by Gee, Colin
Fig#111 - Imperial Japanese Army forces, advance down Route 487, China, 15th December 1945.
Panther Masami, the ‘Elegant Beauty’, had lost nine of her sisters, a further one also now absent, being repaired with pieces scrounged from the wrecks of her running mates.
As it was Hirohata’s tank, and the fiery young officer was overseeing the mixed German-Japanese workshop personnel, Hamuda knew it would be back in line as soon as was humanly possible.
The last four running Panthers were now behind the leading units, resting and doing maintenance whilst the 2nd Group, a composite of 2nd and 3rd Companies joined together because of casualties, drove hard south, pushing the Chinese forces before them.
Kagamutsu had become the unit’s leading tank ace, his score boosted by two days of close combat with the 5th Chinese Tank Battalion, twenty-nine rings proudly displayed on his gun barrel, eight more than his closest rival, Hirohata.
Hamuda was lagging behind now, being ten adrift of Sergeant Sakita, the third highest scoring tank commander. Tank encounters had become rarer as the US-Chinese tank forces started to avoid direct contact with the deadly special tank units of the Imperial Army.
Or at least they had done, until the Pershings started to arrive. It was one of the big American tanks that had left its indelible marks on Masami, three silver gouges silently recording how close he and his men had come to death.
The last white ring on Masami’s barrel represented that Pershing tank, left to rust on the banks of the Malai River, where Hamuda’s Panther tank had finally killed it.
All of the Rainbow’s Panthers looked shabby and much the worse for wear, the marks of combat evident everywhere the eye fell.
To combat the hollow charge shells of the bazookas, sheets of metal had been placed on struts, much as like the Schürzen used on Panzer IV tanks, although the Japanese attempt was less successful, only one of the Panthers maintaining a full set, that being the irrepressible Hirohata’s mount.
The fuel bowsers had finished topping off his tanks, so Hamuda’s mind turned to food.
Fig#112 - Chinese Nationalist and US forces deployed in Luxuzhen, China, 15th December 1945.
The pleasurable thought was no sooner nicely nestled in his anticipation than his brain shelved the idea in favour of recognising the sharp sounds that started to assail his ears.
He focussed his mind, and realised that it was firing, large calibre firing by the heavy reports.
The familiar sounds of Rainbow in action, the 88mm guns on the two Tigers joined with the 75mm‘s of the Panthers, almost overriding the lower voices of the 47 and 57 millimetre peashooters on the Shinhoto and Chi-Ha tanks.
It was the unfamiliar sounds that concerned him most; whatever those were, they weren’t Japanese, or German for that matter.
He wiped an imaginary speck of dust from his watch.
'12:37.'
Kagamutsu’s Panther was sliding into a forward defensive position already, the Sergeant-Major alive to the possibilities to their front.
Hamuda waved at an enquiring face and the message was received. Sakita’s Panther slid across to the left of the road, slipping behind a mud wall that could have been made for the purpose of secreting a tank behind it.
Masami was purring gently by the time he got to her, where he found the infantry commander waiting.
He took a report from his loader, who had been trying to raise the 2nd on the radio, without success.
To save mounting the tank, Hamuda accepted the offer of the infantryman’s map.
“Have to find out what’s going on first. 2nd are off air at the moment. I’m going to move my tanks up carefully. I‘ll want a platoon of your men riding with each group of my tanks. Be prepared to move the rest up the flanks here; half and half ok?”
The Captain was experienced in infantry-tank coopertion, so needed little futher information.
Fig#113 - The battlefield, Route 487, Luxuzhen, China, 15th December 1945.
“Hopefully 2nd Group and your Major can cope by themselves, but I can hear something I don’t like up there.”
Captain Yamagiri snorted his amusement, his eyes concealed behind the sunglasses that his wounds required he constantly wear.
The Infantry group commander, Major Kusoa, was, as Hirohata had so delictaely put it, ‘Nothing but a stiff-assed chikushou kuso Samurai desk warrior with more bark than ability’. That lack of soldierly skill had already translated into higher casualty rates than any other infantry battalion in the Special Obligation units, with the possible exception of the ‘Moon’ unit. Survivors from that were still turning up, even now.
A louder nose distracted both men, the cause arriving in a wave of muddy water. Hirohata’s Panther slid to a halt adjacent to his commander’s tank.
His arrival again saved Hamuda the climb to the command tank’s radio.
“Commander, 2nd has been ambushed. Badly hurt too. I’ve been talking to the artillery Lieutenant. He’s panicking to be honest. Can’t raise Major Kuso; can’t raise any 2nd Group tanks at all. Your orders, Commander? “
“Is that all you know? “
“Yes. Commander. Except the evidence of our own ears. “
Hamuda looked at the map again and made a decision.
“Across country. We’ll all go across country. Straight up the road to the wood line, then we split off the road. Take seven and ten with you, push up on the right side, keeping two hundred metres inside the lake line. Hold here...” Hamuda pointed to a position level with the southern edge of the body of water.
“Observe and report... we’ll make a plan once we’re both in position. I’ll take Kagamutsu and go up the left, target the edge of the ground above Shengma. We’ll take one platoon of infantry each, one pushed up the 487 to backstop the 2nd. The rest make defences here. Captain Yamagiri, you get hold of reinforcements and secure this road junction. Clear? “
Both men understood the easy orders.
“Five minutes. “
Yamagiri was already shouting orders to his men.
1237 hrs, Sunday, 15th December 1945, Route 487, North of Luxuzhen, China.
“Driver, advance!”
The Sergeant in command of the lead armoured car made the decision to press on and took the lead himself.
“Sunflower-seven. Way ahead looks clear. Moving up to next location.”
In his turret, as well as in that of his commander, pencils made notations and marked the vehicle as moving towards the next terraced hillock.
The vehicle was a Marmon-Herrington Armoured car, once owned by the British Army in Malaya, taken from its former owners at the fall of Singapore.
Three had found their way into the 63rd Army, and the surviving pair were leapfrogging their way forward in advance of the fighting force built around Rainbow’s Second/Third Company combined unit.
The South African-made vehicle pulled over, making use of a bamboo thicket and the terracing to gain good cover and concealment.
Sergeant Haro slipped to the ground, his Nambu pistol in hand, and easily mounted the simple steps that edged the nearest piece of terrace, permitting him to gain some height.
His gunner kept a close eye on the NCO, all the time retaining a purposeful grip on the MG34 that had recently been installed in place of the Bren gun that had been with the armoured car since it was captured.
He watched as Haro scanned the ground, the binoculars sweeping in regular patterns, making sure that there was nothing of note on the next bound forward.
Satisfied, Haro gave the hand signal and the gunner radioed the all-clear.
Both men only realised how quiet it was when the distinct roar of a Ford petrol engine broke the silence.
Two minutes passed as the commander’s Marmon-Herrington pushed on fifty metres and continued to edge away from the second terraced hill.
Behind Haro’s vehicle, the roar of heavy engines grew as the two Tigers and solitary Panther Tank moved up, flanked by the last surviving Panzer IV and a gag
gle of Chi-Ha’s.
A small herd of goats scattered ahead of the lead armoured car, displeased at being disturbed at their luncheon.
One brutish looking beast pulled at a tasty looking hedge.
It fell forward, not as natural vegetation, but as one very obviously made-made piece of camouflage.
“By my ancestors! Ambush!”
Fig#114 - The Battle of Luxuzhen, 15th December 1945.
Haro was up in a moment, bounding down the steps to his waiting vehicle.
“Ambush! Ambush!”
The gunner sent the radio message loud and clear, coinciding with the first volley of shots from the hidden anti-tank guns that surrounded Route 487.
But for the goat, the 2nd Group would have been further forward, and in bigger trouble, if it was possible to be in bigger trouble.
The first volley destroyed the Panzer IV, the lead Tiger, and sent three Chi-ha’s to the scrap yard.
The second Tiger lost both tracks but momentum took it the short distance to a patch of boggy ground where it sank deep into the mud, providing it with an excellent hull-down position.
Haro turned back to see what his unit commander was doing, only to see a shattered piece of metal and rubber burning fiercely where the Marmon-Herrington had stood a moment before.
Something that resembled a man was crawling across the muddy road, leaving a trail of smoke behind it.
The gunner questioned Haro without words and accepted the nod. He pulled the trigger, sending a few merciful bullets into their unknown comrade.
Haro slid into the vehicle, ordering a reverse into cover as the MG34 burst brought unwelcome attention.
A shell exploded on the terracing, rocking the vehicle violently.
The Sergeant was halfway through a report to the tank unit commander when he realised his words were going nowhere and the radio was dead.
Risking a look out of the turret, he found that the aerial had been carried away by something, most likely the anti-tank round that had struck the terracing.
Haro gave the driver reversing instructions, and the armoured car chopped down a number of small trees, coming to a halt in a depression behind the terraced hill.
“New aerial.”
With little more than that, Haro was out of the vehicle and straight into the repair.
He worked quickly, all to a backdrop of death and destruction, as the ambushing anti-tank guns worked their way through the 2nd/3rd Company tank force.
Machine guns now also added their load of life-taking metal to the valley, as enemy heavy calibre weapons punched out bullets at the infantry force trying to deploy for an assault.
By the time Hamuda and Yamagiri had questioned the competence of the infantry Major Kuso, the man was already spectacularly dead, caught simultaneously by three bursts of .50cal shells.
1240 hrs, Sunday, 15th December 1945, Route 487, North of Luxuzhen, China.
Japanese battlefield intelligence was never brilliant and, as the Pacific War had come closer to the home islands, and Japan was more and more isolated, its intelligence services could only search for crumbs with which to feed the machine of war.
Ships had been seen at Fangcheng and Zhenzhu Harbours, yet more at Beihei, ships that spewed forth men and equipment in large numbers.
A few men and women survived close encounters with vigilant Chinese secret police, at least long enough to get a message down the line.
None made it through, the last messenger, a ten year old girl delivering a letter for her ‘uncle’, had a confession beaten out of her and was then left to drown in a shallow gully alongside the Suixi–Zhanjiang road.
So, the 2nd/3rd Group of the Rainbow Brigade walked right into a prepared defensive position manned by some very serious men with big guns.
Colonel Edgar J. Painter, commander of the 20th US Armored’s Combat Command A, and senior man on the field that day, had no choice but to let the guns loose ahead of time.
‘Damn that goddamned fucking goat!’
He found some small satisfaction that the beast that had blown his ambush was already with its maker; he would ensure the carcass would serve as a square meal for his headquarters that evening.
‘A goddamned fucking goat of all things!’
CCA had brought very little of its firepower forward, logistics proving difficult in a country firmly rooted in the 18th Century, but it brought some extra force to the field, in the shape of part of the 343rd RCT, quickly sent up to make up for the absence of infantry in CCA, its own regular armored-infantry battalion diverted away from the Southern Chinese ports by submarine warnings.
Both the 20th and 343rd had some action in Europe at the end of the German War, but both came to it late, and their experiences were relatively untraumatic, pushing against a beaten enemy, and so the men were unusually eager to get to grips with the enemy.
Both partial units were augmented by a special tank-destroyer group with three distinct elements. The first two consisted of two platoons of 3” AT guns and one extended platoon of 90mm AA guns respectively, the latter the modified version capable of engaging ground targets. The third element, slated to be part of the 86th Infantry Division’s order of battle, was a Headquarters and 1st platoon from the 656th Tank-Destroyer Battalion, sporting four M36 Jacksons, and an equal number of M20 utility cars.
It was one of the 90mm AA guns that had destroyed the lead Tiger with its first shot.
The M36’s sat on the right flank of the Chinese-American force, waiting their moment.
To complete the firepower available to Painter, the 413rd Armored Field Artillery Battalion was already lobbing its 105mm high-explosive shells to the rear of the 2nd Group, equally interfering with either reinforcement or retreat.
The 413rd was one of the few units in the US Army that had been converted to the M37 HMC, and this was their first time using it in action.
Painter nodded in satisfaction at their work, the shells constantly arriving on the money, denying the enemy the road and everything for two hundred yards west and east of it.
“George. “
Immediately, Colonel Bloomquist of the 343rd Infantry moved closer.
“George, I think we need to push your boys up on the left there, through the woods. Don’t think they’ve got tanks in there, so push them up hard and get ‘em flanking the sons of bitches. “
The planning had anticipated an infantry advance up the left flank, using the relative safety of the trees. There were huge gaps between some of the trunks, some wide enough to drive two vehicles side by side through, but it seemed the entire Imperial Army armoured group was on or near the road. None the less, George Bloomquist had made sure his lead formation sported extra bazookas, just in case.
“I’m gonna commit my tanks with your boys. Tuck ‘em in behind until they can cut loose into the flank of these sons of bitches. Clear, George?”
“Sure thing, Colonel. “
Even though they were both the same rank, it was Painter that held command.
Bloomquist moved off to his portion of the headquarters bunker, calling his CoS to him to issue the orders.
Major Norris, Painter’s equivalent, took the opportunity presented and spoke softly to his commander.
“Sir, should we move the TD’s across into the flank now. Maybe push up some infantry as a screen to the right flank?”
Edgar Painter was the sort of officer who encouraged free expression amongst his officers, so such a suggestion was of no surprise to him.
“I think not, Willie. Leave the doughs where they are for now. They’ve prepared positions and we still don’t know the strength of this lot. Get... err... Crowther’s tanks moving up the left, acting in support of the infantry. He knows the plan.”
The man’s name had nearly escaped him.
Had the six Shermans arrived earlier then he would have pushed them up to make a firmer left side to his position.
But they hadn’t.
He gestured at the rapidly declining ene
my force spread across the gap at the exit from the forest,
The pain on his face was very real as he witnessed an enemy shell wipe out one of his 3” guns, complete with its crew.
Swift retribution did not ease his pain at the loss of his men, the disintegrating Chi-Ha barely registering as he looked for survivors amongst his men, his knuckles white as he gripped the binoculars.
Some of the enemy tanks, and most of their infantry, had now disappeared from sight, taking cover in the small folds in the ground, or behind the unusual terrain features, oddly shaped areas of higher ground, that marred what would otherwise have been a perfect ambush site.
Still, he had a plan.
“Major Norris, order Butter to commence preset fire, commencing with Alpha.”
Norris confirmed the order and was quickly at the radio, overseeing the transfer of the instruction to call sign ‘Butter’, the commander of the 413rd Artillery’s three batteries.
The plan required one battery to continue discouraging retreat or reinforcement, whilst the other two put their ordnance down on pre-ranged locations behind cover.
Alpha, selected in haste earlier when Painter and a security detail quickly traversed the battlefield, was a very obvious place for an ambushed column to seek cover, and so was quickly brought under fire.
Whilst the results were not known, the observing officers were content that the Japanese were having a hard time of it.
He considered using his artillery to engage the hull down Tiger, but resisted, instead ordering the 90mms to concentrate solely upon the heavier vehicle until it was destroyed.
Even inside the noisy tank, the sound of tank cannons and machine guns could be heard quite clearly.
The artillery barrage seemed to have slackened off, for a reason Hamuda could only guess at.
His guesses came down to low ammunition, or a lack of targets.