Operation Fishwrapper (Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Book 5)

by William Peter Grasso

Hans knew his business well. In short order, they were within the shelter of the forest, just as rays of the early morning sun began to cast their shafts of orange light through the tall columns of trees.

  One of those shafts of light fell on a strange object some distance ahead…something no one had expected to encounter: a Japanese tank, motionless, silent, and seemingly unmanned.

  By definition, it was just a light tank. Even a small-caliber anti-tank shell would turn it inside out.

  But to a foot soldier, it looked like a dreadnought.

  Jock, Hans, and Josiah scurried for cover behind a broad tree trunk.

  Steve Richards sprawled face-down in an open patch far from any tree, a flatter yet clearly visible target. The captured knee mortar he carried made a resounding thump as it bounced off the ground.

  “Crawl over to that tree, Steve,” Jock said, his voice an urgent whisper. “And for fuck’s sake, stay behind it.”

  Hans watched Richards do as he was told, then turned to Jock with a curious look as if to say, What’s wrong with that man?

  Even unspoken questions needed answers. “He’s a sailor and an airman,” Jock said, “and neither profession knows how to fight on dry land.”

  Using the binoculars he took from the dead mortar crew, Jock surveyed the steel obstacle in their path. “Ahh, shit. A soldier just popped out. He’s barely dressed…just in one of those loincloth-things they wear for underwear. Looks like he just woke up. Doesn’t seem like he heard us, at least. Wait, there’s two more…”

  The three soldiers started a small fire beneath a kettle hung from a makeshift tripod. Each threw a handful of what looked like pellets—probably kernels of rice—into the kettle. Then they sat on the ground, their backs against the road wheels of a tank track, in no hurry to go anywhere or do anything. They didn’t even bother putting on their uniforms.

  The Japs aren’t any different than any other army, Jock told himself. When there’s no one in charge, they’ll just sit around and goof off.

  Hans asked, “Why do you suppose that tank is sitting out here in the middle of nowhere, Major?”

  “I think it’s broken down. If their tanks are anything like ours, that’d be pretty typical.”

  Hans took a look through the binoculars. “Yes, I see what you mean. There’s some kind of hatch open at the back end…and there are tools scattered all around.”

  “Yeah, the back end’s where the engine is. And if it’s not running, it can’t chase us. All we’ve got to do is sneak around back and be on our way.”

  Retracing their path, they retreated to the edge of the forest and then turned north. Once out of sight of the broken-down tank, they turned west again, toward the bluffs overlooking Mokmer…

  But a new and terrifying sound sent them scurrying for cover: the rumble of vehicle engines bearing down on them from the north…

  Still unseen through the trees but their sound growing closer.

  Maybe only a hundred yards away.

  And then, there they were—tanks.

  Just like the broken-down one they’d skirted.

  Three of them in column, close together.

  Shit, Jock thought, just what the landing force doesn’t need. A whole bunch of Japanese armor. If we’ve seen four of them already, I’ll bet there’s a battalion, at least.

  On the lead tank, its commander was perched atop the turret, his feet dangling into the hatch. Casually smoking a cigarette as if out for a Sunday drive, he was clearly on an administrative movement. The freedom to forget he was caught up in a war was his, if only for this brief moment.

  The tanks’ decks were laden with personal gear, ammo boxes, tools, and spare track parts.

  “This isn’t some patrol or training exercise they’re on,” Jock whispered to Hans. “They’ve got all their crap with them. They’re just repositioning, probably to the southern beaches. I guess MacArthur’s intentions aren’t so hard to figure out, after all.”

  The tanks were rumbling closer now—close enough to spy through binoculars the sergeant’s insignia on the collar of the lead tanker’s shirt. In a few seconds, they would split Jock’s party in half.

  Jock and Hans would be a few yards to the tanks’ right, Josiah and Richards a few yards to the left.

  Trapped in a lethal game of hide-and-seek, they slithered in small arcs around broad tree trunks.

  The tanks were almost close enough to touch when the leader stopped.

  Jock dared to peek around the tree...

  And saw the knee mortar Richards had been carrying lying on the ground, squarely in the lead tank’s path.

  Jock wanted to scream, Dammit, Steve! Can’t you hold on to that damn thing?

  The tank commander was sliding off the turret to his vehicle’s forward deck.

  One quick jump and he’d be on the ground, just a few feet away…

  With an eye-level perspective on the area.

  There’d be no way to hide from both him and the men still on the tanks.

  Fingers tightened around triggers, preparing to fire a shot that could be a death warrant for the shooter as well as the target.

  Before the tanker could jump to the ground, Josiah was standing in the middle of the trail. Wisely, he’d left his rifle stashed out of sight.

  He reached down, picked up the mortar, and approached the lead tank.

  When he got there, he bowed, and then—as if making an offering to the gods—held up the mortar with both arms outstretched.

  The tank commander took the mortar, looked at it for a second, as if wondering what the hell to do with it, and then tucked it under a rope holding down some gear.

  With great impatience, he motioned for the black man to step out of his way.

  Josiah bowed low once again and cleared the path.

  One by one, the tanks passed, engines growling and tracks clanking. Josiah waved farewell to each in turn.

  No Japanese tanker bothered to wave back.

  The sound of their engines faded to a distant growl. Jock and Hans emerged from their hiding places to join Josiah, still standing in the open.

  “That was some real quick thinking, Josiah,” Jock said. “Great job.”

  The islander seemed surprised the American major thought praise and thanks were necessary.

  “It had to be done,” he said, as if his action had been the most ordinary thing in the world. “None of you could do that. Only me.”

  “Yeah, that’s for sure,” Jock replied. “But where the hell’s Richards?”

  Josiah pointed to the base of a tree. “Behind there, Major.”

  Jock found Steve Richards right where Josiah said he was, slumped against the trunk. He was shaking, his eyes full of tears. Whether they were tears of fear or shame Jock couldn’t tell.

  “I fucked up again, didn’t I?” Richards said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “Yeah, you did, Steve. But it’s all spilled milk now. Forget about it.”

  He pulled Richards to his feet.

  “Funny, though,” Jock added, “I figured that mortar would come in handy. I just never imagined it would be that way.”

  He tapped the rucksack still slung over Richards’ shoulder—with the four mortar rounds still in it—and said, “Ditch the sack, Steve.”

  “But maybe we could still use them like grenades, sir.”

  “Theoretically, I suppose we could, Steve….but I’ve never done it with a Jap round and this isn’t the time to be experimenting. Anyway, with your luck, you’ll probably just blow yourself up. Like I said, ditch the sack.”

  Jock checked his watch. It read 0730.

  “C’mon,” he said, “we’ve got about ninety minutes to get into position.”

  “Plenty of time, sir,” Hans replied.

  “Let’s hope so.”

  Chapter Nine

  The OP Hans and Josiah had selected was nothing short of excellent. It sat on the edge of a bluff some 500 feet high, among trees offering good cover and concealment, and lo
oked down on the airfields around Mokmer—the closest about a mile away—and the narrow dirt road winding its way along the coast. That road was clogged with Japanese trucks and troops on foot, making their way south to the broad beaches where MacArthur’s invasion forces would undoubtedly come.

  “No wonder their tanks are going cross-country,” Jock told his men. “That road down there is one big traffic jam. The tanks’ll make better time, and use a lot less gas, driving right down the plateau. I just hope there aren’t a whole lot more of them than the ones we’ve seen already.”

  There was another revelation, too. The faces of the bluffs to the north were studded with caves, each now the home of a large-caliber weapon able to throw shells out to several miles offshore. “That stuff looks to be forty millimeter or better,” Jock said. “They’ve got all the ground down there covered with fire. Our troops will be fish in a barrel.”

  At a few of the gun positions, rope hoists were pulling crates of ammunition up from the base of the bluffs.

  “How the hell did they get those big guns up there?” Steve Richards asked.

  “Same way they’re pulling that ammo up,” Jock replied. “A lot of pulleys, a lot of guys, and a lot of hard work. Did you ever hear the stories of how the Aussies got their artillery over the Kokoda Track?”

  Richards nodded. Jock added, “Pretty amazing what you can do when you have a mind to, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, and some banzai bastard’s got his sword up your ass.”

  As they spoke, Jock was trying to correlate the terrain they were seeing with the map he held. He’d come to a conclusion: “This map isn’t worth a shit. If you believed it, you’d think men could just mosey up these bluffs like it was a walk in the park…instead of the mountain-climbing expedition they really are.”

  “The map doesn’t look so bad to me, sir,” Richards said. “The coastline’s pretty accurate, at least.”

  “Gee, you must be in the Navy, Steve…and a flyboy, too. Coastlines, water depth, and the elevation of the highest peak are all you care about. For the guys who have to walk and drive on land, though, it’s all about the fine details. Good maps mean your artillery lands on target, planes bomb and strafe where you tell them to...and maybe your commander doesn’t order you into some fucking death trap.”

  “You mean like Into the Valley of Death Rode the Six Hundred, sir?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “But I thought that’s what your job is, sir—working with photo recon to make better maps for your guys.”

  “That’s exactly my job, Steve…but we’ve been focused on redrawing the ones for the southern end of the island, where our landings will be. We haven’t quite gotten to updating the rest of these relics yet.”

  Jock turned his binoculars back to the airfields. The biggest one was closest to the seaside village of Mokmer. He could count two dozen aircraft parked under camouflage netting, mostly fighters, the rest a mix of single and twin-engined bombers. The nets that had concealed the runway from daytime aerial observation were down, concealing nothing.

  “Maybe they’re getting ready to receive more airplanes,” Richards said. “That strip can hold plenty more. Look at all those empty parking ramps.”

  “I think you’re right,” Jock replied. He focused now on the other two airfields, trying to count the aircraft parked there. But those fields were farther to the north, their details less clear.

  “I’m going to guess fifteen planes at Borokoe,” Jock said, “and maybe ten at Sorido, with plenty of room for more at both of them, too.” Richards nodded when asked, “You agree?”

  Jock checked his watch. It was 0855. “Almost showtime…if all goes according to plan, that is.”

  Hans and Josiah had been anxiously watching and listening for the American planes ever since arriving at the OP. Josiah had even climbed a tall tree to get a better view to the east, the one direction in which the forest blotted the sky. The only bombing raids they’d ever seen were by Japanese planes when Biak fell in 1942. Then, the Dutch opposition to the invaders had been almost nonexistent. It had taken only a handful of Japanese airplanes to claim the skies over their island. They had high hopes the American bombing raid would be far more impressive.

  Jock did, too.

  The American planes didn’t come at 0900. The only things flying in the brilliant blue sky were seabirds gliding on the thermals rising from the warming earth below.

  “Which direction will they come from, Major?” Hans asked. “If they come.”

  “Don’t give up hope quite yet,” Jock replied. “Military time can be a little variable sometimes. With the linearity of the targets and the prevailing winds, though, I think they’ll come out of the south. Better get Josiah out of that tree now.”

  “Why, Major?”

  “Because they’re not always on target. He’s got no cover up there.”

  But the bombing raid was already twenty minutes late. He didn’t want to let on that maybe he, too, was beginning to lose hope. Something his mother always said crossed his mind: Good things come to those who wait, Jock.

  Well, okay then, Mom…I’m waiting. Now let’s see something good.

  At first, they were just specks in the southern sky. Then they could hear them, their sound still faint but unmistakable: the guttural growl of aircraft engines, steadily growing stronger as the specks evolved, sprouting tiny silvery wings and twin tails.

  “B-25s,” Richards said. “I count…oh, I don’t know…eighteen? Twenty?”

  “Twenty sounds about right,” Jock replied. “About two squadrons’ worth. Dammit, I was hoping for more. A lot more.”

  “They’re awful high, sir, about eight grand, I’d say. I hope to hell those bombardiers have damn good wind data or they won’t hit a fucking thing.”

  “No shit, Steve.”

  Jock trained his binoculars skyward. “They’ve got fighter cover, too…way, way up…about half a dozen P-38s. Can’t hardly see them.”

  He ran the numbers in his head: twenty bombers, four to eight bombs per ship. Eighty to one hundred sixty bombs…to cover about four square miles of target. That isn’t nearly enough…

  And a lot of those bombs will miss.

  The sound of air raid sirens drifted up the bluffs from the plain below.

  “Those Japs aren’t getting much of an early warning,” Richards said. “They won’t even get those fighters down there cranked up, let alone into the air.”

  “Yeah, but the gunners are getting a full minute, maybe a little more,” Jock replied. “That should be more than enough for them.”

  It certainly seemed to be enough. The guns in the caves were being traversed and elevated, trying to target the approaching American planes. Richards wondered aloud, “Do you think those are the guys who knocked us down?”

  Jock didn’t answer. He was focused on the B-25s, waiting for the leader to start his drop. Once he saw that first bomb start its plummet earthward, he’d be able to make a guess where it, and all the rest, would land.

  He only had to wait a few seconds. Bombs away.

  In the instant its freefall began, that first bomb was little more than a tiny black dot.

  But it quickly grew in size as gravity imposed its relentless acceleration…

  And then threatened to vanish into its own blur if Jock so much as blinked.

  He counted down the seconds: one one thousand…two one thousand…three—

  The flash of impact lasted only a millisecond but spawned a crushing shock wave, a ring of hot gases racing outward from its epicenter…

  A beguiling vision, seemingly benign from this distance, like the circular ripple of a stone dropped into a pond…

  Not adding a sound of its own to the THUD THUD THUD of anti-aircraft fire and the drone of engines…

  Until the soft poom of the first bomb’s impact made its five-second odyssey to the OP—and then all the other pooms in rapid sequence, like the sustained roll of a distant drum, its beats too nume
rous to count.

  Then it was over.

  Their bomb bays closed now, the American planes continued on their way, seemingly untroubled by the scores of black puffs floating in the sky around them like soiled cotton. Lingering reminders of flak bursts that had failed to take down even one aircraft.

  “Ain’t that something,” Steve Richards said. “They can’t hit one plane out of twenty in broad daylight, but we got knocked down flying all by our lonesome in the dark of night.”

  “Fate’s a cruel mistress, Steve.”

  “How cruel was she to those Japs down there, sir? What are you seeing?”

  Jock didn’t reply right away. He hadn’t finished scanning the broad target area below with the binoculars. When he did finally speak, he sounded anything but pleased.

  “Well, those flyboys moved a bunch of dirt around and kicked up plenty of dust, but…ahh, shit.” He handed the binoculars to Richards. “Here…have a look for yourself.”

  What Richards saw almost made him jump for joy. “But sir, look at those craters they put in that runway. That airstrip’s out of commission. We blew the shit out of them!”

  “Bullshit, Steve. They’ll have that fixed tonight. And I only see a couple of aircraft knocked out.”

  “But there’s probably damage to a lot of the other planes we can’t see from here, sir.”

  “That’s faith, Steve, not hard intel. Let Hans and Josiah have a look.”

  After his turn with the binoculars, Hans said, “They missed the road, too. Completely.”

  He was right. Not one vehicle seemed so much as disabled, let alone destroyed. Drivers and foot soldiers who had sought refuge off the road were returning to it now and resuming the march south.

  It was time for Jock and his men to leave. The radio was a day’s walk away on the far side of the island. Jock knew all too well what the bomber pilots would tell G2 as soon as they landed: The drop was dead on target. Three airstrips badly damaged. No opposition from Jap fighter aircraft. Flak ineffective.

  And like the Navy pilot Richards had said only a minute ago, so would the Air Force pilots conclude their debrief: We blew the shit out of them.