod of oak with a .30-caliber bullet on its point and a cartridge case on its rear end. “We can't bring everything we have to bear on the airfield, because there are too many Japs in the vicinity who can hit us from the rear. That means part of the regiment will have to protect the troops who actually assault the airfield.”
Colonel Stockton stood among the officers in the shadows of the tent, hoping the Twenty-third Regiment would be one of the units to attack the airfield. He didn't like holding actions and rearguard maneuvers. Everybody expected you to do those jobs right, so nobody paid much attention. The commander who took the objective was the one who got the recognition and maybe the promotion.
Colonel Stockton's dream was to become a general. He'd been passed over for his general's stars a few times already, because he was considered erratic and a hothead and because his wife had disgraced him by running off with another man. Sometimes he became resigned to being a colonel and a regimental commander for the rest of his career, but then the old ambitions would stir in his heart again, and he'd imagine those stars on his collar. He'd see himself commanding not a regiment but a division, six thousand men instead of two thousand, and conducting largescale operations. He had to admit to himself that that was what he really wanted, and he became hungrier than ever for those stars.
“The Twenty-third will attack the airfield from the southeast here,” General Hawkins said, and Colonel Stockton's heart soared. “The Fifteenth will designate one battalion to move north and set up a roadblock, in case the Japs try to land reinforcements at Bairoko Harbor. The rest of the Fifteenth will come down on the airfield from the northeast, coordinated with the Twenty-third's drive. The Thirty-eighth will be in reserve, split into two combat units, ready to exploit any break-throughs that occur. We'll have artillery support and about forty Marine tanks to help out. That's the basic plan in the rough. Any questions?”
Colonel Adrianson, the commander of the Fifteenth Regiment, asked about die route his blocking battalion would take, and Colonel Scott, the commander of the Thirty-eighth, said that his men were scattered throughout the jungle and asked how much time he would have to assemble them on the line of attack.
Colonel Stockton asked no questions. He always liked his orders to be as loose as possible so that he could have maximum freedom of movement. Afterward he'd find out what kind of reinforcements he could get, because he always needed more men.
“Very well,” said General Hawkins, after fielding the questions. “Let's move along.” He pointed to two bumps on the topographical map. “The airfield is protected by the usual Jap bunker-and-trench system with mutually supporting fields of fire, but our main problems will be these two hills, where the Japs have artillery, supplies, and everything they need for a protracted last-ditch defense. They'll fight to the last man, and we'll probably wind up prying them out with bayonets; but if that's the way they want it, that's the way they'll get it. The Fifteenth will take care of Biblio Hill to the north, and the Twenty-third's zone of operations will include the old missionary station on Kokengolo Hill to the south.” General Hawkins tapped his swagger stick on each of the hills. “These are the keys to victory on this goddamned island. This is where we place our emphasis. Getting into these defense systems will be like crawling into a hornets nest, but we've got to do it and we will. Any questions?”
Nobody said anything.
“All right,” said General Hawkins. “Let's get down to the particulars of the attack.”
The next day the units of the Eighty-first Division moved int
o position around the Japanese airfield. Tanks from the Ninth Marine Defense Battalion moved up on the line, and a battalion from the Thirty-eighth Regiment deployed itself across the Munda-Bairoko Road. Ammunition was trucked to the front, and artillery moved into position. In the late afternoon Colonel Stockton took an airplane ride over the area to get a firsthand look at enemy defenses. He scribbled maps of their trench-and-bunker system around the airfield, but the fortress atop Kokengolo Hill was a mystery to him. He didn't know how many men were in there or what their armaments were. He hoped there'd be no nasty surprises.
The Japanese didn't interfere with the buildup around them, and the American commanders felt it was because they didn't have much left to fight with. The Americans controlled the air and had cut off the Japanese from their sources of supply. The Japanese were evidently saving whatever they had for the final showdown.
As the sun set on New Georgia the GIs ate hot C rations. Tomorrow would be no ordinary day for them. Tomorrow would be a major assault. Fighting in the jungle had been bad enough, but the big attacks against fixed fortifications were the ones that raised the casualty rates the most. A soldier behind sandbags and rocks was in a much better position than the one charging through open terrain, and the terrain around the airfield was wide open. Bombing and shelling had knocked down all the trees and blown away the foliage. The GIs and their tanks would be easy targets until they got inside the fortifications.
After dinner the GIs sacked out. But not all GIs could be asleep all the time. Some had to pull guard duty, others had to sit at telephone switchboards, and some drove truckloads of supplies to the front throughout the night.
Even officers had to stay awake, and one of these was Lieutenant Breckenridge, whose turn it was to be officer of the day. He had to sit at regimental headquarters and deal with any problems that came up.
He arrived a few minutes before 1800 hours, the time his tour of duty would begin. He relieved the previous OD, sat in the orderly room, and looked around. He was in a big walled tent, and during the day the regimental sergeant major sat there. A telephone was on the desk, a list of instructions lay in front of it, and beside it were two Life magazines.